"Curse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... o'erflows the cup of joy, And love, more mighty than the heart's control, Surges in words of passion from the soul, And vows are asked and given, shadows rise Like mists before the sun in noonday skies, Vague fears, that prove the brimming cup's alloy; A dread of change—the crowning moment's curse, Since what is perfect, change but renders worse: A vain desire to cripple Time, who goes Bearing our joys away, and bringing woes. And later, doubts and jealousies awaken, And plighted hearts are tempest-tossed and shaken. Doubt sends a test, that goes a step too ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... it is peculiarly incumbent on us here to-day so to act throughout our lives as to leave our children a heritage, for which we will receive their blessing and not their curse. ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... bawdy house, or a bawdy house of it; for nothing is to be seen in any room but scurvy beds and bare walls. But (not so much to dishonour it) it is an university of poor scholars, in which three arts are chiefly studied: to pray, to curse, and to write letters. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... "Oh, labour is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionately brutified. Is it a praiseworthy matter that I have spent five golden months in providing food for cows and horses? ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... their blind malice was too eager to remember this. Another person by continually dunning a poor debtor to pay him half a sovereign had driven him to commit suicide! So ran their bitter tongues. Backbiting is the curse of village life, and seems to keep people by its effects upon the mind far more effectually in the grip of poverty than the lowness of wages. They become so saturated with littleness that they cannot attempt anything, and have no enterprise. To transplant them to the freer ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... possessed him. Was that the Christ out there whom he had been seeking? And what did he expect of him? To come out there to his enemy? To the man who had been in many ways the curse of ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... there, by her godly life and many kind deeds, she had inspired the love and reverence of the whole community. When the pest came in 1150—that awful black death which killed the people by hundreds—they turned to her in their despair and begged her to intercede with them and take away this curse of God, as it was believed to be. Through an entire night, within her grotto, the good Rosalia prayed that the plague might be taken away and the people forgiven, and the story has it that her prayers were answered ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... rough and tumble of public schools, universities and sport, and now throbbing under the stress of the new deadly game, to understand poor Doggie Trevor? They had no time to take him seriously, save to curse him when he did wrong, and in their leisure time he became naturally ...
— The Rough Road • William John Locke
... Faith, crumbs from my superfluity, like those that fell from the other rich man's table. Besides, of what avail will any charities, as you call them, of mine be? They will serve only to convey the curse that attaches itself to me. I tremble to think ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... it?" said Camilla. "I tremble lest you should be discovered. Oh slavery! what a curse. Our fathers sowed the wind, and we are reaping the whirlwind! What," continued she, as if speaking to herself, "What are your plans? Have ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... The burghers, having put down the nobility and achieved their independence, lay aside their arms. They are busy in manufactures and trade. The despots and the republics prefer to hire foreign adventurers, the "free companies," who were a curse to Italy. Their occupation, which was a profitable one, was taken up by natives. These were the condottieri. Their leaders introduced cavalry and more skillful methods of fighting. But the battles were bloodless games of strategy, and military energy declined. At ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... naught but a bit of solder. Give it to me!' But Saint Patrick took it to a smith instead, and the smith told him the truth about it, and Saint Patrick put a curse on the Tinkers, that every man's face should be against them, and that they should get no rest at all but ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Eyries, County Cork, Father Gerald Dennehy said: "Any Catholic who either as policeman or as agent of the government shall assist in applying the draft, shall be excommunicated and cursed by the Roman Catholic Church. The curse of God will follow him in every land. You can kill him at sight, God will bless you and it will be the most acceptable sacrifice ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... Wellesley as Chief Secretary. The young man, whose fame was yet unattained, showed himself as clearheaded in the cabinet as in the camp. He made every attempt to suppress the party demonstrations which have been the curse of Ireland, and induced the Wexford people to discontinue their annual celebration of the battle of Vinegar Hill. If he could have suppressed a few other anniversaries in the north, it would have been a blessing to the United Kingdom. In ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Gunter, 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 Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... "By the curse of the sin of the sack of Chitor, is my palace, then, a midden for the crawling offal of all the Howrah streets? First this Rangar—next a sweeper hag—what follows? What bring you next? Go, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... know it, and mock me! How often have I not agonised to cease, but the tyrant keeps me being! I curse ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... curse of the English drama," he would declare, with a descending gesture which caused all the little glasses to rattle their alarm. "Nothing will ever come out of England until his influence is discounted. He was a primitive, ...
— Murder in Any Degree • Owen Johnson
... about him: and, though at first they had been inclined to look askance at his advances, they were won over by the frank open manners of their noisy neighbor, whose piano-playing and terrific disturbance overhead had often made them curse:—(for Christophe used to feel stifled in his room and take to pacing up and down like a caged bear).—They did not find it easy to talk to him. Christophe's rather boorish and abrupt manners sometimes made Elie Elsberger shudder. But it was all in vain for the engineer to try to keep ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... the keeper's room for that night, and the two men sat up with me. I was accosted with many interrogatories, to which I gave little answer, but complained of the hurt in my leg. To this I could obtain no reply, except "Curse you, my lad! if that be all, we will give you some ointment for that; we will anoint it with a little cold iron." They were indeed excessively sulky with me, for having broken their night's rest, and given them all this trouble. In the ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... haughtily. "No, indeed, Aunt Sally. I can forgive and forget much, but you are greatly mistaken if you think I can go to such lengths as that. He closed his doors against me with a curse, for no reason on earth but that the man I loved was born north of the Mason and Dixon line. There never was a nobler man living than Jack, and papa would have seen it if he hadn't deliberately shut his eyes and refused to look at him. He ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston
... more. They flatter the General; they coddle him. They give him the highest seat. They pretend to respect him. They defend him from all slanders. They are proud of the General. He is their man. I look into the religious newspapers, and in one column I behold a curse on the stock-jobbing of Wall street, and in the next, the praise of the beneficence of General Robert Belcher. I see the General passing down Wall street the next day. I see him laughing out of the corner of his left eye, while his friends punch him in the ribs. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Canouge, the latitude and longitude of which have been given in a previous note. The Sanskrit name means "the city of humpbacked maidens;" with reference to the legend of the hundred daughters of king Brahma-datta, who were made deformed by the curse of the rishi Maha-vriksha, whose overtures they had refused. E. ...
— Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... barnacles!" yelled Comrade Bannerman. He shook his fists at the plutocrats and cursed until he made me sick. He was a tank-town nut who didn't like to work; had built up a theory that work was a curse and that the "idle classes" had forced this curse on the masses, of which he was one. He believed that all the classes had to do was to clip coupons, cash them and ride around the country in Pullman palace cars. ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... your affair, you know." And Peter went away, leaving Hugo to curse and bite his nails in impotent rage. Peter really was ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... mother, and all the other tomfoolery I could not understand. Katy," and pausing in his walk, Mr. Cameron came close to his daughter-in-law, who was lying with her face upon the sofa. "Katy, be glad your baby died. Had it lived it might have proved a curse just as mine have done—not all, for Bell, though fiery as a pepper-pod, has some heart, some sense—and there was Jack, my oldest boy, a little fast, it's true; but when he died over the sea, I forgave all that, forgetting the chair he broke over a tutor's head, and the scrapes ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... What curse shall I call down On hearts so dull? May they the race still run For wealth and high renown! And when with much ado The false good they have grasped—ah, then too late!— May they discern ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... to labour with their own hands for these hundred years; and during all that time there has not been a dishonest person, a gentleman, or a madman amongst us. And shall I be the first to break the customs of the family, and perhaps bring down a curse on all our heads? What could I have more if I were a lord or a macaroni, as I think you call them? I have plenty of victuals and work, good firing, clothes, warm house, a little for the poor, and, between you and ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... countenance common to the Helot race. He was of the ordinary stature, and his frame was not characterised by any appearance of unusual strength; but he trod the earth, with a firm step and an erect crest, as if the curse of the slave had not yet destroyed the inborn dignity of the human being. There was a certain delicacy and refinement, rather of thought than beauty, in his clear, sharp, and singularly intelligent features. ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... well as the witness of treachery. I have been oftentimes forced to associate with vice in every shape; and yet when in misery, when oppressed, when writhing under tyranny, I have been sometimes tempted to curse my race, the thought of the kind, the good old man, has come over me like a visitation from heaven, and my malediction has been changed into a prayer, ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... wept because they had been caught in the steerage. She wept because she was ashamed, and because people were too kind. She was at once delighted and desolated. She wanted to outpour psalms of gratitude, and also she wanted to curse. ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... German, after a while. "For years I have tried to get in touch with native officers. Here and there I have found a Sepoy who would talk with me, but you are the first officer." He was brown-studying, talking almost to himself. He did not see the curse in ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... 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 wounded heart. She has something to tell me—something that I am dying to hear. If ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... 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 ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... not be allowed to approach our settlements from the east. God is on our side, and will fight our battles for us, and deliver our enemies into our hands. Brigham has received revelations from God, giving him the right and the power to call down the curse of God on all our enemies who attempt to invade our Territory. Our greatest danger lies in the people of California - a class of reckless miners who are strangers to God and His righteousness. They are likely to come upon us from ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... cruel. I knew it. I should have died, if you had come between us. Oh, Wilfrid's father, I love you!—I have never had a very angry word on my mouth. Think! think! if you had made me curse you. For, I could! You would have stopped my life, and Wilfrid's. What would our last thoughts have been? We could not have forgiven you. Take up dead birds killed by frost. You cry: Cruel winter! murdering cold! But I knew better. You are Wilfrid's father, whom ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to 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 ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... his relief, now began to jeer him, and to demand of him a speech, merely to occupy the time while ropes necessary to his deliverance were being brought. This so enraged the major, that in addition to swearing he would not be drawn up by such a set of inhuman rascals, he commenced to curse his hard fate. A few moments more and he became calm, and looking up beseechingly in the clergyman's face, which was reflected by the light of a lantern, he enjoined him to hasten to his wife, Polly Potter, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... woman gave us the child. Away we went with it aboard the sloop, and made sail, and never dropped anchor till we reached the port of Dublin. Then our captain sold the sloop, and we all went aboard a ship and sailed for America. We didn't reach it though. We had done a cursed deed, and God's curse was to follow us. Our ship went down, and we were left floating on a raft; we were well-nigh starved, when a ship fell in with us, and we were taken on board. The captain was a kind-hearted man, and he said he would take care of the little fellow; and as our captain—he that's gone—had ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... a malady— (Striking his heart and forehead.) And here, and here, A mortal malady.—I am accurst: All nature curses me, and in my heart Thy curse is fixed; the truth must be laid bare. It must be told, and borne. I am the man, (Abused, betrayed, but how it matters not) Presumptuous above all that ever breathed, Who, casting as I thought a guilty Person Upon Heaven's righteous judgment, did become An ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... "A curse on your 'Spaniards!'" cried Malvicini. "Here! Take your Duke. Look at him, and understand." And he slashed the rope across, so that the body plunged down ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... what this means to me," said Quinnox gravely, as they paused to rest. "She will call me your murderer and curse me for my miserable treason. I am the first to dishonor the ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... more accurately. Certainly "it" appears to be as good a description as any, since there is no consciousness of sex in the thought patterns. I wonder what sort of ... and to my surprise I swore! I do not ordinarily curse or use obscenities—not because they are obscene but because they are a poor and inexact means of conveying ideas or impressions. But in this case they were particularly appropriate. No other words could ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone
... I began to curse boldly at him, calling him by all the obscene terms I had ever learned or heard. This, and the astounding fact that I no longer squirmed nor cried out, but physically yielded to him, as limp as an empty sack, brought him to a puzzled stop. But he ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... waste, this howling wilderness, this country vast and desert idle, places scooped out of the solid rock, and the mighty foundations of the round world laid bare, that the lower organism of God's human family may find their proper sustenance; but truly the curse must have gone forth more fearfully against them, and with a vengeance must it have been proclaimed, by the sweat of their brows must they obtain their bread. No doubt it was with the intention of obtaining ours, thus reaping the harvest ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... buy them for me after all. Curse him," he added violently. "What cruel luck! And I've been thinking all day of what I'd do ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... churchwardens and dog-whips would make slender allowance for his vein of humour! But here, curse him! he is a sort of privileged nuisanceone of the last specimens of the old fashioned Scottish mendicant, who kept his rounds within a particular space, and was the news-carrier, the minstrel, and sometimes ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... child, so harsh and so bitter! And sometimes the reproach seemed to have the strange power of actually turning her love to the hatred she was charged with, and at such times she could scarcely refrain from crying out in her overmastering wrath to invoke a curse from the Almighty on her daughter's head, to reply that it was true, that she did hate her with a great hatred, but that her hatred was as nothing compared to that of her God, who would punish her for denying His existence with everlasting ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... that Lord John had found himself some years before in that no-man's-land which is formed by the half-defined frontiers between Peru, Brazil, and Columbia. In this great district the wild rubber tree flourishes, and has become, as in the Congo, a curse to the natives which can only be compared to their forced labor under the Spaniards upon the old silver mines of Darien. A handful of villainous half-breeds dominated the country, armed such Indians as would support them, and ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to curse Pamela with her prayers, Gave the gilt coach and dappled Flanders mares, The shining robes, rich jewels, beds of state, And, to complete her bliss, a fool ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... ever the slave Snaps the shackles that bind him, and leaps Into life in the heart of the brave The sense of the might that now sleeps— To which people, which side shall I cleave? Which fate shall I curse with my own? To which banner pray Heaven to give The triumph? Which ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... "Curse on his ordinary gallantries, and his verses, and his compliments, and his sprigs of myrtle! If Caesar should dare—by Hercules, I will tear him to pieces in ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... performs good works with that end in view, he shames his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is the end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth (Rom. 10, 4), and he falls under the curse of God for placing his own merits alongside of the merit of the Redeemer's sacrifice. In no other connection has Luther spoken against good works. He has rather taught men how to become fruitful ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... explorations as were made were with the one object of getting through it or around it. In fact, as late as 1787, opinion in Europe was divided as to whether the discovery of the New World had been a blessing or a curse. ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... continent? And why do we not remember, that to diffuse these blessings we must first cherish them in our own borders; and that whatever deeply and permanently corrupts us, will make our spreading influence a curse, not a blessing, to this new world? I am not prophet enough to read our fate. I believe, indeed, that we are to make our futurity for ourselves. I believe, that a nation's destiny lies in its character, in the principles which govern its policy, and bear rule in the hearts of its citizens. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... got home, 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 my life ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... the roadside, a low saloon that was the curse of the place, and she saw from the distance a figure come out of the door. Her heart gave a fearful throb, for it was a slender figure, clad in black, hatless and with disordered hair and clothing. In a moment more, as Helen clutched the rail beside ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair
... end of the previous century, who in the intervals of war were disbanded and wandered about spending their pay, and thus constituted an excessively disintegrative element in the life of the time. A contemporary writer[13] describes them as the curse of Germany, and stigmatizes them as "unchristian, God-forsaken folk, whose hand is ever ready in striking, stabbing, robbing, burning, slaying, gaming, who delight in wine-bibbing, whoring, blaspheming, and in the making of ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... think," she declared, with upturned eyes, "that this is the 'oly Sabbath! Never mind, Solomon. The Lord will punish 'em. I shall pray to Him not to curse them ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... with this matter. You know what I mean. What's the decision?" Luck scowled at the pretty girl on his wall calendar, and began to rub his right foot with the left and to curse the janitor with that part of his brain ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... be in doubt about it for yourself, consult some spiritually-minded person who possesses experience in the matter. Not, on the one hand, the man who will tell you that it is the greatest curse the Church has ever known; nor, on the other, the one who would have it ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... None. If, without the sum Which Beauseant offers for thy hand, this day Sinks to the west—to-morrow brings our ruin! And hundreds, mingled in that ruin, curse The bankrupt merchant! and the insolvent herd We feasted and made merry cry in scorn, "How pride has fallen!—Lo, the bankrupt merchant!" My daughter, thou hast ...
— The Lady of Lyons - or Love and Pride • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... could now present itself as the means of staving off so evil a day would be acceptable; and therefore he gave his sister the commission of making this second proposal to Miss Dunstable. In cursing the duke—for he did curse the duke lustily—it hardly occurred to him to think that, after all, the duke only asked for his own. As for Mrs. Harold Smith, whatever may be the view taken of her general character as a wife and a member of society, it must be admitted that as ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... "A curse on this babe's play! Must men stand here like whipped curs until a slave commands us enter? Come! Who'll follow me past that door? I'll know what lies behind this mummery if I choke it from old Jabez's withered neck ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... you were so open-mouthed to all he said, that I was bound to let my elders choose for me. Let's go back; send over for any of the tribes; send to Spain for those Vandals—they have had enough of Adolf by now, curse him!—I'll warrant them; get together an army, and take Constantinople. I'll be Augustus, and Pelagia, Augusta; you and Smid here, the two Caesars; and we'll make the monk the chief of the eunuchs, eh?—anything ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... I not give to see you? Oh, this fearful curse of poverty! I must find some means of escape from my difficulties, or go mad. I cannot live without you. I have planned a thousand impossible schemes, which I have been obliged ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... curse of heaven had fallen on the country, but for the large placards on the house-fronts, which prove that missionary fathers have passed through the place. "Viva Gesu! Viva Maria! Viva il sangue di Gesu! Viva ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... filled with salt. It was no easy task to relinquish the use of tobacco and it cost him many a struggle and much determined effort. In writing to Wordsworth he says:—"I wish you may think this a handsome farewell to my 'Friendly Traitress.' Tobacco has been my evening comfort and my morning curse for these five years. I have had it in my head to do it (Farewell to Tobacco) these two years; but tobacco stood in its own light when it gave me headaches that ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... are so fatally reared. With every want gratified, pampered and fed to the very full, how often do we see them disappoint all the fond expectations of parents and friends, their money proving only a curse, while not unfrequently beggared in purse, and bankrupt in character, they prematurely sink to an ignoble or dishonored grave. Think of it, ye who are slaving in the service of Mammon, that ye may leave to your sons, the overgrown ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... could keep thousands of spindles running and make hundreds of pairs of stockings in a day, and yards and yards of woollen stuff, and socks and shirts and all, why grandfather'd've thought everybody'd have shirts and socks and comforters and shoes, and there'd be no more hard work and empty bellies. Curse the damned things! We works longer hours, and there's just as many bare feet and poor devils shivering for want of clothes. The machines were to give us everything, blast 'em! The workers are rotten fools! ...
— Woman on Her Own, False Gods & The Red Robe - Three Plays By Brieux • Eugene Brieux
... meditated some fearful act, and that he considered his own life in great jeopardy. If he fell, and he anticipated he should fall, he committed his daughter to my care; and he gave me a written injunction, wherein, as you will find, his blessing is bestowed upon her for obedience to him, and his curse laid upon her in the event of a breach of duty; commanding her, by all her hopes of happiness hereafter, to fulfil the solemn promise he had made me—provided I should claim her hand within a twelvemonth of his death. The unfortunate ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... children and grandchildren will detract from instead of adding to the sum of the good citizenship of the country. Similarly we should take the greatest care about naturalization. Fraudulent naturalization, the naturalization of improper persons, is a curse to our Government; and it is the affair of every honest voter, wherever born, to see that no fraudulent voting is allowed, that no fraud in connection with ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... rampant for his arms. From an actor of playes he became a composer. He dyed Apr. 23, 1616, aetat 53, probably at Stratford, for there he is buried, and hath a monument (Dugd. p. 520), on which he lays a heavy curse upon any one who shall remove his bones. He dyed a papist." The inaccuracy of Davies's version of facts otherwise known warns us against too great a reliance ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... be a name abhorred; And every nation that should lift again Its hand against a brother, on its forehead Would wear forevermore the curse of Cain." ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... down the Valley of the Curse, undaunted By shadow and whisper of winds with sins for wings And ghosts of crime wherethrough the heights live haunted By present sense ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Conscience (and you know Tom the Conscience of one dead Man is worth ten of those that are living) I have had very few good Days Sleep since I got there. Ah Tom! poor Ireland! poor Ireland! it plagued my Heart while I was trifling away Life there; but my Curse on it, I never thought it would have broke my Rest thus when I was dead. I have tumbled and toss'd from one Side to the other (and by the by, they make these cursed Coffins so narrow 'tis a Plague to be in them) first ...
— A Dialogue Between Dean Swift and Tho. Prior, Esq. • Anonymous
... he said. 'I'm worth nothing when a whim of hers is in question. But in a losing game at Port Said we used to double the stakes and go on. She do a Melancolia! She hasn't the power, or the insight, or the training. Only the desire. She's cursed with the curse of Reuben. She won't do line-work, because it means real work; and yet she's stronger than I am. I'll make her understand that I can beat her on her own Melancolia. Even then she wouldn't care. She says I can only do blood and bones. I don't believe ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... "Curse that hill-fed sewer of a Ramgunga! Findlayson, this is two months before anything could have been expected, and the left bank is littered up with stuff still. Two full months before ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... subject race has extinguished all sympathy for our own, and has hidden from us the ties of a common origin, common interests, and of a common glory, then, indeed, are we separated from our brethren, and the curse of slavery has fallen upon us as well as upon them. Your Commissioners found nothing in themselves to justify them in attributing such sentiments to the people of the State; and unitedly recommend the adoption by you of the amendment to the Constitution proposed ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... was 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 ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... observation of human life made him remark, 'Sir, there is nothing by which a man exasperates most people more, than by displaying a superiour ability or brilliancy in conversation. They seem pleased at the time; but their envy makes them curse him in ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... be destroyed; it ought not, it will not be permitted to exist." "The curse of the French revolution, and subsequent wars and commotions in Europe, are to be attributed to its example; and so long as it exists, no prince will be safe upon his throne; and the sovereigns of Europe are aware of it; and they have determined ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... wine-producing country in the world; and that the time is not far distant when wine, the most wholesome and purest of all stimulating drinks, will be within the reach of the common laborer, and take the place of the noxious and poisonous liquors which are now the curse of so many of our laboring men, and have blighted the happiness of so many homes. Pure light wine I consider the best temperance agent; but as long as bad whisky and brandy continue to be the common drink of its citizens we can not hope to accomplish a thorough reform; for human ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... I think plainly shewed them to be the owners of the goods, and the others no more than servants. Though benevolent nature has been very bountiful to these isles, it cannot be said that the inhabitants are wholly exempt from the curse of our forefathers: Part of their bread must be earned by the sweat of their brows. The high state of cultivation their lands are in, must have cost them immense labour. This is now amply rewarded by the great produce, of which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... wisely, Roger," said his uncle. "It may be that he will gain the day, it may be that he will lose it; but certain it is that he who brings civil war into a land brings a heavy curse." ...
— Roger Willoughby - A Story of the Times of Benbow • William H. G. Kingston
... blame them? If they deliberately find enough satisfaction for their needs in the company of a circle of men friends and the casual pleasures of the town, selfishness is the last epithet with which their behaviour can be charged. Unselfishness has been their curse. No sane person would, of his own accord, become the automaton that a Government office requires. Pressure on the part of relations, of parents, has been brought to bear on them. The steady employment, the graduated income, the pension—that ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... strength, I too shall receive such portion of our blessings as I may deserve. But if the cowards sit at ease and the good and brave are out of heart, then I fear that I shall get a portion, a larger than I care to think, of something that is no blessing but a curse." ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... day saved thirty thousand people from starvation; but with this day my ability ceases. As the Government are bent on starving us, I see no alternative but to leave these poor people to perish, without our being witness of their distress. I curse the day I ever served the Neapolitan Government. We have characters, my Lord, to lose; these people have none. Do not suffer their infamous conduct to fall on us. Our country is just, but severe. Such is the fever of my brain this ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... party were about to sally forth on their perilous path to safety, Gyng stood and cried angrily: "Well, why hasn't some one bundled up that moth-eaten Caliban? Curse it all, must I ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Scriptual prophecy—"Babylon is fallen—is fallen! Her princes, her wise men, her captains, her rulers, and her mighty men shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, saith the King who is the Lord of Hosts." And truly it seemed as if the curse which had blighted the city's bygone splendor had doomed even its ruins to ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... fond of Lynde, too—though you mayn't believe it. I'm fond of her for her mother's sake and I'd like to see her happy. I didn't want to give her to Harmon that time three years ago but I couldn't help myself. He had the upper hand, curse him. It wasn't for my own sake, though—it was for my wife's. However, that's all over and done with and I'll do the best I can to atone for it. So you won't marry your minister because your father ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... we were repaid with charming views of hill and vale, a softly-rolling scene dotted with little gray and brown fields, clumps of woodland, rail-fenced pastures, and cabins of the crudest sort—for in the autumn-tide, the curse of malaria haunts the basin of the Big Bone, and none but he of fortune spurned would care here in this beauty-spot to plant his vine and fig-tree. Now and then our path leads us across the winding creek, which in these upper ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... quietly; "I came to speak to you; I came to put my curse on you. Many have put their curses on you silently; I do so to your face. My son lies between life and death in your prison—your prison. Whether he lives or dies I curse you for what you have done to poor wives ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... found. Hunt's up, friend Julian! First your heels, old stag! But by and by your horns, and then your side! 'Tis venison much too good for the world's eating. I'll go and sift this business to the bran. Robert and him I have sometimes seen together!—God's curse! it shall fare ill with any man That has connived at this, if I ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... 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 ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... heard him curse the Durwan, and then he ran once more, because the stars were growing pale and time was precious. He was weary and tired when he crept into the compound outside the sleeping bungalow on the hill-rise, and he ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... frenzy, and quivering ears, that magnified every sound, she waited for a reproach, a curse; either would have been some little relief. But no! a silence ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... and more, I've buried away in my heart so deep That, howso tired I've been, I've kept Eyes waking when near me another slept, Lest I might mutter it in my sleep? And now at the last to blab it clear! How the women will shrink from my pictures! And worse Will the men do—spit on my name, and curse; But then up in heaven I ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... a sad thing to be dependant on these low persons; the wise among the ancients were never so wrong as when they panegyrized poverty: it is the wicked man's tempter, the good man's perdition, the proud man's curse, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Loretto, and he assured me that I might have asked Monsignor Caraffa to give me letters for all the hospitals on my road to Rome, and that everywhere I would have met with the same reception. "The hospitals," he added, "are all under the curse of Saint-Francis, because the mendicant friars are not admitted in them; but we do not mind their gates being shut against us, because they are too far apart from each other. We prefer the homes of the persons attached to our ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... freed fallen Europe from the unity Of Tyrants, and been blest from shore to shore: And now—what is your fame? Shall the Muse tune it ye? Now—that the rabble's first vain shouts are o'er? Go! hear it in your famished country's cries! Behold the World! and curse your victories! ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... spring on that more blood-stained and terrible beast of prey who could kill not only with claws and teeth but with a word from his lips, a wave of his hand!—the world would be rid of the ferocious curse. Ay, his eye, which had yesterday scorned to look at the multitudes who had hailed his advent, was that of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... says, that he then saw the king curse his crown, and strive to swallow the affront; but that tears of spite rolled down his cheeks and fell upon his clothes. Whilst he was thus tormenting himself, Davoust, obstinately persisting in his opinion, said that the emperor was misinformed, and remained ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... in fiction, unless it is organic substance, that is to say, substance in which the pulse of life is beating. Inorganic fiction has been our curse in the past, and bids fair to remain so, unless we exercise much greater artistic discrimination than we display ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various |
