Fuss

“ There is indeed in mind that heat it gets When seething in rage, and flashes from the eyes More swiftly fire; there is, again, that wind, Much, and so cold, companion of all dread, Which rouses the shudder in the shaken frame; There is no less that state of air composed, Making the tranquil breast, the serene face. But more of hot have they whose restive hearts, Whose minds of passion quickly seethe in rage— Of which kind chief are fierce abounding lions, Who often with roaring burst the breast o'erwrought, Unable to hold the surging wrath within ”

“ Despise life's being; but not yet will I
So utterly despise it. Though in gulfs
Of yet unsounded ruin I should die
At the end miserably, I still shall seek
In life itself my refuge: not in God
That stands apart from life, on heights of peace.
All my desires, my visions, my dreams, my unrest,
My loathing and my longing will I clutch
And cry: "With all its bitterness on my head,
My Will be done, not Thy Will!"
BRANDER
Blasphemy!
Ah, Faust, what madness!... [78]
FAUST
With calm sight, I speak
No blasphemy, but truth. Shall I buy peace
So easily? ”

“ If another man hath not slept with thee, and if thou be not defiled by forsaking thy husband’s bed, these most bitter waters, on which I have heaped curses, shall not hurt thee.
5:20. But if thou hast gone aside from thy husband, and art defiled, and hast lain with another man:
5:21. These curses shall light upon thee: The Lord make thee a curse, and an example for all among his people: may he make thy thigh to rot, and may thy belly swell and burst asunder. ”

“ To pretend that I felt anger at his intrusion, or emotion of any sort, save the one sense of palsied terror, would be to depart from the truth. I lay, cold and breathless, as if frozen to death—unable to move, unable to utter a cry—with the voice of that demon pouring, in the dark, his undisguised blasphemies and temptations close into my ears. ”

“ The curse has fell; and I hain't able to see John here or Marthy here or the hand here before my face here. But listen what I got to say about it. I'm able to hate and to curse as good as God. And I do! I hate and curse the Hand that, after taking all else I loved, snatched from my bosom the one little yoe lamb I treasured thar; I hate and curse Him that expected me to set down tame and quiet under such cruelty and onjestice; I hate and curse and defy the Power that hated and spited me enough, atter darkening the light of my life, to put out the sight of my eyes! ”

“ For as the gift was beautiful, so was it also frail, and as the curse was subtle, so was it also strong. I have seen the end — long, long. Now it is here. My work is finished. The curse has knocked at the door of my body, and, at the signal, the gift has flown forth from the window of my soul. ”

“ There seemed a tension in the air—as if something was going to snap. Doubtless you have often felt it—a sensation as though pins and needles were pricking you all over. As though you wanted to scream—to cry out—against an uncertain sensation that gripped you. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Others with pale face and quivering lip confessed the inward tumult, and that, if they feared naught for themselves, there were those at home, helpless and exposed, for whom the heart bled, and for whom it could not but show signs of fear. ”

“ It grows at first uneasy, and then furious, and then advances towards me, grinning and shaking its paws clenched, and, at the same time, there comes the appearance of fire in the grate. I never have any fire. I can't sleep in the room where there is any, and it draws nearer and nearer to the chimney, quivering, it seems, with rage, and when its fury rises to the highest pitch, it springs into the grate, and up the chimney, and I see it no more.
"When first this happened I thought I was released. I was a new man. A day passed—a night—and no return, and a blessed week—a week—another week. ”

“ 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. ”

“ THE STORY OF THE ACTION Act I. —Faust, an aged philosopher, who has grown weary of life, and of the vain search for the source of all knowledge, decides, after a nightlong vigil, to end his existence by taking poison. In the act of raising the cup to his lips his hand is arrested by the sound of merry voices of maidens singing in the early morning of the joy of living. ”

“ Her lips, usually scarlet as the petals of the fuschia, were now colourless; the short upper one was defined and stern; the lower, full and pouting, trembled with the emotion which she strove to repress; and her glorious black eyes had in them a mingled expression of fierce anger, deep reproach, sorrowing love for me, and shame for the whole affair—such an expression as I hoped never to see in them again. ”

“ We descended by torch-light, and I should have enjoyed the scenery on my return, but they conducted me, I know not how, to the hermitage in a state of intense bodily suffering, the worst effect of which was spoiling the pleasure of Mary and C——. Our guides on the occasion were complete savages. You have no idea of the horrible cries which they suddenly utter, no one knows why, the clamour, the vociferation, the tumult. ”

“ Faust and Mephistopheles.
Faust.
In misery! in despair! Wandering in hopeless wretchedness over the wide earth, and at last made prisoner! Shut up like a malefactor in a dungeon, victim of the most horrible woes—poor miserable girl! Must it then come to this? Thou treacherous and worthless Spirit! this hast thou concealed from me!—Stand thou there! stand!—Roll round thy fiendish eyes, infuriate in thy head! Stand and confront me with thy insupportable presence. A prisoner! in irredeemable misery! given over to evil Spirits, and to the condemning voice of the unfeeling world! ”

“ The groans of the sick, the screams of the mad, the curses of others as they fought fiercely for places against one or another of the walls, blended in awful tumult as the door was closed upon the darkness within. ”

“ All this was so violent and so strange, that he suddenly felt within him that species of indescribable movement which no man experiences more than twice or thrice in his life,—a sort of convulsion of the conscience, which disturbs everything doubtful in the heart, which is composed of irony, joy, and despair, and what might be called an internal burst of laughter. ”

“ May the holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of God, curse him.—May St. Michael the advocate of holy souls, curse him.—May all the angels and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly armies, curse him." [Our armies swore terribly in Flanders, cried my uncle Toby,—but nothing to this.—For my own part, I could not have a heart to curse my dog so.] ”

“ 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! ”

“ And then another thing was shouted, something that turned an aimless tumult into determinate movements, it came like a wind along the street. "To your Wards, to your Wards. Every man get arms. Every man to his Ward!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ His words, his accent, the quality of his voice, were the zigzag of lightning to his wife. The storm burst over her head like thunder.
She was amazed to feel a great wave of anger surge up in her, responsive to his own. ”

“ Where do you come from, O man, and where do you keep yourself, that we know not your features nor hear your voice? Have you wife or mother who awaits your return? Or children who set your torch in the corner and climb to your lap and embrace your neck? ”

“ The blood vanished from her cheeks, her lips became blue, and big drops of perspiration stood out on her brow. Filled with restless fears, and with despair in her heart, she felt as if her very soul was held in a vice! ”

“ Sometimes a child would cry, a man utter an oath, a woman shriek: then would come harsh orders delivered in a gruff voice, more swearing, the grounding of arms and more often than not a dull, flat sound like a blow struck against human flesh, followed by a volley of curses, or a cry of pain. ”

“ For things I dream—o’er moments wasted
And sometimes interrupt my song
With clenched fist to curse a wrong—
It is a joy to curse a wrong.
And so I sing and sigh and curse—
All life doth sing and sigh and curse. ”

“ On pressed the people from the front—on, on, on, in a strong struggling current of angry faces, with here and there a glaring torch to lighten them up, and show them out in all their wrath and passion. ”

“ When you first hear this language spoken you instinctively experience a feeling of repulsion as when you see a bundle of foul and dirty rags shaken before you.
But these men pitied me, and they were the only ones who did so. As for the warders, the turnkeys, and the gaolers, I scorned their pity, for they would talk and laugh about me to my very face as though I were some inanimate object. ”

“ Through it, no doubt, I was drawn by shadows—attracted by the unexplainable—blown by any wind of irresponsibility. This anarchy at least opened out strange vistas of romance to the imaginative soul. It is odd to live apart from, and independent of, the voice of duty. ”

“ With the quick intuition of love she had come to understand the deep unrest that beset him periodically, an unrest she recognised as wholly apart and separate from the other shadow that lay across his life. ”

“ But lo! in that hour shall greet you,
At the end of your perilous path,
A mockery far more bitter
Than the sting of the frost king's wrath,
For this is the meed you shall gather
In the lands no man has trod:
The finger that beckoned you onward
Shall lift and point to God! ”

“ He had all his life been tortured by a furious and destructive demon, which possessed him sometimes like an insanity. This temper now entered like a virus into the firm, and there were cruel eruptions. ”

“ Possess no other aim nor end
But foul abuse of foe and friend.
His heart, polluted with the dung
Of demons damn'd, from hell out flung,
Is rotten to the core with lies,
From which foul slanders thickly rise. ”

“ The youth felt in great fear; but the servants said:
‘It is all right. She you thought an old hag is indeed a beautiful princess of eighteen, but she was under a spell; by consenting to marry her you have ended that spell, if you can only stand through the fear of this storm [143] for three days and three nights, no harm can come to you, and we also shall all be set free.’
The whole apartment now seemed on fire, and when that ceased for a time, it seemed to rain fire all around. ”

“ Will you intrust the work of the Cause to a hussy who lives in idleness and luxury while we are hunted from pillar to post by the police? And meanwhile, she sweetens her time with the love and kisses of our worst enemy! ”

“ The sound was behind me instead of before,
A sleepy sound, but mocking half,
As of one who utterly couldn't care.
The Demon arose from his wallow to laugh,
Brushing the dirt from his eye as he went ”

“ She understood his purpose with a horror that made each separate nerve in her system shrink against the understanding that had come to her under the consuming fire of his ardent gaze, and in the fierce embrace that was drawing her shaking limbs closer and closer against the man's own pulsating body. ”

“ He hardly took up any room;
⁠His life was retired; his end bright.
⁠With destiny no one can fight
All poets and prosers agree,
⁠And a tribute to destiny's might
Is the song of the drowning fusee.
Friend! would you be gratified quite
⁠The first of our poets to be? ”

“ The curse was broken, I was no longer a tormented and condemned creature, I was a schoolboy again. My temperament sought to regain its equilibrium and tranquillity as quickly as possible, and so I took pains above all things to put behind me all that had been ugly and menacing, and to forget it. The whole, long story of my guilt, of my terrifying anxiety, slipped from my memory wonderfully quick, apparently without having left behind any scars or impressions whatsoever. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As in a thunder-storm flash follows flash, so, in this dreadful night, one horror had followed another, to bewilder the brain of a maiden who had always lived a quiet life among good and quiet men and women. ”

“ It was the whistle—the shrieking, appealing whistle—that caused the revulsion, but the revulsion was instantaneous. The passion for revenge went out, as had that fire of dry turf and stalks, and in its place surged up a sea of terror, self-reproach, agony, and pity. ”