Abrasive

“ I am like a serpent, and like brass and tempered steel—nothing can bruise or break me: my teeth are like fine daggers; when I strike them into the flesh of any creature I never loose my hold till I have sucked out all the blood in his heart. ”

“ A poor creature with dishevelled hair, with a horrible wound in her throat, clasping a baby in her arms, and her bosom dabbled with the child’s blood. She swayed herself, the agony of despair in her eyes ”

“ Only cuts and bruises, eh?’
‘I wouldn’t have given sixpence for the gentleman’s head in half-a-dozen seconds more, for all he’s only cut and bruised,’ observed the post-boy. ‘If ever you’re in an accident of this sort again, sir; which I hope you won’t be; never you pull at the bridle of a horse that’s down, when there’s a man’s head in the way. ”

“ If but a single arrow be discharged against us, the tender flesh of this thy babe shall be the clout that shall receive it—and if but one burning brand be thrown, this shall be the very first food given to the conflagration. It is thy child. I hate it as being thine. ”

“ A man, hatless, seated flat upon the paving stones, held the broken, bleeding body against his breast, kissing the mangled cheeks and streaming mouth through tangles of wet hair, his own features indistinguishably crimson with the blood that half-strangled him and ran in rills from his soaken beard. ”

“ I have cut down trees with a sense of sympathy for them, and almost a sort of remorse; while now thinking of my axe, a lust seizes me to get a mad delight and exaltation by using them on the necks of the men’s eaters; on the necks of those who seem to have the evil in their head and on the trunks of those who seem to have the evil in their breast. ”

“ Long since the burden of the massy links, cutting deeper and deeper into my flesh, has become an agony. I am dizzy from gazing downward into the abyss — and yet I cannot fall. Beneath, immeasurably beneath, at recurrent intervals, I hear a hollow and solemn sound. ”

“ The wounds which seem like real wounds, the color of the skin, the contraction of the face, the attitude, the expression,—each thing is terribly real. If you touched the body, you would expect to feel the tremor of the limbs and the warmth of the blood. ”

“ To cut a pound of flesh from the rump of a fat dowager, who turns sixteen stone, is within the practical skill of the veriest bungler in the anatomy of the human frame—to scarify the fleshless spindle-shank of an antiquated spinstress, who lives on a small annuity, might be beyond the scalpel of an Abernethy or a Liston. ”

“ Once I felt the great weight of one of the monsters upon my back and as keen talons sank into my flesh I experienced the frightful sensation of moist lips sucking the lifeblood from the wounds to which the claws still clung. ”

“ And as the whole body conspires in producing the slightest motion of any limb—a foot, an arm, a hand or a finger—so all hell conspires in the perpetration of every wicked deed—in every evil purpose, word, or work. ”

“ Il lui a barbouillé le visage; he has besmeared his face for him. On l’a tout barbouillé d’encre; they have daubed him all over with ink. — un plancher; to daub a floor. Il n’écrit pas, il barbouille; he does not write, he scrawls. Il ne peint pas, il barbouille; he does not paint, he daubs. — un compliment; to stammer out a compliment. Qu’est-ce qu’il barbouille? ”

“ We can’t kink our hair with a curling-iron, can we? We can’t harrow our foreheads with scars, can we? We can’t force our legs out into the form of a bow or walk with our ankle-bones on the ground, can we? ”

“ The arms dangle from the shoulders; as if they were almost cut away, and hung by shreds. The legs totter and bend at the knees, as ready to sink under the weight of the reeling body. And a general incapacity, corporeal and mental, exhibits human nature sunk below the brutal. ”

“ Quite near, one face is looking sadly at me, as it lolls to one side. It is coming out of the bottom of the heap, as a wild animal might. Its hair falls back like nails. The nose is a triangular hole and a little of the whiteness of human marble dots it. There are no lips left, and the two rows of teeth show up like lettering. The cheeks are sprinkled with moldy traces of beard. This body is only mud and stones. This face, in front of my own, is only a consummate mirror. ”

“ It will be impossible for you to escape the influences brought to bear on you, if you remain here; the Cribbages, great and small, will lie in wait till you are napping and then fall on you and bind you, and apply the laces to your feet, and the boards to your head. ”

“ Every muscle of his powerful frame gained more rigid tension at the thought, and when he was presently hit by the sword of his hitherto unconquered foe, and felt the warm blood flow over his breast and left arm, he collected all his strength. ”

“ And yet, incredible as the paradox would seem, if it were not too common to be strange, the play of muscles and rush of blood, visible through the skin, do reveal the most spiritual and immaterial changes. ”

“ All my resentment against this false, sleek, smooth-spoken creature welled up within me, and I exulted to feel him stagger and wilt, then crumple up in a grasp which I willed to be as violent and brutal as mind and muscle could make it. ”

“ These needles inside have caused at first uneasiness and alarm for the consequences; but when they gradually, and in succession, work out, some at the elbows, some at the finger ends, some at the nose, and in the end come all away, they cease to trouble, and become a joke. ”

“ The old hands gritted their teeth philosophically, but the younger men frequently shrieked in their agony as the pitiless lash wound itself around the tender flesh, raising at first livid red welts, and afterwards lacerating the flesh and tearing the back into bloody seams. ”

“ Once or twice I fancied that I observed a look of still stranger, still wilder expression, when the black ring forms around the eye—when the muscles twitch and quiver along gaunt, famished jaws—when men gaze guilty-like at each other. ”

“ When we see a stroke aimed and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. ”

“ Now, by all that’s terrible, I’ll fight till there’s not a leaf or lid left. Why, the first blow I give him shall be a jaw-breaker. He’ll think himself smitten, like the Philistines, by a jawbone. Major, get me a dictionary with iron clasps; but one is not enough, my boy. I’ll strike him with two dictionaries. ”

“ On the slightest provocation the fingers of his right hand would curve and clutch, and a fierce longing seize him to compass the extinction of life in some animate being—to feel the slackening of the muscles in some victim—an emotion elemental, barbarous, cruel, but keen, masterful and pervading. ”

“ On each occasion that thou art betrayed into thinking that thou art sworn to avoid, cut thyself sharply upon the wrist or forearm with a razor; even as thou shouldst beat a disobedient dog. Feareth not the Ox the Goad of the Ploughman?
3. Thine arm then serveth thee both for a warning and for a record. Thou shalt write down thy daily progress in these practices, until thou art perfectly vigilant at all times over the least thought that ariseth in thy brain. ”

“ I propose to give you five livres and the word of a gentleman that I will not lay a finger on your razor. You shall shave me yourself—and then you will be far more likely to cut my throat than I yours, especially as I doubt whether you have ever had much practice with the implement. ”

“ This time his teeth flashed quicker and with deeper intent at the jowl- clutching hand, and, missing, he was seized and flung down the smooth incline harder and farther than before. He was growing angry, as he clawed back, though he was not conscious of it. ”

“ When annoyed, they raise their heads up about a foot from the ground, and flatten the neck in a threatening manner, darting out the tongue and retracting it with great velocity, while their fixed glassy eyes glare as if in anger. ”

“ Considering the perpetual crushing of unprotected toes by hobnailed heels, and the bending of ribs under the crushing pressure of uncompromising elbows there is heard on all sides an astonishingly small amount of cursing and swearing; but the most marvellous part of the business is the various things the people contrive to do in the very heart and thick of the crush. ”

“ He clenches his fist threateningly, stretches one finger after another into the air if he is counting something, stamps his foot if he is angry, and puts his finger to his head if he does not understand—in that he behaves as he would if his interlocutor were before him. ”

“ He bows at least a half-dozen times, bows clean over, half-way to the ground, but alas! every time his head bobs up he sees the same disheartening face, a face he never ordered, a face he cannot accept. ”

“ Many a time you’ll get a hunch from a look. Sometimes, too, a nervous or too-eager [200] back will give the play away by an unconscious shifting of his body in the direction of the point of attack. You may get fooled on that point, though, for some backs will deliberately bluff; it’s an old trick. ”

“ His companion!—there, indeed, was the bruiser—no mistake about him: a tall massive man, with a broad countenance and a flattened nose; dressed like a bruiser, but not like a bruiser going into the ring; he wore white-topped boots, and a loose brown jockey coat. ”

“ His bending joints and drooping head
⁠Shew'd he began to fail.
His colour sicken'd more and more,
⁠He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
⁠To shew their deadly rage.
They took a weapon strong and sharp,
⁠And cut him by the knee ”

“ There was something else,—something quite undefinable, that gave a singular glow and radiance to the whole countenance, and suggested the burning of a light through alabaster,—a creeping of some subtle fire through the veins which made the fair body seem the mere reflection of some greater fairness within. ”

“ Therefore,” saith he, “a spark as soon as it appeareth, is to be extinguished, [168] and the leaven to be removed from the rest of the dough; rotten pieces of flesh are to be cut off, and a scabbed beast is to be driven from the sheepfold; lest the whole house, body, mass of dough, and flock, be set on fire with the spark, be putrefied with the rotten flesh, soured with the leaven, perish by the scabbed beast.”
The answerer trusteth not to the sword of the Spirit only, in spiritual causes. ”

“ In medicine, the passage of blood, or any other fluid of the body, from morbid causes, into vessels not designed to receive it. Mental aberration is that wandering from soundness of judgment which is so conspicuous in the insane. ”

“ You must represent an angry man holding some one by the ear, beating his head against the ground, with one knee on his ribs, his right arm raising his fist in the air; his hair must be dishevelled, his eyebrows low and narrow, his teeth clenched and the two corners of his mouth set, his neck swelled and [his brow] wrinkled and bent forward as he leans over his enemy. ”

“ The rounded bodies fell apart as he came into sight over the ridge, and displayed the pinkish object to be the partially devoured body of a human being, but whether of a man or woman he was unable to say. ”

“ The skilful tricksters among the brethren draw a little blood perhaps but generally confine themselves to causing deep depressions in their skin with point or blade, apparently using great force, and so giving the impression that their skin is impenetrable. ”

“ If he be bad stuff, he throweth them back, and tilteth up his loins, and spraddleth. But if he hath good stuff, he throweth out his chest, and putteth the fire into his eyes, and closeth his nostrils, and gathereth his legs, and straineth his muscles like a bowstring. ”

“ We lean our backs against the walls, resting the packs on the projections which bristle from them. But we examine these things coming out of the earth, and we smell that they are knees, elbows and heads. ”

“ Then, with a heavy sigh, he moves to his work, and stands looking at it, with his head down; he does a stitch or two, having the air of a man so lost in sadness that each stitch is, as it were, a coming to life. Then, turning abruptly, he begins pacing his cell, moving his head, like an animal pacing its cage. ”

“ Halting, we threw small stones at them, after the fashion of inquiring humanity, which caused them to rear angrily upright on their hinder parts, snarl with wide-open mouths at us, then, curving their backs in high disdain, they moved off towards the water, their heads over their sleek shoulders, grunting—always grunting. ”

“ She was twisting the azurite jewels on her bosom, and pressing the blunt points into her flesh. He looked up from the fascination of her action when he heard the tone of her last question. He was angry. ”