Blistering

“ Suddenly something swept over and through us, like a cold wind, or a sharp cry, or both, and we all became fixed in a breath, the smile, the wreath, the tiptoe foot, and we hardened and grew less, and the air inside the ring died with our breaths in it, and the joy froze out of us, and the recollection of all we were faded. ”

“ One would walk for three blessed hours in the frost, your Holiness, and lose all human semblance. Your legs are drawn up, there is a weight on your chest, your stomach is pinched; above all, there is a pain in your heart that is worse than anything. Your heart aches beyond all endurance, and there is a wretchedness all over your body as though you were leading Death by the hand instead of an old woman. ”

“ What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling of bliss—absolute bliss!—as though you’d suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe? ”

“ If the day opens clear, then becomes cloudy, and goes out in storm, there will be happiness in the beginning, but sorrow at the close; but if clouds and rain herald its awakening, then pass over and leave the sky blue and sunny, there will be trouble at first, but smiling peace as life progresses and declines. Our sky is bright as heart could wish. ”

“ When health breathed out in every breeze, too oft we've known the fever-- Too oft, my mother, have we felt the hand of the bereaver: Too well remember many a time the mournful task that brought him, When freshness fanned the summer air, and cooled the glow of autumn. ”

“ It is the cry of a human being that shares that fearful bed with the night and the storm--a woman who lies sunk to the knees under the cold, crushing coverlet of snow, and on her breast a newborn baby-boy, closely clasped in her stiffened arms and wrapped in her cloak. The milk which flows from the young mother's bosom to nourish her infant has frozen above her fluttering heart, and the tears on her closed lashes are turned to ice. ”

“ Then, high above the head, the sombre forms of the trees nod in the night-wind, and the stars,—ineffectual to guide us on our way—are seen only in short and rapid glimpses through the foliage; all these things affect the mind with sadness, but the chattering of the teeth and the cold creep of the blood, rendered sluggish by a frosty atmosphere, make it still more sad. ”

“ Thunder split the deeps of heaven,
And the wild rain swept thy hair.—
What art thou, whose presence, even
While with fear my heart was riven,
Healed it as with prayer?
[29]
A STORMY SUNSET
I
Soul of my body! what a death
For such a day of grief and gloom,
Unbroken sorrow of the sky!—
'Tis as if God's own loving breath
Had swept the piled-up thunder by,
And, bursting through the tempest's sheath,
Cleft from its pod a giant bloom.
II
See how the glory grows! ”

“ Then, behold, the earth rose out of the deep beneath, on her course, and the Spring had covered her with his blossoms and buds. As she drew nearer to the Isle of the Blest, a voice full of love cried, "Look down, ye dead, on your old home, and see the beloved who have lost, but not forgotten you."
For in the spring the earth always passes by the eternal World of the Blest, whose off-cast husk sinks into its clods; and therefore it is, that in the spring poor mortals experience such a profound longing, so powerful a presentiment, and so many haunting recollections of their lost beloved. ”

“ The frost is too strong for me. It freezes my heart, and leaves my mind quite free, so that the blood courses through my brain in quickest time, and then stops suddenly. It’s worse than killing me. I’m going mad, and what use am I to God, or how can I see the light of heaven, if once that heavy cloud descends, and coupled with the frost, freezes upon my eyes and lips, and eats out everything? ”

“ The sky has burst and all the rain in the sky is pelting down.... He is shivering with cold and fever. And suddenly he feels his little bare foot stepping on something warm and soft .... It is blood, clotted blood....
He no longer dares to move forwards or backwards. He stands with his teeth chattering and all the clatter of the rain around him.... But he must wake his father, take refuge with him, hide himself in his arms and sob and sob with fright! ”

“ He becomes stricken with grief, sheds tears, suffers from headache, feels his heart throb -or perhaps suddenly a storm blows, he is drenched in rain and becomes wet and cold. He wakes up and laughs at his illusory dream experience. ”

“ And she rose and ministered in her household;
She rose and ministered unto him.
"He touched her hand, and the fever left her."
O blessed touch of the Man divine!
So beautiful to arise and serve him
When the fever is gone from your life and mine.
It may be the fever of restless serving
With heart all thirsty for love and praise,
And eyes all aching and strained with yearning
Toward self-set goals in the future days.
Or it may be fever of spirit anguish,
Some tempest of sorrow that does not down,
Till the cross at last is in meekness lifted
And the head stoops low for the thorny crown. ”

“ Sick of a fever; a great fever, says S. Luke. Tropologically, the fever of the soul is the fire of concupiscence, the burning heat of lust, of gluttony, of pride, of envy, &c. Listen to S. Ambrose (lib. 4 in Luc. c. 4, ver. 38) . “Under the type of Simon’s wife’s mother, our flesh languishes under the fevers of various spiritual sicknesses, and is tempest-tossed by the varied enticements of immoderate desires. The fever of love, I may say, is no less than of heat. The one inflames the mind, the other the body. Our avarice is a fever, our lust is a fever. ”

“ In vain! these clouds roll to & fro, & hide thee from my sight.
Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire:
Round the terrific loins he siez'd the panting struggling womb:
It joy'd: she put asider her clouds & smiled her first-born smile:
As when a black cloud shews its lightnings to the silent deep. ”

“ I have heard men speak of the terrible blizzards and the appalling cold; of the deadly gloom, when the air is so full of snow that they can hardly see a hand before their faces, and they wander uncertainly for a whole day and night together until they give themselves up for lost, to find after all, when the storm is over, that they are only a few yards away from their own doors, or in the middle of the street from which they had started. ”

“ The body was too much weakened by the attack of fever, and even by the process of its cure, to permit him any violent emotions, and the universal joy of spring which wrapped him round carried his thoughts instinctively to images of joy. ”

“ The first intimations also of changes soon to come—the chill of early autumn nights when the moon rises on the white frost of fences and stubble, and when outside windows glowing with kindled hearths the last roses freeze. Of all seasons, of all the days with which nature can torture us, none so wound without striking; none awaken such pain, such longing: all desire offers itself to be harvested. ”

“ No matter how weary and discouraged we were during the day, our evening fire invariably brought to us a feeling of indescribable happiness, a sweet forgetfulness of everything but the moment's comfort. ”

“ You struck at me and drove me from you, and I fled in terror into the garden where I hid myself in the heart of a plum blossom, and the snow fell upon me and I was cold. Then I awoke and I was afraid, and something whispered to me ‘His heart is cold to you as was the heart of the plum blossom when the snow fell upon it!’ What means my dream? ”

“ And we smile, and mayhap grief is sleeting
Its ice upon you and on me.
And the clouds of the tempest are shifting
O'er the heart, tho' the face may be bright;
And the snows of woe's winter are drifting
Our souls; and each day hides a night.
For ah! when our souls are enjoying
The mirth which our faces reveal,
There is something — a something — alloying
The sweetness of joy that we feel.
Life's loveliest sky hides the thunder
Whose bolt in a moment may fall ”

“ Que la neige; apprends-moi ta paix impartiale,
Anéantis en moi la force et le vouloir.
Je veux cacher mes yeux, plus tristes que le soir,
A tes yeux, oublier jusqu'au petit ovale
De ta face, et, mon front dans le frais intervalle
De tes seins, sangloter des larmes sans espoir.
Mes pleurs sont un poison très lent que je veux boire,
Au lieu de mendier à quelque amour banal
L'ingrate guérison, l'aveuglement final.
Près de toi mon désir se consume, illusoire.
O mes regrets! combien j'éprouve encor ce mal
De rêver au bonheur auquel on ne peut croire. ”

“ For in man’s soul there is an answering mood,
A passionate storm with wind and driving rain
All through a night—love by dull pain pursued,
Then days when skies are kind and blue again,—
Blue, but they shed their bitter, biting frost,
And the sun burns with but a mocking heat,
While ghost-like zephyrs seek for something lost,
Like followers in the summer’s slow retreat. ”

“ And from his rugged face the tempests bound.
He does not heed the angry lightning's wound,
⁠The raging blizzard is his harmless guest,
⁠And human life is but a passing jest
To him who sees Time spin the years around. ”

“ The lark from the heavens drops down;
Grey clouds in the sky.
Sighing and tears for my sorrow,
⁠Life is so drear.
None so weary as I,
⁠'Tis a mere
Waste of love, and a wish for to-morrow—
Black night in the sky. ”

“ As the sun fell away, burning the lazy clouds that banked the east, filling them with strange fires, and night threw up her impalpable cooling incense to foretell her coming, the elation of the day died out in me. ”

“ As in springtime, when you happen to stand at the shore and wait, in one more minute everything will move and pull and crack! But the minute passes and the ice remains motionless; you feel as though you yourself are swelling, your heart beats more restlessly, more frequently. ”

“ Out of the shadows which shift with the sun, forms seem crawling and phantoms appear to glide, and we are in a fever almost from the horrible illusions of fancy. We breathe quickly and fear to speak, for the smallest vibration in the silence would jar on our nerves. ”

“ Yes, this is a real fire dance, as they call it, and it will last from now until the moon comes up, and before they stop every man, woman, and child will have burnt blisters on his or her hands, feet, and breast. ”

“ Bleak winters, when the naked spirit hears The break of hearts, through stinging sleet of tears, I deem that God is not disquieted; Against all stresses am I clothed and fed. Nay, even with fixed eyes and broken breath, My feet dip down into the tides of death, Nor any friend be left, nor prayer be said, I deem that God is not disquieted. ”

“ You may hit a blizzard in midwinter. A torrential shower may drench you. A fervent sun may unduly tan you. But these deviations from Paradise come only occasionally; they are the bitter that makes the sweet more sweet. ”

“ Although I dwell in the regions of eternal frost and never-melting snows, yet would I that my bosom should feel the gentle flame; though my flesh be of the consistence and coldness of ice, I would feel the raging of a fire like that which exists in the bosoms of those who love to madness. ”

“ CYCLE.
On the morning after both storms were dissolved into a still cloudiness.—And out of the great griefs came only errors. Weaklings that we are! when at our sham execution fate touches us with the rod, not with the sword, we sink impotently from the block, and feel the process of dying reach far into our life! All fevers, including spiritual ones, are cooled by the freshness of a new morning, just as sad evening stirs all their embers into a glow. ”

“ The sun shines fiercely, and it nearly dies in the heat. The storm comes and it is shrouded in ice—made almost to die with the cold. The wild winds rock it and tear off the branches, making it bleed—there [Pg 224] must always be pain. The thunders play over its head, the lightnings burn it, and yet its heart lives on. ”

“ Each gust of the clouded mood that seemed warmed by the heat of a heart flaming with anger has its counterpart in the chilly blasts that seem blown from a breast turned to ice with a sudden revulsion of feeling. ”

“ And spurns the balm which constitutes her sleep;
Her plaintive murmurs float upon the gale,
And almost make the stubborn rocks bewail.
O what is like the awful breach of death,
Whose fatal stroke invades the creature's breath!
It bids the voice of desolation roll,
And strikes the deepest awe within the bravest soul. ”

“ When frosts have cast a gloom over the earth, a bright sun makes us forget them. We are in the midst of frosts, and must wait patiently for this bright sun, and, while waiting for it, amuse ourselves in the moments when weakness and pain leave us some rest. ”

“ The wind at times would sigh and sob so mournfully, like a human voice, that her imagination peopled the darkness with strange creatures in distress, and then she would shudder as a more violent gust raised the prolonged wail into a loud shriek. ”

“ My griefs sometimes wrap me about like cold confining walls, which have neither windows nor doors. It seems as though a fluid sorrow can congeal into a cold, hard temperament, and hold me in its icy embrace. ”

“ Already wet through and through his thin coats and worn flannels, weak from the exposure, the watching, and the scene of death, every breath a sword athwart his inflamed lungs, with fire in his brain, and ice at his heart, he staggered against the blizzard. ”

“ IX. HEALTH AND DISEASE.—DEATH AND DECAY. "Health is the vital principle of bliss."
THOMSON. "There are three wicks to the lamp of a man's life: brain, blood, and breath. Press the brain a little, its light goes out, followed by both the others. Stop the heart a minute, and out go all three of the wicks. Choke the air out of the lungs, and presently the fluid ceases to supply the other centers of flame, and all is soon stagnation, cold, and darkness." ”