Dunce

“ I have a fear, an old fear and a boding. We have done ill in the sight of the seven gods; beggars we were and beggars we should have remained; we have given up our calling and come in sight of our doom: I will no longer let my fear be silent: it shall run about and cry: it shall go from me crying, like a dog from out of a doomed city ”

“ Here in the dust I make a heap of all my sins and vanities,—the toss of my head and the tilt of my chin, the love-looks of the lads and the black hate of the girls, and I'll burn them for a sacrifice the way the heathen would be doing and go joyful on my way with the ashes in my mouth! ”

“ Revenge from some baneful corner shall level a tale of dishonour at thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall set right.—The fortunes of thy house shall totter,—thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every side of it,—thy faith questioned,—thy works belied,—thy wit forgotten,—thy learning trampled on. ”

“ Gaunt as a life that lives alone with grief,—
So doth the hope go and despair abide.
[Pg 33]
An empty nest hangs where the wood-bird pled;
Along the west the dusk dies, stormy red:
The frost is subtle as a serpent's breath.
The dusk was sad; now night is overhead,
Grim as a soul brought face to face with death—
So life lives on when love, its life, lies dead.
II.
Go your own ways. ”

“ And yet each whispering wind has blown
Abroad the story of my shame.
I dread to see men shrink away
With startled looks of scorn or fear,
When in life’s crowded marts some day,
That name falls on their ear. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ He smiles—content—unmoved and dies.
And yet, with all the pity that you feel
For this poor mothling of that flame, the world;
Are you the better for your desperate deal,
When you, like him, into infinitude are hurled? ”

“ So, in the second chapter of the book of Wisdom, 'Our body shall become dust and ashes.' It follows, that after these passages of mortal life, oblivion shall be our portion—we, and our deeds, alike shall be forgotten. ”

“ All low desires submerged and in an ecstasy that was not joy but perfect clarity he saw the misery and sorrow of the world, sounding its deeps of agony and loss, the ruin wrought by age, disease, and death,—the hopeless dark beyond. ”

“ Of worldly men, the scourge, the spit, the flout,
And the whole dolorous way the Master trod.
All these would rouse the life that lurks within,
Would save or slay; these things might be defied
Or strenuously endured; yea, pressed by sin
The soul is stung with sudden, visiting gleams ”

“ Then judgment I pronounce on thee, because thou followed Lucre,
Whereby thou hast sold thy soul, to feel like torment with her
Which torments comprehended are in the worm of Conscience,
Who raging still shall ne'er have end, a plague for thine offence.
Care shall be thy comfort, and sorrow thy life sustain,
Thou shalt be dying, yet never dead, but pining still in endless pain. ”

“ So some rough and thorny exteriors that are human, hide tenderest and grandest spirits. So, especially, does the thorny and self-denying life of faith and patience and sorrow burst forth into the blossoming of heaven. ”

“ Standing between thy poor tempted creatures and the worst sorrow that can befall them—a sorrow that softens, not like others, as death approaches, but is transformed, and stands like a giant at the bedside. ”

“ There shall he terrible signs in the heavens and in all the elements. These and their causes I shall explain in the first part. These signs shall be to the wicked a source of fear, anguish, and dread; but to the good a source of joy and exultation. This I shall show in the second part. Sinners! if you wish that the last day should not he a cause of dread to you, be converted! ”

“ Enough of love, and laughter, and good cheer?
Have not the skies you scanned sometimes been clear?
How, then, of him who dies, could you ask more?
It is not well to hate him for the pain
He brought you, and the sorrows manifold. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You have left the decay and the stinking body in which you dwelt, the dwelling place, the abode of the wicked, the place that is full of sinners, the world of darkness, of hatred, jealousy and discord, the dwelling place where the planets dwell, which bring pain and infirmity. Pains they bring and afflictions, and daily they agitate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Why he pities— for he knows our frame. He has reason to know our frame, for he framed us; and, having himself made man of the dust, he remembers that he is dust, not only by constitution, but by sentence. ”

“ Away beyond the seas, beyond the mountains, hearts burn and wither at destiny, faint and re-arise in the sorry fabric of life; with us still lie the rebel humours, soft runs the placid blood, gently sinks the weary mortal upon a divine apathy. ”

“ A whole atmosphere of consecrated suffering seems to float round these spots sacred to sorrow, the sorrow that humbly appeals, as it best knows how, to the love, wide enough to embrace and comfort all desolate, and yearning, and heavy-laden souls. ”

“ For me to see a poor creature hanging over a dreadful fiery furnace, and have it in my power to help him with a word, and will not help him, nay, order him secretly to be pushed in, and yet stand, and in the most solemn manner cry, “As I live, I have no pleasure in your death;” ”

“ Again, when sorrow comes, when cares oppress and fears disturb and gloomy thoughts becloud the soul, their faces proclaim this inward change as clearly as the moving shadow on the landscape proclaims the floating cloud between it and the sun. ”

“ As of a hungry agonized spirit standing outside its wretched body, and watching its feeble movements, conscious of their futility, conscious of being chained to the miserable thing, and only knowing rebellion and agony. ”

“ Instead of the turbulent temper, coarse appetites, low cunning, unrestrained ferociousness, and unrelenting vengeance, relieved by those magnanimous atchievements, sage reflections, and spirit-stirring sentiments, which, like transient gleams succeeded by sudden squalls, compose the unsettled weather of a savage mind, an endless procession of undistinguishable automatons is marched in the same slow solemn pace, across the unchanging scene. ”

“ Gathering clouds were already darkening the sky, and threatened a storm, and a vague foreboding of evil seemed to come over my mind, dulling the keen edge of my happiness. Does some subtle instinct, as yet neither known nor understood, warn us when those we hold dear are in peril? ”

“ Refrain My conscience felt and owned the guilt, And plunged me in despair, I saw my sins His blood had spilt, And helped to nail Him there. Refrain A second look He gave, which said, “I freely all forgive; This blood is for thy ransom paid; I die that thou mayst live.” ”

“ Those that are of a meek and quiet spirit are, under affliction, like a dove in a net, mourning indeed, but silent and patient. Those that are of a froward peevish spirit are like a wild bull in a net, uneasy to themselves, vexatious to their friends, and provoking to their God: They are full of the fury of the Lord, the rebuke of our God. ”

“ No scene of pleasurable enjoyment can stand the contrast of such a sight; the revulsion is too sudden and too painful from the light frivolity of mirth to the terrible reality of suffering and sorrow. ”

“ Mere human feelings of pity, sympathy with my too visible agitation, superadded to something of perhaps reverence for the blighting misery that was now opening its artillery upon me—for misery has a privilege, and everywhere is felt to be a holy thing—had combined to procure for me some attention and some indulgence hitherto. ”

“ And he answered, saying, “O my lord, my lamentation is for thee, because thou art in sore straits, for all thy fair fortune and goodliness and exceeding comeliness, seeing thou hast naught wherewithal to do and receive delight, like unto other men.” Quoth the youth, “Thou sayst sooth, but thou mindest me of somewhat I had forgotten.” ”

“ Dust's your wages, son of sorrow,
But men may come to worse than dust.
Souls undone, undoing others, --
Long time since the tale began.
You would not live to wrong your brothers:
Oh lad, you died as fits a man. ”

“ And soften Woes it cannot cure;
Would we not suffer Pain and Grief,
To have our Reason sound and sure?
Then let us keep our Bosoms pure,
Our Fancy’s favourite Flights suppress;
Prepare the Body to endure,
And bend the Mind to meet Distress;
And then His Guardian Care implore,
Whom Dæmons dread and Men adore. ”

“ Let the danger of my situation touch thee, O my God! The character of my heart discourages and alarms me; I know that inconstancy in thy ways is a presage of perdition, and that the versatile and changeable soul is cursed in thy holy books. ”

“ Hunt, surrounded with so many blessings, and appearing so much to enjoy such a rational, desirable, delightful occupation, should have been led away, should have been betrayed into the guilt of dissipation? ”

“ The miseries of the damned are summed up (perhaps with reference to this) in the indignation and wrath of God, which are the cause, and the tribulation and anguish of the sinner's soul, which are the effect, Rom. ii. 8, 9. It will be a day of trouble and distress to the inhabitants, and a day of wasteness and desolation to the whole land; that fruitful land shall be turned into a wilderness. It shall be a day of darkness and gloominess; every thing shall look dismal, and there shall not be the least gleam of comfort, or glimpse of hope; look round, and it is all black. ”

“ Will blame the one's hard fate, the other's madness;
Whiles such as do recount that tale of woe,
Told by remembrance of the wisest heads,
Will in the end conclude the matter so,
As they will all go weeping to their beds.
For when the world lies winter'd in the storms
Of fearful consummation, and lays down
Th' unsteady change of his fantastic forms,
Expecting ever to be overthrown ”

“ Thy chastisement and indignation have lorded and prevailed over these thy servants, over this poor people, even as rain falling upon the trees and the green canes, being touched of the wind, drops also upon those that are below. ”

“ Whether the cause be referred to mental, physical, or spiritual conditions, everyone knows the effect; every one has felt that the looks, the actions or gestures of the beloved awaken some vestige of tenderness in those most deeply sinned against and grievously wronged. ”

“ They mark time in my spirit's flawed action. I begin each day with a Damn of sorts. I end each day with a Damn of sorts. At midday sometimes it's, 'Damn the terrifying ignorance of people.' In the dusk a deep-felt Damn of the blood. ”

“ Come, now again thy Woes impart,
Tell all thy Sorrows, all thy Sin;
We cannot heal the throbbing Heart,
Till we discern the Wounds within.
Compunction weeps our Guilt away,
The Sinner’s Safety is his Pain;
Such Pangs for our Offences pay,
And these severer Griefs are Gain.{248} ”

“ And Thou—is thine the spirit’s swift recoil,
Which follows every deed of acted wrath,
That holding in thine hand this lovely spoil,
Thou dost not triumph, feeling that the breath
Of life is sacred, whether it inform,
Loathly or beauteous, man or beast or worm? ”

“ Thus sunk in gloom, far deeper internally than in outward show—warring with remorse and the sense of unmerited injury—vanquished by fate, yet refusing to yield, nature had reached the acme of suffering. ”

“ How dull they were—how dull the world—
Dull even in the pulsing town.
O! worst of punishments, that brings
A blunting of all finer sense,
A loss of feelings keen, intense,
And dulls us to the higher things. ”