"Curfew" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pleasure or repose, the music of the grey belfries floated overhead; a voice from the old time, an admonition of mortality in strains sweet to the ear of childhood. Harvey had but to listen, and the days of long ago came back to him. Above all, when at evening rang the curfew. Stealing apart to a bowered corner of the garden, he dreamed himself into the vanished years, when curfew-time was bed-time, and a hand with gentle touch led him from his play to that long sweet slumber which is the child's ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... my love! Give 'em 'Curfew Shall Not Ring To-night,'" he murmured, as his head sank upon ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... off the street," that has been raised in our cities, as the real gravity of the situation has been made clear, has led to the adoption of curfew ordinances in many places. Any attempt to fit such a scheme to metropolitan life would result only in adding one more dead-letter law, more dangerous than all the rest, to those we have. New York is New York, and one look at the crowds in the streets and the tenements will convince anybody. ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... when it was all over my job began, for I could do what you couldn't do—I was the physician to heal wounds. You mind how nervous I was when I heard the drums beat. I hear them every evening now, for we have made a rule that all the Kaffir farms on the Berg sound a kind of curfew. It reminds me of old times, and tells me that though it is peace nowadays we mean to keep all the manhood in them that they used to exercise in war. It would do your eyes good to see the garden we have made out ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... When I think what I must have looked like bursting in on you that night—a sort of Curfew-Shall-Not-Ring-To-night, I suppose—I don't wonder at anyone's thinking me a lunatic. How I ever got there at all is a mystery to me. I believe I was unconscious part of the time. I scarcely remember it; the whole thing seems like a sort of feverish nightmare. When the taxi came ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... with a tag of Marvell's speech buzzing in my head (I had garrisoned it with quinine before I slept). That tag rang out in boastful refrain like the natives' curfew-bell of Alexandra, a bell not always very punctually rung. 'We are in at the death of malaria, of black-water, and ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... 1468 its duration was still further extended.[15] In the church of St. Etienne des Tonneliers, which was put under the protection of the monks of St. Ouen at this time, we can trace further evidence of the gradual consolidation of various trades; even the institution of the curfew bell, at the assembly of Caen in 1061, shows that increasing commerce had insisted upon greater security in the public streets. The Parvis of the Cathedral, too, was at this time not merely a place of inviolable sanctuary, but an open space on which merchants could display their goods and erect ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... father took him to the theatre (as once in a while he did), for it was a strict rule of the house, until The Boy was well up in his teens, that he must be in by ten o'clock. His father did not ask him where he was going, or where he had been; but the curfew in Hubert Street tolled at ten. The Boy calculated carefully and exactly how many minutes it took him to run to Hubert Street from Brougham's or from Burton's; and by the middle of the second act his watch—a small silver affair with a hunting-case, ...
— A Boy I Knew and Four Dogs • Laurence Hutton
... niece," said the old lady; "as we cannot escape the Norman neighbourhood, or get beyond the sound of their curfew, it signifies not whether they be near our walls or more far off, so that they enter them, not. And, Berwine, bid Hundwolf drench the Normans with liquor, and gorge them with food—the food of the best, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... with which he judged the rest of the world. The laborer whom he saw in the early morning swinging his dinner pail while with light steps he marched to the daily task in mill and factory, and whom he watched in the evening's dusk after the factory sirens had blown the working man's curfew, hurrying home anxious to reach his humble fireside, and for whom heretofore he had only known feelings of deepest contempt, suddenly had become a man who benefitted preciously far more of his life than any yegg he ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... so long as a woman can fight?" Kate cried quickly. "Chivalry?" she went on contemptuously. "That's surely a survival of ages when the old curfew rang, and a lot of other stupid notions filled folks' minds. I—I ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... noster, clum," said Nicholay, to walk a furlong* And "clum," quoth John; and "clum," said Alison: This carpenter said his devotion, And still he sat and bidded his prayere, Awaking on the rain, if he it hear. The deade sleep, for weary business, Fell on this carpenter, right as I guess, About the curfew-time, or little more, For *travail of his ghost* he groaned sore, *anguish of spirit* *And eft he routed, for his head mislay.* *and then he snored, Adown the ladder stalked Nicholay; for his head lay awry* And Alison full soft adown she sped. ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Francis and Saint Benedight Blesse this house from wicked wight; From the night-mare and the goblin, That is hight good fellow Robin; Keep it from all evil spirits, Fairies, weezels, rats, and ferrets: From curfew time ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... day, until nearly the hour of curfew, nothing was seen of Countess. She took Olaf with her as guard, and they returned at the last moment, just in time to enter the City before the gates were closed. David and Christian had finished their work, shut up the shop, and put the children to bed, when Olaf ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... shall he in that dusk room Savour your sweetness, since the very sprig, Profuse of blossom and of essences, He smells not, who in a paltering hand Clasps it laid close his peaked and gleaming face Propped in the pillow. Breathe silent, lofty lime, Your curfew secrets out in fervid scent To the attendant shadows! Tinge the air Of the midsummer night that now begins, At an owl's oaring flight from dusk to dusk And downward caper of the giddy bat Hawking against the lustre of bare skies, With something of th' unfathomable ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... curfew, a bell rang at sunset in summer and at eight in winter, which was the government signal for putting out lights and covering up fires. This law, which was especially hated by the English, as a Norman innovation and act of tyranny, was a necessary precaution against ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... dates from the fifteenth century,[7] but was restored by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1864. In it hangs the great bell "Gabriel" cast early in the reign of Edward III.; it is now used for striking the hour and formerly tolled the curfew. In the foreground, where the drinking fountain now stands, was "Eleanor's Cross," erected, like the cross at Waltham (q.v.), by Edward I. in memory of his Queen. It was destroyed about 1700. The old market-place, so quaint even fifty years ago, is now largely ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... turn any dirty trick that they want. There are four or five rich men in town who are there with the bank-roll, providing he engages women who ain't so very particular about the location of their residence, and who don't hear a curfew ring ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... her back to the chateau; the curfew had tolled for the laborious villagers of Fleurieres, and the street was unlighted and empty. She promised him that he should have the marquis's manuscript in half an hour. Mrs. Bread choosing not to go in by the great gate, they ...
— The American • Henry James
... say no evil thing that walks by night, In fog or fire, by lake or moorish fen, Blue meagre hag, or stubborn unlaid ghost That breaks his magic chains at curfew time, No goblin, or swart fairy of the mine, Hath hurtful power o'er ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... reached the "big, black hole, and the groaning ropes of the old dummy" the girls were howling and tumbling around in a pretty good imitation of Madam Z herself. They shuddered, acted the spook, and Judith proclaimed something like the old "Curfew shall not" in her swing out the window that she imagined went with the wild night's terrors. This detail of Judith's upset things some, for she fell off the couch (her pedestal for the tragic act), and although ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... to the village from the orphan boys' home at the Abbe's charity school. And that was not like a happy real home, for the little Brothers were rough and rude and far from loving one another. He had started at dusk from the school, hoping to be at the village church before curfew. For Pierre had a sweet little voice, and he was to earn a few pennies by singing in the choir on Christmas morning. But it was growing late. The church would be closed and the Cure gone home before Pierre could reach it; and then what ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... conquest of England, and as one of the strongest elements of its permanency, the feudal system was brought into England; the territory was surveyed and apportioned to be held by military tenure; to guard against popular insurrections, the curfew rigorously housed the Saxons at night; a new legislature, called a parliament, or talking-ground, took the place of the witenagemot, or assembly of the wise: it was a conquest not only in name but in truth; everything ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... U. alone has secured temperance measures of many kinds, including a law in every State requiring scientific temperance instruction in the public schools; in many States curfew laws, and statutes prohibiting the sale of cigarettes and of liquor on or near fair grounds, Soldiers' Homes and school-houses, and preventing gambling devices, immoral exhibits, etc. The Federation of Women's Clubs has obtained laws for free traveling libraries and has united ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... been put up for the churchyard of Granchester, about two miles from Cambridge, the great bell of St. Mary's serving for the "curfew." But Stoke-Pogis is more likely to have been the spot, if any individual locality were indicated. The poet often visited the village, his aunt and mother residing there, and his aunt was interred in the churchyard of the place. Gray's epitaph on his mother is characterized not only by the ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... were only a century or two apart, and that space is but a trifling circumstance in the history of this old country. One of these kings appointed an officer called a "wakeman" for the town. He must originally have been a kind of secular beadle of the community, or a curfew constable, to see the whole population well a-bed in good season. One of his duties consisted in blowing a horn every night at nine o'clock as a signal to turn in. But a remarkable consideration was attached to faithful compliance with this summons. If any house or shop ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... satisfactorily equal to this part of the occasion. She recited "Curfew shall not Ring Tonight," and played Haydn's "Gipsy Rondo." Joanna began to feel ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... bedtime hour is later established and continued until the young child attains school age, when retiring at the curfew hour of eight o'clock gives our boy or girl from ten to eleven hours of sleep, which is essential to proper growth, calm nerves, and ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... something about "Lady Temple" and "admirable," and the young lady seized the first opportunity of deserting Rachel, and plunging into the melee. Rachel sat on, sick with suspense, feeling utterly unable to quit her seat. Still they waited, the whole of the party were not arrived, and here was the curfew ringing, and that at the Deanery, which always felt injured if it were seven o'clock before people were in the dining-room! Grace must be upstairs dressing, but to reach her ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of whose life may remain unchanged, though its spirit be far other than it was. The sacred trust of the household fire has been transmitted in unbroken succession from the earliest ages, and faithfully cherished in spite of every discouragement such as the curfew law of the Norman conquerors, until in these evil days physical science has nearly succeeded in extinguishing it. But we at least have our youthful recollections tinged with the glow of the hearth, and our life-long habits and associations arranged on the principle of a mutual bond in ...
— Fire Worship (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... who make the grave a symbol of patriotism. With this great theme our poet is in perfect sympathy. His attitude is simple and reverent; he treads softly, as if on holy ground. The natural setting or atmosphere of his poem, the peace of evening falling on the old churchyard at Stoke Poges, the curfew bell, the cessation of daily toil, the hush which falls upon the twilight landscape like a summons to prayer,—all this is exactly as it should be. Finally, Gray's craftsmanship, his choice of words, his simple figures, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long |
