Blemish

“ But an observer, especially a lawyer, could also have read in this stricken man the signs of deep sorrow, the traces of grief which had worn into this face, as drops of water from the sky falling on fine marble at last destroy its beauty. A physician, an author, or a judge might have discerned a whole drama at the sight of its sublime horror, while the least charm was its resemblance to the grotesques which artists amuse themselves by sketching on a corner of the lithographic stone while chatting with a friend. ”

“ And still I writhed and moaned, "The curse, the curse,
Than animated death, can death be worse?"
"Dark child of sorrow, mine no less, what art
Of mine can make thee see and play thy part?
The key to all strange things is in thy heart." ”

“ That pale face—those fixed, staring, dead eyes—the countenance emaciated by disease, and the long consuming fire of conscience—the step, solemn, slow, measured and unearthly—and the dark, dim and shifting imagery of the past, which floats to and fro through her imagination, form altogether a spectacle shocking and almost insupportable. ”

“ That grime of ages "lends a sort of warmth, and suggests flesh and blood," so that the suffering is not a cold and frosty incrustation, with which we have nothing to do, but a real tragedy going on before our eyes, by which our sympathies are most deeply moved. ”

“ No more did I look upon the woful dwellers in this Inferno with a callous curiosity as creatures scarcely human. I saw in them my brothers and sisters, my parents, my children, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. The festering mass of human wretchedness about me offended not now my senses merely, but pierced my heart like a knife, so that I could not repress sighs and groans. ”

“ I knew that I stood upon the borders of the Middle State. Believing that more is to be gained by descriptions of the good and excellent than by exciting the horror of deformity, I forbear, in this introductory volume, to recount the terrors of the awful Hell of the vicious and the self-damned soul.
Suffice it that I beheld scenes of lust, insanity, debauchery, and all vileness, sufficiently dreadful to appal the stoutest heart of any sane one who dwells in the same awful phantasies, insanities and evils. ”

“ How often shall the lamp of the wicked be put out, and a deluge come upon them, and He shall distribute the sorrows of His wrath? They shall be as chaff before the face of the wind, and as ashes which the whirlwind scattereth. ”

“ Hunger and sin and temptation, and wider still, that tragic word which includes them all—evil. Forgiveness and defence and deliverance—what sorrows these presuppose! Each step of these latter supplications seems to carry us deeper into the shadow and the darkness, each to present a darker aspect of what human life really is; and now that we have reached the last, we have an all-comprehensive cry which holds within its meaning every ill that flesh is heir to. ”

“ Blest is the soil that gave thee birth,
⁠And blest thine honour'd parent stem.
But doubly blest shall be the youth,
⁠To whom thy heaving bosom warms;
Possess'd of beauty, love, and truth,
⁠He'll clasp an angel in his arms. ”

“ To know the horror of blood forever upon one's hands, to rise, cold-sweated, in the night, fearful of the very shadows around one, to live with every detail of that fearsome act sweeping like some dread spectre at unexpected moments upon the consciousness! ”

“ What a chill their shadow calls To creep and tingle through our veins! Moving all our soul contains Of pity for the woes within— Those who move within this pall, Those who bear a load of sin, In the shadow of that wall.
Yes, you think their lot is hard; So do all you can t'retard Their sad downward course in time, And save them from a greater crime. ”

“ In the first place, we see, more or less vaguely, according to our imaginative endowment, a scene of very great confusion and horror: figures wildly shuffling to and fro, clutching at each other, writhing, grimacing with convulsed agony, shrieking, yelling, howling; we see horrible wounds, rent, raw flesh, arrows sticking in torn muscles, dragging forth hideous entrails, spirting and gushing and trickling of blood; we see the mother, agonised into almost beast-like rage and terror, the fourteen boys and girls, the god and the goddess adjusting their shafts and drawing their bows ”

“ I lay awhile thinking of all the blood and horror in that black night—like a dream of evil that leads through dim regions of silence into the shadow of death. I thought of the hinted peril of the slide that was to be the punishment of poor courage. ”

“ But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written. You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. ”

“ I heard a short, sharp cry behind me, a fall, and turning saw an awful face rushing upon me,—not human, not animal, but hellish, brown, seamed with red branching scars, red drops starting out upon it, and the lidless eyes ablaze. ”

“ What must it be when that image loves, feels, and suffers! When it speaks to us in tones that thrill the inmost heart? When we see it quiver and bleed under the lashes of the executioner--when the sweat of agony trickles from the brow and real tears flow from the eyes? ”

“ At sight of the noble young man, bare-headed and disrobed for the sad and ignominious death, there were many who could no longer restrain their tears; and hard-hearted grey-headed men who, hating his crime, believed they could find pleasure in his sorrow, and went thither to feast upon his suffering, now wept loudly for him whom, in their first feeling of horror, they had cursed. ”

“ Shall thrive by woeful dew-drops of my dolor;
And from the wounds I bear through fancy's rigour,
My streaming blood shall yield the crimson color.
The ravished sighs that ceaseless take their issue
From out the furnace of my heart inflamed,
To yield you lasting springs shall never miss you;
So by my plaints and pains, you shall be famed. ”

“ We compare the past with the present, and the sad contrast affects the heart, and awakens the tenderest emotions. The unconscious tear stands trembling in the eye, as we behold the melancholy scene. But there is nothing so affecting, so much to be lamented, as the perverse obstinacy, and rebellious course of impenitent sinners. ”

“ Groundless complaints and clamorous phrases loud,
And vanity, with its envenomed darts—
Whatever of harm life, like a viewless plague,
Sows ’mid us all, e’en in the noblest hearts—
All these grew calm, and only one desire,
One impulse in us all blazed into fire—
To suffer and to strive with all our souls
To scatter the surrounding darkness dire. ”

“ Kill not for food, and where Necessity Demands the sacrifice of sentient life, Kill with all kindness and with due regard To Physical—and Mental—feelings. Pain Is a nerve-racking, dread experience, Especially unto the dumb Creation, Who cannot question, yet are forced to bear That dread experience, all unwillingly. ”

“ And then, when the blood is poured out, the tragedy consummated; when the body which was a breathing man is taken from the bloody grass where it lies like a wounded bird, its heart-blood welling out—when it is home cold and pale before her, and the mother, sister, daughter wail and moan—then the beautiful goddess who has gotten up this little drama for her amusement, finds her false philosophy broken in her breast, her deity overthrown, her supreme resolution crushed in presence of this terrible spectacle ”

“ Those eyes whose haunted beauty had first laid claim to one's humanity were now—their blazing madness of a short hour since dispelled—black pools of pathos in a face whose chalkiness was runneled by tears and framed in hair like tarred rope unravelled. ”

“ It remains no longer, but to mock my sense and scoff at my sorrow, to rend my bosom with a woe, complicated, matchless and inexpressible. The cheek is pale and livid; the eyes are sunk and circled with blackness. Corruption and ruin have already seized their prey and turned it into horror. ”

“ She clasp'd her hands in pangs severe,
And shrieks reveal'd her agony.
And fainting on the earth she lay,
With struggles of convulsive breath,
As if weak life had fled away
In terror at the sight of death. ”

“ If the blood of one of us, by each other’s blow, should fall upon the earth, it would stain it, and cry aloud for vengeance from the land wherever it had sunk, and call down the frown and the thunder of the Great Spirit. ”

“ May all the members of my body be tortured with inconceivable agony, and all the powers of my soul tormented with horror and despair, inexpressible and eternal! Let my dwelling be in the blackness of darkness, and my companions accursed men and accursed devils! ”

“ Surely an invalid, with that pallid face, those spectral, hollow eyes, those sunken cheeks, those bloodless lips; surely an invalid, and one but very lately risen from the very gates of death, a pale shadow, worn and weak as a child. ”

“ Men and women and young children, gaunt with hunger and begrimed with dirt, some with faces that were hard and stony, some with faces that were weak and simple, some with eyes that were red as blood, all weary with waiting and wasted with long pain, ran hither and thither in the gloom of the foul place where they were immured together. ”

“ The old rhyme, "Thrice blest is he who hath his quarrel just, but ten times he who gets his blow in fust," has always struck me as a peculiarly sound piece of philosophy, and I scanned each harmless passer-by who approached with a wary eye for any symptom of trouble. ”

“ Unhappy creatures, accustomed to raise their eyes to heaven, in mute appeal against the bitterness of their lot, would have seen at once from her eyes that she was broken in to the cruel discipline of ceaseless prayer, would have discerned the almost imperceptible symptoms of the secret bruises which destroy all the flowers of the soul, even the sentiment of motherhood. ”

“ And it is from this cause that in human beings bodily suffering expresses itself not only in contortions, but in shrieks and groans—that in anger, and fear, and grief, the gesticulations are accompanied by shouts and screams—that delightful sensations are followed by exclamations—and that we hear screams of joy and shouts of exultation. ”

“ And, amidst this general agony of destroying wrath, one central mystery, as a darkness within a darkness, withdraws itself into a secrecy unapproachable by eyesight, or by filial love, or by guesses of the brain—and that is the death of dipus. ”

“ As if counting and hesitating what course to pursue for their relief, he paces up and down the grotesque mass, touching one, and gazing upon the haggard features of another, who looks up to see what it is that disturbs her. ”

“ Never in my life have I seen a man who could shed so many tears, and these tears seemed to flow so readily—from the eyes, from the nose, from the mouth, every bit like a water-soaked sponge compressed by a fist. And even in our ranks have I seen weeping men, but their tears were like a consuming flame from which savage beasts flee in terror. ”

“ It’s a coarse and brutal nature that recognizes no harm that don’t involve loss of blood. I’m reduced by this accident from a thinking, feeling, reflecting human being, to a moral pulp—a mash—a poultice. ”

“ Of the hurt of the colour of blood for ever.
And terror's first constriction over,
Their hearts remain small drawn.
Their senses in some scorching cautery of battle
Now long since ironed,
Can laugh among the dying, unconcerned. ”

“ Thou art seen to sweat with pain, to look pale and red, to tremble, to vomit well nigh to blood, to suffer strange contortions and convulsions, by starts to let tears drop from thine eyes, to urine thick, black and frightful water, or to have it suppressed by some sharp and craggy stone that cruelly pricks and tears thee. ”

“ Lear, on his knees, bareheaded, with heavenward eye, quivering lip, and hands clasped together in agony, pronounced the terrible curse, and in his death realised all that can be imagined of human woe. ”

“ Nothing is to be heard or seen on all Sides but Distress, Lamentation, Tears, Sighs, Groans, Affright, Despair.
To conceive so many Horrors, one must figure to one's self, in one View, all the Miseries and Calamities that Human Nature is subject to ”

“ Ofttimes they cannot endure the slightest vexation, but some great, heart-breaking sorrow, some pain from constant renunciation, self-sacrifice, they suffer with sealed lips—as if, in very truth, they were bound with bars of iron. ”

“ My own was a slippery path to tread, and ofttimes led my weary feet into the shadow, and gloom, and darkness. Through sickness, neglect and maltreatment came all too soon "sorrow's crown of sorrow;" when over the young life fell a dark pall, and eyes so used to light no longer held the prisoned sunbeams, and passed forever under the relentless bond and cruel curse of blindness. ”

“ Dimly she realized that this strange, almost physical soreness, which made him shrink from her presence as a man with weak eyes shrinks from the light, was the outward sign of a secret violence in his soul, yet she ministered helplessly to each passing explosion of temper as if it were the cause instead of the result of his suffering. ”

“ Affliction, a grief that harasses the body. Despair, a grief that excludes all hope of better things to come. But those feelings which are included under fear, they define thus: There is sloth, which is a dread of some ensuing labor; shame and terror, which affect the body—hence blushing attends shame; a paleness, and tremor, and chattering of the teeth attend terror—cowardice, which is an apprehension of some approaching evil; dread, a fear that unhinges the mind, whence comes that line of Ennius,
Then dread discharged all wisdom from my mind ”

“ And now, when I am settling down to these reminiscences in late middle age, the most dreadful waking sense of real horror, and the first real touch of human pity, seem to meet each other, and to blend. ”