Intrusion

“ I have had no intention of offending you in thus intruding into your house—and I acknowledge that it is an intrusion, antagonistic to each other as you and I are, and if you will so far allow me I would beg you in courtesy to excuse me under the circumstances. I will try and not enter it. again. In a day or two I expect the ladies will be leaving it for their own home. ”

“ Why not? When my own rooms are not safe from intrusion, I figure I will be just as secure elsewhere, and you will agree with me, I am sure, that to do the unexpected always gives one a decided advantage ”

“ But violent intrusion we call not, when the council of the Kirk, in the fear of God, and for the salvation of the people, offereth unto them a sufficient man to instruct them, whom they shall not be forced to admit before examination. ”

“ Sir John paused for a little, and I thought he had finished, but something seemed to strike him, and he at it again:
VIALS OF WRATH.
“By the bye, these folks call themselves the Non-Intrusion party. Was ever name so outrageously violated? Is a proprietor an intruder on his own estate? Only a desperate poacher would say yes. Is a man an intruder in his own house? None but a burglar would think so. Is a mother an intruder in her own nursery? Only a vile and cruel nurse, caught in the act of ill-treating the children, would have the audacity to conceive of such a monstrous anomaly. ”

“ It was the sort of a room any girl would love to lie in bed and study. But I had other things to do, I remembered, besides wriggling my toes over a nest which had been feathered for some other and some much luckier woman. I was only an intruder there, a usurper whose kingdom of grandeur might turn topsy-turvy at the first touch of a bell or the unannounced opening of a door. ”

“ Scared at the sight of the fierce intruder, they had run with one accord, and, locked in each other's arms, had sheltered themselves, till, in gaining courage, they ventured to peep from the covert inclosing them in darkness. ”

“ All difficulties which possibly can be encountered in such enterprises are heaped upon them, from their first ineffectual attempts to force the door with the rusty key and with lacerated hands, till the moment they sink down, exhausted, at the trap-door, after losing their way, after seeing their lamps go out, and after stumbling all night in darkness amid terrors real and imaginary, physical and psychical. ”

“ It is true that occasionally, but seldom, the intruder is seized; but he who tries to hold him grasps a body slippery as a snake, that glides from his hands, and disappears as suddenly and silently as it came. ”

“ Nearly all who have for any length of time exercised their functions have had occasion to arrest cases of primâ facie suspicion on the way to interment that had escaped the only existing security and initiative to investigation, the suspicion of neighbours and popular rumour. ”

“ Each man would have sought relief from the strain by unbosoming his hopes and fears to his neighbor, but he dared not. That is one fearful curse of any cause that is buttressed by a system of espionage. It scatters everywhere the seeds of suspicion. ”

“ Lock your homes with most complicated fastenings—greatest lock-makers in the world—burglar alarms on windows; but when you travel, expose yourselves as one wouldn't dream of exposing oneself elsewhere. ”

“ XII. The two branches of the secondary mischief of an act, the alarm and the danger, must not be confounded: though intimately connected, they are perfectly distinct: either may subsist without the other. The neighbourhood may be alarmed with the report of a robbery, when, in fact, no robbery either has been committed or is in a way to be committed: a neighbourhood may be on the point of being disturbed by robberies, without knowing any thing of the matter. Accordingly, we shall soon perceive, that some acts produce alarm without danger: others, danger without alarm. ”

“ I said, "Inspector, if you can't find the other half of the pin, it seems to me to prove that an intruder not only came in, but went away again, carrying that tell-tale pin-head with him,—or with her, if you prefer it. I suppose there are other women in the world, beside the lady you are so unjustly suspecting, and I suppose, too, if an intruder [Pg 145] succeeded in getting in here, it might equally well have been a woman as a man." ”

“ If then we single out certain pairs and day by day observe their actions and their attitude towards intruders, we shall notice that, instead of their routine of existence consisting, as a casual acquaintance with the pool and its inmates might lead us to believe, of an endless series of meaningless disputes, the behaviour of each individual is directed towards a similar goal—the increasing of the security of its possession ”

“ It might be a wandering tabby that had blundered into a piece of furniture; perhaps the window had creaked; it might be any one of half a hundred things. If there was an intruder in the house I felt certain that presently I would hear something more. No man, no matter how careful he be, can move with a complete absence of sound. ”

“ They would often dart at the face of an intruder as if bent on piercing the eye with their needle-like bills, and then poise for a moment almost within reach before turning, when they were again lost in the busy throng. ”

“ For that reason, we urge the publication of these truths, that the struggle may no longer be waged in ignorance and doubt and confusion.”
“Does ‘massed forces of destructive purpose’ imply some combination, or co-operation, or co-ordination, among disintegrating forces?” Mary K. was asked, at another time.
[272]
“Yes, they combine every appealing force, as we do. One man may answer to doubt, fear, cupidity, and envy. Another to malice, doubt, and lust. Any forces that can reach him mass themselves in attack and call on their purposes in him to respond.” ”

“ Your half-awakened intelligence fluctuates between burglars, the Day of Judgment, and a gas explosion. You sit up in bed and listen intently. You are not kept waiting long; the next moment a door is violently slammed, and somebody, or something, is evidently coming downstairs on a tea-tray. ”

“ But thou wilt be acquainted with my dagger yet, if thou hast no better appetite for my dinner."
He resumed his path. He had not taken a dozen steps, before he became sensible of the approach of another intruder: but this time the intruder was human. ”

“ The intruder looked up in his face with some wonder, and beheld the features of a man of middle age, very dark and fierce of aspect, with long black locks of hair hanging from his temples, wild, Indian-looking eyes, and a mouth expressive of as much inherent ferocity as was ever betrayed by the visage even of a red-man. ”

“ Any openly avowed posture of defense—while the nature of the danger, and the quarter from which it might come, were alike unknown—would be useless in itself, and worse than useless in the consequences which it might produce by putting the people of the house on their guard. ”

“ A safe in the room, which contained some of the hated records, was fallen upon by the men, who strove to wrench open its impregnable lock with their naked hands, and, baffled, beat them on its iron doors and sides till they were stained with blood, in a mad frenzy of senseless hate and fury. ”

“ In this paper a paragraph caught my eye, which was headed, "A Burglar Alarm." I read it. The idea of the thing was this. You were to cover the hall, and the stairs, and the banisters, and any other place where anybody was likely to tread, with open newspapers. Then, if a burglar came into the house in the middle of the night, he would step on the newspapers, and you would hear them rustle, and would know that he was there. The idea rather struck me. I mentioned it to Leila. Indeed, I read the paragraph to her there and then. She was quite ecstatic. ”

“ If not, one of them crawls through the breach, steals all the property on which he can lay his hands, and returns to his comrade, who has been keeping careful watch, and will alarm him, should danger appear. ”

“ What is to prevent these people, whoever they are, from attacking me—sending me some infernal machine in the disguise of a box or package, which, as soon as I open it, might burn or blind or otherwise disfigure me so that my life would be ruined? ”

“ When their privacy is invaded by man, a restless and constantly recurring curiosity seems to be their prevailing feeling at first, and at last the intruders are frequently pelted with stones, sticks, and fruits heavy and hard, more especially if they make any demonstration of hostility. ”

“ To prepare the door of escape in advance is not enough; we must also think of the tranquillity essential to the delicate work of the nymphosis. An intruder might enter through the open door and work mischief upon the defenceless nymph. ”

“ Yes, sir, a burglar alarm combines in its person all that is objectionable about a fire, a riot, and a harem, and at the same time had none of the compensating advantages, of one sort or another, that customarily belong with that combination. ”

“ People come out of every imaginable place all around him. There seem to be doors everywhere,—in the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and even in space; and as the "vasty deep" and the rest of the surroundings give up their dwellers, the intruder receives fresh jolts and thrusts, and possibly additional donations of profanity. ”

“ However, to shew what the nature of such event-working is, namely, how infamous human beings, making a profession of pneumatic chemistry, and pneumatic magnetism, hire themselves as spies ; and by impregnating persons, singled out by them as objects for interfering with, obtaining their secrets, actuating them in various ways, in thought, word and deed, as well as they can, to model their conduct, ideas or measures to favour the ends of assassin spies or event-workers, or their employers, &c. ”

“ In nearly every settlement suspicion led to combination for defense, combination to some form of oppression or insult, and so on by easy transition to arrest and concealment, attack and reprisal, expulsion, theft, house- burning, capture, and murder. ”

“ Every hedge he scrutinizes with a careful eye; behind it may lurk an assassin. Every division wall is watched for suspicious indications, his alertness being quickened by the knowledge that he is guarding his own life. ”

“ The stream of events flows steadily on, and the agencies that seemed to direct and control its current, to impel or to restrain its force, sink beneath its surface, which they disturb scarcely by a ripple. ”

“ I remarked, "those who have warned you of the danger must know from whom it proceeds, and those who are employed in such an attack must run not only the ordinary risk of assassins, but the further risk entailed by the peculiar powers of those they assail." ”

“ All conduct which we class as wrong or criminal is, or we suppose it to be, an attack upon some vital interest of ourselves or of those we care for, (a category which may include the public, or the whole human race) : conduct which, if allowed to be repeated, would destroy or impair the security and comfort of our lives. We are prompted to defend these paramount interests by repelling the attack, and guarding against its renewal; and our earliest experience gives us a feeling, which acts with the rapidity of an instinct, that the most direct and efficacious protection is retaliation. ”

“ As you stood by the little table, facing the unsmiling men, you felt yourself suspected. You questioned how a person, trying to enter with criminal intent, could stare back without an escape of fear, could answer the searching questions without a revealing tremor. There are spies beyond doubt who survive such ordeals jauntily. ”

“ Sometimes, though very rarely, cases occurred where the intruders, being stronger than usual, or more vicious than usual, resolutely refused to move, and so far carried their point, as to have a separate table arranged for themselves in a corner of the room. ”

“ Whether directed to the alteration or to the maintenance of the existing order of things, the irregular and dangerous action of secret combinations is, as we have said, a species of force which no state can reasonably be expected to recognize. ”

“ This spy system, mentioned in the above example, is associated with an attempt to discover and apply backstairs influence—those who have the power of making appointments in the church, the chapel, or the meeting-house, are studied, and their opportunities to remove a non-unionist taken advantage of by clerical "By-ends," who endeavour to shape their judgment according to that of their patrons. ”

“ From the very moment you possess the box and parchment, do not consider yourself safe on earth. Tremble, keep vigils, start in your sleep, trust no man. Treachery will bristle on all sides and spies will track you, to despoil you of the treasure. ”

“ Into that placid and speculative air real life tumbles with a resounding shock and the many souls that have been building, these many years, with careful elaboration, walls of defence and protection find themselves suddenly naked and indecent before the world. ”

“ Although the chances may be as millions to one against such a horrible occurrence, yet the existence of the painful feeling of the possibility of such an event, even if the apprehended possibility were utterly unreal, is as valid ground for the adoption of measures to prevent and alleviate the painful feeling, as if the danger were real and frequent. ”

“ The art and invention of ingenious men have in all times been applied to contrive means of security adapted to the particular dangers to which either life or property were exposed, from the nefarious practices of the day. ”

“ Besides," and suddenly he felt silly, "the lines of communication for research which might enable us to pick up where you left off, in time—too much time—are somewhat entangled in security." He glared. "Don't laugh, Millet; it's a fact of life which must be faced." ”

“ Some of them, by Art and Address might gradually recover a Character & in time an Influence, and so become the fittest Instruments in forming Factions either for one foreign Nation or another. We may be in Danger of such Factions, and should prudently expect them. One might venture to predict that they will sooner or later happen. We should therefore guard against the evil Effects of them. ”