Hunger

“ Hunger gives day and night their meaning, and makes the pulse of time beat; creates society, industry, and rank. Hunger moves man to join in the work of creation,—to harmonize himself with the music of the universe,—to feel ambition, joy, and sorrow. ”

“ Hunger is in his heart; hunger bears along his unfatiguing feet; hunger lies in the strength of his arm; hunger watches in his eye; hunger listens in his ear; as he couches down in his covert, silently waiting the approach of his expected spoil, this is the sole thought that fills his aching breast—"I shall satisfy my hunger!" ”

“ Of what I suffer here. If nature need not,
Or God support nature without repast, 250
Though needing, what praise is it to endure?
But now I feel I hunger; which declares
Nature hath need of what she asks. Yet God
Can satisfy that need some other way,
Though hunger still remain. So it remain
Without this body’s wasting, I content me,
And from the sting of famine fear no harm;
Nor mind it, fed with better thoughts, that feed
Me hungering more to do my Father’s will. ”

“ Hatred and Hunger are dogs of the same kennel.... Hunger Hounds, starved, snarling, bloodshot eyes, fangs bared, straining at their chains—Friends, Beware!... Hunger—lean, bony, naked, and grimy—with talons and claws. Hunger with fever and mad. Hunger goaded. Hunger grinning. Hunger in consort with Death. Hunger—hideous, impalpable. Hunger that cannot die. ”

“ Too much hunger in the long, terrible months of winter, when to keep body and soul together they trapped the furred creatures for the hordes of luxurious barbarians in the great cities of the earth. Just a steady, gnawing hunger all through the winter—hunger for something besides meat, a hunger that got into the bones, into the eyes, into arms and legs—a hunger that brought sickness, and then death. ”

“ Don’t you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It’s really easier to face bereavement, dishonor, and the perdition of one’s soul—than this kind of prolonged hunger. ”

“ Whose soul delights with hungry men to share his meal,
The hand of hunger's sickness sore shall never feel.
The fiery disease of hunger shall never touch him who habitually distributes his food to others. ”

“ I will tell you so much as this, madam—that what I am like to die of now is hunger, plain, unvarnished hunger, so, in Heaven's name, get out what you have and let me fall-to, for my last meal was yesterday morning. ”

“ One man gets meat for two,
The while another hungers. If I stand
Without the portals, seeing others eat
Where I had thought to satiate the pangs
Of mine own hunger; shall I then come forth
When all is done, and drink my Lord’s good health
In my Lord’s water? Shall I not rather turn
And curse him, curse him for a niggard host?
O, I have hungered, hungered, through the years,
Till appetite grows craving, then disease;{20}
I am starved, wither’d, shrivelled.
Peace, O peace!
This rage is idle; what avails to curse
The nameless forces, the vast silences
That work in all things. ”

“ But there is no mitigation of the horror when we think of the savage poor, who form so large a proportion of the hungerers,—when we conceive of them suffering the privation of all good things at once,—suffering under the aching cold, the sinking hunger, the shivering nakedness,—without the respite or solace afforded by one inspiring or beguiling idea. ”

“ And hunger not of the belly kind, that's banished with bacon and beans,
But the gnawing hunger of lonely men for a home and all that it means;
For a fireside far from the cares that are, four walls and a roof above ”

“ Like jackals we prowled around the filth and refuse of this savage encampment—-we, so lately used to all the comforts that civilization could give.
In the minds of us both came a thought new to both—a desire for food. Never before had we known how urgent is this desire. How few, indeed, ever really know what hunger is! If our great men, those who shape the destinies of a people, could know what hunger means, how different would be their acts! The trail of the lodge poles of these departing savages showed where they had gone farther in their own senseless pursuit of food, food. ”

“ At the period I am speaking of however, I, who have since been one of the most envied of men, knew the cruel meaning of the word hunger, too well,—the gnawing pain, the sick faintness, the deadly stupor, the insatiable animal craving for mere food, all of which sensations are frightful enough to those who are, unhappily, daily inured to them, but which when they afflict one who has been tenderly reared and brought up to consider himself a ‘gentleman,’—God save the mark! ”

“ Although he no relentings felt Till he had spent his store; His stubborn heart began to melt When famine pinched him sore. “What have I gained by sin, he said, But hunger, shame, and fear; My father’s house abounds with bread, While I am starving here. ”

“ But how many are there in this Christian country, that toil and labour, and sweat, and have it not at last, but struggle with weariness and hunger together? Is it not worse, for one after an hard day’s labour, to come back to a poor, cold, dirty, uncomfortable lodging, and to find there not even the food which is needful to repair his wasted strength? You that live at ease in the earth, that want nothing but eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand how well God has dealt with you: is it not worse to seek bread, day by day, and find none? ”

“ So we tried to sleep, but hunger would not permit it, but demanded his due. Hunger, you old fool, why don't you let us sleep? But he refused to be talked over. So we passed the night. When day came, the little children began to cry: 'Father, let us go. We will beg bread in the streets. We die of hunger. ”

“ It contains the springs of all material civilization. If we go back to the dawn of history we find that hunger and the desires, associated with the body, have been the chief stimulants toward industrial progress. Indolence is stagnation. Savages in the tropics are torpid and without progress. Hunger compels men to ask what food is in the river, what roots are in the ground, what fruits are on the trees, what forces are in the air. The body is peremptory in its demands. Hunger carries a stinging scourge. ”

“ It knew that a hunger would have to be satisfied. A hunger that called for flesh.
Deep, primeval thoughts raced through it then. Thoughts that were spawned in the ancient jungles of a new and steaming world. ”

“ But remember,--remember how much more horrible is the long, slow systematic crushing, wasting, drying of men upon their bones, which year after year, century after century, has begotten the Monster, Hunger. ”

“ Behold there is nothing in us; nothing but what Nature gives her wild children of the desert: Ferocity and Appetite; Strength grounded on Hunger. Did ye mark among your Rights of Man, that man was not to die of starvation, while there was bread reaped by him? ”

“ Where Churches and Monasteries are offensively rich and at ease in the face of Hunger, Hunger takes its revenge. It has long fangs, it rends, and tears, and tramples--the innocent with the guilty--always. ”

“ No—but, weak and sickly as I seem, I can endure some privations better than you could. Thus hunger produces in me a sort of numbness, which leaves me very feeble—but for you, robust and full of life, hunger is fury, is madness. Alas! you must remember how many times I have seen you suffering from those painful attacks, when work failed us in our wretched garret, and we could not even earn our four francs a week—so that we had nothing—absolutely nothing to eat—for our pride prevented us from applying to the neighbors. ”

“ But if this were true, what was the abhorred catastrophe to which I was now reserved? The sides of this pit were inaccessible; human footsteps would never wander into these recesses. My friends were unapprized of my forlorn state. Here I should continue till wasted by famine. In this grave should I linger out a few days in unspeakable agonies, and then perish forever.
The inroads of hunger were already experienced; and this knowledge of the desperateness of my calamity urged me to frenzy. ”

“ I have seen when meal was all sold in markets, women clapping their hands, and tearing the clothes off their heads, crying, "How shall we go home and see our children die in hunger? they have got no meat these two days, and we have nothing to give them." ”

“ Ask him who has known Hunger, has been face to face with want and starvation, has shared with loved and loving ones, weak babes, and sick and helpless mothers, the task of driving these unbidden guests away, has felt the gnawing pangs of their demon power, while gazing upon plenty, upon the wealth of food and sustenance displayed before his eyes! ”

“ Again, I ask the brethren who have come from the different nations of the earth, who have there suffered hunger, nakedness, cold, and oppression, are you satisfied with what you have suffered, without passing through the same in this land? I think you are. I have seen the time that I had not food to satisfy the craving of my nature, and I have suffered enough in this line of suffering. I know what it is to be hungry, and need not suffer hunger again to give me that kind of experience. ”

“ Hunger had made him gaunt and yellow, he was squalid with the dirt of his hidden lair, and he had the look of a beast;—that look to which men fall when they live like the brutes of prey, as outcasts from their brethren. ”

“ The reprobate shall then be constantly tormented by the most ravenous hunger, by a hunger so great as to exceed beyond measure the hunger endured in times of famine, by a hunger which will torment them forever. ”

“ After a while I found it was impossible to get enough to satisfy my own hunger; and one dark, stormy night, when I was suffering intensely with cold and hunger, not daring to go home, as I called it, I thought I would try some of the rich folk's houses, and sec if I could get something there. ”

“ After eighteen centuries of prayer and privation, of hunger and thirst, the couriers and scouts of the human race have returned, and to their kneeling, miserable brothers they cry aloud, "Arise, cease your prayers for already they have been answered. We have found the road and the promised land is near. Hunger and thirst are no longer necessary. ”

“ In place of this natural freedom from care there appears anxiety, in which tomorrow’s hunger and all possible future states of hunger in their whole long series hang over even him who is satiated, as the one thing that occupies his mind and evermore goads and drives him on. ”

“ On the theory that hunger is a manifestation of bodily need, are we to suppose that, in the course of starvation, the body is mysteriously not in need after the third day, and that therefore the sensation of hunger disappears? ”

“ He paused, and dwelt on the thought of the soul's hunger. 'Hunger is the great weaver in moral things as in physical. The hunger that is in the new-born child sits weaving the whole bodily frame, bones and sinews, out of nothing. ”

“ Dragging my feet along the moist sand, and obstinately scrutinising it with the desire to discover in it any sort of fragment of food, I wandered alone among the deserted buildings and warehouses, and thought how good it would be to get a fair bellyful.
In our present state of culture hunger of the mind is more quickly satisfied than hunger of the body. ”

“ Now that he was settled, and her own temple bound up, the children once more commenced their cry of famine; for nothing can suspend the stern cravings of hunger, especially when fanged by the bitter consciousness that there is no food to be had. ”

“ Anything you do perpetuates that, keeps your hunger at bay. What seems to have happened to me is not that my hunger has been satisfied either with bread crumbs or a whole loaf of bread, but that the hunger found no satisfactory answer and burned itself out. ”

“ To the untold suffering experienced from broken bones and shattered limbs, is added that of hunger, many having eaten nothing for three and four [Pg 192] days previous to their arrival here; and thus they are dying not only of wounds, but of starvation. ”

“ to his divine consolations, 'if ye suffer hunger or thirst for my sake, happy are he.' Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge into these children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!" ”

“ O Lord, grant, at least, that these innocent children, who cannot so much as walk, and those still in the cradle, may have something to eat, so that they may live and die not in this terrible famine. What have they done that they should be so tried, and should die of hunger? ”

“ From him who has a little, a little is required—and from him who has much, much is required—that the plague of famine be stayed. The case is beyond the reach of legislation, but clearly within the power of associated benevolence to mitigate. A cry of hunger is gone forth—is the ear deaf, that it cannot hear?—are the hands that have been often effectually stretched forth, shortened that they cannot save? ”

“ And here, to those who have never watched the progress of protracted hunger, it might be proper to say, that persons will live for months, and pass through different stages, and life will struggle on to maintain her lawful hold, if occasional scanty supplies are given, till the walking skeleton is reduced to a state of inanity—he sees you not, he heeds you not, neither does he beg. ”

“ As multitudes of the redeemed have been subjected to the evils of hunger, so have multitudes also been subjected to the pains of thirst. In prison; in pathless deserts; in times of drought, when wells and fountains were dried up, they have suffered from this cause—a cause producing as intense suffering perhaps as any that man endures. ”