"Curse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... give my wife any thing that is mine, I wish the devil may fetch him body and soul.' The Doctor, terrified with this curse, gave me all the books and his goods which I presently gave to ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... to be "a trump," managed to hold a temperance meeting; and the men who desired to serve God as well as their Queen and country became more energetic than ever in trying to influence their fellows and save themselves from the curse of strong drink, which had already played such havoc among the troops ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... the white man. We have to look only at home. In the millions of dead, and in the misery of the Civil War, and to-day in race hatred, in race riots, in monstrous crimes and as monstrous lynchings, we seem to see the fetish of the West Coast, the curse, falling upon the children to the third and fourth generation of the million slaves that were thrown, shackled, ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... what this means to me," said Quinnox gravely, as they paused to rest. "She will call me your murderer and curse me for my miserable treason. I am the first to dishonor the ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... hardly hurt him, nor did he appear to dread other injury from them than insult, to which, fool though he was, he was keenly alive. Human gadflies that they were! they sometimes stung him beyond endurance, and he would curse them in the impotence of his anger. Once or twice Elsie had been so far carried beyond her constitutional timidity, by sympathy for the distress of her friend, that she had gone out and talked to the boys—even scolded them, so that they slunk ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... of elephants, and others of huge bodies and strength like maddened elephants Of various colours and virulent poison, terrible and looking like maces furnished with iron-spikes, of great strength, ever inclined to bite, the snakes, afflicted with their mother's curse, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... officer, who gladly drank of the cool and refreshing beverage, without being able to thank the fair donor, who had withdrawn her hand at parting with the glass. The glass was held up to the window, but the hand that clutched it was coarse and large, and evidently that of a man. A muttered curse, too, in the Spanish language, was heard to proceed from within. This was heard but indistinctly. The invalid gazed at the window for some minutes, expecting the return of the beautiful apparition, then as if he had given up all hope, he called out ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... Sir, here be knights come of kings' blood, that will not long droop, and they are within these walls; therefore give us leave, like as we be knights, to meet them in the field, and we shall slay them, that they shall curse the time that ever they came into this country. Then spake seven brethren of North Wales, and they were seven noble knights; a man might seek in seven kings' lands or he might find such seven knights. Then they all said at ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume II (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... not fall into the vulgar error, which is to curse and to dishonour the age in which we live. Erasmus called the sixteenth century "the excrement of the ages," fex temporum. Bossuet thus qualified the seventeenth century: "A wicked and paltry age." Rousseau branded the eighteenth century, in these terms: ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... lain, Near Benevento, by the heavy mole Protected; but the rain now drenches them, And the wind drives, out of the kingdom's bounds, Far as the stream of Verde, where, with lights Extinguish'd, he remov'd them from their bed. Yet by their curse we are not so destroy'd, But that the eternal love may turn, while hope Retains her verdant blossoms. True it is, That such one as in contumacy dies Against the holy church, though he repent, Must wander thirty-fold for all the time In ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... to curse or bless you," said the Mariner. But I gave him no time to do either. I was off, and out of the way before I could be noticed and recognized by the occupants of the cab. Then, back to the Club I came to write a short letter to Robert, and to jot down a few happenings ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... leave out a curse or two when he next reads the Commination Service, and balance matters in that way," said Madame ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... hacker parlance, this word has strong connotations of 'annoying', or 'difficult', or both. Hackers relish a challenge, and enjoy wringing all the irony possible out of the ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times". ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... and power alone Never make a blessing; Seek not e'en a throne By one wretch distressing. Better toil a slave For the blood-earned penny, Than be rich, and have A curse on every guinea. ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... heard the saying, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may become sons of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun to rise on the wicked and the good alike, and sends rain on both those who do right and those who do wrong. ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... and returned to Noisy, not to embrace and bless his daughter Eugenie Hortense, but to bow down the mother's head with the curse of shame. He accused, without listening to any justification, and, with all the vehemence of misguided passion, he asked for an immediate separation, an immediate divorce. Vain were the expostulations, the prayers of his father and of Madame de Renaudin. Vain were the tears, the assurances ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... emotion. We have got certain quite definite things to do for other people in our own circle, and we are bound to do them; we mustn't shirk them, and we mustn't shirk our own troubles, though the less we bother about them the better. I am not at all sure that the curse of the newspapers is not that they collect all the evils of the world into a hideous posy, and thrust it under our nose. They don't collect the fine, simple, wholesome things. Now you and I are better employed to-day in being agreeable ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... in beard, and thick in purse, Never man beloved worse, He went to the grave with many a curse, The devil and ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... immovable, and that the earth is not the centre and is movable; willing, therefore, to remove from the minds of your Eminences, and of every Catholic Christian, this vehement suspicion rightfully entertained towards me, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith, I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies, and generally every other error and sect contrary to Holy Church; and I swear that I will never more in future say or assert anything verbally, or in writing, which may give rise to a similar suspicion of me; but if I shall know any heretic, or any one suspected ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... found that outcast boys were received, sheltered, sent to Industrial Homes, or returned to friends and parents; that temperance meetings were held, and drunkards, male and female, sought out, prayed for, lovingly reasoned with, and reclaimed from this perhaps the greatest curse of the land; that Juvenile Bands of Hope were formed, on the ground of prevention being better than cure; that lodging-houses, where the poorest of the poor, and the lowest of the low do congregate, were visited, and the gospel proclaimed to ears that were deaf to nearly every ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... orphan's curse would drag to Hell A spirit from on high: But O! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights I saw that curse, And yet I ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... sick, and he knew that his end was come; so, by Merlin's advice, he called together his knights and barons, and said to them: "My death draws near. I charge you, therefore, that ye obey my son even as ye have obeyed me; and my curse upon him if he claim not the crown when he is a man grown." Then the King turned his face to the ...
— Stories from Le Morte D'Arthur and the Mabinogion • Beatrice Clay
... flat and up and passed a soap-weed mesa and down across a sandy treacherous plain, then over a grassy stretch where prairie dogs barked, then hid below, and on came Jo, but there to see, could he believe his eyes, the Stallion's start grown longer still, and Jo began to curse his luck, and urge and spur his horse until the poor uncertain brute got into such a state of nervous fright, her eyes began to roll, she wildly shook her head from side to side, no longer picked her ground—a ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... the curse to him of that one hour in which honor had forbade him to compromise a woman's reputation, and old tenderness had forbade him to betray a brother's sin, he had never paid so heavy a price for his act as ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... myself; and I think Ppt is now a great gamester. I have a great cold on me, not quite at its height. I have them seldom, and therefore ought to be patient. I met Mr. Addison and Pastoral Philips on the Mall to-day, and took a turn with them; but they both looked terrible dry and cold. A curse of party! And do you know I have taken more pains to recommend the Whig wits to the favour and mercy of the Ministers than any other people. Steele I have kept in his place. Congreve I have got to be used kindly, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... it is deadly," answered Russell; "my father said it was the most fatal curse which could ever become rife in a ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... considered, was attacking him, and gaining ground. The perspiration was standing out on his face. He found that his hands were cold and wet. The pulses of his body were throbbing; he felt his strength growing less. Muttering a curse, he braced himself with a strong effort. He was accustomed to consider his nerves impregnable. Many times in his life he had known himself to be in far greater danger than he could attribute to the present situation, ...
— The Crooked House • Brandon Fleming
... of your qualities I do not care a tinker's curse; but for your palate you are to be taken ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... this sacrament is consecrated by the priest's blessing. But a sinful priest's blessing is not efficacious for consecrating this sacrament, since it is written (Malachi 2:2): "I will curse your blessings." Again, Dionysius says in his Epistle (viii) to the monk Demophilus: "He who is not enlightened has completely fallen away from the priestly order; and I wonder that such a man dare to employ ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... cousin of Elsie's who wants to marry her, they say. A dangerous-looking fellow for a rival, if one took a fancy to the dark girl! And who is she, and what?—by what demon is she haunted, by what taint is she blighted, by what curse is she followed, by what destiny is she marked, that her strange beauty has such a terror in it, and that hardly one shall dare to love her, and her eye glitters ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... reached home I found him there. My mother's face was white and she was trembling. But he was smiling! I would rather," and young Burton raised a shaking hand, "have heard another man curse than see ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... thought, "how careless have I been—how weak! It is he, not I, that stands in this eternal peril; it was he, not I, that took the curse upon his soul. It is for my sake, and for the love of a creature of so little worth and such poor help, that he now beholds so close to him the flames of hell—ay, and smells the smoke of it, lying without there in the wind and moonlight. Am I so dull of spirit that never till now I have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... perhaps in his last despair leave his retreat and go forth to perish at their hands, so that he might at least die in company, and hear the sound of speech before death. And Lucian felt most keenly that in his case there was a double curse; he was as isolated as Keats, and as inarticulate as his reviewers. The consolation of the work had failed him, and he was suspended in ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... agonies of remorse. Thyrsis would face the blunder they had made—it might have been avoided so easily, and now it was irrevocable! His whole body would shake with silent sobbing. Ah, this curse of their lives, this hideous shame—that they had not even been able to take proper care of their child! This wrong, too, the world meant to inflict upon them—this supreme vengeance, this ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... distance of time may be considered, but the total neglect of repairs and the boggy rotten moors it goes over. In some places the agger is above three foot raised from the surface. The country people curse it often for being almost wholly hid in the ling, it frequently overturns their carts laden with turf as they happen to drive across it. It was a great pleasure to me to trace this wonderful road, especially when I ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... Petersburg are at present the head-quarters of the costly "stars." Nor is this fact to be regretted. The decline of the star system is rather to be greeted as the dawn of a better era. It has always been the curse of the opera and the greatest obstacle to improvement. There was a time when the prima donna was so omnipotent that even the composers were her slaves, being frequently obliged to alter passages to suit the taste of the stage goddess; and there are instances ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... man we're in with—I can't tell you his name, now—he's the one that owns the forty-nine per cent. They're crazy about copper or he'd never have looked at me—there's some big market fight coming on. And didn't he curse and squirm and holler, trying to make me give up my control? He told me in years he had never gone into anything unless he got more than half for a gift! But I told him 'no,' I'd been euchered out of one mine; ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... the French officer, with a curse in the purest Irish. It was lucky I stopped laughing time enough to bid Lanty hold his hand, for the honest fellow would else have brained my gallant adversary. We were the better friends for our combat, as what gallant ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Curse you and your strength! I wouldn't trade all of you for one ear of the hoss you're riding. Do what I ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... drama of the larder. Hope and despair succeed one another in the determination to hold out economically while soldier and sailor convince the world that Germany cannot be beaten. People laugh at the blockade, sneer at the blockade and curse the blockade in the same breath. A headline of victory, a mention of the army, the army they love, and they boast again. Then a place in the food line, or a seat at table, and they whine at the long war and rage against "British treachery." Like a cork tossing on the waves—such ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... worth having, seeing they had never invented the like for them. The chief, Mankambira, likewise treated us with kindness; but wherever the slave-trade is carried on, the people are dishonest and uncivil; that invariably leaves a blight and a curse in its path. The first question put to us at the lake crossing- places, was, "Have you come to buy slaves?" On hearing that we were English, and never purchased slaves, the questioners put on a supercilious ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... everything necessary for their wants and their happiness; they had only one duty to perform, by their obedience to prove their love and devotion to their Creator. In this they failed, and death—or the fear of death—became a curse upon their race; but the father of mankind repented, and his instinctive or intellectual powers given by revelation were transmitted to his offspring more or less modified by their reason, which they had gained as the fruit of their disobedience. One branch of his offspring, ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... that you—I THINK he said you—am almost sure—had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing the full value of it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave it to you when he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the citizens. Now, then, if it was you that did him that service, you are his legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold. I know that I can trust to your honour and honesty, for in a citizen of Hadleyburg these virtues ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... a very sensible old body,' said the man in black, 'and little cares what her children say, provided they do her bidding. She knows several things, and amongst others, that no servants work so hard and faithfully as those who curse their masters at every stroke they do. She was not fool enough to be angry with the Miquelets of Alba, who renounced her, and called her "puta" all the time they were cutting the throats of the Netherlanders. Now, if she allowed her faithful soldiers the latitude of ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... the unfortunate: they seldom come alone, but form a series of persecution. He was informed that he was sent for to attend the queen at an audience she gave to seven or eight Muscovite ambassadors: he had scarce begun to curse the Muscovites, when his brother-in-law appeared, and drew upon himself all the imprecations he bestowed upon the embassy: he no longer doubted his being in the plot with the two persons he had left together, and in his heart sincerely wished him such recompense for his good offices as such ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... be goin' round the cuttin' camps up valley, neither. You're too young to be hearin' the awful way these news hands do talk. It's a sin to hear how they curse an' swear." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... with lies and deceit—is there hope for that man in earth or heaven? I have confessed my sin before God and man, and I have suffered the punishment that men have laid on me, and they have let me go; but when will God say, 'It is enough'? What benediction will take away His curse from my soul? What absolution will undo this ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... "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
... unto God as the One that we should all bow unto, for it is to Him that we all owe our homage and to be very grateful to Him for our deliverance as a race. If we should fail to give him the honor due there would a curse come to us as a race, for we remember those of olden times were of the same descent of our people, and some of those that God honored most were of the Ethiopians, such as the Unica and Philop, and even Moses, the law-giver, was of the ...
— A Slave Girl's Story - Being an Autobiography of Kate Drumgoold. • Kate Drumgoold
... produce something in the nature of a plausible case, because it stands to reason that the evils of generations cannot be swept away in a moment, either in South Africa or Ireland. Miracles do not happen, and the pessimists, who are the curse of Ireland to-day, will be able to demonstrate with ease that the free Ireland of to-morrow will not enter instantaneously upon a millennium. It is useless to attempt to convert these extremists. For a century back, Hansard and the columns ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... more effectually excite our hatred and contempt of the man? And yet this is not our feeling of Falstaff's character. When he has ceased to amuse us, we find no emotions of disgust; we can scarcely forgive the ingratitude of the Prince in the new-born virtue of the King, and we curse the severity of that poetic justice which consigns our old good-natured companion to the custody of the warden, and the dishonours ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... angry in his sermon that he afterwards forgot the Lord's Prayer. He urged that "this had happened some time ago." III. When some women went out after the sermon, he called after them, and told them that if they would not stop to receive the blessing they would have his curse; "not guilty." IV. He had cohabited with a servant girl, and an illegitimate child was born; "others do the same thing." V. He forgot the cup at the communion; "that happened long ago." VI. He said to the officer, "All are devils who ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... who are now but ashes and who sleep in peace! Pardon, ye demigods, for I am only a child who suffers. But while I write all this I can not but curse you. Why did you not sing of the perfume of flowers, of the voices of nature, of hope and of love, of the vine and the sun, of the azure heavens and of beauty? You must have understood life, you must have suffered; ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... times when something near madness took me, and I gnashed my teeth and dug my nails into my hands and ceased to curse and cry out only by reason of the insufficiency of words. And once towards dawn I got out of bed, and sat by my looking-glass with my revolver loaded in my hand. I stood up at last and put it carefully in my drawer and locked it—out of reach of any gusty impulse. After that I slept ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... is one generation left so absolutely at the mercy of the other?" he demanded, turning back to the strip of sky over the roof. "It makes a man rage to think of the lives that are spoiled for a whim. Money, money—curse it!—it all comes to that in the end. Money makes ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... fourteen or fifteen years of age. It was a miserable dog's life he lived with old Matt Abrahamson, for the old fisherman was in his cups more than half the time, and when he was so there was hardly a day passed that he did not give Tom a curse or a buffet or, as like as not, an actual beating. One would have thought that such treatment would have broken the spirit of the poor little foundling, but it had just the opposite effect upon Tom Chist, who ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... sir, many. I have experienced the curse of fortune. Eh bien! one pays, and all is said! I have grieved with you, sir, I beg you to believe ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... hold my tongue," the other answered stiffly, "or I shall curse that which I have loved." Suddenly the anguish in her flamed to white beat. "I would rather have known you dead," she said, and passed swiftly ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... worries; they take taxis because they must not indulge in motor-cars, hansoms because taxis are an extravagance, and omnibuses because they really must economize. But they never look twice at twopence. They curse the injustice of fate, but secretly they are aware of their luck. When they have nothing to do, they say, in effect: "Let's go out and spend something." And they go out. They spend their lives in spending. ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... stopping when I stopped, galloping when I galloped, turning somersaults when I turned them. And then it spoke to me—spoke, yes, spoke, this thing of the desert—this wild phantasm of a brain distraught by over-indulgence in marrons glaces, the curse of ma patrie, and its speech was as the scent of scarlet poppies, plucked from the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... watchword henceforth! To this standard alone will the country, both North and South, rally when a few more days of leadership are over. God saw to this in the frame-work of every living thing, when He made his wants to be a blessing with freedom and a curse without it. Open the cage-door to the pining fox, loathing his master's beef and pudding, and see if his instincts are not true as the needle to the pole. Lay the sweet babe before the starved lion, and his want will not bow to your compassion. So in slaves; it matters not whether slaves to rebellion ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... parting curse, indicative of relief, the driver set off down the tow-path after his mules, while Shelby waited on the brink till the boat went by, intending aid if the swimmer's strength should fail. But Graves was of no mind to cause him the lifting of a finger, and to the watcher's bewilderment cut directly ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... "I could curse that inward light! Must I be always confronted by the ravings of my youth? All my life long must the words of my credulous childhood hang about my neck like a millstone? There is no inward light. You are living a delusion. You are restrained by the conventionalities of life and are the ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... of the monkey tribe who ever spoke to me in their native forests were the big black langurs of the Animallai Hills in Southern India. They used to glare down at us, and curse us horribly whenever we met. Had we been big pythons instead of men they could not have said "Confound you!" any more plainly or more vehemently ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... "Tencin, a curse on thy seraphic zeal, Which by persuasion hath contrived the means To make the Scotchman at our altars kneel, Since which we all are poor ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... eternal spiritual possessions of mankind. If only those temporarily in charge of them could be forced somehow to remember that, when their brief mayoral, or otherwise official, lives are past, there will be found those who will need to look upon what they have destroyed, and who will curse ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... sound the rascal swore he Existence would not make a curse, Knew not an iamb from a choree, Although we read him heaps of verse. Homer, Theocritus, he jeered, But Adam Smith to read appeared, And at economy was great; That is, he could elucidate How empires store of wealth unfold, How flourish, why and wherefore less If the raw product they possess The ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... All its beauty, all its grace, All the honors of its place? He who plucked it from its bed, In the far blue Indian ocean, Lieth, without life or motion, In his earthy dwelling,—dead! And his children, one by one, When they look upon the sun, Curse the toil by which he drew The treasure from ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... pass on: but I venture to point out that unless the Witnesses which remain to be examined are able to produce very different testimony from that borne by the last two, the present inquiry cannot be brought to a close too soon. ("I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... away, and left me to my loneliness and my suspense. I am a poor deformed wretch, with a warm heart, and, perhaps, an insatiable curiosity as well. Insatiable curiosity (have you ever felt it?) is a curse. I bore it until my brains began to boil in my head; and then I sent for my gardener, and made him drive me here. I like being here. The air of your library soothes me; the sight of Mrs. Valeria is balm to my wounded heart. She has something to ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... Shall we even curse the madness Which for "ends of State" Dooms us to the long, long sadness Of this human hate? Let us slay in perfect pity Those that must not live; Vanquish, and forgive our foes— Or fall—and ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... principle at least, of a standing army. The Estates petitioned the willing King that the system of finance in the realm should be remodelled, and a permanent tax established for the support of an army. Thus, it was thought, solidity would be given to the royal power, and the long-standing curse of the freebooters and brigands cleared away. No sooner was this done than the nobles began to chafe under it; they scented in the air the coming troubles; they, took as their head, poor innocents, the young Dauphin Louis, who was willing enough to resist the concentration of power in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... among them—a tall, clean-limbed fellow with the bluest and steadiest eyes I ever saw in a man, who called himself 'Nebraska'; a rangy Texan named Quint Taylor, who maintained that manual labor was a curse and quoted the Scriptures to prove it; and Tom Taggart. Tom and I were thick. I liked him, and he'd done things for me that seemed to prove that he thought a lot of me. He didn't like it a little bit when I married your mother—her ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Spanish encomiendas, and vindicated afresh the providential character of Slavery. "I acknowledge," says one, "and adore with all humility the profound and inconceivable secrets of God; for I do not know what the unfortunate nation has committed to deserve that this particular and hereditary curse of servitude should be attached to them, as well as ugliness and blackness." "It is truly with these unfortunates that the poet's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... camp, who ought to be producers for the support of life instead of missionaries of death. This war is the legitimate result of this heresy of 'State rights.' If this doctrine had never been put in practice, we should not now have slavery to curse us with its degrading, inhumanizing influences. Slavery exists in violation of the Constitution. Slavery was never established by that document. The States violated it in their attempts at legalizing it. All their laws declaring that the status of the child ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the burden of humanity; and the artists among us may be thankful that the predatory curse resting upon the rich is very seldom ours: but the burden of humanity must not be allowed to press all joy, all originality, all waywardness, all interest, all imagination ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... set before you, to hearken to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I send unto you, even rising up early and sending them, but ye have not hearkened; then will I make this house like Shiloh, and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth." Such a speech, boldly addressed to an audience the majority of whom were already moved by hostile feelings, brought their animosity to a climax; the officiating priests, the prophets, and the pilgrims gathered round Jeremiah, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... any how, but always onward, never backward, they surge up over the mountain-top, deadly volleys crashing right in among them, and set on the Rebels with a wild hurrah! and the hearts below beat faster, and rough lips curse the blinding smoke and fog that veil all the crest, and on a sudden a shout,—such a one as the children of Israel gave, when the high-piled walls of water bent and swayed and came waving and thundering down on Pharaoh's hopeless hosts,—for there, high up in heaven, streaming out ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... left me; and now she lies here, the dearest and the last. Desolation after desolation has swept over me; for each hour of happiness the treacherous trader, Love, as sold me I have paid a thousand hours of grief. Out of my heart of hearts I curse him." ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to a crisis. There were uneasy whispers of a curse on the mount, a tradition that no castle built there would ever be finished, an old custom of sacrificing some human being to be buried under the foundation of a castle for the pacifying of the ancient gods. And all of this uncanny ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... . . . . The name was ringing like a knell in Hodder's head—Eldon Parr! Coming, as it had, like a curse from the lips of this wretched, half-demented creature, it filled his soul with dismay. And the accusation had in it the profound ring of truth. He was Eldon Parr's minister, and it was Eldon Parr who stood between him and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... outspoken fashion. 'When,' he wrote in old age, 'fifty years ago, my brother Charles and I, in the simplicity of our hearts, taught the people that unless they knew their sins were forgiven they were under the wrath and curse of God, I marvel they did not stone us. The Methodists, I hope, know better now. We preach assurance, as we always did, as a common privilege of the children of God, but we do not enforce it under pain of damnation denounced on all who enjoy it not.' He thought ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... on the bundle of tent, a cloud on his face, hat drawn almost to the bridge of his nose, scowling out over the sheep range as if he would curse it to ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... thing, to think when you sit down to splatter ink, that what you write, in prose or verse, may be a blessing or a curse. The gems of thought that you impart may upward guide some mind and heart; some youth may read your Smoking Stuff, and say: "That logic's good enough; the path of virtue must be fine; I'll have no wickedness in mine." And some day, when you're ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason
... India by the ferocious Pindarree, who asked for it with the insolence of a robber, and wrenched it from the recusant with the atrocities of a devil. Here there was no pretence of equivalent given or promised: and this was so exquisite an outrage, a curse so withering, that in 1817 we were obliged to exterminate the foul horde (a cross between the Decoit and the Thug) root and branch. Now between these two poles lie two different forms of mitigated spoliation. One ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... soul relapsed to barbarous coarseness and I said: "Then choose between us—you can have your ——," and I called him an awful word, the foulest of all words, whose very sound speaks the shame it means to tell, the curse of humanity hissed in its ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... here. What! Would you trust him, knowing his false heart as you do? The moment you married him would be my death warrant. No, no! If you weaken now I shall curse you, curse you, my Kit! There has been horror ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... almost de rigueur—the strange fact remains that the only sort of supernaturalism the Victorians allowed to their imaginations was a sad supernaturalism. They might have ghost stories, but not saints' stories. They could trifle with the curse or unpardoning prophecy of a witch, but not with the pardon of a priest. They seem to have held (I believe erroneously) that the supernatural was safest when it came from below. When we think (for example) of the uncountable ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... place at the very first of all, I cannot tell, as I never could learn it: Jacynth constantly wished a curse to fall On that little head of hers and burn it If she knew how she came to drop so soundly Asleep of a sudden, and there continue The whole time, sleeping as profoundly {500} As one of the boars my father would pin you 'Twixt the eyes where life ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... so forth. I tried to say, "I'm hit," and must have succeeded, because immediately I heard my henchman Hynes yell with a frenzied oath: "The corporal's struck! Can't you see the corporal's struck?" and heard him curse the Turk. Then I heard the others say, "We must get him in out of this." After that I was quite clear-headed, and when three or four of the finest boys that ever stepped risked their lives to come out over the parapet under fire, I was able ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... could do that, Mr. Stackpole. Under whose auspices and fostering care was this curse of ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... "your soldiers have destroyed my pasture-lands, my woods, and my crops. Heart-broken, I came here to curse you, but your appearance at once made me change my mind. On looking closer at you, in spite of my grief, I could not help exclaiming, 'So that's the handsome b——-, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... haunt him with persistent regularity. Always he lay down upon a hillside—nebulous black, and furry. Always too, he had been "left," and the enemy was swooping quickly down upon him. He would wake up to find himself once more inert upon the bed, would curse himself for a fool, and vow that never again would he allow his mind to drift towards ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... last dregs run dry, O thou last lord of life! thou shalt not slay. Let the lips live a little while and lie, The hand a little, and falter, and fail of strength, And the soul shudder and sicken at the sky; Yea, let him live, though God nor man would let Save for the curse' sake; then at bitter length, Lord, will we yield him to thee, ...
— Two Nations • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... he then fell to rallying me on my gravity, and on my reformation-schemes, as he called them. As we walked about the room, expecting dinner to be brought in, he laid his hand upon my shoulder; then pushed me from him with a curse; walking round me, and surveying me from head to foot; then calling for the observations of the others, he turned round upon his heel, and with one of his peculiar wild airs, 'Ha, ha, ha, ha,' burst he out, 'that these sour-faced proselytes ...
— Clarissa Harlowe, Volume 9 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... in the British sense of honor—Dr. Fu-Manchu came in person with Nayland Smith, in response to the wailing signal of the dacoit who had accompanied me. No word was spoken, save that the cabman suppressed a curse of amazement; and the Chinaman, his sinister servant at his elbow, bowed low—and left us, surely to the mocking ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... interminable staircase. And all the time George Cannon, with averted head, was fumbling in the bag. And then, in a flash, she was really afraid; the fear was no longer pleasurable, and her shame had become a curse. She said to herself: "I cannot move, now. In a minute I shall do this horrible thing. Nothing can save me." Despairing, she found a dark and tumultuous joy in despair. The trance endured for ages, while disaster approached ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... man, very intemperate, horse racer, chicken-cock fighter and gambler. He had owned as high as forty head of slaves, but he had gambled them all away. He was a doctor, circulated high amongst southerners, though he never lived agreeably with his wife, would curse her and call her all kinds of names that he should not call a lady. From a boy of nine up to the time I was fifteen or sixteen, I don't reckon he whipped me less than a hundred times. He shot at me once ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... that page in the book: "Accuse not a servant to his master, lest he curse thee, and thou be found guilty!"—(Attested by ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... "There, curse you, there you are again!" he said, "showing how little you know of women and of their pride. If she were sure that you loved her, she would never marry Chartersea or any one else. She has had near the whole of London at her feet, and toyed with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... as anxious to cherish and protect their infant girls as they were formerly cruelly bent on destroying them. Therefore, if one sin has been, to a certain degree, encouraged, a much greater one has been annihilated. Infanticide, the former curse of this country, and the cause of its scanty population, a crime every way calculated to make men bloody-minded and ferocious, and to stifle every benevolent and tender feeling, has totally disappeared wherever an ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle |
