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More "Curse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pathos in the mild And settled sorrow of the quiet eyes, Than in the tumults of the anguish wild, That made her curse all things beneath the skies; No question, no reproaches, no complaint, Hers is the holy calm of some ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... a cruel death facing Ainnle and Ardan in the woods? NAISI — frantic. — They'll not get a death that's cruel, and they with men alone. It's women that have loved are cruel only; and if I went on living from this day I'd be putting a curse on the lot of them I'd meet walking in the east or west, putting a curse on the sun that gave them beauty, and on the madder and the stone-crop put red upon their cloaks. DEIRDRE — bitterly. — I'm well pleased there's no one in this place to make a story that Naisi was a ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... great as ever,—his approach could not humiliate her. His love brought no shadow of shame; it was proudly white and clean. Ah! he had forgotten that she did not know,—that his lips were sealed until his mother's should be opened to the world. The curse was not to be shaken ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... her breath against the worst that he could do, being well prepared for him to lose first his color and then the temper which he had never lost since she had known him; to fly into a fury, to curse her up hill and down dale—in a word, to behave as her first husband had done more than once, but this one never. What Rachel did not anticipate was a smile that cloaked not a single particle of surprise, and the little cocksure bow ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... my own case," observed Jim Halloween sadly, "no woman yet has ever let me come with kissin' distance—the nearer I git, the further an' further they edges away. It's the curse of my luck, I reckon, for it seems as if I never open my mouth to propose that I don't put my ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow
... through clenched teeth, and beat his fists upon the marble mantelpiece. "Curse your explosives! And curse your inventions! And curse you for taking her first!" Then he dropped into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. "Oh, God forgive me!" he whispered, brokenly. "But there is a limit to what a man ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... whether she would or no, she was his now irrevocably; struggle against it as she would, she belonged to him, body and soul, for life or for death. She had not sought it, she had not desired it. The spell was laid upon her. Was it a blessing? Was it a curse? It was all one; she was his, indissolubly, for evil or ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... to shiver into a thousand pieces on the table edge. With a furious curse he flung himself back in his chair, and leaned there, ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... those that drink wine and all them that sell it: for some men say, that he slew once an hermit in his drunkenness, that he loved full well; and therefore he cursed wine and them that drink it. But his curse be turned on to his own head, as holy writ saith, ET IN VIRTICEM IPSIUS INIQUITAS EJUS DESCENDET, that is for to say, 'His wickedness shall turn and ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... sons of earth! O ransomed seed of Adam, sing! God liveth, and we have a King! The curse is gone, the bond are free— By Bethlehem's star that brightly beamed, By all the heavenly signs that be, We know that Israel is redeemed— That on this morn The Christ is born That saveth you ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... stolen by two white thieves and their black hound? Never! I would have killed you all had time been granted to me, but in that I failed, and I am glad that I have failed, for now I will deal you a bitterer blow than any death. May the curse of Jal and Aca cleave to you, you dogs without a kennel! May you live outcasts and die in the dirt, and may your fathers and your mothers and your children spit upon your bones ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... fired the towers of Troy Fade, and the darkness at Oenone's prayer Close upon her that closed upon her boy, For all the curse of godhead that she bare; And the Apollonian serpent gleam and toy With scathless maiden limbs and shuddering hair; And his love smitten in their dawn of joy Leave Pan the pine-leaf of her change to wear; And one in flowery coils Caught as in fiery toils Smite ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... whose manhood you have broken will loathe you and will be always brooding and scheming to strike a fresh blow. The children will be taught to curse you. The infant being moulded in the womb will have breathed into its starved body the vitality of hate. It is not they—it is you who are blind Samsons pulling down the pillars of ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... it well remembered, is the curse which Stepmother Nature placed upon The Dog, when he elected to turn his back on his own kind, and to become the only one of the world's four-footed folk to serve Man of his own accord. To punish the Dog ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... really loved his only sister, as proud, selfish men love those of their own lineage who have never disputed their supremacy, and derogated from their importance. He said something under his breath before he called her, but the curse was not ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... visitor along the next apartment, which is a large one, filled with cattle in all positions. One is lying in a hammock, with her feet on the window, reading the Chicago Times article on "Oleomargerine, or Bull Butter," at intervals stopping the reading to curse the writer, who claims that oleomargarine is an ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... instinct that it is just such accidental and irrational wealth that is the doom of all peasantries? Perhaps he dimly felt that the boy's pirate tales are true; and that buried treasure is a thing for robbers and not for producers. Perhaps he thought there was a curse on such capital: on the coal of the coal-owners, on the gold of ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... The brutal mob, however, howled for their blood, and made such an uproar that the weak Governor, a youth of eighteen, surrendered them to a cruel death, as he had done the others. These two, like their brethren, refused to curse ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... out a Catholic king and dethroned an ancient line, were guilty of the double sin of heresy and of treason. To the Jesuit enthusiast in Canada not only were they infidel devils in human shape upon whose plans must rest the curse of God; they were also rebels, republican successors of the accursed Cromwell, who had sent an anointed king to the block. It would be a holy thing to destroy this lawless power which ruled from London. The Puritans of Boston were, in turn, not less convinced ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... homage to their freedom from the despicable vice. In those days, when in the civil struggle it was so difficult to distinguish friends from foes, there was one proof of unimpeachable orthodoxy that was rarely disputed. He must be a good Catholic who could curse and swear. The Huguenot soldier would do neither.[278] So nearly, indeed, did the Huguenot affirmation approach to the simplicity of the biblical precept, that one Roman Catholic partisan leader of more than ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... breakfast I felt very like a red Indian or a pirate, creeping through the jungle to the sack of a treasure train. So I wormed on towards the noise. As I came near to it, I went more cautiously, because in one of the pauses of the noise, I heard a muttered curse, which told me that the unseen noise-maker was a man. If I had been wise I should have stopped there; for I had learned all that I came out to learn. But I was excited now. I wished to see everything, before creeping away unseen to make my report. Perhaps ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... for all He thus taught: 'If ye love them which love you what new thing do ye? for even the fornicators do this; but I say unto you, pray for your enemies, and love them which hate you, and bless them which curse you, and offer prayer for them which despitefully use you.' And that we should communicate to the needy, and do nothing for praise, He said thus: 'Give ye to every one that asketh, and from him that desireth ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... me for an answer. I'm only a lousy fifth-rate psychology teacher, as of the day you brought Timmy into my life. And the curse of Freud be on you for that kindly act of professional assassination. The answer is obvious, of course ... Timmy didn't and couldn't do what we've seen him do with our own wide-open, innocent eyes. We are the ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... systems wound over the earth like a snake Devouring the children of Fear! Ridiculous customs, Ridiculous judgments and laws, philosophies, worships. You saw through and laughed at—you saw above all That a soul must make end with a groan, or a curse, or a laugh. ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... madness, when I think On the proud victor—ev'ry time he's named, Pharsalia rises to my view!—I see Th' insulting tyrant, prancing o'er the field, Strew'd with Rome's citizens, and drench'd in slaughter; His horse's hoofs wet with patrician blood! Oh, Portius! is there not some chosen curse, Some hidden thunder in the stores of Heav'n, Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man Who owes his greatness to his ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison
... understand," stated the hunchback with dignity. "It was but a manifestation of the wanderlust, at once the curse and the blessing of my misshapen existence. Behold in me, sir, the rover, the argonaut, ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... According to an oft-repeated tradition, eighteen peasants, some of whose names are still preserved, are said to have disturbed divine service on Christmas Eve by dancing and brawling in the church-yard, whereupon the priest, Ruprecht, inflicted a curse upon them, that they should dance and scream for a whole year without ceasing. This curse is stated to have been completely fulfilled, so that the unfortunate sufferers at length sank knee deep into the earth, and remained the whole time without nourishment, until they were ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... may curse you for your unasked-for care of him. I have heard my poor mother—and she was as pretty and delicate a creature as you are—cursed for showing tenderness when it was not wanted. Now, be persuaded by an old man like me, who ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Thy salvation bring, Cast the salt into the spring, In my heart Thy love reveal, Nature's bitter waters heal; Let the principles of grace Bring forth fruits of righteousness: Then the barren curse is o'er, Sin and ...
— Broken Bread - from an Evangelist's Wallet • Thomas Champness
... agree with me at the end that the book is really an enlarged Christmas tale, and would gain by being reduced to magazine dimensions. I have I not yet told you what it is all about. Very briefly, there is a family and a curse. This curse—with regard to the exact details of which I still find myself a little vague—used to express itself by causing murders from time to time among the brothers and sisters of the House. The tale is told in a detached and purposely elusive ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... fool I have been! Shall I shoot myself through the head, or embrace her on the spot? Lord St. Jerome, too! He seems mightily pleased. And my family have been voting for two centuries to emancipate this fellow! Curse his grinning face! I am decidedly anti-Catholic. But then she is a Catholic! I will turn Papist. Ah! there is Lucy. I ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... vulture soaring over the field of corpses, or the one mourner lamenting over the red ruins of the devastated village, that devastation is not felt to be complete. The anathema of the prophet does not wholly leave the curse of loneliness upon the mighty city, until he tells us that "the satyr shall dance there." And, if desolation, which is the destruction of life, cannot leave its impression perfect without some interruption, much less can ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... believe, he said, who must be kept in order; but scepticism increased in the higher classes until the prevailing atheism culminated in the poetry of Lucretius, who had the boldness to declare that faith in the gods had been the curse of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... long for; and yet, by every Southern statesman and philosopher, it is regarded as the one irremediable evil possible to their country. What miserable economy! what feeble foresight! What principle of political economy is better established than that a monopoly is a curse to both producer and consumer? To the first it pays a premium on fraud, sloth, and negligence; and to the second it supplies the worst possible article, in the worst possible way, at the highest possible price. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... quoted might not be found written in the book. He was a capital shot, and kept a pair of the fleetest hounds, and often hauled in his shingle and hunted week in and week out, leaving business to follow suit. He made light of religious and sacred things; he could curse the sky when it thundered, and swear the lights blue with the boldest voluble tongue; and yet he would appeal to God to judge him in a plea, and silence, and exclude a witness for any unpopular religious belief. He rose to an extensive business in the towns about, ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... neighbors!" at last he cried,— "What to me is this noisy ride? What is the shame that clothes the skin, To the nameless horror that lives within? Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck And hear a cry from a reeling deck! Hate me and curse me,—I only dread The hand of God and the face of the dead!" Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... "The Social Curse, and other Poems," Alexander Macansh, was born at Dunfermline in 1803. At the age of eleven apprenticed to a flaxdresser, he followed this occupation during a period of thirty-eight years, of which the greater portion was spent in Harribrae factory, in his native ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... innumerable superstitions. On the first of May all the witches dance here at midnight; and those who go may see their own ghosts walking up and down, with a little billet on the back, giving the names of those who had wished them there; for "I wish you on the top of the Brocken," is a common curse throughout the whole empire. Well, we ascended—the soil boggy—and at last reached the height, which is 573 toises [1] above the level of the sea. We visited the Blocksberg, a sort of bowling-green, enclosed by huge stones, something ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... threaten us? And when our ancestors had at last driven him away, there comes a fellow like this and brings the heathen from Constantinople upon us. The Mongols were once in Silesia, and would have destroyed Western Europe if we Russians had not saved it. Charles XII is dead, but I curse his memory, and I curse everyone who seeks to hinder me in my laudable endeavour to raise Russia from a Western Asiatic power to an Eastern European one. I shall beat everyone down, whoever he may be, who interferes with my work, even though ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... are killed add hundreds of thousands that survive with feeble constitutions, and millions not so strong as they should be; and you will have some idea of the curse inflicted on their offspring, by parents ignorant of the laws of life. Do but consider for a moment that the regimen to which children are subject is hourly telling upon them to their life-long injury or benefit, and that there are ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... return of Valentine's regiment beat with a fire and enthusiasm to which the tramp of victorious squadrons might well keep step. The wicked music of Mephistopheles in the sarcastic serenade, the powerful duel trio, and Valentine's curse are of the highest order of expression; while the church scene, where the fiend whispers his taunts in the ear of the disgraced Marguerite, as the gloomy musical hymn and peals of the organ menace her with an irreversible ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... was a glowering one. The captain had little to say, and that little of a sharp sort, while the mate only rumbled out a curse now and then at the boy who served us; and I myself was in a bitter bad humor as I thought how hard it was on me to be shut up at sea in such vile company, and how I had only myself to blame for getting into it—and ...
— In the Sargasso Sea - A Novel • Thomas A. Janvier
... then? Come, His universe, Come, crown me Him a king! Pluck rays from all such stars as never fling Their light where fell a curse. And make a crowning for this kingly brow!— What is my word?—Each empyreal star Sits in a sphere afar In shining ambuscade: The child-brow, crowned by none, Keeps its unchildlike shade. Sleep, ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow—Book 3 - Christmas Poems from 'round the World • Various
... upon the throne, uninformed, ignorant, and unacquainted with the inclinations and true interest of his people, weak, capricious, transported with unbounded ambition, and possessed with insatiable warice. I hope such a case will never occur; but, as it possibly may, could any greater curse happen to a nation than such a prince on the throne, advised, and solely advised by such a minister, and that minister supported by such a parliament? The nature of mankind cannot be altered by human laws; ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... world's trade went on as before: only, night and day, its ships lay-to, to pay rent with threat and curse: in all only thirteen ships being sunk ere sea and earth had ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... impulse was to take the next train for St. Andrew. Her heart went out to the lonely girl, deprived of her only protector, wretched under the triple load of poverty, friendlessness, and the curse of race. She remembered vividly those two men in the church whose bearing expressed more forcibly than any words the canker that had blighted their manhood. And this girl bore no visible mark of the ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... more deeply in love even than the princess, thought to himself, "There surely must be some reason for this very sudden attraction which I feel towards her. She must have been my beloved wife in a former existence. Perhaps a curse was laid upon us; and now that is removed. If so, the recognition ought to be mutual; at all events I will try what I can do to produce the same feeling in her which exists in ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... coorage, or the life itself, of yees, or thim as is dear to yees, ud sarve him or plaze him,—I bid yees now to give it him free an' willin' as ye'd give it to God. An' so ye mind me, it's my blissin' an' the blissin' uv yer dead father that's iver wid ye; an' so ye fail me, it's the black curse uv disobedience, an' yer moother's brukken heart, that shall cling to yees for iver and iver, while life shall last. Do ye ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... spear. There was a mousquetaire that had it round his neck—such a big mousquetaire, as big as General Webb. I called out to him to surrender, and that I'd give him quarter: he called me a petit polisson and fired his pistol at me, and then sent it at my head with a curse. I rode at him, sir, drove my sword right under his arm-hole, and broke it in the rascal's body. I found a purse in his holster with sixty-five Louis in it, and a bundle of love-letters, and a flask of Hungary-water. Vive la guerre! ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... her. She went away when I stood in the sorest need of a little talk with her—she went away, and left me to my loneliness and my suspense. I am a poor deformed wretch, with a warm heart, and, perhaps, an insatiable curiosity as well. Insatiable curiosity (have you ever felt it?) is a curse. I bore it until my brains began to boil in my head; and then I sent for my gardener, and made him drive me here. I like being here. The air of your library soothes me; the sight of Mrs. Valeria is balm to my wounded heart. She has something to tell me—something that I ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... for help brought Scraggs around to a fuller realization of the enormity of the disaster which had overtaken him. In his agony, he forgot to curse his navigating officer for the latter's stubbornness in refusing to turn back when the fog threatened. He clutched Mr. Gibney by the right arm, thereby interrupting for an instant the dismal outburst from the ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... engravings has made the ancient mariner an old decrepit man. That is not the true image; no! he should have been a growthless, decayless being, impassive to time or season, a silent cloud—the wandering Jew. The curse of the dead men's eyes should not have passed away. But this was, perhaps, too much for any pencil, even if the artist had fully entered into the poet's idea. Indeed, it is no subject for painting. The "Ancient Mariner" displays Mr. Coleridge's peculiar mastery over ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... year ago, and bought a farm. I saw him the other day. 'Payson,' said he, with an air of satisfaction, 'I haven't seen a bank notice this twelvemonth.' He's a happy man! This note paying is the curse of my life. I'm forever on the street financiering—Financiering. How I hate the word! But come—they'll be waiting dinner for us. Mrs. Payson is delighted at the thought of seeing you. How long is it since you were here? About ten years, if I'm not mistaken. ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... "Continental Europe yearly sends to our shores subjects to be developed into citizens. Emancipation has given us millions of new citizens, and to them our influence and example should be a blessing and not a curse." ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... they waged a cold or payed of ther purse; An if it were a beggar had breed in his bagge, He schulde be right soone i-bid to goo aboute; And if the pore penyless the hireward would have, A hood or a girdle and let him goo aboute. Culham hithe hath caused many a curse I' blyssed be our helpers we have a better waye, Without any peny for ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... released them somewhat from their awful tension. Jake felt that he could move now, and was about to let forth his imprisoned breath when he felt the touch of icy fingers trailing over his cheek, and started back with a curse. It was Mrs. Quimby feeling about for him in the impenetrable darkness, and in another moment he ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... remember the clear fountains of Galilee where he was wont to refresh himself; the vine and the fig-tree under which he had reposed, and the young maidens who, perhaps, would have consented to love him? Did he curse the hard destiny which had denied him the joys conceded to all others? Did he regret his too lofty nature, and, victim of his greatness, did he mourn that he had not remained a simple artisan of Nazareth? We know not. For all these internal troubles evidently were a sealed letter to ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... eye too many thoughts. It was Henriette's intellect and soul and heart that were here devouring with swift flames a body without stamina; for Jacques had the milk-white skin and high color which characterize young English women doomed sooner or later to the consumptive curse,—an appearance of health that deceives the eye. Following a sign by which Henriette, after showing me Madeleine, made me look at Jacques drawing geometrical figures and algebraic calculations on a board before the Abbe Dominis, I shivered ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... wi' his hand, He garr'd the red wine spring on hie— "Now Christ's curse on my head," he said, "But avenged of ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... That the same curse of extravagance extends to the judiciary in Ireland one would expect from the fact that the number of the High Court Judges is greater than in Scotland, though, as we have seen, the population is smaller and the crime is less. According to a statement ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... man an eternal victim and God an eternal fiend. It is the one infinite horror. Every church in which it is taught is a public curse. Every preacher who teaches it is an enemy of mankind. Below this Christian dogma, savagery can not go. It is the infinite of malice, hatred ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... Mariner" is Coleridge's chief contribution to the Lyrical Ballads of 1798, and is one of the world's masterpieces. Though it introduces the reader to a supernatural realm, with a phantom ship, a crew of dead men, the overhanging curse of the albatross, the polar spirit, and the magic breeze, it nevertheless manages to create a sense of absolute reality concerning these manifest absurdities. All the mechanisms of the poem, its meter, rime, and melody are perfect; and ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... farmer's wife to market rode, And, jogging on, with thoughtful care Summed up the profits of her ware; When, starting from her silver dream, Thus far and wide was heard her scream: 'That raven on yon left-hand oak (Curse on his ill-betiding croak) Bodes me no good.' No more she said, When poor blind Ball, with stumbling tread, 30 Fell prone; o'erturned the pannier lay, And her mashed eggs bestrewed the way. She, sprawling in the yellow road, Railed, swore and ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... greeting. We shook hands and commended the weather. When the alien attendant had departed, he began to curse London. It was a hole for sick dogs, not for sound men. He ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... young professional men during the first ten years of their career? They hope and wait, doubt and wait, curse and wait, labor to wait, and in the mean time a wheezing old lawyer, with no more enthusiasm than a brickbat, takes the cases which Justice, if she were not blind, would have sent to his starving younger brethren, and pockets fat fees, a tenth of which would have lifted loads from many a heavy ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... The Quicks had seen about as much of the doubtful and seamy side of seafaring life as men could, and all of us could contribute something. Also, the Quicks had money, safely stowed away in banks here and there—they used to curse their fate, left there apparently to die, when they thought of it. And it was that, I think, that led me to tell, one night, about my adventure with the naughty bank-manager at Blyth, and of the chests of old monastic treasure which I'd planted up here on this ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... reading the funeral service over them. I saw Tesse and told him of the scene I had witnessed, and demanded vengeance. He laughed in my face. Senor, I persisted, and he got angry and told me that, were it not for my cloth, he would hang me from the steeple. I called down Heaven's curse upon him, and left him and came home. Do you wonder, senor, that I found it hard to spare those Frenchmen for whom you pleaded? Do you wonder that I, a man of peace, lead out my villagers ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... For why are ears of corn produced? Is it not that they may become dry? And do they not become dry that they may be reaped? for they are not separated from communion with other things. If then they had perception, ought they to wish never to be reaped? But this is a curse upon ears of corn to be never reaped. So we must know that in the case of men too it is a curse not to die, just the same as not to be ripened and not to be reaped. But since we must be reaped, and we also know ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... apartment. To him probably, even in his youth, it had been a woman's gewgaw, useless, but allowable as tending to her happiness. Now the door was never even opened before his eye. His last interview with Carry had been in that room,—when he had laid his curse upon her, and bade her begone before his return, so that his decent threshold should be no longer polluted by ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... last night. I was haunted by her face when she came to the hospital. She looks forty, but she told me she was only twenty-six." Miss Brent paused to steady her voice. "It's the curse of my trade that it's always tempting me to interfere in cases where I can do no possible good. The fact is, I'm not fit to be a nurse—I shall live and die a wretched sentimentalist!" she ended, with an angry dash at the tears ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... bones, defrauded of a regal tomb And common turf, lie naked on the plain, Or doom'd to welter in the whelming main. Should he return, that troop so blithe and bold, With purple robes inwrought, and stiff with gold, Precipitant in fear would wing their flight, And curse their cumbrous pride's unwieldy weight. But ah, I dream!-the appointed hour is fled. And hope, too long with vain delusion fed, Deaf to the rumour of fallacious fame, Gives to the roll of death his glorious name! With venial freedom let me now demand Thy name, thy lineage, ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... the first, John Willows, ever since I came to this mill as a boy. You've been a tyrant and a curse to all the poor, struggling people who spent their days under you, not as your servants, but ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... who had devastated France returns to France alone, without any conspiracy and without soldiers. Any guard might arrest him, but by strange chance no one does so and all rapturously greet the man they cursed the day before and will curse again ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... mumble-toothed and terrible old hag. The ruin stands above a desolate marsh, its vast Italian buildings of Palladian splendour looking more forlorn in their decay than the older and austerer mediaeval towers, which rise up proud and patient and defiantly erect beneath the curse of time. When at length what used to be the castle town of Les Baux is reached, you find a naked mountain of yellow sandstone, worn away by nature into bastions and buttresses and coigns of vantage, sculptured by ancient art into palaces and chapels, battlements ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... with the terrified expression of a mediaeval wrongdoer, writhing under an ecclesiastical curse. He ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... the Virgin's trophies, Who for us our Maker bore; For the curse of old inflicted, Peace and blessing to restore. Sing the songs of praise unending Sing the world's majestic Queen. Weary not nor faint in telling All the gifts she ...
— The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book • Various
... sweet revenge! 'twere virtue here. [Aside] It must be near the dawn. Go on, I'll follow. Life's now a curse; death then my ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... a jolly nice sort of a game," said Bob to himself! "How am I to make him understand? What a jolly fool old Johnson is. Now, my sun-brown-o cockywax, comment vous portez-vous? as we say in French. Me no understandy curse Malay's lingo not at all-oh. Bismillah! wallah! Come oh! and have a bottle oh! ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... cop, eh?" Her eyes left the wallet and examined Malone from head to foot. It was perfectly plain that they didn't like what they saw. "Cop," she said again, as if to herself. It sounded like a curse. ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... her! listen to how she spits on her mother's grey hairs! Oh, may you live to have your own daughter tear and trample on you as you have trampled on me. And you will: you will. No woman ever had luck with a mother's curse on her. ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... name of Durvasa and was well-acquainted with the hidden truths of morality. Gratified with her respectful attentions, the sage, anticipating by his spiritual power the future (season of) distress (consequent upon the curse to be pronounced upon Pandu for his unrighteous act of slaying a deer while serving its mate) imparted to her a formula of invocation for summoning any of the celestials she liked to give her children. And the Rishi said, 'Those celestials that thou shall summon by this ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Sacred is the duty of a parent, and heavy must be the account of those who desert their children, and are required by Heaven to render up an account of the important trust. Couldst thou, oh! father, but now behold thy son! God Almighty!—but I will not curse you, father! No, no"—and I burst into tears, as I leant against the ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... her then), and I wasn't afraid of their abuse or even of their praise. I'm not afraid now either. Mais parlous d'autre chose.... I believe I have done dreadful things. Only fancy, I sent a letter yesterday to Darya Pavlovna and... how I curse myself for it!" ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... consternation and clamour. The unlucky fellow who had slipped the leash, waving his wrist, sought to induce the bold robber to alight, but his cries were scarcely heard above the vociferation of the throng, and he was fain to tear his beard and curse the day of his birth. But as neither lamentation nor rage could restore the treasure, cooler heads dispatched a party of horsemen with falcons and lures ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... were repeated to Chrysippus, he exclaimed impatiently, "Curse on the folly which philosophers dignify with ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... one flutter before we're done. Stiffen your lip and stand, my son; We'll take this bloomin' circus on: Ball-cartridge load! Now, steady!' With a curse and a prayer the two faced round, Dogged and grim they stood their ground, And their breech-blocks snapped with a crisp clean sound As the ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and giving in marriage out of the heads of all concerned." And she comprehended also how the meaning of the fragmentary conversation she had overheard between her lover and his companion, as they approached her from the house: "You have brought the curse of Cain upon me." "It could not be helped." "If the old man had not squealed ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... his lordship shrilly; "I dare you!" He turned his horse's head for home and moved off a yard or more. "Whoa! Curse you! This is the demdest horse to manage I've ever owned. Stand still, ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... sunny corner of the uninhabited rooms up-stairs she spent her days, toiling at such sewing as was needful, and silent as the dead, save as her life appealed to God from the ground, and called down the curse of Cain upon a head she would have shielded from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... came upon her the lot which still befalls her favourite plant, belladonna, and some other wholesome poisons which she employed as antidotes to the great plagues of the Middle Ages. Children and ignorant passers-by would curse those dismal flowers before they knew them. Affrighted by their questionable hues, they shrink back, keep far aloof from them. And yet among them are the comforters (Solaneae) which, when discreetly employed, have cured so many, have lulled ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... her way; Knew not was it night or day; Sprang up the bank, tore through the furze, Threaded copse and dingle, And heard her penny jingle Bouncing in her purse,— Its bounce was music to her ear. She ran and ran As if she feared some goblin man Dogged her with gibe or curse Or something worse: But not one goblin skurried after, Nor was she pricked by fear; The kind heart made her windy-paced That urged her home quite out of breath with haste And ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... young married woman, going about the slums of New York with my husband, I used to come home and look at my two babies as they lay in their little cots, and say to him, 'What are we going to do to keep these children from selfishness—the curse of the world?' ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... Nebo-baladan lives the piece of ground, the house, the slaves, and all the rest of his property shall continue in his own possession, according to the terms of this his will. Whoever shall attempt to change them, may Anu, Bel, and Ae curse him; may Nebo, the divine scribe of -Saggil, cut off his days! This will has been sealed in the presence of Sula, son of Bania, son of Epes-ilu; of Bel-iddin, son of Bel-natsir, son of the priest of Gula; of Nebo-sum-yukin, son of Sula, son of Sigua; of ...
— Babylonians and Assyrians, Life and Customs • Rev. A. H. Sayce
... people, we of the South and West—and especially we Southerners, with our poverty of invention, our one staple, our otherwise helpless habits, incident to the institution which, however it may be our curse, is still our wealth, and to which, for the present time, we are bound, Ixion-like, by every law of necessity. What does this tariff promise? Where will the profit rest? Where will the loss fall crushingly? The slow torture of which we read in histories of early times was ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... would probably have failed in accomplishing it; and Captain Crawford, thinking money the best way to the heart of the poor, would never have tasted the joy of soothing sad hearts by kindness. Alas! little Sixpence, that you who have been such a blessing to-day, should become a curse to-morrow; that you who have gone forth on errands of mercy to-day, should dwell in scenes of drunkenness and ...
— Adventures of a Sixpence in Guernsey by A Native • Anonymous
... centre; and, contrary to their expectations, amongst the press of baggage-wagons, artillery, and travelling equipages, all tumultuously clamoring to push on, as the best chance of evading Holkerstein in the forest, their own unpretending vehicle passed without other notice than a curse from the officer on duty; which, however, they could not presume to appropriate, as it might be supposed equitably distributed amongst all who stopped ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... wine and fermented liquors may be to the more blunt sensibilities of body and mind, in youthful circles of another description? But if so, where rests the guilt? Or shall we bless the fountains, while we curse the stream they form? ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... and a liar!" she answered contemptuously. "You will love her all your days, and you know it. You will grow to curse the memory of this hour in which you threw away the only chance you will ever have of winning her. The only chance, mind, I will answer for that. I wish you good-evening, Mr. Greatson. You are excused. Isobel, as you are aware, remains here. You will find her in the ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... for peace with vows and prayer We sue, and pardon of these powers implore, Or be they goddesses or birds of air Obscene and dire; and lifting on the shore His hands, Anchises doth the gods adore. 'O Heaven!' he cries, 'avert these threats; be kind And stay the curse, and vex with plagues no more A pious folk,' then bids the crews unbind The stern-ropes, loose the sheets and spread them ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... making the soup. No word fell from her lips, and rising ever amid the ominous silence she preserved, her hatred of Goliah grew with every hour and impregnated her nature with its poison. He had been her curse; had it not been for him she would have waited for Honore, and Honore would be living now, and she would be happy. Think of his tone and manner when he made her understand he was the master! He had told her the truth, moreover; there were no longer ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... war by cupidity, by encroachment, and, above all, by efforts to propagate the curse of slavery, is alike false to itself, to God, and ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... from the curse of the law. But before faith came, we were kept inward under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. For ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ. For with freedom did Christ set ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... bobbed up and down in his seat with glee. "Ee, bless me! Ee, hang me! Ee, curse me!" he chirruped. "He's bust the bone. He'll never walk again. Probably mortification will set in, and he'll have his foot off. Next man in, please. Oh, I never enjoyed anything so much in ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... Viscount sprang forward and, turning in a flash, Barnabas saw a heavy bludgeon in the air above him; saw the Viscount meet it with up-flung arm; heard the thud of the blow, a snarling curse; saw a figure dart away and vanish among the jungle of carts; saw the Viscount stagger against the caravan and lean there, his pale face ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... replied to his father, saying, 'Whether this be an act of rashness, O father, or an improper act that I have done, whether thou likest it or dislikest it, the words spoken by me shall never be in vain. O father, I tell thee (a curse) can never be otherwise. I have never spoken a ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... not born beneath The Virgin and the Scales, So I must curse my cruel stars, And walk about ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... revolution to the disinherited masses give no thought to this. It's a hard and a bad thing to live under an oppressive system; don't think that I speak lightly of the miseries which must drive many a man to frenzy, till he heeds nothing so long as the present curse is attacked. I know perfectly well that for thousands of the poorest there is no possibility of a life guided by thought and feeling of a higher kind until they are lifted out of the mire. But if one faces the question with a grave purpose of doing good that will endure, practical ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... been 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 ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... mouth was markedly disfigured, and on my inquiring as to the probable cause she said: "Doctor, it is the result of sucking my thumb when I was a mere child, too young to know better, and every time I look into the glass, which I assure you is only when I am compelled to, I curse my parents for not breaking me of that habit." The indulgent parents were hated and despised for neglecting their duty, because of the disfigurement which resulted from this unrestrained ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... appetite, and it is only when one gloats over marrow bones or elephant's feet that indigestion is possible. No doubt much toil is involved, and fatigue of which travellers in the more temperate climes can form but a faint conception; but the sweat of one's brow is no longer a curse when one works for God: it proves a tonic to the system, and is actually a blessing. No one can truly appreciate the charm of repose unless he has ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... once, was an antagonism with the pagan religion, which was of the children of Ham, under his father's patriarchal curse. ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... pain to love it is, And 'tis a pain that pain to miss; But, of all pains, the greatest pain It is to love, but love in vain. Virtue now, nor noble blood, Nor wit by love is understood; Gold alone does passion move, Gold monopolizes love; A curse on her, and on the man Who this traffic first began! A curse on him who found the ore! A curse on him who digged the store! A curse on him who did refine it! A curse on him who first did coin it! A curse, all curses else above, On him who used it first ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... denied the light of day, even though they loathe it. Cadets, social skunks, whose carnivorous eyes love darkness, walk in God's sunshine and breathe God's air. Scarlet women turn over in wide beds and draw closer velvet curtains to shut out the morning. Gamblers curse ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... that thou hast brought to us many a booty from the island of our enemies, by means of tobacco, a weed the cause of much deceit; for how much deceit is practiced in carrying it about, in mixing it, and in weighing it: a weed which entices some people to bib ale; others to curse, swear, and to flatter in order to obtain it, and others to tell lies in denying that they use it: a weed productive of maladies in various bodies, the excess of which is injurious to every man's ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... Bessie, whom the curse of being twins linked like galley-slaves, were Heather-bells in a childish chorus which piped forth the information "We are the Heather-bells: list to our song," but which was almost ruined by their common desire to get away ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... profuse of their gifts. One had bestowed nobility, another genius, a third beauty. The malignant elf who had been uninvited came last, and, unable to reverse what her sisters had done for their favourite, had mixed up a curse with every blessing. In the rank of Lord Byron, in his understanding, in his character, in his very person, there was a strange union of opposite extremes. He was born to all that men covet and admire. But in every ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... man is condemned by the Divine judgment save for a mortal sin. Yet a man is condemned for theft, according to Zech. 5:3, "This is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the earth; for every thief shall be judged as is there written." Therefore theft is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... town—not one; but 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 are an unfailing inheritance, ...
— The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg • Mark Twain
... good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty. It is a deliberate storing up of miseries for future generations. There is no greater curse to posterity than that of bequeathing them an increasing ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... the bright day, And this our darkness makes for others dawn, Pensive I look upon the cruel stars Which framed me of such pliant passionate earth, And curse the day that e'er I saw the sun, Which makes me ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... disappointed him probably thought that he would not, for the mere gratification of his malevolence, make public a transaction which was discreditable to himself as well as to them. They knew little of him. He soon taught them to curse the day in which they had dared to trifle with a man of so revengeful and turbulent a spirit, of such dauntless effrontery, and of such eminent talents for controversy and satire. He compelled the Parliament to put a degrading stigma on M. Goezman. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... with a curse. "If that be what you wish, lord, it is here in very flesh. This young she-devil hath given me as ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... time stood moaning. But her cubs not rising to follow her, she returned, and with signs of inexpressible fondness went round them, pawing them successively. Finding at last that they were cold and lifeless, she raised her head towards the ship, and growled a curse upon the destroyers, which they returned with a volley of musket-balls. She fell between her cubs, and ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... finest tracts of land have been forsaken, and given up to the untamed beasts of the jungle. The motives to industry have been destroyed. The soil seems to lie under a curse. Instead of yielding abundance for the wants of its own population, and the inhabitants of other regions, it does not keep in existence its own children. It becomes the burying-place of millions, who die upon its bosom crying for bread. In proof of this, turn your eyes ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... Octavio. O curse of Kings, Infusing a dread life into their words, And linking to the sudden transient thought The unchangeable irrevocable deed. Was there necessity for such an eager 20 Despatch? Could'st thou not grant the merciful A time for mercy? Time is man's good Angel. To leave no interval ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... A noisy mob is always rash—often cruel and cowardly. A good friendly shout from a multitude is well, and a passing hearty curse endurable. The silent and stern assemblage of orderly men, like the myriads of Tipperary, or like one of Napoleon's armies, is a noble sight and a mighty power; but a scolding, hooting mob, which meets to make a noise, and runs away from a stick, a horse, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... young potentate o' Wales, I tell your Highness fairly, Down pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails, I'm tauld ye're driving rarely; But some day ye may gnaw your nails, An' curse your folly sairly, That e'er ye brak Diana's pales, Or rattl'd dice wi' Charlie, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... muttered to his weeping wife; "and she has become a curse to us. It lies with us to turn the punishment into our souls' good; but what can we do ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... said, woe worth our first meeting, or woe worth the time that Iason arriued with his ship at my fathers cittie in Colchos, when he tooke me away with him, & not so farre off as to curse the mountaine that bare the pinetree, that made the mast, that bare the sailes, that the ship sailed with, which caried her away. A pleasant Gentleman came into a Ladies nursery, and saw her for her owne pleasure rocking of her young child in the cradle, and sayd to her: I ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... characterization of Madoc,[276] yet after repeated readings he saw enough to convince him that Madoc would in the future "assume his real place at the feet of Milton."[277] Thalaba was one of the poems he liked to have read aloud on Sunday evenings.[278] A review of The Curse of Kehama, in which he seemed to express the opinion that this surpassed the poet's previous work, illustrates his professed creed as to criticism. He wrote to Ellis concerning his article: "What I could I did, which was to throw as much weight ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... made a dying man disgrace himself. You, you, you are the cause of my abject cowardice! I would kill you if I remained alive! I do not want your benefits; I will accept none from anyone; do you hear? Not from any one! I want nothing! I was delirious, do not dare to triumph! I curse every one of you, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... cannot disguise from myself that I am a slave, and a wretched one, and that his career has entailed this curse of servitude upon me. But away with this! You must think me, Miss Temple, the most egotistical of human beings; and yet, to do myself justice, I never remember having spoken of ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... Religion is the curse of Ireland. To the rival churches of that country may be traced nearly all the oppressions suffered by its people, who never can be materially improved till purged of their faith in priests. When that salutary work shall be accomplished, Ireland will indeed be 'a nation' in the ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... "With Nidhug's curse each human life is teeming,— The cruel tempter from the land of shade, He hates the asa-light with glory beaming On hero's brow and on his shining blade; Each coward deed, each act of wrathful scenting, Is his, a tribute unto darkness paid; ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... remains to be made. Are these trunks a burden, a vexation of spirit, a curse?' demanded Amanda, tapping one ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... children. Go to where you can establish yourselves, to Iximche, on the Ratzamut. Build there houses and a city, and construct a road on which all the people may pass and rest. Abandon Chiavar. As for you, people, if you succeed, may my words come to you as a curse." Thus spoke the king Qikab to our ancestors. Then the commands were given to the rulers, and the words of the king were sent to our ancestors. Nor did the ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... latter of the blessing designed for him, (in favour of Jacob,) given us for in the 27th chapter of Genesis? My father used, I remember, to enforce the doctrine deducible from it, on his children, by many arguments. At least, therefore, he must believe there is great weight in the curse he has announced; and shall I not be solicitous to get it revoked, that he may not hereafter be grieved, for my sake, that he did ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... together in the house of Thorgils Arason. It is illustrated in a quite different and more fantastic way in the scenes of his wanderings among the mountains, in the mysterious quiet of Thorisdal, in his alliance with strange deliverers, outside of the common world and its society, in the curse of Glam under the moonlight. This last is one of the few scenes in the Sagas, though not the only one, when the effect depends on something more than the persons engaged in it. The moon with the clouds driving over counts for more than ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... all. Never curse my memory. Remember that the worst pang of my agony is in dying far from my children, far from my wife, without a friend to close my eyes. Farewell, my own Caroline. Farewell, my children. I send you my blessing, my most tender tears, my last kisses. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MURAT—1815 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... them were too obstinate to take medical advice, the usual thing happened. The husband cut a ridiculous figure, and the wife a tragic one. He was told that a childless woman was sacred because, for some reason or other, "God's" curse rested on her. That "God" could also stoop to curse a man ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Juno. It was all very well for the people so to believe, he said, who must be kept in order; but scepticism increased in the higher classes until the prevailing atheism culminated in the poetry of Lucretius, who had the boldness to declare that faith in the gods had been the curse of the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... holy man Ketellus in [1215]Nubrigensis), that had an especial grace to see devils, Gratiam divinitus collatam, and talk with them, Et impavidus cum spiritibus sermonem miscere, without offence, and if a man curse or spur his horse for stumbling, they do heartily rejoice at it; with many such ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... 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, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... volley again, like a man running a metal hammer very rapidly along iron corrugations, and this time people were dropping all over the road. One white-faced man not a score of yards away fell with a curse and a sob, struggled up, staggered for some yards with blood running abundantly from his neck, and fell and never stirred again. Another went down upon his back clumsily in the roadway and lay ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... 27. 'God's curse on his hart,' saide William, 'Thys day thy cote dyd on! If it had ben no better then myne, It had ...
— Ballads of Robin Hood and other Outlaws - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Fourth Series • Frank Sidgwick
... and inconsistent with any former act of the legislature of the state; the ultimate consequence of which will prove a lasting curse to vital religion, which every candid and reflecting mind may easily foresee; and we view it as a very bold and desperate effort to effectuate a union between Church and State.... We are induced to believe that Pilate and ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... his name; the which I did. And the bloodhound was still on the mountain, albeit he had long since heard what had befallen; and when the bailiff gave him the orders of the worshipful court, he began to curse so fearfully that it might have awakened the dead; moreover, he plucked off his cap, and trampled it under foot, so that any one might have ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... with curse They hounded on to death's untimely doom. [Footnote: T. L. Harris, Lyrics of the Golden ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... which had been familiar enough in his own mouth a few months ago. But now other words, familiar from daily reading, the words that he had repeated to Tim so short a time before, were being whispered, as it seemed, close by his ear: 'Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you.' There was a deadly conflict going on in the boy's soul; and Martha's angry words were helping the tempter. He sat down despondently on the door-sill, ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... a being. The sinister truth, like a flash of flame, scorched the eyes of the paralysed woman and penetrated within her with the concussion of a shaft of lightning. Had she been able to rise, to utter the cry of horror that ascended to her throat, and curse the murderers of her son, she would have suffered less. But, after hearing and understanding everything, she was forced to remain motionless and mute, inwardly preserving all the glare ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... she persuaded him in seriousness or in jest, by entreaties or by coaxing, to eat his supper and spend his evening with his family, she had gained but little. Perhaps, touched by the sight of his wife's distress, he would curse his bad habits and promise all that she asked—even more. But to no purpose; he would soon, unexpectedly, find himself in the old ruts again. One is tempted to believe that he could not do otherwise, and that a code of morals, totally different from our ideas ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... trembling! My curse upon the slave who first invented A word which ne'er my Nanna's lips should sully; Thy excusations kill me! I imagined It was a chaste, a maidenish reflection, That made my Nanna blush at our affection: Unmurmuring I obeyed, and kept in secret. Why hast thou ta'en ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... A bitter curse broke from Junes' pale lips. "Police, by God!" he said; "they're too near or I'd shoot all four of you whining swine. Hell! and ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell
... them:—and why? what was his object? He was, the count declared in answer, a born intriguer, a lover of blood, mad for the smell of it!—an Old Man of the Mountain; a sheaf of assassins; and more—the curse of Italy! There should be extradition treaties all over the world to bring this arch-conspirator to justice. The door of his conscience had been knocked at by a thousand bleeding ghosts, and nothing had opened to them. What was Italy in his eyes? A chess-board; and Italians were the chessmen ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fear Allah in your ordinances and beware of oppression, which if it endure depopulateth; and apply yourselves to justice, for justice, if it be prolonged, peopleth a land. Oppress not the True Believers, or they will curse you and ill report of you will reach the Caliph, wherefore dishonour will betide both me and you. Go not therefore about to violence any, but whatso ye greed for of the goods of the folk, take it from my ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... God," cried he, "is it then possible that you do not hate me?-Can the child of the wronged Caroline look at,-and not execrate me? Wast thou not born to abhor, and bred to curse me? Did not thy mother bequeath thee her blessing on condition that thou should'st detest and avoid ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... stormy outburst of his soul. He casts upon her a look of withering scorn, the past of that life so chequered flashes vividly through his thoughts, his hate deepens, he hurls her from him, invokes a curse upon her head, and shuts her from his sight. "Mine will be the retribution!" he says, ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... "Curse them not," said Neter-Tua, "who are already accursed, and given over to the Devourer of Souls when their time shall come. Make a record of this deed, O Scribes, and do ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... cynical and then serious again. One tries to get there by scheming, one is once more a light hearted child, and again an earnest seeker after one's artistic ideals—not for ambition's sake, not for conviction's sake, cannot help it, because it's a curse which has been laid on one by a cruel omnipotence to which the life-long agony of its creature is a pleasing offering! A pleasing offering, I say, for we whom art enthralls rebel against our lot as little as does the slave of a woman against his seductress, as ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... expression of perfidious hypocrisy in his eyes, and again pouring his words lowly, but distinctly, into her ear. "Do you not fear that he should rise from his tomb, and, showing the bloody wounds of that fatal night, cry for vengeance on his murderers, and curse the weakness of that mother who would screen and shelter them? Do you not fear that Heaven should condemn you as a friend to the destroyers of the righteous? Think on your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... apparent right or position. For Mrs. Travers, Glenn had managed to conjure up a very actual distrust. She was too good-looking and free-acting to be sound; and her misshapen and delicate son was, so the severe man concluded, a curse, in all probability, for past offences. The youth of Kenmore was straight and hearty, unless—and here Nathaniel recalled his superstitions—dire vengeance was wreaked ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... at the foot of the drawers against the brass handle, cutting her cheek, which began to bleed, against it. Madame Bovary sprang to lift her up, broke the bell-rope, called for the servant with all her might, and she was just going to curse herself when Charles appeared. It was the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... was indeed betrothed to Barbara Bamberg, Sidonia presented herself once in the choir, kneeled down, and was heard to murmur, "Wed if thou wilt, that I cannot hinder; but a child thou shalt never hold at the font!" And truly was the evil curse fulfilled. ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... told me that I was one of those "peculiar" people who just think there is something the matter with them. Is it not strange that with all the advance that has been made in general medicine, little or nothing has been done for the relief of the people born with this curse hanging over them? ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... greater contrast than between this mountainous island of Madeira and the country which we are about to penetrate. This is one of the most delightful climates in the world, the west coast of Africa one of the worst. Once well in the interior, the swamp fevers, which are the curse of the shores, disappear, but African travelers are seldom long free from attacks of fever of one kind or the other. However, quinine does wonders, and we shall be far in the interior before the bad ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... many of them, I believe, well known in England; I need not, therefore, quote them here, but I sometimes wondered that they, none of them, ever thought of translating Obadiah's curse into classic American; if they had done so, only placing (he, Basil Hall,) between brackets instead of (he, Obadiah,) it would have saved them ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... speakers. M. Thomas is troubled with a rather unruly wisp of hair which, when he gets wrought up in fiery moments, will tumble down over his brow into his eyes, to be swept back every now and again with a thrust of the hand accompanied by a muttered exclamation, presumably a curse. Rendering M. Thomas into English, M. Mantoux would sweep back an imaginary wisp of hair with an imprecation which I am confident was a "damn!" Then again, no man can turn on a more irresistibly ingratiating ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... Texas. Here were miners and soldiers of fortune and plain tramps. More than one of the shining-eyed gamblers had a price upon his head. Several were outlaws. A score or more had taken part in the rapine and the pillage of the guerrilla warfare that has of late years been the curse of the country. It would have been hard in a day's travel to find an assembly where human life was ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... of walled Uruk. In violent rage she pronounces a curse: "Cursed be Gilgamesh, who has enraged me, Who ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... mien, And baffled rage in his glance is seen. Paler they grow as the hours go by, With the pallor that comes with the summons to die. Slowly fading, and shrinking away, Clutched in the grasp of a gaunt decay, Till the herald of morn on the sky is thrown; Then a shriek, a curse, and a dying moan, Comes from that death-black window there. A mocking laugh rings out on the air, From that darkful place, in the nascent dawn, And the faces that looked from the window are gone. Seventy years, when the Spanish flag Floated above yon beetling ...
— Debris - Selections from Poems • Madge Morris
... are for truth. The hope of the world lies in the middle class—the rich are as ignorant as the poverty-stricken. A way must be devised to reach the rich—I can do it. Inaction, idleness, that is the curse. Life is fluid, and only running water is pure. Stagnation is death. Turbulent Rome was healthy, but quiescent Rome was soft, feverish, morbid, pathological. Now, take Hamlet—what man ever had more opportunities? Heir to the throne—beauty, power, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... the holy place of God shall assign them a place where they cannot be seen or understood, or shall erase the writing and inscribe his own name, or shall divide the sculptures (?) and break them off from my tablets, may Anu and Vul, the Great Gods, my lords, consign his name to perdition! May they curse him with an irrevocable curse! May they cause his sovereignty to perish! May they pluck out the stability of the throne of his empire! Let not his offspring survive him in the kingdom! Let his servants be broken! Let his troops be defeated! Let him fly vanquished before his enemies! ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... dry rot—and four men, sometimes silently, sometimes violently cursing their isolation, but always cursing it—afraid in their souls lest they fall to cursing one another aloud as they had begun to curse in their hearts. ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... on the subject of Christian assurance in a characteristically 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 ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... pouted, envious. "Here there is never anything to call a show. Even when Daud el Barudi married, there were no fine dresses. Every woman present wore the head-veil. I fain would try a Frankish hat myself; but the ladies will not let me—curse their father!" ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... Strange, how the house seemed forlorn! 'Something about a baby,' Agg had said vaguely. And it was as though something that Mr. Haim and his wife had concealed had burst from its concealment and horrified and put a curse on the whole Grove. Something not at all nice! What in the name of decent propriety was that slippered old man doing with a baby? George would not picture to himself Mrs. Haim lying upstairs. He did ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... curse of Oro," said the Ancient again. Then followed a terrible spectacle. The man went raving mad. He bounded into the air to a height inconceivable. He threw himself upon the ground and rolled upon the rock. ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... so from the first, John Willows, ever since I came to this mill as a boy. You've been a tyrant and a curse to all the poor, struggling people who spent their days under you, not as your servants, but ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... hypo and shoved the needle into his arm. Necrosynth—enough to keep him unconscious for twenty-four hours. He started to curse her, but the drug acted before he ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... was musing with a certain tenseness on these things that the sound of footsteps came to him from below. But almost in the first instant the hope that this might be J. B. Wheeler, the curse of the human race, died away. Whoever was coming up the stairs was running, and J. B. Wheeler never ran upstairs. He was not one of your lean, haggard, spiritual-looking geniuses. He made a large income with his brush and pencil, and spent ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... strategical victory secured by emancipation in Missouri by her consent, will be far more important than any triumph yet achieved by our arms. It is a victory that relieves a great State now and forever from the curse of slavery. It is a victory that secures the whole valley of the mighty Missouri to the Union. It is a triumph that sweeps slavery from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, dissevers the Southern confederacy, and restores the whole Mississippi, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... absent ten years, under the pretense of wishing to see the world, but really to avoid being forced to repeal any of the laws which at the request of the Athenians he had made for them. Without his sanction the Athenians could not repeal them, as they had bound themselves under a heavy curse to be governed for ten years by the laws which should be imposed ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... in the carriage without their traveling companion, and were whirled swiftly along the road to Blois. The Marquise was constantly put in mind of the journey made in 1814, when as yet she know nothing of love, and had been almost ready to curse it for its persistency. Countless forgotten impressions were revived. The heart has its own memory. A woman who cannot recollect the most important great events will recollect through a lifetime things which appealed to her feelings; and Julie d'Aiglemont found all the most trifling ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... solemnly after service, with his hands coupled behind him, and censures the dancing of his parish. [His compliment with his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his salutation commonly some blunt curse.] He thinks nothing to be vices, but pride and ill husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse. He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day, where, if his corn sell well, he thinks ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... governed by the despotism of one man, whose word is our law! And that man, they tell us, "is the right man in the right place. He will develop a Union sentiment among the people, if the thing can be done!" Come and see if he can! Hear the curse that arises from thousands of hearts at that man's name, and say if he will "speedily bring us to our senses." Will he accomplish it by love, tenderness, mercy, compassion? He might have done it; but did he try? When he came, he assumed his natural ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... lady Feng assured herself that there was no one about. "How is it," she next asked, "that I'm like a queen of hell, or like a 'Yakcha' demon? That courtesan swore at me and wished me dead; and did you too help her to curse me? If I'm not nice a thousand days, why, I must be nice on some one day! But if, poor me, I'm so bad as not even to compare with a disorderly woman, how can I have the face to come and spend ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Devil's Lead. Oh, Lord! what a fool I was not to have collared that ground before she did; but that infernal McIntosh never would tell me where the place was. Never mind, I'll be even with him yet; curse him.' ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... marshes, Learned the songs of winds and waters, Learned the music of the ocean, And the echoes of the woodlands. Many men that live to murmur, Many women live to censure, Many speak with evil motives; Many they with wretched voices Curse me for my wretched singing, Blame my tongue for speaking wisdom, Call my ancient songs unworthy, Blame the songs and curse the singer. Be not thus, my worthy people, Blame me not for singing badly, Unpretending as a minstrel. I have never had the teaching, Never lived with ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... at the question from every side, and not jumping at conclusions before they are warranted by facts. It is true that most of our positive knowledge on this subject would condemn alcohol as being the greatest curse of the ages, but it may be that it has played a beneficent part in the affairs of mankind through devious paths impossible to trace. Unquestionably a drug, the taking of which assists us in momentarily throwing our troubles aside, must be of a certain positive ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... have urg'd (but weigh it, and you'll find 'Tis light as feathers blown before the wind) That Poverty, the Curse of Providence, Attones for a dull Writer's want of Sense: Alas! his Dulness 'twas that made him poor; Not vice versa: We infer no more. Of Vice and Folly Poverty's the curse, Heav'n may be rigid, but the Man was worse, By good made bad, by favours more disgrac'd, So dire th' effects ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... analyst, for the vivisectionist, for those who may transfuse their knowledge of it to the ultimate good of mankind. And although I am so heavily endowed with curiosity concerning the people I find about me, my gift (or curse, whichever it be) knows pause at the gates of the house of calamity. So, if it were possible, I would not speak of the agony of which I was a witness that night in the apartment of my friends at Madame Brossard's. I went ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... country's cause at heart thou wilt hear me in this thing. I will give you back the lords you all love. I will trouble you no more myself. I would I had never seen this evil place. It has been nought but a curse to me from the day it ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... have to marry Big Brother Bill. Why, his very name appeals to me. May I, Charlie?" she went on, turning to the smiling man. "Would you like me for—a—a sister? I'm not a bad sort, am I, Kate?" she appealed mischievously. "I can sew, and cook, and—and darn. No, I don't mean curse words. I leave that to Kate's hired men. They're just dreadful. Really, I wasn't thinking of anything worse than Big Brother Bill's socks. When'll he be getting around? Oh, dear, I hope it won't be long. 'Specially if ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... met; an oath broke from his lips. He made a movement to spring from the well, but as the girl started back, the pistol held in her hand was discharged aimlessly in the air, and the report echoed throughout the courtyard. With a curse Starbuck drew back, instantly disappeared in the well, and Polly fell fainting on the steps. When she came to, her father and Larry were at her side. They had been alarmed at the report, and had rushed quickly to the patio, but not in time to prevent the escape of Starbuck and ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... been the ground of Nancy's difficult resistance to her husband's wish. To adopt a child, because children of your own had been denied you, was to try and choose your lot in spite of Providence: the adopted child, she was convinced, would never turn out well, and would be a curse to those who had wilfully and rebelliously sought what it was clear that, for some high reason, they were better without. When you saw a thing was not meant to be, said Nancy, it was a bounden duty to leave off so much as wishing for it. And ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... "No, curse him!" cried William Carley savagely. "I've been at him all this afternoon, when you and that woman were out of the room, trying to get it out of him as a loan, without waiting for your promise; but he's too cautious for that. 'The day Ellen gives her consent, you shall have the money,' he ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... "Impossible!" and "Curse it!" were the words he had most frequently repeated in the course of his retrospect during the past night and morning. How he had had to rush and hurry under the broiling sun! and the sense of being compelled to do so for mere ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... "Some curse hangs over me and mine. My mother lies a corpse in this house; one of my best friends is drowned in a ditch. What can I say, or think, or do? I received a letter from him the day before yesterday. My dear Scrope, if you can spare a moment, do ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... carried it from the raft—apparently unconsciously—and had taken it, fearing to leave it with Flores. He had intended to throw it away in the mountains in some inaccessible place where it could never again curse human lives. This image ought to be final proof as to whether or not Manning could recall anything of his life as a priest of the Sun God or not. If the sight of this failed to arouse his dead memory, then nothing ever could. Of all the things in this life among these mountains no one ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... appropriately terminate our narrative, for the bright days that had begun to dawn on Madagascar have never since been darkened by persecution—though they have not been altogether cloudless or free from the curse of war; for, with its enormous capacities and important position, the island has long been a morsel, coveted by some of what ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... "Craftily qualified, curse him," he thought; "the fellow's a damned Cassio, and will be fumbling with his right hand and ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... ruffian levy once raised upon central 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... same. Borrow had none of these gifts as a letter-writer and no genius for friendship. The charm of his style, so indisputable in his best work, is absent from his letters; and his friends were alienated one after another. Borrow's undisciplined intellect and narrow upbringing were a curse to him, from the point of view of his own personal happiness, although they helped him to achieve exactly the work for which he was best fitted. Borrow's acquaintance with FitzGerald was commenced by the latter, who, in July 1853, sent from Boulge Hall, Suffolk, to Oulton Hall, in ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... feet 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 rapidly disappearing in ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... they slight the crosse, God hath rais'd Prophets to awaken them From stupifaction; witnesse my milde pen, Not us'd to upbraid the world, though now it must Freely and boldly, for, the cause is just. Dull age, Oh I would spare thee, but th'art worse, Thou art not onely dull, but hast a curse Of black ingratitude; if not, couldst thou Part with miraculous Donne, and make no vow For thee, and thine, successively to pay A sad remembrance to his dying day? Did his youth scatter Poetry, wherein Was all Philosophy? was every sinne, Character'd in his Satyrs? Made so foule ...
— Waltoniana - Inedited Remains in Verse and Prose of Izaak Walton • Isaak Walton
... plenty leaves us so feeble and frivolous, so childish, so impatient, so deaf to all that calls to us from the past and entreats us in the future, that we faint and fail under the stress of our one short effort, then indeed is our Democracy our shame and curse. Let us show now what manner of people we are. Let us be clear-sighted and far-sighted to see how great is the issue that hangs upon the occasion. It is not a mere military reputation that is at stake, not the decay of a generation's commerce, not the determination of this or that party ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... he said, haughtily. "I shall not betray you to Lord Earle. Let him find out for himself what you are, as I have done. I could curse myself for my own trust. Who ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Phantom, "I bear within me a Sorrow and a Wrong. Thus I prey upon myself. Thus, memory is my curse; and, if I could forget my sorrow and my wrong, ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... captive hour, To know those spears our foes should dread For me in kindred gore are red: 'To know, in fruitless brawl begun, For me that mother wails her son, For me that widow's mate expires, For me that orphans weep their sires, That patriots mourn insulted laws, And curse the Douglas for the cause. O let your patience ward such ill, And keep your right ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... came to his net, and all were treated alike and robbed from start to finish. When Albert had turned his back upon him, and, worse than that, taken away his best client, as he afterwards learned, the old scoundrel suffered the worst blow to his vanity he ever received. "Curse the fellow!" he would say to himself. "I'll pay him and have revenge if I live long enough, and I'll never rest till I do. No man ever got the best of me, and in the long run no man ever shall!" Like an Indian he bided his time, ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... Hamish's answer to this gay invitation? The Gaelic tongue is almost devoid of those meaningless expletives which, in other languages, express mere annoyance of temper; when a Highlander swears, he usually swears in English. But the Gaelic curse is a much more solemn ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... is one of the few patriotic outbursts in the seven books of the Wars, and it reads like a cry of bitter regret wrung from the unhappy author at the end of his work. Like Balaam he set out to curse, and stayed to bless, his enemies, and cursed himself. Perhaps this apostrophe hides the tragedy of Josephus' life. Perhaps he inwardly repented of his cowardice, and rued the uneasy protection he had secured for himself. ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... that a stranger will take your place at her bedside, that as she has lived without knowing you she will die without that knowledge, or that if through any weakness of yours it came to her then, it would embitter her last thoughts of earth and, dying, she would curse you?" ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... and pious you are, because it may happen that those who, like you, are flung into the storms of life upon the perilous waves of human interests might be tempted to utter blasphemies in the midst of their adversity,—carried away as they are by anguish. Curse neither the men who injure you nor the God who mingles, at His will, your joy with bitterness. Look not on life, but lift your eyes to heaven; there is comfort for the weak, there are riches for the poor, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... us understand the wrong-doing of others enough to point the way, if possible, to better things, not merely to criticise and blame them. Only in such ways can we learn to realize and use the delicate power of sensitiveness. Selfish sensitiveness is a blessing turned to a curse; but the more lovingly sensitive we become to the need of moral freedom in our friends, the Dearer we are ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... that the Church in making this concession has been guilty of self-contradiction. "The Ecclesiastical Council of Moscow," they say, "anathematised our forefathers for holding to the old ritual, and declared that the whole course of nature would be changed sooner than the curse be withdrawn. The course of nature has not been changed, but the anathema has been cancelled." This argument ought to have a certain weight with those who believe in ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... resting-place to guard it as long as he might live. When he lay on his deathbed he was implored to reveal where he had hidden it, but he persistently refused to do so, saying that it would be found by the man who was destined to conquer the world, but that he would not be able to escape the curse. Years passed by. Wave after wave the tide of barbarian invasion swept over that part of the country, and last of all came the terrible Huns under the leadership of Attila, the "Scourge of God." As he passed along the river, he saw a peasant mournfully examining his cow's foot, which had been ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... peasantry believe in the existence of small beings, of vaguely defined form, called Zluidni who bring zlo or evil to every habitation in which they take up their quarters. "May the Zluidni strike him!" is a Little-Russian curse, and "The Zluidni have got leave for three days; not in three years will you get rid of them!" is a White-Russian proverb. In a Little-Russian skazka a poor man catches a fish and takes it as a present to his rich brother, ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... they had imbibed no liquor to give them false pluck—and, with a final curse, he whipped up his horse and drove away 'with all their teeth' to the barracks, where he left a very useful arsenal, and was never troubled ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... the grain came upon this moving platform these men seized it, bound it into sheaves, and threw it upon the field. Simple as this procedure seemed it really worked a revolution in agriculture; for the first time since the pronouncement of the primal curse, the farmer abandoned his hunchback attitude and did his work standing erect. Yet this device also had its disqualifications, the chief one being that it converted the human sheaf-binder into a sweat-shop worker. It was necessary to bind the ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... just the suggestion of a mustache showing, a blue denim coat fitting close to his figure, and a black silk sash wound around his waist over a flannel shirt with black and green checks. Any woman would be proud to own a boy like that! He was going to be another terror on the lines of that Martinez—curse the wretch—but with more "seasoning," more get-up-and-go, to him. To be sure of that, it was enough to watch the girls in the Cabanal when he was around. They would be willing to scratch each other's eyes out to get him ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... half of Comus and Lycidas, the stately periods of the Decline and Fall, and the severe beauties of Laodamia, to the better influences of academic training on the minds of their authors. Similarly, the richest pages of Byron's work—from the date of The Curse of Minerva to that of the "Isles of Greece"—are brightened by lights and adorned by allusions due to his training, imperfect as it was, on the slopes of Harrow, and the associations fostered during his truant years by the sluggish stream of his "Injusta noverca." ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... in which the woman became more deeply affected by the curse than the man; she not only participated, as a fallen creature, in the diversified calamities which, from the moment of transgression, were entailed upon humanity, but suffered as a female in the conjugal and maternal relationships which ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... estimate money at its true value. If they had earned their money by honest effort they would not have fallen into habits that led to unbridled extravagance and ultimate disgrace. The inheritance of unearned wealth quite frequently proves a curse rather ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... him by the gifts the land Hath won from him and Rome, The riving axe, the wasting brand, Rent forest, blazing home. I curse him by our country's gods, The terrible, the dark, The breakers of the Roman rods, The ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... same time the court ladies adopted the fashion of wearing horns as huge in proportion as the noblemen's shoes. The government tried legislating them down, and the clergy fulminated a solemn curse against them; but fashion was more powerful than Church and Parliament combined, and horns and hoofs ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... Face Of God, whom to behold was then my heighth Of Happiness! yet well, if here would end The Misery, I deserved it, and would bear My own Deservings: but this will not serve; All that I eat, or drink, or shall beget Is propagated Curse. O Voice once heard Delightfully, Increase and Multiply; ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... you now! Ah! you'd sneak away, would you? But it was you, my curse! it was you who made me what I am, brigand! robber! sneak! It ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... out a pipe. He looked at it for one instant, then raised it to his nose. He smelt it, and, with a motion of disgust and a bitter curse, he threw it from him. It reeked of the weed he had ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... be a day when men will curse us because we have not preached more plainly. You can call a spade "a spade" or you can designate it as "an iron utensil employed for excavating purposes," but if you want folks to understand what you are driving at ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... phantasms of two men. Adam. One that sustains, And one that strives, so the ends Of manhood's curse of labor. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... retorted Rachel. "Look you, women make no wars, nor serve therein: nor women be no lawyers, to set folk by the ears: nor women write not great tomes of controversy, wherein they curse the one the other because Nell loveth a white gown, and Bess would have a black. Is the Devil a woman? Answer me that, I ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... have said that they are right who swear there is a curse upon all property taken from the Church, and that the ban fell black and bitter upon Chilton Abbey," answered his lordship's grave deep voice from the end of the table, where he sat somewhat apart from the rest, gloomy and silent, save ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Moreover, it cannot be denied that the influence of the classical authors is in the highest degree moral, while, unfortunately, with the study of the natural sciences are associated the false and noxious doctrines which are the curse of our day." ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... striding to the threshold, turning the key energetically, and flinging the door wide open. The quiet light burning in the quiet hall produced something in the nature of a shock. He stepped into the hall to wipe his brow and curse himself. He could never win his own pardon for the madness of the past quarter of an hour. Neither, probably, could he ever win Claude's, though he must go back ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... Telemachos. "Living or dead, my father is in distant lands, and if I should dismiss his wife of my own will, I should invite the hatred of the gods on my guilty head. She would call upon the Furies to haunt me; all men would curse me; and her father would demand ample satisfaction of me. I will never speak the word to send her forth. Now, get you gone and cease squandering my riches or I will call down the wrath of the ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... scornful retort. "What does it matter what happens to Davenham? He's absolutely useless to the House, rotten at games and spends his whole time reading about fossils. Who cares a curse about Davenham!" ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... made with Noah; when He said, "I will not again curse the earth any more for man's sake, neither will I smite any more everything living as I have done. While the Earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and Winter and Summer, and day and night shall not cease. I will establish My covenant with you, and with your seed after you, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... refused, perverted, crushed, cast aside by those who need it most,—the city which is Not set on a hill, the candle that giveth light to None that are in the house:—these are the heaviest mysteries of this strange world, and, it seems to me, those which mark its curse the most. And it is true that the power with which this Venice had been entrusted, was perverted, when at its highest, in a thousand miserable ways; still, it was possessed by her alone; to her all hearts have turned which could be moved by its manifestation, and none without ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... to his own home at Sletty on the Boyne, for there he lived after he had given up the kingdom to his son Cairbry. But the druids of Erinn came together and consulted over this matter, and they determined solemnly to curse Cormac and invoke the vengeance of their gods upon him lest the people should think that any man could despise and reject their gods, and ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... detaining hand and called him by name, one of the group in civilian dress gave sudden, instant start, sprang round the corner, but, tripping on some obstacle, sprawled full length on the hard stone pavement. Despite the violence of the fall, which wrung from him a fierce curse, the man was up in a second, away, and out of ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... for a wise and discreet use of liberty, as a vulgar person may be for the management of a great estate unexpectedly inherited: there is a great deal in this, and, in my opinion, there are cases in which to force liberty down a people's throat is presenting them, not with a blessing, but a curse. I shall send your luggage on immediately; it is very probable that I may be in town at the end of the week, for a short time. I wish much to see and to consult you, and therefore hope that you will not leave ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... Life, as Scott and Shakespeare; or even ridden, shot, drunk, and played the Devil, as Byron, he would have done much more, and talked about it much less. 'You know,' said Scott to Lockhart, 'that I don't care a Curse about what I write,' {116} and one sees he did not. I don't believe it was far otherwise with Shakespeare. Even old Wordsworth, wrapt up in his Mountain mists, and proud as he was, was above all this vain Disquietude: proud, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... is a brave young man!" sighed Eliza; "and then—I cannot betray father's secret to him. If the Austrians did not come after all, and I had told Ulrich von Hohenberg what father and the other Tyrolese intend to do, would I not be a traitress, and would not father curse me?" ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... "you shall have the picture back—curse you! But listen. If I were you and had wife, or daughter, or sweetheart like this "—he touched the photograph almost reverently—"why, I'd go through fire and water but I'd keep myself decent; ain't you a silly old fool, now? We've made our piles, ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... how this sin took place— This myst'ry we could never scan, That sin has sunk the human race, And all brought in by the first man. 'Tis said this is our heavy curse— ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... exclaimed Harcourt, after a moment; "I can't hold them, and we are near the top of a long hill with two sharp turnings on the side of a steep bank, and there's a bridge at the bottom. Whoa! curse you, whoa!" ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... bended, bent bereave bereaved, bereft bereaved, bereft blend blended, blent blended, blent bless blessed, blest blessed, blest burn burned, burnt burned, burnt cleave, stick cleaved (clave) cleaved clothe clothed, clad clothed, clad curse cursed, curst cursed, curst dive dived (dove) dived (dove) dream dreamed, dreamt dreamed, dreamt dress dressed, drest dressed, drest gild gilded, gilt gilded, gilt heave heaved, hove heaved, hove hew hewed hewed, hewn lade laded laded, ...
— Word Study and English Grammar - A Primer of Information about Words, Their Relations and Their Uses • Frederick W. Hamilton
... saw, she threw up her hands and moaned a little about the curse that was on the house, and she helped him to scrub the stones as quickly as possible. When that was done, and when they had flooded the whole pavement under the arch, in order to conceal the fact that it had been washed in one place, it occurred to them ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Ruth answered, "Do not urge me to leave you or to go back, for wherever you go I will go, and wherever you stay I will stay; your people shall be my people, and your God my God; I will die where you die and be buried there. May Jehovah bring a curse upon me, if anything but death separate you and me." When Naomi saw that Ruth had made up her mind to go with her, she ceased urging her ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... all. She saw more than the acute Spaniard. Firstly, because she was a woman. Secondly, because she loved Fitz. Thirdly, because the inken curse was hers in a small degree, and people who dabble in ink often wade deep into ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... Slavery is the curse of all these countries. My Soudan servant, Amankee, would not come with me to Zinder, on account of his longing desire to see his mother and brother and sisters; and yet, although these feelings are deep in the bosoms of all the blacks, they can see their neighbours torn away from their ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... great itching for fighting. A curse on love and those darned girls, who will be tasting it, and then look as if butter would not melt in ...
— The Love-Tiff • Moliere
... an oath broke from his lips. He made a movement to spring from the well, but as the girl started back, the pistol held in her hand was discharged aimlessly in the air, and the report echoed throughout the courtyard. With a curse Starbuck drew back, instantly disappeared in the well, and Polly fell fainting on the steps. When she came to, her father and Larry were at her side. They had been alarmed at the report, and had rushed quickly to the patio, but ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... call for help brought Scraggs around to a fuller realization of the enormity of the disaster which had overtaken him. In his agony, he forgot to curse his navigating officer for the latter's stubbornness in refusing to turn back when the fog threatened. He clutched Mr. Gibney by the right arm, thereby interrupting for an instant the dismal outburst from the ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... renouncement which had to finish the drama; he could only have avoided that by completely remodelling his characters. So Guntram rejects Freihild's love. He sees he has fallen, even as the others, under the curse of sin. He had preached charity to others when he himself was full of egoism; he had killed Robert rather to satisfy his instinctive and animal jealousy than to deliver the people from a tyrant. So he renounces his desires, and expiates the sin of being alive by retirement from the world. ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... brick and mortar breed filth and crime, With a pulse of evil that throbs and beats; And men are withered before their prime By the curse paved in with ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... pluck threescore years from that fond man, That I may kill him, and not stain mine honour; It is the curse of Souldiers, that in peace They shall be brain'd by such ignoble men, As (if the Land were troubled) would with tears And knees beg succour from 'em: would that blood (That sea of blood) that I have lost in fight, Were running in thy veins, that it might make thee Apt to say less, or able to ...
— The Maids Tragedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... Emperor was not always like this. There was a time when he loved the people. It is that devil, whom God curse, Prince Paul Maraloffski who has brought him to this. To-morrow, I swear it, I shall plead for the people ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde
... out, in the height of their exultations, "This will deserve the thanks of posterity!" And when their adversaries, as it much more frequently falls out, have outnumbered and overthrown them, they will say, with an air of revenge and a kind of gloomy triumph, "Posterity will curse ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... truth, And you shall find Sir, you have kist and tows'd me, Handled my legg and foote, what would you more, Sir,? As for the rest, it requires youth and strength, And the labour in an old man would breed Agues, Sciaticaes, and Cramps; you shall not curse me, For taking from you what you cannot spare, Sir: Be good unto your selfe, y'ave tane alreadie All you can take with ease; you are past threshing, It is a worke too boisterous for you; leave Such drudgerie to Andrew. ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... with a bullet, he told himself again. After all, what would it matter? Who would care? Last night he had thought instantly of Marion and his mother, and he had felt that two women would grieve for him. Tonight he thought of Marion and cast the thought away with a curse and a sneer. As for his mother—would his mother care so very much? Had he given her any reason for caring, beyond the natural maternal instinct which is in all motherhood? He did not know. If he could be sure that his mother would grieve for him—but ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... secured. Without money one can do nothing. Cecil Rhodes had had the natural wealth of Rhodesia at his back. McKeith had set himself the task of opening up the fine country out West, which he knew only needed a system of irrigation by Artesian Bores to defy drought, the squatters curse. That object once accomplished—he gave himself with luck and good seasons five or six years—there would be nothing to stop his becoming a patriot and ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true. On this question, my influence, humble as it is, is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years, not perniciously, but beneficially; not as a curse, but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right. I desire to thank God that He enables me to disregard 'the fear of man which bringeth a snare,' and to speak His truth in its simplicity and power." * ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... scrannel^, weedy, niggardly, scurvy, putid^, beggarly, worthless, twopennyhalfpenny, cheap, trashy, catchpenny, gimcrack, trumpery; one- horse [U.S.]. not worth the pains, not worth while, not worth mentioning, not worth speaking of, not worth a thought, not worth a curse, not worth a straw &c n.; beneath notice, unworthy of notice, beneath regard, unworthy of regard, beneath consideration, unworthy of consideration; de lana caprina [It]; vain &c (useless) 645. Adv. slightly &c adj.; rather, somewhat, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... long ceased to look to the eldest son as the rightful heir. There is, in fact, a curse on the first-born of France. Napoleon's son, the King of Rome, died in exile, an Austrian. The Duc de Bordeaux, born eight years after him, never wore the crown, and died in exile, childless. The Comte de Paris, born also at the Tuileries, was exiled when ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... hurled us back in confusion and disgrace with a hundred empty saddles. At first her tone was one of simple amaze and horror. It softened afterwards into wonder and perplexity, and the oft-repeated rebuke or curse was on its last recurrence spoken with more of pitying tenderness ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... so disgusting that he generally wrapped himself in a great-coat and lay upon four chairs with a leathern portmanteau for a pillow; but we cannot admire a man who is embittered by the fact that he cannot get milk to put in his tea, and is continually thrusting his head out of the window to curse at the post-boys, or pulling out his post-book to read to an inn-yard with savage vociferation the article which orders that the traveller who comes first shall be ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... at the Hummums, now I sit, but after many a curse and vow, Never to see the madding City more; Where barrows truckling o'er the pavement roll: And, what is sorrow to a tuneful soul, Where asses, asses greeting, love songs roar: Which asses, that the Garden square adorn, Must lark-like be the ...
— Inns and Taverns of Old London • Henry C. Shelley
... With a muffled 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 man, and Desmond alone would have been no match for him; but before ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... "You, the patriarch of this sacred city, would tear me from the sanctuary of its holiest altar? Oh! then, indeed shall the curse fall upon it and you. Hence, they say, our sweet Lord was haled to sacrifice by the command of an unjust judge, and thereafter Jerusalem was taken by the sword. Must I too be dragged from the spot that His feet have hallowed, and even in these weeds"—and she pointed to her white robe—"thrown as ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard
... to dig and curse, and affected great delight when he dug up a root and discovered that it was ...
— Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare • E. Nesbit
... He was always both insolent and cowardly, and thus often irritated some strong-minded auditor, and got himself into some pickle where he had to sneak out, which he did with much ease. In his seedy days the landlord of a hotel in whose bar-room he used to preach and curse, put him down when he grew too abusive, by coolly and sternly telling him to go to bed. Mr. Folger himself had one or two brief intervals of sense, in one of which, angered at some insolence of Matthias, he seized him by the throat, shook him well, and flung him down upon a sofa. The humbug ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... incorporated in the religious creeds derived from Judaism, teaching that woman was an afterthought in creation, her sex a misfortune, marriage a condition of subordination, and maternity a curse, are contrary to the law of God as revealed in nature and the precepts of ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... always had been, always would be, a frequent visitor, for she was devoted to the family in her own peculiar way; what therefore could Nancy be proposing to do with the Carey Curse? ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... landed, and visited the Esquimaux in their tents. Many heathen were at this place, to whom he preached the gospel, and invited them to believe in Jesus, as the Saviour of men, who would deliver them from the love, power, and curse of sin, having shed His blood, and died on the cross, to redeem their souls. He was heard with great attention. A venerable old man, with hair as white as wool, particularly attracted our notice. He ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... in the soft and quiet sea, while this devilish pother went on. There is a buoy adrift! No, it is a sodden cask, perhaps of spoiling meat, while the people in the town yonder are starving; and still the huge iron, gluttonous monster bursts its foam of blood and death, while the surly crew curse and think of mothers and babes at home. Better to look at the bay, the idle, pleasing summer water, with chips and corks and weeds upon it; better to look at the bubbling cask yonder—much better, captain, if you only knew it! But the reluctant, heavy iron turret groans and wheezes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... men of the place who attended us that it was singular Tughlak's buildings should be so rude compared with those of Iltutmish, who had reigned more than eighty years before him.[14] 'Not at all singular,' said he, 'was he not under the curse of the holy saint Nizam-ud-din?' 'And what had the Emperor done to merit the holy man's curse?' 'He had taken by force to employ upon his palaces several of the masons whom the holy man was employing upon ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... am thankful that our people make a better use of their money. Here in Belgium, as in most countries of Europe, poverty is the curse of the people. They do not receive the reward of their labor. The government and the church take the lion's share of their earnings, and thus keep them down. This Cathedral was commenced in 1352, and finished in 1411, though another spire was to have been built. Nearly sixty ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... turned abruptly from him, and went on with his story. "Mistress," said he, "though I'm a loser by it, no matter. The Lively Peggy and her cargo are safe and sound in Plymouth, at this very time being, and we have her mate in limbo, curse him. We made a prize of him, coming from America, for he was under French colours, and a fine prize we thought we'd made. But her cargo belongs to a British subject; and there's an end to our prize money: no matter for that. There was ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... they simply pass into a Greater Unknown. Their places are filled with fresh victims—innocents, whom Passion begets with a caress and Cupidity buys with a curse. Children they are—tots—and why should they know that they ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... 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 badger-hole received her ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... he pursued, lightly lowering his voice, "that to have any genuine insight to-day, any special human feeling to-day, means perforce to devote these gifts to the social problem, instead of to art and to beauty. That is the curse of being born into this Age. The gigantic ghastliness of modern Western civilisation successfully engulfs every superior brain that comes to ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... there was one person of her own blood recalled to whom she had been a curse, and of whom, for a single moment, she could not bear to think. She had driven him from her presence—the one who, through all her childhood, had been her companion, her admirer, her loyal follower. He had dared to love and marry one whom she did not approve, and she had angrily banished ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... social distinctions may well be looked on as a curse in Australia, and it's only the Crown's advisers that really know what a trump card they hold in having an abundant supply always on hand ready to be distributed at the slightest notice. Should it enter the minds ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... of sheep in Australia, as great a curse in his own way as the merino—namely, the cross-bred, or half-merino-half-Leicester animal. The cross-bred will get through, under, or over any fence you like to put in front of him. He is never satisfied with his owner's run, but always thinks other ...
— Three Elephant Power • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... the rest so lightly held of within." A footman—an ordinary Jeames, with large calves and aspirated vowels—answers the door-bell, and the opportunity is seized to tell you that he was a "type of the large class of pampered menials, who follow the curse of Cain—'vagabonds' on the face of the earth, and whose estimate of the human class varies in the graduated scale of money and expenditure. . . . These, and such as these, O England, be the false lights of thy morbid civilization!" ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... among their lords. An American traveller has said, "A common bullock-driver on horseback, delivering a message, seemed to speak like an ambassador to an audience. In fact, the Californians appear to be a people on whom a curse had fallen, and stripped them of every thing but their pride, their manners, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... from my position, by which I should lose all hope in my chosen profession. Nor would the cause of education gain anything, but the opposite, for everybody would take the curate's side, they would curse me and call me presumptuous, proud, vain, a bad Christian, uncultured, and if not those things, then anti-Spanish and a filibuster. Of a schoolmaster neither learning nor zeal is expected; resignation, humility, and inaction only are asked. May God pardon me if I have gone against my conscience ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... know, this 'pro... missiousness' didn't please me, and I went and told her: 'Look here, Maria, this isn't right at all, and what you ought to do is get out.' She understood me, and went away, and went to her uncle the monk, and the two of them formed a 'cohabit.'... Curse her! I went after them; and if I ever find them, I'll kill them. All very well for the poor child to make a false step... or two false steps; but this thing of getting into a 'cohabit' with a monk, ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... my dear friend, my complaint is quite of an opposite nature, and I have so many arrangements to make, so many difficulties to combat, so many enemies to deal with, that I am much of a General as will make me a historian of misfortunes, and nail my curse upon the ruins of what good soldiers are pleased to call the army in Virginia. There is an age past since I heard from you. I acknowledge that on my part, I have not written so often as I ought to have done, but you will excuse this silence in favor of my very embarrassing circumstances, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... rejoiced with joy exceeding and emptying her cup, gave Tohfah an hundred thousand ducats. Then up sprang Iblis (whom Allah curse!) and cried, "Verily, the dawn lighteneth;" whereupon the folk arose and disappeared, all of them, and there abode not one of them save the Songstress, who went forth to the garden and entering the Hamman made her Wuzu-ablutions and prayed whatso lacked her of prayers. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the alarm came, and I had not caused it! Polter ripped out a startled, rumbling curse and sat upright. Under the curve of his leg I saw Babs had been momentarily neglected. She ...
— Beyond the Vanishing Point • Raymond King Cummings
... a poem by Tennyson, in four parts. Pt. i. tells us that the lady passed her life in the island of Shalott in great seclusion, and was known only by the peasantry. Pt. ii. tells us that she was weaving a magic web, and that a curse would fall on her if she looked down the river. Pt. iii. describes how Sir Lancelot rode to Camelot in all his bravery; and the lady gazed at him as he rode along. Pt. iv. tells us that the lady floated down the river in a boat called The Lady of Shalott, and died heart-broken on the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... death. The governor granted him a few moments, that he might once more speak to and bless him. "What, I! I bless a traitor!" exclaimed the enraged Russian, and, turning to his son, with a horrid voice and gesture he pronounced a curse upon him. ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... he is, d—n his eyes!" holding out a twelve-pound shot in his ladle; "here's the thundering thief that's spoilt our dinner, Captain Williams, stowed away in the bottom of the copper, as snug as a flea in a soger's blanket. The curse of the twelve geese that eat the grass off o' Solomon's grave upon you!" With these words he threw the shot overboard, and turned to Captain Williams with ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... bird's neck? Not for a million paid out o' hand! Without crushing my fine gentleman down into powder? Not for all the blunt of every one o' the Rothschilds! Curse his woman's face! I've got to keep dark now; but when he's crushed, and smashed, and ruined, and pilloried, and drove out of this fine world, and warned off of all his aristocratic race-courses, then I'll come ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Canterbury hastened unto Sir Mordred, and rebuked him for wishing to marry his uncle's wife. 'Leave such desires,' said the Bishop, 'or else I shall curse you with bell, book, and candle. Also, you noise abroad that my lord Arthur is slain, and that is not so, and therefore you will make ill work in the land.' At this Sir Mordred waxed very wroth, and would have killed the Bishop had he not fled to Glastonbury, where he became ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... on hands and knees, swinging from tree and bush, any way, 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... at all. You were never meant to work. Your curse is the curse of Eve, not Adam. You ought to have a child. You wouldn't be wasting your soul out on a man then. You'd take every farthing that Traill's left you, as it's only right you should. You don't see any ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... all due to that blasted hombre from Texas!" he groaned. "I wish I had him here, curse him! It would've all gone smooth enough if he hadn't meddled. Well, he'll pay! The boys will get him. And when they do——" Hardy thumped the bar with his fist ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... parts. Two thoughts led me to prepare the chapters under the head of PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS. First, The defenders of slavery and the traducers of the Negro built their pro-slavery arguments upon biblical ethnology and the curse of Canaan. I am alive to the fact, that, while I am a believer in the Holy Bible, it is not the best authority on ethnology. As far as it goes, it is agreeable to my head and heart. Whatever science has added I have gladly appropriated. I make no claim, however, ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... Christine; she has always warmly returned the affection of our parents, as a daughter should love the authors of her being, while I fear I have been repining when I should have loved. Our origin is a curse entailed by the ruthless laws of the land, and it is not to be attributed to any, at least to none of these later days, as a fault; and such has ever been the language of my poor sister when she has seen a merit in their wishes to benefit us at the ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... than women. I was bred a warrior; my father never knew fear, and I am his son.' Then we behold them surrounded with flames, their flesh torn from their bones, the skin of their head peeled off, coals heaped thereon, and sharp thorns driven into their flesh. The thought of such scenes makes us curse our own existence, and shudder at the thought of bringing children ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... at the pigeon-hole, trying to persuade the much-enduring clerk to restore a lucky sixpence she had given him by mistake, and was quite unable to describe. Mr. Bultitude would have given much just then to go up and shake her into hysterics, or curse her bitterly for the mischief she had done; but he refrained, either from an innate chivalry, or from a feeling that such an ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... she will soon be a mother." She feels convinced, however, that the king's neglect is due to the action of a saint who had cursed Sakuntala because she had not waited on him promptly. "Like a drunkard, her lover shall forget what has happened," was his curse. Relenting somewhat, he added afterward that the force of the curse could be broken by bringing to the king some ornament that he might have left as a souvenir. Sakuntala has her ring, and relying on that she departs with a retinue for the royal abode. On the way, in crossing ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... with post-horses already harnessed to it. . . . When he left this post they found in his cabinet 900 letters which he had not opened. He was an eccentric lunatic, amusing enough sometimes, but a curse to everything which depended on him." (Memoirs of the Duc de ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... trying to devise some scheme whereby he could find a place where no one could molest him or try to steal his gold. 'They will get it yet,' he kept saying, 'unless I can go where no one can find me.' Then he would curse his kind. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... Rochepommier. Finding, at last, that the peasant-girl had—purposely or not—led him astray, he determined to return to Boiscoran through the woods. But he was in very bad humor at having thus lost an evening which he might have spent with his betrothed; and this made him swear and curse, as ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... a blinding rage. He wanted to take a revolver and blow his brains out, then and there. He—a man supposed to have a mind! He—counted a master of those very things! And now, what? Manhood, power, himself gone. Stumbling through his days! Useless!—a curse to himself and everyone else. Groping about in the dark—a thing to be pitied and treated well for pity's sake! Cared for—looked after—helped! That beat down the bounds of control. He did things then which he never remembered ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... and I was kneeling by his dying bed. "My father, my father, I have murdered you!" After some moments it was impressed upon the old man that his penitent son was by his side. I almost looked for the curse that I deserved; but a peaceful light was on his face as he said,—"I'm sorry I hid the books from you, child. I meant well,—I meant well,—I erred. If I can help you from up there, I will." Life departed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... 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 my dog so." ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... adamantine purity of a woman. In Coriolanus, the mother's counsel, acted upon in time, would have saved her son from all evil; his momentary forgetfulness of it is his ruin; her prayer at last granted, saves him—not, indeed, from death, but from the curse of living as the ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... who call them friends—but Christ will not suffer us to stop there. "Bless them that curse you," He said; "pray for them that despitefully use you." So He spoke, and on the Cross He made the great word luminous for ever by His own prayer for His murderers: "Father, forgive them; for they know not ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... with my king," she whispered, and the look that she gave him made Barney Custer curse the fate that had failed to make him a ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... control, though his brain was hot as if he wore no turban, under the blaze of the sun. "I will leave things as they are while we are in this black Gehenna," he determined. "What is written is written. Yet who has seen the book of the writing? And there is a curse on all this country, till the M'Zab ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... 'You will curse me, but after a time you will forgive. I could not go on. Taranne found me in the forest, just half an hour after you left me. I looked up and saw him coming across the grass. He did not see me at first, he was looking about for ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to which the theologians would fain have pledged the truth of Scripture was an error in the astronomical province. I need scarce refer to the often-adduced case of Galileo. The doctrine which the philosopher had to "abjure, curse, and detest," and which he was never again to teach, "because erroneous, heretical, and contrary to Scripture," was the doctrine of the earth's motion and the sun's stability. But to the part taken by our Protestant divines in the same controversy,—men still regarded as authorities ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... own nobility will stay with you, the way it will not weigh so heavy on you to be in the shape of birds. And go away out of my sight now, children of Lir," she said, "with your white faces, with your stammering Irish. It is a great curse on tender lads, they to be driven out on the rough wind. Nine hundred years to be on the water, it is a long time for any one to be in pain; it is I put this on you through treachery, it is best for you to do as I ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... madness will bring upon her. Let her die;—if it be God's will. I can follow her without one wish for a prolonged life. Then will a noble family be again established, and her sorrowful tale will be told among the Lovels with a tear and without a curse." ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... "On this expedition I went all the way to Jordan and swam across the river. On the edge of the river there is a bush of willows, and there I twisted a knot of willows, and said this knot thou shouldst untie, brother, or take the curse ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... who can say Where lies the boundary? What solid things That daily mock our senses, shall dissolve Before the might within, while shadowy forms Freeze into stark reality, defying The force and will of man. These forms I see, They may go with me through eternity, And bless or curse with ceaseless company, While yonder man, that I met yesternight, Where is he now? He passed before my eyes, He is gone, but these stay ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... consoled mankind," and so "we may hold aloof from the churches and yet bow ourselves before Jesus. We may be suspicious of the clergy and refuse to have anything to do with catechisms, and yet love the Holy and the Just who came to save and not to curse." And in fact Amiel's whole life and thought are steeped in Christianity. He is the spiritual descendant of one of the intensest and most individual forms of Christian belief, and traces of his religious ancestry are visible in him at every step. Protestantism of the sincerer and nobler ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... shelf, fixed in the corner, was our tinware. Although called tinware, it really was zinc, and was susceptible, through much hard work, of a high polish, but this "polishing tinware" was a fearful curse to the poor prisoner. It consisted of a jug for water and a bowl for washing in and a pint dish for gruel. There were strict and imperative orders, rigidly enforced, that this tinware should be kept polished, the result being that the men never washed themselves, and never ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... know Sheppard. It never occurred to me that Sheppard existed. Probably he is a myth of totemistic origin. All I know is that you can get a bit of saddle of mutton at Sheppard's that has made many an American visitor curse the day that Christopher Columbus was ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... happened to think of my last visit with you, and my state of mind returned, my feeling of dependence and the gloomy Thanksgiving dinner. The shock of contrast between my old and my new self stopped me short in the road. In a flash I saw the lying materialism on which the world is based, the curse of dollar worship that keeps opportunity away from the young, at the same time it keeps the old in a prison of loneliness and suspicion. If we worshipped life instead of metal disks, we would see that the young are not really the heirs of the old, but the old are heirs of the ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... going to that blessed retreat familiarly known as 'Murray's den,' where, secure from feminine intrusion, as if in the cool cloisters of Coutloumoussi, I surrender my happy soul to science and cigars, and revel in complete forgetfulness of that awful curse which Jove hurled against all mankind, because ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... principally due to cigarettes!" he broke forth, savagely, emphasizing his words with his fist and speaking more excitedly. "Just look at me and behold a splendid example of the cigarette curse. Why, I was naturally bright; I might have been a man to honor. But a bad habit, uncontrolled, soon ruins one. My nerves are gone. I am only a fit companion for jailbirds and criminals. I cannot even look an honest man in the face, yet I am not naturally bad ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... as a whole. First, that "the seed of the woman" does not refer to the Messiah, but to the human race, which is to bruise the serpent's head. Second, that the serpent engaged in seducing Eve, and here placed under the curse, does not ...
— The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Assumptions of Destructive Criticism • S. E. Wishard
... their brows, their faces set Toward the eternal night of restless shapes, They walk in awful splendour, regal yet, Wearing their crimes like rich and kingly capes.... Curse them or taunt, they will not hear or see; The Kings are passing deathward: ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... scene I had witnessed, and demanded vengeance. He laughed in my face. Senor, I persisted, and he got angry and told me that, were it not for my cloth, he would hang me from the steeple. I called down Heaven's curse upon him, and left him and came home. Do you wonder, senor, that I found it hard to spare those Frenchmen for whom you pleaded? Do you wonder that I, a man of peace, lead out my villagers ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... term of imprisonment. It seemed to us that we had never really lived before. The past was a dream, and an evil dream. We had moved in a world of bad enchantment, like phantoms, barely conscious of ourselves. We had now recovered proprietorship in our own lives. Work, that had been a curse, was a blessing. Life, that had gone on maimed feet, was now virile in every part. This mere fulness of health was in itself ample compensation for the loss of a hundred artificial pleasures which we had once thought necessary ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... men—if we can name them men at all. These we took from a tomb of the star race who held Topaz when our world was only a hunting ground of wild men wearing the skins of beasts and slaying mammoths with stone spears. They are from a tomb and are cursed, a curse we took upon ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... I missed the opportunity of seeing Rachel, just as I missed many other opportunities of more importance. Oh! when I look back now over my life and call to mind what I might have had simply for taking and did not take, my heart is like to break. The curse for me has not been plucking forbidden fruit, but the refusal of divine fruit offered ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... Dumoulin. But, on the other hand, the system of laws which they had to administer stood in striking contrast with the habits of mind which they had cultivated. The France which had been in great part constituted by their efforts was smitten with the curse of an anomalous and dissonant jurisprudence beyond every other country in Europe. One great division ran through the country and separated it into Pays du Droit Ecrit and Pays du Droit Coutumier, the first acknowledging ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... emphatically. "If we were idling around, musing on ourselves from morning till night like some poor creatures do, we'd get prickly mighty soon. People were made to work, and it's flying in the face of Providence to try to get away from it. We all got our share in the curse of Adam, and the sooner we realize ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... derangement and interruption of commerce, it will cost millions more than all the profit that has ever accrued to them from the opium trade. From what motive then, do we uphold a traffic, which is the curse of China, the curse of India, and a calamity to Great Britain? Such a war may be fruitful in trophies of military glory, if such can be gained by the slaughter of the most pacific people in the world; but to expect that it will promote the reputation, ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... Turbulent brothers of the stars, Companions of the tempests of the seas, Those lights are all that may avail Peace to restore; murderous yet innocent; Which, open or concealed, Will bless with calm, or curse with pride. ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... instant he sat with his brain in a whirl. Then a curse upon Providence rose to his lips; he repressed it, and began to load himself with reproaches. A moment before, he had been in the satisfied mood of a man who has his own approbation for work well done. He now looked upon his course during the past winter with both abhorrence and wonder. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... newspapers of the day aroused the people. It convinced them (for, strange as it may seem now, there were many who needed to be convinced) of the unscriptural, immoral and unjust character of a State religion; while it confirmed them in their determination to rest not until they had exterminated the curse from Canadian soil.... This noble effort of an able, learned, bold and patriotic defender of the cause of the people against their corrupt, unscrupulous and then powerful enemies, ought to be printed in letters ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... far from Bernburg. According to an oft-repeated tradition, eighteen peasants, some of whose names are still preserved, are said to have disturbed divine service on Christmas Eve by dancing and brawling in the church-yard, whereupon the priest, Ruprecht, inflicted a curse upon them, that they should dance and scream for a whole year without ceasing. This curse is stated to have been completely fulfilled, so that the unfortunate sufferers at length sank knee deep into the earth, and remained the whole time without nourishment, until ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... and casteth it away. Eve looketh on Adam very strangely and speaketh not anything." During this pause, the "conveyor" is told "to get the fig-leaves ready." Then Lucifer is ordered to "come out of the serpent and creep on his belly to hell;" Adam and Eve receive the curse, and depart out of Paradise, "showing a spindle and distaff"—no badly-conceived emblem of the labour to which they are henceforth doomed. And ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... thought, however, that we do not appreciate the living spark of theistic truth which this movement represents, combined, as it is, with hostility to the caste system, which is India's greatest curse, and its antagonism to many of the superstitions and unworthy ceremonials ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... five children before this darling, and they all lie in their little graves. He believes that they have withered away under a curse, and that it will blight this child ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... chased a roving cat until it got within the neighbouring shelter of its domiciliary railings, whence it me-ai-ouwed to him, through all the vowels of pussy's vocabulary, a Christmas compliment— with, probably, a curse tacked on to the tail of it, or that "phoo! phoo! phiz!" meant nothing. But the feline expletives were all thrown away; for Catch was only "full of fun and with nobody to play with him," like Peter Mooney's goose, and had only chased pussy in the ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... Impeachment. "Suppose," said he, "you succeed. You settle that hereafter a party having a sufficient majority in the House and the Senate can depose the President of the United States. You establish a precedent which all future parties in all time to come will look to. The curse of other countries, the curse of France, the curse of the South-American Republics, has been that they followed such a precedent as you call upon us to establish here to-day—the overthrow of their Executive, not by law, not by the Constitution, but by the irregular and arbitrary ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... have his money—not more than enough to keep me from being a scandal to his family. I will not have it. It is a curse to me, and has been from the first. What right have I to all that money, because—because—because—" She could not finish her sentence, but turned away from them, and walked by ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... draw the curtain close before that Sunday afternoon at Stiffner's, and hold it tight. Behind it the great curse of the West is in evidence, the chief trouble of unionism—drink, in its most ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... slight sneer. He followed this up with a curse on domineerers in general, and on Fletcher ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... Home Rule, that the learning of Ireland is against Home Rule, that all that makes a nation great is against Home Rule, and that the Irishmen most entitled to our respect and honour implore us not to force upon them the curse of Home Rule. This is no trifle. Let us at any rate have done with phrases; let us admit that the satisfaction of Ireland means merely the satisfaction of a class, though it may be the most numerous class of Irishmen, and that it also means the bitter discontent of the one class of Irishmen who are ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... tell your friends where you are and how to help you. Honest! Honest, I will. I know it's as broad as it is long, but I'd rather do it that way. They'll be here in a couple of hours and you'll be free. Nobody will be the wiser. Curse your whining! Shut up! Damn you, get back in there! Don't give me away to Davy, and I'll swear to help you ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... the Culloden papers, mentions a characteristic instance of an old Highland warrior's mode of pardon. "You must forgive even your bitterest enemy, Kenmuir, now," said the confessor to him, as he lay gasping on his death-bed. "Well, if I must, I must," replied the Chieftain, "but my curse be on you, Donald," turning towards his ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... possibility could the men of that age in referring to St. Matt. v. 44 have freely mentioned 'blessing those who curse,—doing good to those who hate,—and praying for those who despitefully use.' Since there are but two alternative readings of the passage,—one longer, one briefer,—every clear acknowledgement of a single disputed clause in the larger reading necessarily carries ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... he continued, addressing the company at the table—"know what calamity had once come upon the household of Mr. Barbary, by the unlawful thirst for gold; that he held its love as the curse of curses; he thought if he could but once throw himself in its midst, where that passion raged the most, he would be doing his Master's service most faithfully, more than in this quiet country-place of peaceful households, but when he learned the peril and the sore distress ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... to the right of the hill, and poured down into the valley beyond. Here the blue flood of men banked against a stone wall, spreading to right and left, as the waters of a stream spread the length of a dam. Then they began to fire dreadfully into the faces of their enemy, and to curse terribly, as is proper in battle. Bullets stung the long line like wasps, and men bit ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... anticipate or avoid, was happily exceptional, like thunderbolts. The other men and even the members of the family presented nothing similar and regarded themselves with pride as very different to this wretched being transformed into a beast. This victim of heavenly curse was pitied, settled comfortably in a nice pavilion at Bloomingdale and never more spoken of. People still preserve on this point ideas similar to those they had formerly about tuberculosis, known only under the form of terrible but exceptional pulmonary consumption. Now it ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... wretched apartment, and, trusting to his disguises, in which indeed he possessed a masterly art, repair to one of the better description of restaurants, and feast away his cares for the moment. William Gawtrey would not have cared three straws for the curse of Damocles. The sword over his head would never have spoiled his appetite! He had lately, too, taken to drinking much more deeply than he had been used to do—the fine intellect of the man was growing thickened and dulled; and ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... 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 ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... was in merry thoughts, and now thou puttest me to more pain. Balin went a little from him, and looked on his horse; then heard Balin him say thus: Ah, fair lady, why have ye broken my promise, for thou promisest me to meet me here by noon, and I may curse thee that ever ye gave me this sword, for with this sword I slay myself, and pulled it out. And therewith Balin stert unto him and took him by the hand. Let go my hand, said the knight, or else I shall slay thee. That shall not need, ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... and a family. The little property he had was scarcely sufficient to pay his debts, and Madame Fouquet, since the captivity of her husband, is abandoned by everybody. The hand of your majesty strikes like the hand of God. When the Lord sends the curse of leprosy or pestilence into a family, every one flies and shuns the abode of the leprous or the plague-stricken. Sometimes, but very rarely, a generous physician alone ventures to approach the accursed threshold, passes it with courage, and exposes his life to combat ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... her dry lips and, gurgling fearfully, fainted. When at length she became conscious again. Hunch, glowering fiercely, was returning from a futile chase. With a resentful flash of brutality he towered suddenly above her and began to curse. Aunt Agatha, ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... assistance of our servants, and arm all those amongst them who could be trusted; and on the Bishop being informed, that we were ready, he would come out in full canonicals, carrying the holy cross, and excommunicate Theodore and every one who adhered to him, placing under an irrevocable curse all who attempted to arrest him or us. Our party, including Portuguese, natives of Massowah, and messengers, would have amounted to at least twenty-five; the Bishop could bring fifty men, and surround himself with about 200 priests and defteras, ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... storekeepers, coopers, stevedores, and others, 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, ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... heavy and dank, and it began to be hard for Nick to breathe. The men in the dungeons were singing a horrible song, and in the corner was a half-naked fellow shackled to the floor. "Give me a penny," he said, "or I will curse thee." Nick shuddered. ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... intellect and soul and heart that were here devouring with swift flames a body without stamina; for Jacques had the milk-white skin and high color which characterize young English women doomed sooner or later to the consumptive curse,—an appearance of health that deceives the eye. Following a sign by which Henriette, after showing me Madeleine, made me look at Jacques drawing geometrical figures and algebraic calculations on a ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... to bind men together when you have broken their hearts? O fool, who would conquer all Eri! I see the Red Branch scattered and Eri rent asunder, and thy memory a curse after many thousand years. The gods have overthrown thy dominion, proud king, with the last sigh from this dead child; and out of the pity for her they will build up an eternal kingdom in the spirit of man. [An uproar without and ...
— Imaginations and Reveries • (A.E.) George William Russell
... barbarian, and the time has come again, as it has come so many times before in history, for the momentous decision with the barbarian. Again as before it must come on the fields of France where the ancient curse of barbarism has been ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... my fault shall bee imprinted at the day of resurrection. O beauty, the bait ordained to insnare the irreligious: rich men are robd for theyr welth, women are dishonested for being too faire. No blessing is beautie but a curse: curst bee the time that euer I was begotten: curst be the time that my mother brought me forth to tempt. The serpent in paradice did no more, the serpent in paradice is damned sempiternally: why should not I hold my selfe damned ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... hear this, Julia! '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.' Wouldn't you like to see ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... lion and the bear, therefore this Philistine uncircumcised shall be as one of them. I shall now go and deliver Israel from this opprobrium and shame. How is this Philistine uncircumcised so hardy as to curse the host of the living God? And yet said David: The Lord that kept me from the might of the lion and from the strength of the bear, he will deliver me from the power of the Philistine. Saul said then to David: Go, and our ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... to the piper danced, Of tatterdemalions all, Till the corpulent butler drove them off Beyond the manor wall. The raggedy piper shook his fist: 'A minstrel's curse on thee, Thou lubberly, duck-legg'd son of a gun, ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... slavery.' All of us, who are in the habit of talking with the people on this subject, know that almost in these very words we are met at every street corner. We must answer it, or in some form slavery will still continue to be the curse of our country, and to hurry it on to an untimely ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... accusing me harshly of evil doings, of which I knew no more than you, sir, he was about to strike me, and I, all in bewildering tears, was ready to take his stripes as great kindness compared to his harder words, when suddenly he stopped his arm mid-way, gasped and staggered, crying out, 'The curse—the curse!' I looked up in terror. In the great mirror opposite I saw myself, and, right behind, another wicked, fearful self, so like me that my soul seemed to quiver within me, as though not knowing to which similitude of ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... brought up strictly and straitly. I was so brought up. Mine was no light youth of sinful gaiety and pleasure. Mine were days of wholesome repression, punishment, and fear. The corruption of our hearts, the evil of our ways, the curse that is upon us, the terrors that surround us—these were the themes of my childhood. They formed my character, and filled me with an abhorrence of evil-doers. When old Mr Gilbert Clennam proposed his orphan nephew to my father for my husband, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... very decent to me that day," Dysart said. "You had something to say to me—but were good enough not to. I came over to-night to give you a chance to curse me out. It's the ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... Valliere, with an energy of which one would hardly have thought her capable, "instead of the blessing which I should have implored for you until my dying day, I will invoke a curse, for you are rendering me the most ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... world, on any principle of conqueringly Divine benevolence. That piece of bold impiety, if it be so, I have always asserted in my well-considered books,—I considering it, on the contrary, the only really pious thing to say, namely, that the world is under a curse, which we may, if we will, gradually remove, by doing as we are bid, and believing what we are told; and when we are told, for instance, in the best book we have about our own old history, that "unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... charm for thousands whom a long concert or the inevitable five acts at the Français could not tempt. It would be difficult to overrate the influence such an atmosphere, breathed in youth, must have on the taste and character. The absence of a sordid spirit, the curse of our material day and generation, the contact with intellects trained to incase their thoughts in serried verse or crisp and lucid prose, cannot but form the hearer’s mind into a higher and better mould. It is both a satisfaction ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... the curse of too much ability. He has both genius and talent, but the talent, instead of acting as a counterpoise to the genius, blows it yet more windily about the air. He has almost all the qualities of a great writer, but some perverse spirit in his blood has mixed them to their ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... already; lonely, isolated enough; with no lot nor share in the honest community life; no hand to shake, no neighbor's meal to share; and this unexpected public arraignment smote him between the eyes. With resentment newly kindled, pride wounded, vanity bleeding, he flung a curse at the joyous throng and drove toward home, the home where he would find his ragged children and meet the timid eyes of a woman who had been the loyal partner ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the husband's bed, Or pains his head: Those that live single, take it for a curse, Or do things worse: Some would have children: those that have them, moan Or wish them gone: What is it, then, to have or have no wife, But single thraldom, or a ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... left the sacred volume, and seemed to gaze upon some coming struggle in which the sins of the people would meet a bloody retribution. Then, referring to the page, he pronounced with bitterness of holy indignation the prophetic curse which was that day fulfilled in our cherished ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... perhaps, by an ichthyosaurus. Prayers and curses seemingly had produced the desired effect; indeed, the pilot's anathematizing was prayer; but such prayer is not by any means to be recommended. It would be as well to curse as only to pray when fear is excited. Prayer, doubtless, often is, but never ought to be, the effect of fear. Prayer should be the holy offering up of reasonable desires to the Creator, and in times of danger there should be confidence in the Creator as all ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... nephew," said the Captain, rising, and folding his arms resolutely on his breast,—"look you, I desired that that name might never be breathed. I have not cursed my son yet; could he come to life—the curse might fall! You do not know what torture your words have given me just when I had opened my heart to another son, and found that son in you. With respect to the lost, I have now but one prayer, and you ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... saw such a frightfully desolate spot,' I said, 'to have yet the appearance of a place of Christian worship. It looks as if there were a curse upon it. Are all those the graves of suicides and murderers? It ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... Keshava, then proceeded to see Gandhari. The faultless Gandhari, afflicted with grief on account of the death of her hundred sons, recollecting that king Yudhishthira the just had slain all his enemies, wished to curse him. Understanding her evil intentions towards the Pandavas, the son of Satyavati addressed himself for counteracting them at the very outset. Having cleansed himself by the sacred and fresh water of the Ganga, the great rishi, capable of proceeding everywhere at will with the fleetness of the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... called by the villagers, was a flat-chested, colourless individual with one of those thin noses which seem to have grown permanently elongated at the point in the process of prying into other people's business. Her hair, once flaxen, was now turning the ugly yellowish grey which is the fair woman's curse, and her eyes were like pale ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... the brute slunk off to the other side of the room." "I asked Quin about it later, and he said: "Oh well, you've got to talk to them in their own language, or they don't listen. That's the best of not being a clergyman. Of course one couldn't very well curse and swear then. But it's the way to manage them. That chap will come to heel in an evening or two, ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... is Fortune's ball wherewith she sports. Sometimes I strike it up into the air, And then create I emperors and kings; Sometimes I spurn it, at which spurn crawls out The wild beast multitude: curse on, you fools, 'Tis I that tumble princes from their thrones, And gild false brows with glittering diadems; 'T is I that tread on necks of conquerors, And when like semi-gods they have been drawn In ivory chariots to the Capitol, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... old age. O dear my son, stand not up against a man in office and puissance nor against a river in its violence, and haste not in matters of marriage; for, an this bring weal, folk will not appraise thee and if ill they will abuse thee and curse thee. O dear my son, company with one who hath his hand fulfilled and well-furnisht and associate not with any whose hand is fist-like and famisht. O dear my son, there be four things without stability: a king and no army,[FN28] ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... see the cause. I found an officer with drawn sword threatening to run the color-sergeant through if he was not allowed to pass. He was a colonel and evidently a German. My orders to him to desist were answered with a curse, and I had to thrust my pistol into his face, with an energetic threat to blow his head off if he made one more move, before he seemed to come to his senses. I then appealed to him to see what an example he as an officer was setting, and demanded that he should get to ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock
... the rightness of God's claims upon the hearts and lives of men; you believe in the humiliation and passion of Christ to redeem men; you believe in the necessity for and possibility of rescuing human souls from the curse of evil and the eternal penalty of sin; but, believe me, your faith is vain if you do not stand for, and labour and fight to enforce, God's claims to proclaim Christ's redeeming grace, and to deliver men from going down to ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... Don't I owe you my life? How many more of my countrymen passed me by as I lay on that hospital-bed, and left me to rot there, for all they cared? I heard their loud voices and their creaking boots as I lay there, too weak to lift my eyelids and look at them; but not too weak to curse them." ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... watches for the soldier sire whose lips have felt the touch of God's own hand; no longer the Southern woman wanders with bursting heart amid the wreck and wraith of the fierce simoon, brushing the battle grime from cold brows, seeking among the mangled dead for all that life held dear. The curse has passed: ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... half inclined to reply in the same manner, but he remembered that the horse, whom he felt ready to curse, bore on his back a man with a hundred and fifty pistoles in his pocket, so he resigned himself, and beat his ass to make ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... he struck home! He could not even curse, but he struck home, and a fierce joyous smile illuminated his wan face, as he saw his slayer stumble forward, and fall beside him ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... bad and of so vicious a nature, that they often strike their mothers and others. The most vicious, when they have acquired the strength and power, strike their fathers. They do this whenever the father or mother does anything that does not please them. This is a sort of curse ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... the chief of staff," he said, as he slipped them into his pocket. Rokoff groaned. He did not dare curse aloud. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... is true, but not all the truth. Workhouses and lunatic asylums are thronged with men who believe in themselves. Of Francis it is far truer to say that the secret of his success was his profound belief in other people, and it is the lack of this that has commonly been the curse of these obscure Napoleons. Francis always assumed that everyone must be just as anxious about their common relative, the water-rat, as he was. He planned a visit to the Emperor to draw his attention to the needs ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... may have spent my whole natural life in denouncing him as demoralization incarnate, and a curse to the community, but I always liked him, Ellen. Yes, I loved J. Milton, and I was merely waiting for him to prove himself a first-class scoundrel, to find out just how much I loved him. I've no doubt but if we could have him among us again, in the attractive ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... exclaimed Jawleyford, nearly choking himself with a fish bone, as he opened and read the foregoing at breakfast. 'Curse the fellow!' he repeated, stamping the letter under foot, as though he would crush it to atoms. 'Who ever saw such a piece of ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... as it is painful, to trace the steps of her final ruin. That ancient curse was upon her, the curse of the cities of the plain, "Pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness." By the inner burning of her own passions, as fatal as the fiery reign of Gomorrah, she was consumed from her place among the nations; and ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... into thy great ocean. Lord, he is far from every friend and from every means of grace, and for any thing I know, far from thee by wicked works; under thy curse and hateful in thy sight; but thou, God, seest him. Means are not necessary, if thou willest to work without. Thou canst find an avenue to his heart at once. Dead as he is, vile as he is, guilty as he is, far from help of ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... and his tongue charged with unutterable execrations, gazed gloomily down into the darkening valley, that half an hour before had been filled with a radiance "that never shone on land or sea." And as he gazed all the bad in him persistently rose up to curse the despicable author of his woe, while all the good in him—about an even balance—rose up to bless the fast-disappearing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... it. It pointed out to her how near she had drawn to him, and once accepted, it paved the way for greater intimacy. Pity, too, was aroused, and innocent, idealistic thoughts of reform. She would save this raw young man who had come so far. She would save him from the curse of his early environment, and she would save him from himself in spite of himself. And all this affected her as a very noble state of consciousness; nor did she dream that behind it and underlying it were the jealousy and ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... Italian music, which says naught to me. I have a letter from one David Patterson, who was Dr. Knox's jackal for buying murdered bodies, suggesting that I should write on the subject of Burke and Hare, and offering me his invaluable collection of anecdotes! "Curse him imperance and him dam insurance,"[290] as Mungo says in the farce. Did ever one hear the like? The scoundrel has been the companion and patron of such atrocious murderers and kidnappers, and he has the impudence to write to ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... affection, my religion.... If I lied to you it was because I knew that the day on which you would find out my fault I should see you before me, despairing and implacable as you now are, as I can not bear to have you be. Ah, judge me, condemn me, curse me; but know, but feel, that in spite of all I have loved you, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... right, curse you!" said the American, in an angry snarl. "Drop it, boys; they're too many for us this time. We're done, and it's of ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn
... Oh! my curse on one black heart in Aghadoe, Aghadoe; On Shaun Dhuv, my mother's son, in Aghadoe! When your throat fries in hell's drouth, salt the flame be in your mouth, For the treachery you did ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... guests suggested the smallest doubt. They had now arrived at dessert and the waiters were clearing the table with much clattering of dishes. Madame Lorilleux, who up to then had been very genteel, very much the lady, suddenly let fly with a curse. One of the waiters had spilled something wet down her neck while removing a dish. This time her silk dress would be stained for sure. Monsieur Madinier had to examine her back, but he swore there was nothing to ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... two thieves being conveyed to the place of execution, and tortured, in a cart. Instead of lamenting their sins, they behaved like demons. Though no one else beheld anything unearthly near the culprits, St. Catherine saw a multitude of devils provoking them to blaspheme and curse. Having compassion on the unhappy men, she went into the cart beside them, drove the evil spirits away, and brought the condemned men to repentance before ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... the fit takes her. She went away when I stood in the sorest need of a little talk with her—she went away, and left me to my loneliness and my suspense. I am a poor deformed wretch, with a warm heart, and, perhaps, an insatiable curiosity as well. Insatiable curiosity (have you ever felt it?) is a curse. I bore it until my brains began to boil in my head; and then I sent for my gardener, and made him drive me here. I like being here. The air of your library soothes me; the sight of Mrs. Valeria is balm to my ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... all-excluding mountainous duty; an obligation, a sadness, as of piled mountains, fell on them, and life became ghastly, joyless, a pilgrim's progress, a probation, beleaguered round with doleful histories of Adam's fall and curse, behind us; with doomsdays and purgatorial and penal fires before us; and the heart of the seer and the heart of the listener sank in them. It must be conceded that these are half-views of half-men. The world still wants ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the stony space. It was as though a curse had fallen upon it. She tried to lift her voice, to call to Noel, to make some sound in the stillness. ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... who surrounded him and against his sons. It would be impossible for me to read this passage without weeping over the disasters of the unfortunate old king.' And then he took the book, and tried to read aloud the passage, 'Go, wretches, curse of my life,' but he ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... entangled; from many necessities of the body, lest I be taken captive by pleasure; from all obstacles of the spirit, lest I be broken and cast down with cares. I say not from those things which the vanity of the world goeth about after with all eagerness, but from those miseries, which by the universal curse of mortality weigh down and hold back the soul of thy servant in punishment, that it cannot enter into liberty of spirit, so often ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... ten-pin alley, are distinctly heard. Before night, victims watched for will be secured; men heated with liquor, or drugged, will be robbed, and many curious and bold explorers in this locality will curse the hour in which they resolved to spend a Sunday ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... rose up suddenly from her stool and stood gazing at her husband with burning cheeks and clenched hands. She took no heed of me, much less of the laughing crowd round her, but looked only at him with her soul in her eyes. He, after uttering one hoarse curse, seemed to have no thought for any but me. To have the knowledge that his own wife had baulked him brought home to him in this mocking fashion, to find how little a thing had tripped him that day, to learn how blindly he had played into the hands ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... she took her Way When lo, the Devil came and said Where are you going to, my pretty Maid To School I am going Sir, said she Pish, Child, don't mind the same saith he, But haste to your Companions dear And learn to lie and curse and swear. They bravely spend their Time in Play God they don't value—no, not they. It is a Fable, Child, he cry'd At which his cloven Foot she spy'd. I'm sure there is a God, saith she Who from your Power will keep me free, And if you should this Thing deny Your ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... "Friend!" he repeated. "Oh, curse and confound it, Perry, if I wasn't such a miserable, hopeless dog, I should be proud of such friendship—I am proud of it and always shall be—but here our companionship ends. There's but one course for me, and I intend to ride to ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their sterile curse. ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... parts of Canada. It would be too much to say that the habitant has a wide outlook on public questions; but the village notary and the village doctor are likely to have political ambitions and rivalry becomes acute; often indeed the curse of the village is the professional politician. At times in Quebec politics have been closely associated with religion and always the bishops are persons to be reckoned with. Their attitude has ever been that, if the policy of one or the ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... that any woman would ever have preached the damnation of babies new-born; and "hell, paved with the skulls of infants not a span long," would be a region yet to be discovered in theology. A celibate monk—with God's curse writ on his face, which knew no child, no wife, no sister, and blushed that he had a mother—might well dream of such a thing. He had been through the preliminary studies. Consider the ghastly attributes which are commonly put upon God in the popular ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... commend the favour of a little more time in the world! But then if we knew what an eternal misery we are involved into, and stand under a sentence binding us over to such an inconceivable and insupportable punishment as is the curse and wrath of God; O how precious an esteem would souls have of the scriptures, how would they be sweet unto their soul, because they show unto us a way of escaping that pit of misery, and a way of attaining eternal blessedness as satisfying and glorious ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... with the curse of ignorance weighing on his mind, it is to be presumed that he fancied his own great task of destroying the whites was so much the lighter, in consequence of the feeble defence of the Yankees at Detroit. The runner was now ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... longer, I think, be mocked for our amusement; and perhaps its love may not always be despised by our pride. Believe me, all the arts, and all the treasures of men, are fulfilled and preserved to them only, so far as they have chosen first, with their hearts, not the curse of God, but His blessing. Our Earth is now incumbered with ruin, our Heaven is clouded by Death. May we not wisely judge ourselves in some things now, instead of amusing ourselves with the ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... of this deity Nursed at the teat of thine imagination, Was bred, brought up by thine own vanity, Whose being thou mayst curse from the creation; And so thou list, thou may as soon forget love, As thou at first didst fashion ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... father, shall I look above, Amid the gathering gloom, To him whose promises of love Extend beyond the tomb Or curse the being who hath blessed This chequered path of mine, And promises eternal rest, And die, my sire, ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... as practised in New England. Dionysius Carthusianus, speaking of the nomad tribes of the Biarmii and Amaxobii, who, according to him, were most skilful fascinators, says that they so affected persons with their curse that they lost their freedom of will and became insane and idiotic, and often wasted away in extreme leanness and corruption, and so perished: "ut liberi non sint nec mentis compotes, soepe ad extremam maciem deveniant, et tabescendo dispereant." Olaus Magnus ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... mission (viii. 33); it was Peter's fanciful plan to erect three tabernacles on the scene of the Transfiguration (ix. 5), it was Peter who informed the Lord that the fig tree had withered after His curse (xi. 21), it was Peter whom Christ awoke in Gethsemane by uttering his name "Simon" (xiv. 37); and Peter's denial appears doubly guilty in this Gospel, inasmuch as he did not repent until the cock crew twice ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... is spared till this business is settled, I shall spend the rest of my days in Havana. Even with the memory of my crimes in my heart, I believe I can be happy with such a treasure in my bosom as Marion. My father's pride has been my curse—my sins ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... it would be folly to demand hospitality or to attempt to enforce it. It is like the drunken cobbler who said to his wife, "You don't love me, curse you, but by God you shall if I have to kill you first." Even if a paternal government made a law that hospitality was obligatory and that whoever asked a night's lodging must be given it, then at one blow the whole idea of hospitality would be annihilated. Hospitality must be something ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... is termed in the colonies, is the curse of the Northern goldfields. If you buy a horse you must shout, the vendor must shout, and the bystanders who have been shouted to [more usual, for] must shout ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... Curse on their Punic faith! did they once dare To grapple with the Greek? Ere yet the main Was ting'd with blood, they turn'd their ships averse. May storms and tempests follow in their rear, And dash their fleet upon ...
— The Grecian Daughter • Arthur Murphy
... The McMurrough answered violently. It went sadly against the grain with him to shield his enemy, but so it must be. "Curse you, let him in!" he continued fiercely; they were making his task more hard for him. "And have a care of him," he added anxiously. "Do you hear? Have ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... the voice. "Jennet is mine already. If not brought hither by thee, or by her mother, she would have come of her own accord. I have watched her, and marked her for my own. Besides, she is fated. The curse of Paslew ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... undressed with a clumsy hand upon the buttons and many a curse at the obstinate things. The intense silence of the morning hour depressed him and he wondered that the hotel should sleep so soundly. His own door was both locked and bolted—he had a pistol in his travelling-bag and would finger it with grim ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... Illustrations. The notions of blessing and curse are subsequent explanations by men of great cases of prosperity or calamity which came to their knowledge. Then the myth-building imagination invented stories of great virtue or guilt to account for the prosperity or calamity.[7] The Greek notion ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... the Po in sight, Spurinna decided to entrench 19 his camp.[255] The unaccustomed hard work soon blunted the enthusiasm of his town-bred troops. The older men began to curse their credulity, and to point out the fearful danger to their small force of being surrounded by Caecina's army in the open country. Soon a more sober spirit pervaded the camp. The tribunes and centurions mingled ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... populace hailed and blessed him as he passed, but his heart turned from them with loathing. As he crossed the bridge of the Tagus, he looked back with a dark brow upon Toledo, and raised his mailed hand and shook it at the royal palace of King Roderick, which crested the rocky height. 'A father's curse,' said he, 'be upon thee and thine! May desolation fall upon thy dwelling, and confusion and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... that coxcomb Lafleur riding back with a message from the duke's guests that they would not come to-day! So the duchess is gone, and the ladies are not come; and the duke—he has nothing to do but curse that whippersnapper of a Pierre who ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... coast town in Maine, practically out of the reach of tourists and not at all accessible to motorists. He had taken board and lodging with a needy villager who was still honest, and there he sat and brooded over the curse that his own intelligence had laid upon him. He had been there for a month or more before he lifted his head, figuratively speaking, to look at the world again,—and he found it still bright and sparkling despite his desire to have it otherwise in order that he might be recompensed for his ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... and Delaware the Quakers were rapidly emancipating their slaves, and the strong reaction that had set in among the thoughtful men of the South began to threaten the institution. Men felt that it was a curse to the slave, and poisoned the best white society of the slave-holding States. As early as 1781, Mr. Jefferson, with his keen, philosophical insight, beheld with alarm the demoralizing tendency of slavery. "The whole commerce," says Mr. Jefferson, "between master ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... you meditated an attempt upon your illustrious person. Are you thinking of suicide? Let us see whether you have some concealed weapon, some poisoned ring. Curse upon it! the poison of the Borgias! Is the white substance in this china bowl, vulgarly called sugar, by some terrible chance infamous arsenic disguised under the appearance of an honest ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... him, his own soul the arena. In the meantime let him find his bicycle and get away from this dear and accursed spot; for dear it had been to him, all that too memorable summer; but now of a surety the curse of Cain brooded over its cold, white walls and deep-set windows like sunken eyes in ...
— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung
... no dread, And feel the curse to have no natural fear, Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes, Or lurking love of something ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... looking them over I heard a crash and the sound of tumbling stones, and looking out I saw that the ladder had fallen, and commenced to curse Antonio for his carelessness; but imagine my horror when I saw him throw down the bottom ladder and then run as fast as he could towards the camp. My first and only thought was to pay Antonio for his treachery. It was evidently his intention to leave me safely housed in a place from ...
— Montezuma's Castle and Other Weird Tales • Charles B. Cory
... the prisoner's mission to X—, he had secretly followed her, and supplemented her afternoon visit, by the fatal interview of the night? Doubtless he had intended escorting her home, but when the frightful tragedy was completed, the curse of Cain drove him, in terror, to instant flight; and he sought safety in western wilds, leaving his innocent and hapless betrothed to bear the penalty of his crime. The handkerchief used to administer chloroform, bore ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... at his feet, he raises her) Surely my ears deceived me—you cannot, cannot mean it! a false marriage! a pretended priest! What is to become of me! In mercy kill me! Let me not live to see my broken-hearted father expire with grief and shame, or live to curse me! Spare me but this, my lord, and I will love, forgive, will ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... door was closed, Scully and the cowboy leaped to their feet and began to curse. They trampled to and fro, waving their arms and smashing into the air with their fists. "Oh, but that was a hard minute!" wailed Scully. "That was a hard minute! Him there leerin' and scoffin'! One bang at his nose ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... is the curse of the French patentee. A man may spend ten years of his life in working out some obscure industrial problem; and when he has invented some piece of machinery, or made a discovery of some kind, he takes ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... dismount. You'll give over your horse to Chilina, who'll go off and warn the signorina. You can say anything to the child, Ors' Anton'. She would let herself be cut in pieces rather than betray her friends," and then, fondly, he turned to the little girl, "That's it, you little hussy; a ban on you, a curse on you—you jade!" For Brandolaccio, who was superstitious, like most bandits, feared he might cast a spell on a child if he blessed it or praised it, seeing it is a well-known fact that the mysterious powers that rule ...
— Columba • Prosper Merimee
... being intimate with the wife of Isagoras. First then Cleomenes sent a herald to Athens demanding the expulsion of Cleisthenes and with him many others of the Athenians, calling them the men who were under the curse: 62 this message he sent by instruction of Isagoras, for the Alcmaionidai and their party were accused of the murder to which reference was thus made, while he and his friends had no part ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... 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 ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey
... often wondered at the extreme fecundity of the press, and how it comes to pass that so many heads, on which Nature seems to have inflicted the curse of barrenness, should teem with voluminous productions. As a man travels on, however, in the journey of life, his objects of wonder daily diminish, and he is continually finding out some very simple cause for some ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... lamentations consoled her with many soothing words. Krishna said, 'O amiable one, be comforted. Do not yield to grief, O thou of beautiful features! Without doubt, thy son has gone to the highest region of felicity! He was one of the Vasus of great energy. Through a curse, O thou of beautiful features, he had to take birth among men. It behoveth thee not to grieve for him. Agreeably to Kshatriya duties, he was slain by Dhananjaya on the field of battle while engaged in battle. He has not been slain, O goddess, by Sikhandin. The ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the monks themselves, to prevent the villagers prying too closely into their occupations; and no doubt the scattered individuals of the same body originated the popular theory that the Abbey lands of which they were dispossessed would never, owing to a curse, pass by inheritance in the direct line from father to eldest son—an event that in the course of nature often fails, though by ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... could not pray with a curse on her lips—and, besides, the power to pray had been taken from her for many a weary day before that. She thought of the policeman, and called ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... instruction, and my heart despised reproof, and have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me' (Prov 5:11-13). They shall 'curse their king and their God, and look upward. And they shall look unto the earth, and behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish, and they shall be driven to darkness' (Isa 8:21,22). 'He hath ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... entrusted with the actual work of embalming, could venture to mix with the other citizens, although in Thebes itself people always avoided them with a certain horror; only the paraschites, whose duty it was to open the body, bore the whole curse of uncleanness. Certainly the place where these people fulfilled their office was ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... opened the door, and quickly went into the inner room. Perezvon flew after him. The doctor stood still for five seconds in amazement, looking at Alyosha; then, with a curse, he went out quickly to the carriage, repeating aloud, "This is ... this is ... I don't know what it is!" The captain darted forward to help him into the carriage. Alyosha followed Kolya into the room. He was already by Ilusha's bedside. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... him, and was constantly inveighing against him before the ship's company. To the bear he was more openly inveterate, and seldom passed it without bestowing upon it a severe kick, accompanied with a horrid curse. Although no one on board appeared to be fond of this man, everybody appeared to be afraid of him, and he had obtained a control over the seamen ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... are simply symbols of my freedom. Most bad language is from a like cause. When you foozle on the first tee there is no earthy reason why you should say 'Hell' rather than 'Onions'! But if onions had been taboo when you were a child you would find yourself using the word as a swear. The curse word is the link that joins your foozle with the nursery; whenever you curse you regress, that is, you go back to ...
— A Dominie in Doubt • A. S. Neill
... goodly pride of all our English youth; He was the very joy of all that saw him. Form'd to delight, to love, and to persuade. But what had I to do with kings and courts? My humble lot had cast me far beneath him; And that he was the first of all mankind, The bravest, and most lovely, was my curse. ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... consent to live forever as a filthy curse on the lips of every Kerothi old enough to speak? Would you consent to be a vile, inhuman monster whose undead spirit would hang over your homeland like an evil miasma for centuries to come, ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... very well for the people so to believe, he said, who must be kept in order; but scepticism increased in the higher classes until the prevailing atheism culminated in the poetry of Lucretius, who had the boldness to declare that faith in the gods had been the curse of the human race. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... known? What does the Old Testament say? That life will conquer death, because God, the Lord Jehovah, even Jesus Christ, is Lord of heaven and earth. From the time that it was written in the Book of Genesis, that the Lord Jehovah said in his heart, 'I will not again curse the ground for man's sake: neither will I again smite any more anything living, as I have done, while the earth remaineth—seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... see, that the cause of the Ethiopians blacknesse is the curse and naturall infection of blood, and not the distemperature of the Climate; Which also may bee prooued by this example, that these blacke men are found in all parts of Africa, as well without the Tropickes, as within, euen vnto Capo de buona Speranza ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... hands. The fallen leaf has left a bud behind, And flowers will bloom of brightest hue and kind; For when we look beneath the outward crust With vision clear, and free from worldly lust, We will behold a brighter world than this, With less of curse and much of noble bliss; For God's kind hand in all our conflicts here Is clearly seen and doubts must disappear; The end He has in view is most benign; The fire will ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... He continued: "Your curse thus far has been want of steady application, and moreover you're too easily scared. No matter what happens this ...
— In the Quarter • Robert W. Chambers
... during courtship both wear masks, each trying to impress the other that he or she is a paragon of all virtues. The net result is, that the truth often becomes a horrible revelation immediately after the wedding ceremony. Unhappy and mismated marriages, without means of rectification, are the curse of civilization, the ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... house under a curse? The yellow-haired woman in the open carriage drove up to the door at half-past ten this morning, in a state of distraction. Felicia and I saw her from the drawing-room balcony—a tall woman in gorgeous garments. She knocked with her own hand at the door—she cried out distractedly, ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... slight, and thirteen in which it is marked. Of the distinctly free quotations in the Pentateuch (eleven in all), three may be thought to have a Messianic character (the burning bush, the brazen serpent, the curse of the cross), but in none of these does the variation appear to be due to this. Of the three free quotations from the Psalms two are Messianic, and one of these has probably been influenced by the Messianic application. In the free quotations from Isaiah it is not ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... To dandle fools: The rural part is turned into a den Of savage men: And where's a city from vice so free, But may be termed the word of all the three? Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed, Or pains his head. Those that live single take it for a curse, Or do things worse, These would have children, those that have them none, Or wish them gone: What is it then to have, or have no wife, But single thraldom, or a double strife? Our own affections still at home, to please, Is a disease. To cross the seas, to any ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... that they are right who swear there is a curse upon all property taken from the Church, and that the ban fell black and bitter upon Chilton Abbey," answered his lordship's grave deep voice from the end of the table, where he sat somewhat apart from the rest, gloomy and silent, save ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... a faint scream, half indignation, half terror. For the moment she felt as if some prophetic curse had been hurled upon her. The tall straight figure in the white gown, standing in the full flood of moonlight, looked awful as Cassandra, prophesying death and doom in ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... With a blasphemous curse Selwyn staggered across the road, and roughly elbowing his way through the crowd, found a solitary policeman, hindered by willing undirected hands, digging in the wreckage as best he could, while a couple of women sobbed hysterically and ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... and a sort of sigh broke from some of the others, as if words were incapable of expressing their feelings—as, indeed, they were! The skipper was standing by the companion-hatch at the moment with a handspike in his grasp. A deep-toned curse issued from his lips when the fish went down, and he dashed the handspike to the deck ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... there is none can undo it, nor save our souls from the curse; But many a million cometh, and shall ...
— Chants for Socialists • William Morris
... have found 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! ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... mostly in your favor for twenty-five years—but 'tis agin ye now. The quiet old gentleman with the bony grin holds the winning fist. Lay down your cards and quit the board this day, like a man. Why drag on like this for a year or two more, a burden to yourself and a curse to her." ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... and III, attempted with the support of the people to defy the power of the bishop, and in disregard of the act of their predecessor, to keep up the marche at Gruyere. But the power which could excommunicate an emperor did not hesitate to launch the same formidable curse upon the princes of Gruyere and they were forced to yield. The foundation of the church of St. Theodule at Gruyere and of the rich and venerated convent of the Part Dieu by his daughter-in-law, Guillemette de Grandson (widow of his eldest son Pierre) attested ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... his feet 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 rapidly disappearing ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith
... Oh dear! Oh dear! There! Listen to that precious daughter of yours, filling the house with her yells. (She presses her hands over her ears.) Oh, that child will be the death of me! (Throws herself down upon the couch.) She ought never to have been born. Her existence is a mistake and a curse. ...
— The Black Cat - A Play in Three Acts • John Todhunter
... cup of coffee," he said. "These reports are getting me down." The banality amused him—sitting here thinking of Copper and talking about coffee. Banality was at once the curse and the saving grace of mankind. It kept men from the emotional peaks and valleys that could destroy them. He chuckled shakily. The only alternative would be to get rid of her—and he couldn't (or wouldn't?—the question ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... or luxuries to a newcomer, and when he is once entrapped, they sell him the necessaries of life at famine prices. Thus the practical effect of rations has been to lessen the number of those little roadside shops, which were a curse to Trinidad, and are still a curse to the English workman. Moreover—for all men are not perfect, even in Trinidad—the Coolie required protection, in certain cases, against a covetous and short- sighted employer, who ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... mockingly, but the hoarse gurgle choked in his throat. He began to tremble. "This man doesn't know when he's mauled," he muttered, and after a loud curse he stood up afresh, with a craven and shifty look. His blows fell like scorching missiles, but Philip took them like a rock scoured with shingle, raining blood ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... to curse Pamela with her pray'rs, Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares; The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state, And, to complete her bliss, a fool for mate. She glares in balls, front boxes, and the ring— A vain, unquiet, glitt'ring, wretched thing! Pride, pomp, and state, but ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... our own religion furnishes us with adequate ideas of the blessing, as well as curse, which may attend absolute power. The pictures of heaven and of hell will place a very lively image of both before our eyes; for though the prince of the latter can have no power but what he originally ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... on the roof, moving higher and higher. The suspense was extreme. Then there was silence; even the myowling had ceased. Then a clap of thunder; and then, after that, a terrific clatter on the roof, a bounding downwards as of a great stone, a curse, a horrid pause, and finally a terrific smashing of foliage ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... 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 to be ...
— The Coryston Family • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... faith within the fear That holds us to the life we curse;— So let us in ourselves revere The Self ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... superstitious. Thus the religious element, especially the fantastic aberrations thereof engendered by Lestadius and other missionaries, while it has tended greatly to repress the vice, has in the same proportion increased the weakness. Drunkenness, formerly so prevalent as to be the curse of Lapland, is now exceedingly rare, and so are the crimes for which it is responsible. The most flagrant case which has occurred in the neighborhood of Muoniovara for some years past, was that of a woman who attempted to poison her father-in-law by mixing the scrapings of lucifer matches with ...
— Northern Travel - Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark and Lapland • Bayard Taylor
... was in Uhila's soul, he leapt Into the moonlight and upon his foe. Fixed to the ground, they strove as giant trees Tossing fierce branches in a storm; their wrath Smote on them like a tempest, hot with hate. Malua knew a curse was in the hands That sought his throat, and in the blazing eyes Close to his own. Life would defend fair life As chief and Taka's lover. Round the shoulders Dark and strong, straining to his heaving breast, He threw his arms, and locked ...
— The Rose of Dawn - A Tale of the South Sea • Helen Hay
... I will not have his money—not more than enough to keep me from being a scandal to his family. I will not have it. It is a curse to me, and has been from the first. What right have I to all that money, because—because—because—" She could not finish her sentence, but turned away from them, and walked ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... advantage, we ask, has she derived from her faculty of scribbling, except that she has made herself pretty widely known, and ridiculed wherever she is known? Presumptuous ignorance, and overweening conceit, have, in her case, completely nullified, nay worse, have converted into a curse, in some respects, what was intended every way for a blessing. If Lady Morgan would forego her mongrel idiom, and use the English language; if she would confine herself to subjects with which she has some acquaintance; if she would substitute a simple in the stead of her inflated ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... that Christ died for sinners, and that I shall be justified before God from the curse, through his gracious acceptance of my obedience to his law. Or thus, Christ makes my duties, that are religious, acceptable to his Father, by virtue of his merits; and so shall ...
— The Pilgrim's Progress - From this world to that which is to come. • John Bunyan
... to, Alice. The Moors are intellectual mummies." Allen carefully turned two pages, and encouraged by a nod of approval from Mrs. Gorham proceeded. "Why, Miss Gorham, if a Moor happens to sit down upon a tack he doesn't curse or swear or rail at fate; he simply murmurs, 'It is written,' and carefully replaces the tack for some other Moor ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... of a virtue that is twice blessed,—blessed in those who give, and blessed in those who receive. Patronage is twice cursed,—cursed in the incompetency which it places where merit ought to be, and in the incompetency which it creates among the class who make it their trust. But the curse which you have mainly to avoid is that which so often falls on those who waste their time and suffer their energies to evaporate in weakly and obsequiously waiting upon it. We therefore say, Rely upon ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... so wild and shrill? Across the sands o' Dee? Lo, I will stand at thy right hand and keep the bridge with thee! For this was Tell a hero? For this did Gessler die? 'The curse is come upon me!' said the Spider ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells
... comprehensive than what we call a religion is one reason why it contains much of dubious moral value. It is analogous not to Christianity but to European civilization which produces side by side philanthropy and the horrors of war, or to science which has given us the blessings of surgery and the curse of explosives. There is a deep-rooted idea in India that a man's daily life must be accompanied by religious observances and regulated by a religious code, by no means of universal application but still suitable ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... she stepped forth, her face distorted with hatred and envy, and said: "So I am not thought good enough to be a guest here: you despise me because I am old and ugly. I shall make a gift, and it shall be a curse. When your fine young lady becomes sixteen she shall fall asleep, and nothing you can do will be able to ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... not his property but his life, according to an ancient and authentic custom among Rajput folk, as formerly throughout India, whereby a man who has no other means of enforcing a just claim against a powerful debtor has always the resource of bringing down upon him a fearful curse by committing suicide before his door. The Rajput chief pretends that the bond is illegal and void, being founded upon an obsolete custom disallowed by the English rulers; but in truth he has brought himself to believe that the blood penalty will not really be paid, and ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... first started for Paris when Melas' victory was certain; the second, starting four hours later, brought the news of the defeat of the Austrians. Du Bousquier cursed Kellermann and Desaix; he dared not curse Bonaparte, who might owe him millions. This alternative of millions to be earned and present ruin staring him in the face, deprived the purveyor of most of his faculties: he became nearly imbecile for several days; the man had so abused his health by excesses ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... die, as foolish lovers do: A man's heart beats beneath this breast of mine; The breast where—Curse on that fiend's whispering, 'It might have been!'—Ada, I will be true Unto myself—the self that worshipped thine. May all life's pain, like those few tears that spring For me—glance off as rain-drops from my ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... things happened when he died . . . There was a darkness and an agony, And some were vastly frightened—not so I! What cared I if that mob of reeking Jews Had brought a nameless curse upon their heads? I had no part in that bloodguiltiness. At least he died; and some few friends of his Took him and laid him in a garden tomb. A watch was set about the sepulchre, Lest these, his friends, should hide him and proclaim That he had risen as he had foretold. ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... proud heart, thy useless courage boast!— Courage, thou curse of the unfortunate! That canst encounter, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... seclude myself therewith from the people; and meanwhile the man is squeezed with the foulest of extortion, till naught of money is left him. Then I appear and they come in to me and questions arise concerning him and I say, 'Indeed, I was ordered worse than this, for some one (may Allah curse him!) hath slandered him to the king.' Presently I take half of his good and return him the rest publicly before the folk and dismiss him to his house, in all honour and worship, and he garreth the money returned ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... its resting-place to guard it as long as he might live. When he lay on his deathbed he was implored to reveal where he had hidden it, but he persistently refused to do so, saying that it would be found by the man who was destined to conquer the world, but that he would not be able to escape the curse. Years passed by. Wave after wave the tide of barbarian invasion swept over that part of the country, and last of all came the terrible Huns under the leadership of Attila, the "Scourge of God." As he passed along the river, he saw a peasant mournfully ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... it very easy, speedy, and cleanly, and shall continue the practice of it. To church, and heard a good sermon of Mr. Woodcocke's at our church; only in his latter prayer for a woman in childbed, he prayed that God would deliver her from the hereditary curse of child-bearing, which seemed a pretty strange expression. Dined at home, and Mr. Creed with me. This day I had the first dish of pease I have had this year. After discourse he and I abroad, and walked up and down, and looked into many churches, among others ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... molten lava stream, Dispersing havoc dire, supreme, Enfolding, whelming all in wreck! Thus flies the pollen on the breeze To meet its floral love; The song, outgushing from the soul, Thus seeks the starry vault above. Is it a curse? There is no other life for me. 'Tis written in the book of fate: Thy race must ev'ry pledge abate And wander, rove eternally! But why? and where? I know it not,— ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... suspicion. The sight of the military bearing of my companions changed all her fear into certainties. In an instant she had whipped the shawl from her shoulders, and was waving it frantically over her head. With a hearty curse Savary spurred his horse up the bank and galloped straight for the mill, with Gerard and myself ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... did. Broken by age and infirmity, importuned by friends more alarmed than himself, perhaps, at the terrors of that merciless tribunal, he signed his abjuration; yielded all his judges demanded; echoed their curse and ban, as their superstition or their hate required. There is a darker tale dimly hinted by those familiar with the technicalities of the Holy Office, that the terms, "Il rigoroso esame," during which Galileo is reported to have answered like a good Christian, officially announce the application ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... of his mouth unless they repent. The doctrine of Balaam is partly explained—he "taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication." When Balak desired Balaam to pronounce a curse against Israel, God by various means miraculously prevented Balaam's doing so; but Balaam craftily instructed Balak to make use of the women of Moab to seduce the men of Israel to sacrifice to their idols and to indulge in the licentious ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... woodenness of both head and heart, the want of vitality in man, which is the effect of our vice; and hence are begotten fear, superstition, bigotry, persecution, and slavery of all kinds. We are mere figureheads upon a hulk, with livers in the place of hearts. The curse is the worship of idols, which at length changes the worshipper into a stone image himself; and the New-Englander is just as much an idolater as the Hindoo. This man was an exception, for he did not set up even a political graven image between ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... advantage to the parties concerned. For the rest, it should not be forgotten, that, however much the English occupation of Ireland may, through a series of causes, not to be foreseen in Adrian's time, have turned out a curse; yet the occupation in question had the immediate effect of producing the reform of those religious abuses, which constituted the worst misfortunes of the country, and which, till Henry had actually arrived thither, continued in all their hideous deformity. This ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... had set in before the brothers were the way to Nissard; and in spite of Berenger's excited mood, the walk through the soft, sinking sand could not be speedily performed. It was that peculiar sand-drift which is the curse of so many coasts, slowly, silently, irresistibly flowing, blowing, creeping in, and gradually choking all vegetation and habitation. Soft and almost impalpable, it lay heaped in banks yielding as air, and yet far more than deep enough to swallow up man and horse. Nay, tops of trees, summits ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... legitimate marriage, and what rivals legitimate children are, whom one dares acknowledge before God—before the world. Boast not of the love of the prince, but remember that an honorable solitude is the only situation becoming to you. Such connections bear their own curse and punishment with them. Hasten to avoid them. Lastly, I would add, never dare to mingle your impure hands in the affairs of state. I have been obliged to give the order to the state councillors in appointments and grants of office, ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... college-chum whom I had not seen much of for many years. He lived the life of a fashionable young bachelor and was at the time keeping a woman. The only common interest between us was women. I found myself reverting to the old condition of rampant lust that had been such a curse to me in my university days. Some books he lent me had a decided effect. They gave me erections; and it was on top of the excitement thus engendered that one day I got a woman to do fellatio, as already mentioned. Moreover, since my illness, I found all my previous energy and ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... who had suffered another paroxysm on the way, was slowly assisted to the ground by his awestruck and curious friends, and entered the house with a groan, and roared for Judy Carroll with a curse, and invoked Jerome, the cokang modate, with horrible vociferation. And as among the hushed exhortations of the good priest, Toole and Puddock, he mounted the stairs, he took occasion over the banister, in stentorian tones, to ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... prayer to this fair princess; But, if I ever meant a violence, Or thought to ravish, as that traitor did, What humblest adorations could not win, Brand me, you gods, blot me with foul dishonour, And let men curse me by the name ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... weedy, niggardly, scurvy, putid[obs3], beggarly, worthless, twopennyhalfpenny, cheap, trashy, catchpenny, gimcrack, trumpery; one-horse [U. S.]. not worth the pains, not worth while, not worth mentioning, not worth speaking of, not worth a thought, not worth a curse, not worth a straw &c. n.;1 beneath notice, unworthy of notice, beneath regard, unworthy of regard, beneath consideration, unworthy of consideration; de lana caprina[It][obs3]; vain ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... her curse upon it. Nothing would grow there. The ground was covered with stones, and the sandy soil defied ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... beings nevertheless feel slightly nervous at the thought of dropping their astral form for the subtler causal one. The astral world is free from unwilling death, disease, and old age. These three dreads are the curse of earth, where man has allowed his consciousness to identify itself almost wholly with a frail physical body requiring constant aid from air, food, and sleep in order to ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... mention of the name of the deceased is forbidden—the identity of spouse or name with the dead effects the transmission of what is dangerous in him. In another direction the earthly dwelling of a dead person is protected—a curse is pronounced on one ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... was not always like this. There was a time when he loved the people. It is that devil, whom God curse, Prince Paul Maraloffski who has brought him to this. To-morrow, I swear it, I shall plead for the ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde
... and visited the Esquimaux in their tents. Many heathen were at this place, to whom he preached the gospel, and invited them to believe in Jesus, as the Saviour of men, who would deliver them from the love, power, and curse of sin, having shed His blood, and died on the cross, to redeem their souls. He was heard with great attention. A venerable old man, with hair as white as wool, particularly attracted our notice. He called Brother Kohlmeister by name, took hold of both his hands, and begged ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... the silent night, I screamed with horrible delight, And in my brain an awful light Did seem to crackle, Rosaline! It is my curse! sweet memories fall From me like snow, and only all Of that one night, like cold worms, crawl My doomed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... everywhere, whereon Virtue is crucified, and nails and spears Draw guiltless blood; that sorrow sits and drinks At sweetest hearts, till all their life is dry; That gentle spirits on the rack of pain Grow faint or fierce, and pray and curse by turns; That Hell's temptations, clad in Heavenly guise And armed with might, lie evermore in wait Along life's path, giving assault to all— Fatal to most; that Death stalks through the earth, Choosing ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... this, they fled, and began to curse Folker. With that, he lifted a sharp spear and hard from the ground, that a Hun had shot at him, and hurled it strongly across the courtyard, over the heads of the folk. Etzel's men took their stand further off, for ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... important than this. We have waged war in order that it may be waged no more, and we are determined that it shall now cease for ever. The peoples of the various nations have no interest in warfare. It has been nothing but an affliction and a curse to them, and we are convinced that if one generation grows up without drawing the sword, it will never be drawn again as long as men remain upon the earth. All existing fortifications will therefore be at once destroyed, standing armies will be ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... no—I never conceived you could become indifferent. Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... commanded me to be silent, or else I should be turned out of the room." [Footnote: Chandler's American Criminal Trials, I. p. 85.] It is not strange that this husband should have exclaimed, that God would take revenge upon his wife's persecutors; and perhaps he was the very man whose curse was said to have fallen upon ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... time!" promised Un' Benny Rowett, patriarch of the fishing-fleet and local preacher on Sundays. Some of the younger men grumbled that "there was no tellin': the season had been tricky from the start." The spider-crabs—that are the curse of inshore trammels—had lingered for a good three weeks past the date when by all rights they were due to sheer off. Then a host of spur-dogs had invaded the whiting-grounds, preying so gluttonously on the hooked fish ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... had 'appened, there was a cold shiver run over me. I told him as it was the worst news ever come into our 'ouse, and now see if I wasn't right! He was angry with me 'cause I said it, an' who's a right to be angry now? It's my belief as money's the curse o' this world; I never knew a trouble yet as didn't somehow come of it, either 'cause there was too little or else too much. And Dick's gone an' done this? And him with all his preachin' about rights ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... has adorned another page. "Can Froude understand honesty?" asks this anxious inquirer; and again, "Supposing Master Froude were set to break stones, feed pigs, or do anything else but write paradoxes, would he not curse his day?" Along with such graceful compliments as "You've found that out since you wrote a book against your own father," "Give him as slave to Thirlwall," there may be seen the culminating assertion, "Froude is certainly the vilest brute that ever wrote a book." ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... Bazimo, or none 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 air, and sometimes refused to sell us food. ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... maybe I won't. I have the money, and Bob or Bill will never dare to ask for it back. If you ever see me in the Assembly again you'll know that I'm going to vote for Burroughs—curse him!" ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... to them that stood by, "This is one of them." And he denied it again. And a little after, they that stood by said again to Peter, "Surely thou art one of them: for thou art a Galilaean, and thy speech agreeth thereto." But he began to curse and to swear, saying, "I know not this man of ...
— Jesus of Nazareth - A Biography • John Mark
... day shall soon appear. Those false dyangs are but a race of slaves, Insensible to all that's good. The hour The princess knoweth Bidasari lives, We all shall die, the princess is so wroth. Illustrious Queen they call her—but her words Are hard and cruel. May the curse of God O'erwhelm her and annihilate! From thee, O God, she shall receive the punishment Deserved. She who pursueth thus a soul Shall know remorse and pain. So God hath willed. So God hath willed. Who doth another harm Shall suffer in his turn. It shall be done To him as he hath done to others. ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... am mortal," he said, swiftly catching her wrists and drawing her towards him. "I am flesh and blood. I am man, and thou art woman—and I love thee! I love thee! Ah, how sweet thy kisses are! Now let the gods bless or curse, for never could they take away what thou hast given—and for it I will give thee all. All that has been, and is, and might have been! Priest and sage, Initiate of the Mysteries, what are they to me now! O Nitocris, my queen and my love! Sooner would ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... be it Roman, be it worse, When Pelhams reigned in George's name Poets were safe from sneer or curse Who gave a patriot classic fame, And goodness, void of passion, knit The hearts of ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... a fool and a liar!" she answered contemptuously. "You will love her all your days, and you know it. You will grow to curse the memory of this hour in which you threw away the only chance you will ever have of winning her. The only chance, mind, I will answer for that. I wish you good-evening, Mr. Greatson. You are excused. Isobel, as you are aware, remains ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Made thee so fair act now so foul a sin? Hath[372] he deceived thee in a mother's hopes, Posterity, the bliss of marriage? Thou hast no tongue to answer no or ay, But in red letters write,[373] For him I die. Curse on his traitorous tongue, his youth, his blood, His pleasures, children, and possessions! Be all his days, like winter, comfortless! Restless his nights, his wants remorseless![374] And may his corpse be the physician's stage, Which play'd upon stands not ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... survival of the antiquated spirit of individualism into a new order of things which peremptorily called for co-operation and iron discipline, were received in Berlin and Vienna with undisguised joy. The persistence of this spirit has been the curse ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... 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 ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... of this speech, Mittie had risen and turned her burning cheek towards the window. She felt as if a curse were resting upon her, to be thus excluded from all participation in Miss Thusa's blessing, in the presence of Bryant Clinton. Yes, at that moment she felt the value of Miss Thusa's good opinion—the despised and contemned Miss ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... last tear of regret for one whom they believed to be as pure as you are now. Why should you take her to them from the tomb, living still, but a loathsome mass of sin? I am equal to my destiny. The curse is great, but I will bear it alone; and the curse of God will fall upon you ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... o'clock on the night of the sixth MacDougall came into the office, where Philip was alone. The young Scotchman's usually florid face was white. He dropped a curse as he grasped the back of a chair with both hands. It was the third or fourth time that Philip ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... who never had a threatening fiery visit from Moses, is yet asleep in his sins, under the curse and wrath of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... weather, and this in my Sils-Maria, whither I always fly in order to escape bad weather. Is it to be wondered at that even the parson here is acquiring the habit of swearing? From time to time in conversation his speech halts, and then he always swallows a curse. A few days ago, just as he was coming out of the snow-covered church, he thrashed his dog and exclaimed: "The confounded cur spoiled the whole ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... to Harbutt, scarcely lowering his voice on account of the fellows in the bunks. Snoring and drugged with ozone a kick would only have made them curse and turn on the other side, and as he talked his voice made part of that procession of noises inseparable from the fo'c'sle of a ship under sail against a head sea. He had been holding forth on the food and general conditions of this ship compared with the ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... words are these? Thou hast a sorrow to nurse, And thou hast been bold and happy; but these, if they utter a curse, No sting it has and no meaning—it is empty sound on the air. Thy life is full of mourning, and theirs so empty and bare That they have no words of complaining; nor so happy have they been That they may measure sorrow or ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... and pain-piercing; then the old frontiersman had uttered something between a curse and a groan. She sprang from shelter and looked over the edge. Jumbled at the foot of the pinnacled red rocks heaved a writhing mass, a weltering maimed horror. On the outer edge, arms under head, face to sky, tossed ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... Maitreya, with the desire of seeing us. That mighty Rishi, O king, will admonish thy son for the welfare of this race. And, O Kauravya, what he adviseth must be followed undoubtingly, for if what he recommendeth is not done, the sage will curse ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... "as a widow, desolate." Her strength has been shorn, her beauty gone. No State has sent forth a greater number of brave and devoted victims to the war than Alabama; no Southern State has suffered more fearfully. May God and kind angels lift the war curse from her ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... gravity. The colossal bulls and lions with wings and human heads, of which several pairs were discovered, some of them in a state of perfect preservation, were especially the objects of wonder and conjectures, which generally ended in a curse "on all infidels and their works," the conclusion arrived at being that "the idols" were to be sent to England, to form gateways to the palace of the Queen. And when some of these giants, now in the British Museum, ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... within it, or in the vast valley in which it stood, that we could see. In fact, our whole journey up to the present seemed to be through a country that might have been ravished by some plague or bore some fatal curse. As the light of the moon prevailed, we came upon an extensive plain shelving upward toward steep hills. Specks of bright light stood out against the distant background, and we presently found that the moonlight was glinting on spear heads, and soon a line of camels crept toward us, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... ingratitude of his daughters are no accidents or merely individual aberrations, but that in that dark cold world some fateful malignant influence is abroad, turning the hearts of the fathers against their children and of the children against their fathers, smiting the earth with a curse, so that the brother gives the brother to death and the father the son, blinding the eyes, maddening the brain, freezing the springs of pity, numbing all powers except the nerves of anguish and the dull ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... 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 ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
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