Severance

“ Repel us not from out the fold of saints, sincere!
More bitter is there naught than severance from Thee.
Without Thy shelter, naught but anguish can we see.
Our minds’ accomplishments impede our hearts’ advance.
Our flesh the deadly enemy that wrecks our souls’ best chance.185
Our hands, like robbers, seize on all our feet may earn.
Unless Thou prove our refuge, life’s not worth concern.
If we perchance escape with life from danger’s snares.
Our fears and anguish make it prey to carking cares. ”

“ This total severance, so simply effected between the prisoner and the world, gives rise to a complete overthrow of his faculties and a terrible prostration of mind, especially when the man has not been familiarized by his antecedents with the processes of justice. ”

“ I looked that up particularly.”
“Quite true, I believe,” confirmed Severance. “It’s an open field.”
“I got ten series mapped out to start. Call ’em ‘The Trouble-hunter Twins, Ruff and Reddy.’ If they catch on, the artist and me can keep ’em goin’ forever. And they’ll catch.”
“I believe they will,” said Severance.
“Smeared across the top of a page it’ll make a business man laugh as hard as a kid. I know business men. ”

“ Shouldst thou step a little way into the worlds of Severance, thou wilt testify that no day greater than this Day and no resurrection mightier than this Resurrection can be imagined, and that one deed in this Day is equivalent to deeds performed during a hundred thousand years nay, I ask pardon of God for this limitation, because deeds done in this Day are sanctified beyond any limited reward. ”

“ And now here was a strange thing: that while the hardiest and soundest amongst us had made good show of cheer, had eaten the vile food and tried to speak lightly of our ills, no sooner did we hear our own voices in the songs that carried us back to the pleasantries of our native land, than we fell a-sobbing and weeping like children; which weakness I attribute to the distemper that was already in our blood.
For the days that followed I have no heart to set down much. We never went without the palisades except well guarded to fetch firewood. This duty indeed made the burden of every day. ”

“ One should drink a little of the wine of severance, establish himself upon the seat of impregnability and observe: " One hour's reflection is better than seventy years of pious devotion," (to discover) the reason of this base action, that the people, notwithstanding declaration of love and search for Truth, curse the followers of the True One after the Appearance, as is evidenced in the tradition. It is clear that the reason is none other than the abrogation of customs, ceremonies, habits and rites by which the people are bound. ”

“ So Ali in turn told him his story and added, "By Allah, O my brother, naught moved me to keep my case secret from thee and from others but my fear lest folk should lift the veils of protection from certain persons." Rejoined the jeweller, "And I desired not to foregather with thee but of the great affection I bear thee and my zeal for thee in every case, and my compassion for the anguish thy heart endureth from severance. Haply I may be a comforter to thee in the room of my friend, Abu al-Hasan, during the length of his absence: so be thou of good cheer and keep thine eyes cool and clear." ”

“ He heard the soul-cheering Spiritual Voice from the enkindled Fire of Divinity and was appointed to guide the Pharaohic souls; to deliver the people from the valley of egotism and desire and lead them to the heart-rejoicing plains of spirit and guidance; to conduct all in the creation from the perplexity of remoteness to the abode of the Peace of Nearness, through the Salsabile of Severance. When He entered the house of Pharaoh and delivered that for which He was appointed, Pharaoh loosed his tongue in abuse, saying: "Art thou not he who committed murder and became an infidel?" ”

“ When the servants who have continued for years to imitate the religion of their ancestors and who have been brought up in its established ceremonies and customs, suddenly find one who hath been among them, their equal in all the human limitations, abolishing those religious ordinances in which they have been trained for successive centuries and the contradictor and denier of which they consider as infidel, impious and profligate,—such circumstances naturally constitute a veil and cloud for those whose hearts have not tasted the Salsabile of Severance nor drunk from the Kawther of Knowledge. ”

“ Income Tax; Severance Tax; Political Subdivisions Section 4. (A) Income Tax. Equal and uniform taxes may be levied on net incomes, and these taxes may be graduated according to the amount of net income. However, the state individual and joint income tax schedule of rates and brackets shall never exceed the rates and brackets set forth in Title 47 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes on January 1, 2003. Federal income taxes paid shall be allowed as a deductible item in computing state income taxes for the same period. ”

“ Soon after her son-in-law and his father died, she became so much THE Severence that fashionable people forgot her origin, regarded her as the true embodiment of the pride and rank of Severence—and Severence became, thanks wholly to her, a synonym for pride and rank, though really the Severences were not especially blue-blooded. ”

“ By the dread wherewith life was astounded and shamed out of sense of its trust,
By the scourges of doubt and repentance that fell on the soul at thy nod,
Thou art judged, O judge, and the sentence is gone forth against thee, O God.
Thy slave that slept is awake; thy slave but slept for a span;
Yea, man thy slave shall unmake thee, who made thee lord over man. ”

“ With the clamour and horror yet in our ears of that raging eloquence in which the sufferer flings into the faces of prosperous men the very flame and hell-fire of his suffering, it needed no less than this to leave the mind exalted and reconciled. ”

“ And shall I—I that dwell apart in the house of the dead, my body, loathing its ways—shall I repeat the spell? Shall I bind another spirit, reluctant as my own, into this bewitched and tempest-broken tenement that I now suffer in? Shall I hand down this cursed vessel of humanity, charge it with fresh life as with fresh poison, and dash it, like a fire, in the faces of posterity? But my vow has been given; the race shall cease from off the earth. ”

“ So the man's life serves under the beast's law, And things whose spirit lives in mouth and maw Share shrieking the soul's board and soil her bed, Till man's blind spirit, their sick slave, resign Its kingdom to the priests whose souls are swine, And the scourged serf lie reddening from their rod, Discrowned, disrobed, dismantled, with lost eyes Seeking where lurks in what conjectural skies That triple-headed hound of hell their God. ”

“ Severn can dispense with a reward from 'such stuff as dreams are made of.' His conduct is a golden augury of the success of his future career—may the unextinguished Spirit of his illustrious friend animate the creations of his pencil, and plead against Oblivion for his name! ”

“ What was dominion over one heart compared to the knowledge that the wild, fierce spirits of a thousand savage beings were quelled by the sound of my footsteps?—not with a physical and cowardly fear, but with an awe which was of the spirit—a superstitious dread, which was to them a religion. ”

“ No harmful shaft can reach the righteous man, Standing erect amid the storms of hate, Defying hurt and injury and ban, Surrounded by the trembling slaves of Fate. Majestic in the strength of silent power, Serene he stands, nor changes not nor turns; Patient and firm in suffering's darkest hour, Time bends to him, and death and doom he spurns. ”

“ I must be pardoned for giving these distressing details; but how otherwise can I depict the misery, moral and physical, which we are enduring? And with it all, I dare not venture to hope that we have reached the climax of our sufferings. ”

“ Her tongue was too ready and her brain too quick for that. Also, she kept her temper from flooding over into the self-abandonment of angry weeping and vituperation. Perhaps it was that she had too much pride—or that in general she saw life with too much self-complacency, or that she was not in the habit of yielding to disappointment. ”

“ Nay, is there help in heaven? it may be
All things and lords of things shall cease.
The stooped urn, filling, dips and flashes;
The bronzèd brims are deep in ashes;
The pale old lips of death are fed.
Shall this dust gather flesh hereafter?
Shall one shed tears or fall to laughter,
At sight of all these poor old dead?
Nay, as thou wilt; these know not of it;
Thine eyes' strong weeping shall not profit,
Thy laughter shall not give thee ease;
Cry aloud, spare not, cease not crying,
Sigh, till thou cleave thy sides with sighing,
Thou shalt not raise up one of these. ”

“ Were it not better, cruel memory, to remind me and recall what she then did, that stirred by a wrong so glaring I may seek, if not vengeance now, at least to rid myself of life? Be not weary, sirs, of listening to these digressions; my sorrow is not one of those that can or should be told tersely and briefly, for to me each incident seems to call for many words. ”

“ Bids thee nor change nor languish,
But live thy life as here,
More high than wrath or anguish,
More strong than pride or fear.
We are fallen, even we, whose passion
On earth is nearest thine;
Who sing, and cease from flying ”

“ He who has the happiness of commanding you may easily forget all other glory. I own we have suffered, and still suffer, much, especially since the full exercise of our powers is restrained. But in the feeling of the vengeance which we take on the sons of dust,—in the contemplation of their madness and crimes, by which they continually thwart the purposes of their being,—lies a recompense for our suffering. ”

“ Only when he comes to look at the world and the women in it with a man’s eyes does he understand.
“What is it, Sir Sorrowful?” asked my companion at last. “The old problem?”
“The old problem.”
“Why ponder it? You have already said that no man can escape his destiny.”
“I am going to escape mine if it be possible.”
“Is escape worth so much worry?”
“It is all the difference between hell and heaven!”
“Oh, fie! What would the betrothed think could she hear you?”
“I wish she could!” I retorted bitterly.
“Ah, M. de Tavernay,” and her voice had a note of sadness in it, “I thought you a gallant man. ”

“ Thou still with tyrants in succession curst, The last invaders trampling on the first; Nor fondly hope for some reverse of fate, Virtue herself would now return too late. Not half thy course of misery is run, Thy greatest evils yet are scarce begun. ”

“ But the agony of the hero over the little corpse of the child murdered with her plaything in her hand—the anguish that utters itself as in peal upon peal of thunder, broken by sobs of storm—the full crash of the final imprecation, succeeded again by such unspeakably sweet and piteous appeal to the little dead lips and eyes that would have answered yesterday—and at last the one crowning stroke of crime which calls down an answering stroke of judgment from the very height of heaven, for the comfort and refreshment and revival of all hearts—these are things of which no praise can speak aright. ”

“ What reason is there in talking trees?”
“Ah, Miss Severn,” said Sir Ronald, gayly, “some of [Pg 39] the sweetest things in life are those that have no reason in them.”
That was how and when the tragedy began. ”

“ And how full of dread and horror must be that first awful conviction which assures him that the struggle is in vain—that the last remedy is tried—that nothing is left him now but despair—despair and death! ”

“ Severinus hastily approached the door: his whole manner betrayed tokens of violent emotion. "I dare not listen to you longer, terrible, dangerous woman! God sees my anguish that I cannot save your soul, make your noble powers useful to the good cause. In you all the hostile powers of the world assume a bodily form; in you I have convinced myself that I am no match for them, and only the repentance of a whole life can atone for the weakness!" ”

“ Others with pale face and quivering lip confessed the inward tumult, and that, if they feared naught for themselves, there were those at home, helpless and exposed, for whom the heart bled, and for whom it could not but show signs of fear. ”

“ Why am I called upon to do this, oh cruel, most cruel destiny? Cannot I fly from the horrid scene? Cannot I rather run a dagger into my heart? But no, 'tis plain my fate is ordained, sealed, fixed! and in vain I struggle,—I must fulfil the task appointed for me! ”

“ Instead of the turbulent temper, coarse appetites, low cunning, unrestrained ferociousness, and unrelenting vengeance, relieved by those magnanimous atchievements, sage reflections, and spirit-stirring sentiments, which, like transient gleams succeeded by sudden squalls, compose the unsettled weather of a savage mind, an endless procession of undistinguishable automatons is marched in the same slow solemn pace, across the unchanging scene. ”

“ In some of these instances, when the woman had tempted successfully, the man had dwelt thenceforth in misery and died in torment, amid the execrations of mankind. In others, having resisted the siren, he had glowed with a high and exalted happiness, and finally had ascended to upper regions between applauding ranks of angels—which was not realism in the least. Art, said Severne to himself, is an enduring truth. Human passions are misleading. Self-sacrifice is noble. ”

“ The deeply-furrowed face, too, bore evidence of bygone struggles, perhaps of sorrows and sufferings of many kinds endured in the past, and the sharp, bitter lines about the mouth gave a harsh and almost hostile expression to a countenance which must once have been bright with ardour and intelligence. ”