Bewilderment

“ I was exhausted, shattered, in bewilderment. But behind the bewilderment the truth was already gleaming. ”

“ The dividing of a woodland path may cause the traveler the greatest perplexity, which may become bewilderment when he has tried one path after another and lost his bearings completely. With an excitable person bewilderment may deepen into confusion that will make him unable to think clearly or even to see or hear distinctly. ”

“ His sympathy and pity had been deeply moved; her voice, her beauty, her anguish and bewilderment, all uncommon, inexplicable, mysterious, formed together a claim that drove self into the background. Added to this was the detail that she had left him, gone to another floor without a word, and now, behind a closed door in a room up-stairs, found herself face to face at last with the unknown object of her frantic search—with "it," whatever "it" might be. Real or unreal, figure or human being, the overmastering impulse of his being was that he must go to her. ”

“ Then the metaphorical paralysis of fear is seconded by the simulation of a literal one, extending through the limbs of one side or both; the sufferer reels, feeling one foot fail him—tries to revolve one arm like a windmill, that he may restore his circulation, and that arm for some instants hangs powerless. Presently, with one tremendous concentration of will, his brain shouts down an order to the rebellious member—it stirs with sullen reluctance—it moves an inch—and then it breaks from the prison of its waking nightmare. ”

“ Groping in intellectual darkness for a clew to his maze of doubt, his gaze, directed mechanically downward in the way of one who ponders momentous matters, fell upon something which, there, in the light of day and in the presence of living companions, affected him with terror. ”

“ As for the girl, seeing the swift-running lad, she watched in surprise for a little, then followed, and coming to the hole in the ground shuddered with fear, believing that under the earth she trod lived thousands of such creatures that, perchance, roamed in the daytime and did evil. ”

“ There had been mad wilful rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose origin was fear, and whose result was a degradation infinitely more terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, they had sought to escape, Nature, in her wonderful irony, driving out the anchorite to feed with the wild animals of the desert and giving to the hermit the beasts of the field as his companions. ”

“ Your ears will seem to play you false, your eyes deceive you, a terrible feeling of loneliness that would break a weak mind. If you fear your mind weak, do not don this. For every mental impulse that each living creature radiates continually, forever will be cut off. No corpse will be less lifeless to you than I when you wear this!”
“But you own mental impulses will be reflected, intensified and worked over. ”

“ You may think it a tiresome story enough, as foggy as the day, sharpened by no sudden flashes of pain or pleasure.—I know: only the outline of a dull life, that long since, with thousands of dull lives like its own, was vainly lived and lost: thousands of them, massed, vile, slimy lives, like those of the torpid lizards in yonder stagnant water-butt.—Lost? There is a curious point for you to settle, my friend, who study psychology in a lazy, dilettante way. ”

“ In exploring this wilderness of inhumanity, filled with the shapes and motley sights of degradation, I live in a perpetual struggle how to calm the natural expressions of an honest soul into that measured phrase that may best suit the sated public ear. If one overhang this abyss until his spirit do drink in its very import, his soul must be full of thunder and his words glance like fire. ”

“ We had to deal with the strangest creature, a thing alternately beast and gentleman, sensitive in every fibre of his nature, and so animalized by that awful life of imprisonment that he was a constant dread and terror to himself. ”

“ However much the body rebels, however much the mind rebels, in the midst of the uttermost darkness, in the midst of agonising tortures, in the uttermost despair, repeat this, once, twice, thrice, ever more. Light comes gently, slowly, but surely it comes. ”

“ On the one hand, there are those that seem to spring from dimly lit or dark feeling, to arise,—as it were, hydra-like, to sting and madden, or mist-like, to benumb all life, and turn it into mere drift and dreaming,—from out of the obscure, undrained, swampy places of human ignorance and passion. ”

“ The new fear that swept in upon her comprehended something more than the grotesque masses of tree roots, that now appeared to dance madly in the moonlight, something more than Sid Gould, Cal Mosher and Jerome Hadley—that had become a fear of life itself, of all she had ever known of life, all she had ever been permitted to see of life—that fear was now heavy upon her. ”

“ Yet, in all these cases, this feeling will rapidly lead the soul on to become unconsciously weak or feverish, unless the latter manfully escapes from this feeling’s tyranny, and nobly bends under the yoke and cramps itself within the narrow limits of the life-giving concrete act. ”

“ A horror of sleep, a horror of being awake and aware, remorse, phantoms, voices, sudden blazings of wrath as suddenly gone, sweating panics, that craven care of life which springs so rank as the soul decays, and a steady, cunning determination to keep whole the emptied shell of reputation and rank,—these were the things that filled his hours by day, by night ”

“ But, poor soul! even as he insists, the agony within rises, breaks up, overwhelms the picture. He lives again through the jars and frets of those few burning days, the growing mistrust of them, the sense of jealous terror and insecurity—and then through the anguish of desertion and loss. ”

“ Had I not seen men and women go down to despair under some fixed hallucination, conjured from the combination of overwork and a steamed atmosphere—transforming happy, normal humans into fear-haunted creatures, ever pursued by an unseen foe? ”

“ I have been more than once a victim to these crises and outbreaks which give us cause to believe that evil-meaning demons slip into us, to make us the ignorant accomplices of their most absurd desires. One morning I arose in a sullen mood, very sad, and tired of idleness, and thrust as it seemed to me to the doing of some great thing, some brilliant act—and then, alas, I opened the window. ”

“ Naturally, some of us will always shrink before death, and wring our hands, and lose our self-possession. Some temperaments are subject to vertigo, to a horror of abysses, and in especial to a horror of the great abyss toward which all paths converge. ”

“ Grose, that first scared Sunday, my flash of something it would scarce have done to call light. 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. ”

“ If we are eternally surprised by our own limitations, our own torpidity and dullness, there are also—and for this heaven be thanked—some possibilities of surprise upon the other side, and that for the oldest, the saddest, the least alert amongst us. A hundred hours of intolerable dullness and stagnation pass over our heads. ”

“ The blind and indomitable forces of life were whirling over them in that embrace. And because they realized this with terror their clasp grew closer; and from that embrace sprang an impulse, both good and evil, that stirred them to the soul. ”

“ Over and again, with a nervous start, consciousness would seize upon him, and he would be himself long enough to contrast his forlorn plight with the feignings of his dream, and so sink again into troubled slumber. ”

“ Not alone are there degrees of cold and hunger of the body,—discomfortable and ill-nourished living,—but there are, as well, things which seem to me even more difficult to endure—unsatisfied hunger of the mind and heart and a most cruel and persistent chill of the spirit. ”

“ As it is, I behold in myself an abyss, I gaze down and listen, and discover neither light nor harmony, but thunderings and lightnings, and voices and laughter, and a medley that dismays me. There rage the elements which God only can control. ”

“ In the transition to and from the repose of sleep, the mind is sinking into oblivion, and thought is fading, and the senses and sensation are overshadowed in their regress to insensibility: even instinct is well nigh a blank. This is the state of slumber. ”

“ Who shall describe the sensation of the poor mortal, as he felt himself falling—falling down—down, a blind mass, through the darkened air? Those who have fallen, or have leaped even from a moderate height, can have no conception of the frenzied terror that took possession of him for a moment. ”

“ After all these years of doubt and unbelief, at this moment of lucid consciousness, the atmosphere of devoutness, long since dead, possesses me, and thrills me so passionately that I can hardly resist it. ”

“ Nothing happened anywhere; house, garden, mind alike were barren, abortive, torn by the strife of frustrate impulse, ugly, hateful, sinful. Yet behind it all was still the desire of life--desire to escape--accomplish. ”

“ Were this strained position of the soul to continue long, it would disturb the equilibrium of the brain and become madness—a state happier perhaps than that which remains, for life then is nothing but a vision of past misfortune, acting like a ghost. ”

“ Feverish startings and tossings proved that the soul was not sharing the body's rest, and dreams, which are said to be of real events the forms and shadows, disturbed him with dark and monstrous images, the fitful phases of which, as they changed, grew yet more fearful and torturing. ”

“ Each trembled for himself, or for those dear to him; every countenance was stamped with an expression of feverish astonishment and dread. People walked with rapid steps, as if they would escape from the fate which threatened them; besides, they were in haste to return to their homes, for often they left life, health, happiness, and, two hours later, they found agony, death, and despair. ”

“ But struggling, without moving, as a dreamer wrestles with the nightmare, he presently sprang bolt upright—his eyes wide and wild—the sweat oozing upon his ghastly forehead—his whole frame weak and quivering. ”

“ And certainly he tried to make me feel that what to me was like a maniac's nightmare, an abysmal horror beggaring language and crucifying thought—it was all a commonplace to men and women of the world. "Human nature!" "Human nature!"—like the tolling of a muffled bell. ”

“ Some, furious and strong in agony, sat in their beds bolt upright,—raving, tossing their arms, and muttering horrible imprecations—hideous objects of misery. The most fearful of all were the most healthy,—those whom they called the “Convalescents;” and who glided about in their long, white, shroud-like hospital-gowns and dresses; looking and moving like creatures emerged from the grave—even more appalling to Nature than those who were ready to descend into it. ”

“ Then, when cool deliberation succeeds to the wild vagaries, the electric fire of frolic fancy, she will discover the dangerous precipice, the deadly abyss to which her present conduct and inclinations lead. ”

“ Now look at your evil thoughts, you who are plagued with a swarm of them. When you kneel down to say your prayers, they are there distracting your attention. When you are at table or with friends, they are there disturbing your thoughts, perhaps corrupting your conversation. When you are alone, they are there filling your mind with images and sounds. When you are in bed, they are there, keeping you awake. Your thoughts—these evil thoughts, so numerous, in such swarms, never forsake you. ”

“ I know not what unholy thoughts shot through my worn and weakened brain. I saw in the gloomiest colours a future of ceaseless struggle, of dependence, and of humiliation, which I was approaching by the dark gate of hunger; I felt a profound and utter disgust of life ”

“ As we have seen, an intense state of fear, conscious or subconscious, produces a state of aboulia, a state of indecision, a state of incompletion of action, a state of insufficiency, a paralysis of will power, and a sense of unreality, all of which are intimately interrelated. ”

“ But others make this a further description of the conduct of those sinners that are afraid of the light: if they be discovered, they get away as fast as they can, and choose to lurk, not in the vineyards, for fear of being discovered, but in some cursed portion, a lonely and desolate place, which nobody looks after. ”

“ Half-forgotten thoughts and feelings thrust up their heads like beasts of prey which have long lain bound. She felt strange and homeless in her glittering life, and thought with a sort of demoniac longing of the horrible places from which she had risen. ”

“ They spread from room to room, and from house to house. The wild scenes that had attended the first awakening were tame in comparison with what now occurred. Self-control, reason—everything—gave way to panic. ”

“ But, after all, what can be expected of creatures without souls? One sees, now and seen, stupid human beings, whose eyes have no thoughts in them, and whose souls seem to be sound asleep. Such lumps of dulness might almost as well be gnomes, and slip into the earth and have done with it.
These underground folk had a great horror of our world. ”

“ But the sudden and violent change in your whole disposition, has proved only too plainly, that some concealed and unfortunate event—some mysterious adventure, at which we cannot guess, is the cause of your melancholy; which cause, however remote, still continues to exercise over you the same destructive influence. ”