Slough of Despond

“ He had, I think, a Slough of Despond in his mind, a slough that he carried everywhere with him, or else he could never have been as he was. ”

“ Unable to bear the sneers of ignorance or the attacks of envy, not having strength of mind enough to buckle himself together like a porcupine, and present nothing but his prickles to his enemies, he began to despond, flew to dissipation as a relief which, after a temporary elevation of spirits, plunged him into deeper despondency than ever. ”

“ Wayward human nature will rebel against mental sloth. We must act, suffer, or enjoy; or the worst of all torments is ours—such restless agony as old poets figured as befalling a living soul imprisoned in the bark of a tree. ”

“ Sister Slocum's emotions forbid her saying more. She concludes, and buries her face in her cambric. Then an outpouring of consoling words follow. "He cometh like a thief in the night: His works are full of mystery; truly, He chasteneth; He giveth and taketh away." Such are a few of the sentiments lisped, regrettingly, for the departed.
How vain are the hopes with which we build castles in the air; how strange the motives that impel us to ill-advised acts. We leave untouched the things that call loudest for our energies, and treasure up our little that we may serve that which least concerns us. ”

“ The wistful patience in her face, like the look he had seen in the eyes of overworked farm animals, aroused in him a desire to prod her into actual revolt—into any decisive rebellion against fate. To accept life upon its own terms seemed to him, at the instant, pure cowardliness—the enforced submission of a weakened will ”

“ The people bend their backs, and accept with a passive, ironic resignation.... "No need to borrow trouble." Ages and ages of misery have rolled over this stone, but in the end stones do wear down and become mud. ”

“ It seems to me sometimes as if 'gluttony, envy, and sloth' were the very foundation on which the lives of some of these people rest, and as for pride and anger and lust, why, we take them for granted! ”

“ In some the scowl is very pronounced, and in one he looks not unlike a professional prize-fighter. They betray a mind jaundiced, but defiant. A restless, fiery soul, his temper, never of the best, had grown daily more gnarled and perverse. ”

“ A despot's shackles from their giant-breast,
And rush to freedom. But the baneful breath
Of ignorance, or luxury, or sin,
Swept o'er them as a siroch, and they sank
Amid the waste of ages. They, perchance,
Did look on woman as a worthless thing,
A cloistered gem, a briefly-fading flower,
Remembering not that she had kingly power
O'er the young soul. ”

“ That a person having the whole heathen world on her shoulders should not have her house in order somewhat surprises the indomitable lady. In answer to a question as to what time Mr. Slocum will be home, the maid of all work says: "Och! God love the poor man, there's no tellin'. Sure there's not much left of the poor man. ”

“ But another and an almost incredible other side is presented on the same page of her Memoirs. "I cannot leave this subject," she says, "without regretting, even twenty years after, that so much labour and expense should have been thrown away on a swarm of pilfering workpeople, both men and women, with which Slough, I believe, was particularly infested. ”

“ A dogged and sullen silence soon becomes the characteristic of these men; their features are stamped with the worst passions of our nature; and in many cases despondency is triumphant, and they make no proper or continued efforts to reclaim themselves. ”

“ She has no heart for the timid, the sensitive soul; and for knowledge,— Knowledge, O ye Gods!—when did they appreciate knowledge? Wherefore should they, either? I am sure I do not desire it. Ah, and I feel too, Eustace, she cares not a tittle about me! (Care about me, indeed! and do I really expect it?) But my manner offends; my ways are wholly repugnant; Every word that I utter estranges, hurts, and repels her; Every moment of bliss that I gain, in her exquisite presence, Slowly, surely, withdraws her, removes her, and severs her from me. ”

“ The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. ”

“ But all this is merely what appears upon the surface; the dry rot is covered up; the separation of the sexes prevents the corruption from being apparent. Sloth wears the mask of leisure, dignity is a cloak for pride. ”

“ This revolt of an old despot against the progress of time has in it something grand and solemn, and the melting tenderness which succeeds to the paroxysm of rage in that ferocious soul, represents man as he comes from the hand of nature, now irritated by selfishness, and again restrained by affection. ”

“ One would think that if obliged to pronounce such a doom upon any, he would do it with tears—that he would retire into his closet, and throw ashes upon his head, and come forth in sackcloth, overwhelmed at the hard necessity which compelled the stern decree. ”

“ Spiritual sloth and sensual indulgence stupefy, blunt, and confuse together in lifeless meshes, the vital tenant and the mortal tenement; they grow incorporate, alike unclean, powerless, guilty, and wretched. ”

“ Then desperation took the place of fear, and I felt more than a match for all that could come against me. I had no other than serene feelings, however, and had no wish to pursue the two pirates that fled. ”

“ Conscience had begun to whisper in his ear that there would be no safety to him in continuing this spiritual dictatorship to one whose every word unmanned him,—that it was laying himself open to a ceaseless temptation, which in some blinded, dreary hour of evil might hurry him into acts of horrible sacrilege; and he was once more feeling that wild, stormy revolt of his inner nature that so distressed him before he left the convent. ”

“ But if through the lure of base desires the mind has sunk into sloth and the pleasures of the body, when it has enjoyed ruinous indulgence for a season, when strength, time, and talents have been wasted through indolence, the weakness of human nature is accused, and the guilty shift their own blame to circumstances. ”

“ The contempt, the scorn, the pathos—the whole tragedy of her voice and bearing—were such as I can not set down on paper, and such as I scarce could endure to hear. Never in my life before have I felt such pity for a human being, never so much desire to do what I might in sheer compassion. ”

“ It was a desolate thought, indeed. I felt there was no trust or mercy in unfeeling man; and commending myself to the God of the oppressed, bowed my head upon my fettered hands, and wept most bitterly. ”

“ She will separate us soon enough without my letting,” replied Molly. “But she will not separate us with my consent. Rupert, I am not angry now. When one is driven to a last pass, one leaves anger behind one. ”

“ These were converted into despondency and fury by the elopement. And then came her miserable agent with a proposal which insulted her, and with menacing hints which were at once a cause of perplexity and alarm. Under such an accumulation of cares, it was no wonder that her old spirit deserted her, and that her usual energy was prostrated.
But no gentle thoughts yet mingled with her dejection. Anger, cold and stern, over-powered every other sentiment. She forgive! She pardon the rebellion which had shattered the hopes of many months! ”

“ He stood over her, silently looking at her back bent over the table, and now and then shaking from the sobs she tried to suppress, and his soul was convulsed by a struggle between good and evil, between offended pride and pity for her sufferings. ”

“ Yet, such is the hardening nature of such scenes, that from this kind of commiseration for the suffering slave I became so blunted that I could not only witness their stripes with composure but myself inflict them, and that without remorse. One case I have often looked back to with sorrow and contrition, particularly since I have been convinced that "negroes are men." ”

“ Fortunately he possessed sufficient wealth to spurn the counsel of sloth and timidity, which, when any act of daring is proposed, are always at hand, disguised as prudence and good sense, to cast a damp upon the springs of energy, or to travesty and misrepresent the purposes of the bold. ”

“ Why paint a dark and odious disposition which, devoid of all human sympathy, feeds its vanity in a cold contempt and derision of everything, and solely occupies itself in aimless detraction? Why exhibit such a moral deformity, which could hardly be tolerated even in Tragedy, for the mere purpose of producing domestic discontent and petty embarrassments? ”

“ Who is so sluggish as never to have heard [164] an echo in his own bosom, warning him to be up and doing a something, it signifies not what, if good or prudent, in preparation for coming years—to cast off the sloth which has fallen upon him, and, like the budding year, to begin life afresh. ”

“ When souls are shown in all their nakedness,
Your devastating egotism stands out
Denuded of the last remaining clout.
You own our cause is just, yet can't refrain
From libelling those who made its justice plain ”

“ But if you do not follow this plan, and face with courage the toil and hardship which lie in your way, the vice of sloth will so gain the mastery over you, that you will be always harassed and vexed, not only by the present toil and struggle, which ever accompany the first practice of virtue, but also by the sight of that which is afar off. You will live in dread of being tried and assailed by enemies, or of seeing some one impose a fresh burden on your shoulders ”

“ Because of society's misunderstanding and prejudging my peculiarity, I was compelled to run the risks of the slums. Mankind would ostracize me for it, but instead they should pity me as one with whom the Almighty has dealt very bitterly.
Some eminent men in all callings are numbered among the inverts. Their terrible secret is hidden from the world. ”

“ Here at present I felt afresh—for I had felt it again and again—how my equilibrium depended on the success of my rigid will, the will to shut my eyes as tight as possible to the truth that what I had to deal with was, revoltingly, against nature. I could only get on at all by taking “nature” into my confidence and my account, by treating my monstrous ordeal as a push in a direction unusual, of course, and unpleasant, but demanding, after all, for a fair front, only another turn of the screw of ordinary human virtue. ”

“ Is it contemptible, Eustace—I’m perfectly ready to think so,—
Is it,—the horrible pleasure of pleasing inferior people?
I am ashamed my own self; and yet true it is, if disgraceful,
That for the first time in life I am living and moving with freedom.
I, who never could talk to the people I meet with my uncle,—
I, who have always failed,—I, trust me, can suit the Trevellyns ”

“ People who did nothing, or who did not know exactly what they were going to do, or who did not take the most direct way to accomplish what they set their hands to, were objects of her entire contempt,—a contempt shown less frequently by anything she said, than by a kind of stony grimness, as if she scorned to say anything about the matter. ”

“ But apathy, and serfdom, and kinghood, and dominion, drain the fountain of its living springs, and the soul becomes like the plummet of lead, whose only tendency is to hide itself in subaqueous mud and unsavoury slush. ”

“ To him who strives in vain with the giant forces of evil, what calm in the thought of an overpowering will, so that will be crowned by goodness! However grim, to the distrusting, looks this fortress of sovereignty in times of flowery ease, yet in times when "the waters roar and are troubled, and the mountains shake with the swelling thereof," it has been always the refuge of God's people. ”

“ Dissension, combined with growing scarcity, gradually produced a feeling of despondence, many began to tremble at the desperate nature of their undertaking, and the magnitude of the power to which they were opposed. ”

“ But she had taught him to think that she possessed in perfection the art of trustful resignation, of unprotesting, cheerful patience—virtues that sat so gracefully on her bended brow that the thought of their being at any rate supremely becoming took the edge from his remorse at making them necessary. ”

“ Nameless thoughts tumultuously invaded his sick brain and ruled there as despots. They attached themselves to him like an implacable furious old woman, who attaches herself the more closely to her young lover, the more she feels he is going to escape her. ”

“ The wretched place should be avoided by strangers, unless driven there for shelter, as we ourselves were, by stress of weather. We left the place on the first lull of the wind, having been threatened by an attack from a gang of rough, half-drunken fellows, who rudely came on board, jostling about, and jabbering in a dialect which, however, I happened to understand. ”

“ For as the Woman, by the subtlety of the Serpent, was seduced to discredit the word of God, it is evident that the fall commenced in disobedience. This is also confirmed by Paul, who states that all men were ruined by the disobedience of one. ”