Dungeness

“ DUNGARREN.
God forbid! God help and deliver us!
(Runs impatiently to a corner of the dungeon, and puts his ear close to the ground.)
I do not hear them yet: if they should fail to reach it in time, God help us!
VIOLET.
What dost thou there? What dost thou listen for? What dost thou expect?
DUNGARREN.
Means for thy deliverance,—thy escape.
VIOLET.
Say not so; it is impossible.
DUNGARREN.
It is possible, and will be, if there's a Providence on earth—if there's mercy in heaven. ”

“ And their long-departed owners seemed to throng the gloomy cells and corridors with their phantom shapes. We loitered through dungeon after dungeon, away down into the living rock below the level of the sea, it seemed. Names everywhere!—some plebeian, some noble, some even princely. Plebeian, prince, and noble had one solicitude in common—they would not be forgotten! They could suffer solitude, inactivity, and the horrors of a silence that no sound ever disturbed, but they could not bear the thought of being utterly forgotten by the world. ”

“ And this moment, dear, familiar faces rise before my eyes, faces on which once the sublime glow of genius and enthusiasm shone brightly, now tinctured with the lurid paleness of dungeon life, but within a restless fire devouring them; the burning desire of free activity, checked by the clanking of chains, almost driving them to madness. ”

“ And now you are writing The Captive. You do not go into the dungeon in the body, because you need all your strength; but in the spirit you have gone into the dungeon, and the door has clanged, and it is black night—the world is gone forever. And there you sit, while the years roll by, and you front the naked fact. Six feet square of stone and an iron chain are your portion—that is circumstance; and the will—you are the will. And you grip it—you close with it—all your days you toil with it; you shape it into systems, make it live and laugh and sing. ”

“ I have had cause, and I have had time to nourish my hate. Five years in a dungeon affords one leisure, and on every square stone of that wall, and upon every inch of its relentless pavement, I have beaten out this determination with my bare hands and manacled feet, that if I ever did escape, and ever did return to the home of my fathers, I would have full pay for the suffering you have caused me, even if I had it in your blood. ”

“ If it should be the fate of any of you to count the moments of captivity, in sorrow and in pain, pining in a dungeon's damps, may you find refuge in the recollection of the example you this day set to those who may be called to pass judgment on your lives! ”

“ It is quite true that to came back from the higher life into this world is like going down from the fresh air and glorious sunlight into a dark and evil-smelling dungeon; but the man who does this to help some one out of that dungeon is not miserable and wretched while there, but full of the joy of helping, notwithstanding the greatness of the contrast and the terrible feeling of bondage and compression. ”

“ We remember the millions in the darkness of dungeons—the millions who perished by the sword—the vast multitudes destroyed in flames—those who were flayed alive—those who were blinded—those whose tongues were cut out—those into whose ears were poured molten lead—those whose eyes were deprived of their lids—those who were tortured and tormented in every way by which pain could be inflicted and human nature overcome. ”

“ Can you think you would be perfectly composed, and easy in your mind, if you lived in the same city with three persons, who had the power of shutting you up in a dungeon, and putting you to death when they pleased, and without being accountable for so doing? ”

“ When a Man thus wean'd from the World, and all the Hopes of Life, should be drawn forth from his dark and solitary Dungeon, once more enjoy the open Air, and see himself exposed to gazing Multitudes, there met on purpose to feed their Curiosity at his Expence ”

“ A fiery strength inspires their lives,
An essence that from heaven derives,
Though clogged in part by limbs of clay,
And the dull 'vesture of decay.'
Hence wild desires and grovelling fears,
And human laughter, human tears:
Immured in dungeon-seeming night,
They look abroad, yet see no light. ”

“ Am doomed the hateful threshold of old age
To cross, when these dull eyes will give
No response to another's heart,
The world to them a void will be,
Each day become more full of misery,
How then, will this, my wish appear
In those dark hours, that dungeon drear? ”

“ We must transport ourselves to the dungeon, and think of its dark and awful walls, its dreary hours, its tedious loneliness, its heavy and benumbing fetters and chains, its scanty fare, and all its dismal and painful circumstances. We must reflect upon their influence over a terrified and agitated, an injured and broken spirit. We must think of the situation of the poor prisoner, cut off from hope; hearing from all quarters, and at all times, morning, noon, and night, that there is no doubt of his guilt ”

“ The truth is, that I came out of the dungeon like a lamb, flexible as a glove, and that I am capable of committing a thousand base acts to save myself the horror of returning there. I am a coward like the rest, and when I tell you that I despise all men, do not believe that I make an exception in my own favor. ”

“ And now I must tell how entered the forty lifers upon my dungeon stillness. I was asleep when the outer door to the corridor of dungeons clanged open and aroused me. “Some poor devil,” was my thought; and my next thought was that he was surely getting his, as I listened to the scuffling of feet, the dull impact of blows on flesh, the sudden cries of pain, the filth of curses, and the sounds of dragging bodies. For, you see, every man was man-handled all the length of the way. ”

“ So that in the depths of even the gloomiest dungeon a ray of light always peers through, to lighten and comfort the soul of man in misery, and to restore to him the entire and therefore infinite liberty of creating for himself a world of his own. ”

“ It is in truth a wild impressive place, full of beauty and terror, and with none of the squalidness of the mere dungeon about it. There is a puny littleness in our brick and lime receptacles of misery and languor, which speaks as audibly of the feebleness of man as of his crimes or his inhumanity ”

“ Life is sweet, chained in a dungeon, in rags, on a crust of bread and a sup of water?"
"Yes, oh, yes!" faltered the poor creature, hoping to gain a little time so that deliverance from her bonds might come.
"Live then, you worm!" cried the old witch, throwing life at her poor victim with a curse. "Live as long as you can since you find it such a luxury!" ”

“ From time to time I heard the bolts of my dungeon, and a person—I know not whether it was a man or woman, for the darkness was always complete, and no voice, except my own, ever sounded—brought to me the meagre food which prolonged my sad life. ”

“ For hope whose fountain can be thus profound,—
Even thronèd Evil's splendid impotence
Girt by its hell of power, the secret sound
Of hymns to truth and freedom, the dread bound
Of life and death passed fearlessly and well,
Dungeons wherein the high resolve is found,
Racks which degraded woman's greatness tell,
And what may else be good and irresistible.
XXXVII
'Such are the thoughts which, like the fires that flare
In storm-encompassed isles, we cherish yet
In this dark ruin—such were mine even there ”

“ Thou shalt now hear and own thine infamy—
Rod. Chains, dungeons, tortures—but I hear no more.
Jul. Silence, thou wretch, live on—ay, live—abhorred.
Thou shalt have tortures, dungeons, chains, enough—
They naturally rise and grow around
Monsters like thee, everywhere, and for ever. ”

“ For, what other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self! ”

“ To lift up the roof of his dungeon, like the Diable boiteux, and look upon a criminal the night before he suffers, in his still hours of privacy, when all that disguise, which respect for the opinion of others, the strong motive by which even the lowest and wickedest of men still continue to be moved, would present an object to the mind of every person, not withheld from it by great timidity of character, more powerfully attractive than almost any other. ”

“ Sick of my unwalled, solitary realm, I ask to change the myriad lifeless worlds I visit as mine own for one poor patch Of this dull spheroid and a little breath To shape in word or deed to serve my kind. Was ever giant's dungeon dug so deep, Was ever tyrant's fetter forged so strong, Was e'er such deadly poison in the draught The false wife mingles for the trusting fool, As he whose willing victim is himself, Digs, forges, mingles, for his captive soul? ”

“ That was the question that tortured him, by night and by day, asleep and awake. Well, to have an interest, of some sort, and half a ray of light, when you are in a dungeon, is a great support to the body and preserver of the intellect. ”

“ Nevertheless, from the accidents of the position in which we are placed, the divine influence may appear under an aspect immensely unlike that in which we should view it if our prospect of the intelligent universe were more extended than it is. Thus the sad tenant of a dungeon, who has spent the days of many years alive in the darkness of the tomb, thinks far otherwise of the light of the sun, as he watches the pencil ray that traverses his prison wall, than those do who walk abroad amid the splendors of the summer's noon. ”

“ Is there a Power that can sustain and cheer
The captive Chieftain—by a Tyrant's doom
Forced to descend alive into his tomb,
A dungeon dark!—where he must waste the year,
And lie cut off from all his heart holds dear ”

“ Oh! as you are powerful, be brotherly; as you are great, be tender. If you only knew what I have seen! Alas, what gloom is there beneath! The people are in a dungeon. How many are condemned who are innocent! ”

“ Dungeon-door after dungeon-door clanged open, and body after body was thrust in, flung in, or dragged in. And continually more groups of guards arrived with more beaten convicts who still were being beaten, and more dungeon-doors were opened to receive the bleeding frames of men who were guilty of yearning after freedom.
Yes, as I look back upon it, a man must be greatly a philosopher to survive the continual impact of such brutish experiences through the years and years. I am such a philosopher. ”

“ And hour by hour in the dark dungeons, our madness of torment grew. Oh, trust me as one who knows, hanging is an easy thing compared with the way live men may be hurt in all the life of them and still live. ”

“ Yet wherefore now, thou who hast so often chased the weightiest cares like bubbles from thy brow, wherefore canst thou not dissipate this dire foreboding which incessantly haunts thee in a thousand different shapes? Since when hast thou trembled at the approach of death, amid whose varying forms, thou wert wont calmly to dwell, as with the other shapes of this familiar earth. But 'tis not he, the sudden foe, to encounter whom the sound bosom emulously pants;—-'tis the dungeon, emblem of the grave, revolting alike to the hero and the coward. ”

“ Only they who have escaped from some terrible doom—a dungeon, or death itself—can understand the full, deep emotions of joy, that at that moment thrilled within the hearts of Karl, Caspar, and Ossaroo. ”

“ But some are gluttons and others think only of fine clothes. Some pray and others jest. There are rogues and knaves here, friars and priests, barons and burgesses, bakers and butchers, tailors and tanners, masons and miners, and folk of many other crafts. Indeed, the field is the world. It lies between a tower and a dungeon. The tower is God, the dungeon is the dwelling of the Evil One. ”

“ What surprising or agreeable adventures can be expected from a man closed up within the four walls of a dungeon? Yet it is not altogether the uniformity of this period that determines me not to dwell upon and expand it. ”

“ FAUST In misery! despairing! long wandering pitifully on the face of the earth and now imprisoned! This gentle hapless creature, immured in the dungeon as a malefactor and reserved for horrid tortures! That it should come to this! To this!—Perfidious, worthless spirit, and this thou hast concealed from me!—Stand! ay, stand! roll in malicious rage thy fiendish eyes! Stand and brave me with thine insupportable presence! ”

“ I suppose everyone at some time has imagined himself irrevocably imprisoned, cast into some lightless dungeon and left to die. Such visions implied human instrumentality, human whim; the most implacable jailer might relent. ”

“ Is it nothing to grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons, the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are chained to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the song of a bird, the murmur of a stream, to see the dull eyes open and grow slowly bright ”

“ It was as a man confined in a dungeon, whose small and grated rift at first renders the doubtful light more sensibly obscure, till, the visual orb having drunk in the beam, and adapted itself to its scantiness, he finds that clear noon inhabits his cell. ”

“ The world went grinding on and on, much the same, without him whom it had forgotten; but the over-world remembered him, and now and then looked in at a window: all dungeons have one window which no gaoler and no tyrant can build up. ”

“ The Muses that were Powers of Fell, and Flood, and Forest, and Field, that went with man wherever he went—in cottage and palace, in divan and in dungeon, in the student's or the miser's chamber, on the battle-plain, and at the dance of bacchanals—and when and wheresoever man spoke, heard their own mother-tongue, they were beguiled and imprisoned within the pale of artificial society and of high life. ”