Janizary

“ Who, I say, would dare speak of them, or dare think of them, since they cannot be spoken of without shame nor thought of without peril, though it be but to condemn them? O God, once more, who would dare speak of this deep and shameful plague of nature, this concupiscence which binds the soul to the body with bonds so tender and so violent—bonds man can scarcely defend himself against, and which cause such frightful disorders [Pg 237] among the human race! ”

“ Self-esteem, developed into a passion, becomes, when it turns upon great things, false pride; when upon small, vanity.
The love of liberty degenerates into a spirit of revolt; the legitimate love of power, into ambition; the instinct of property becomes greed, cupidity, passion for gain, and tends to run into the passion for gambling or the desire to gain by means of chance. The desire for gain engenders the fear of loss, and this latter passion developing into a vice and mania, becomes avarice. ”

“ She replied that for some years past they had been so questioned about this Jansenius that, even if they had not possessed his works, they would have tried to procure them, as it is against all conscience to speak evil of a person unless you are certain that he deserves it; and that it could only be the obligation under which they were to answer questions which made them read works so far from entertaining as those of Jansenius. ”

“ And I realized that until I myself should be a part of that indecent exhibition of human carcasses—which might not be for a long while, for I was a strong man and not likely to die soon—I should have to dwell in the midst of all that corruption ”

“ And these two characters are types of immortal truth—the one a gentleman, brave, humane, courteous, of good faculty, for whom a slight madness has made the whole world fantastic; the other an average human being, selfish, not over-brave, though no mere coward, and ignorant, yet not unkindly, nor incapable of loyalty, and withal shrewd in what his limited vision can see when he is not blinded by his greed. ”

“ Unless, in their kindly pity, they should look upon them as samples of a female species of humans, who had in penance for stupidity been made to assume the role of jennies, self-condemned as beasts of burden to bear the material emblems of folly. Indeed, when fully impressed with the utter dearth of their conceptive intelligence, beyond the formulistic rites of fashionable instinct, and rote rehearsals of prayers for selfish preservation, from the goading effects of self-immolation styled conscience, even pity would be likely to suffer in trembling hesitation upon the verge of abhorrence. ”

“ And now, with the revelation of the depths—perhaps not yet the lowest—of the man’s character and capabilities, had come the startling knowledge that the chains which had fettered that evil spirit in the flesh had been struck off. ”

“ The state of complete and utter quiet was both foreign and slightly repugnant to him; he was never more pleased than when he had a job in hand, a job that involved a slight and unavoidable risk.
This time, of course, the risk was more than slight. Why, he thought happily, it was even possible for him to get killed, and most painfully, too! ”

“ Either the wars might still supply thy wants, Or service of some virtuous gentleman, Or honest labour; nay, what can I name, But would become thee better than to beg: But men of thy condition feed on sloth, As cloth the beetle on the dung she breeds in; Nor caring how the metal of your minds Is eaten with the rust of idleness. Now, afore me, whate'er he be, that should Relieve a person of thy quality, While thou insist'st in this loose desperate course, I would esteem the sin not thine, but his. Brai. Faith, sir, I would gladly find some other course, if so—- Know. ”

“ With all that, and perhaps as a reaction from all that, he can enjoy crude forms of burlesque, can laugh over hard realistic pictures of the sordid side of life, and delights in rather cynical judgments of human nature. The lofty and the low have their representations in his literature, in forms easily traced back to the middle ages. ”

“ The world wants smart, dandy little volumes, as thin as a Herring, and just as Salt. For these two reasons, then, do I nerve myself to a sudden leap, and entreat you now to think no longer of John Dangerous as a raw youth of eighteen summers, but as a sturdy, well-set man of thirty-three. ”

“ I became shamed with the realization of the utter nonsense I permitted my intellect to roam in and the wild-eyed fanatics with their shrieks and convulsions and frenzied endeavors to convince, nauseated me when I discovered it was all acting, mere acting, and they were less sincere than I.
The fanaticism, immorality, the full rein given to sensualism and vulgar superstition disgusted me. Naught but undeveloped or diseased minds are convinced of such farces—an obnoxious weight upon civilization. ”

“ Crites, Men speak ill of thee. So they be ill men, If they spake worse, 'twere better: for of such To be dispraised, is the most perfect praise. What can his censure hurt me, whom the world Hath censured vile before me! If good Chrestus, Euthus, or Phronimus, had spoke the words, They would have moved me, and I should have call'd My thoughts and actions to a strict account Upon the hearing: but when I remember, 'Tis Hedon and Anaides, alas, then I think but what they are, and am not stirr'd. ”

“ All this may awaken in us contempt and disgust; but if we consider these figures in themselves as realities, and compare them with the evil figures of our drama, we find that they are mere venial sinners—light, fickle, amorous, fibbing—very human in their faults; human, trifling, mild, not at all monstrous, like all the art products of the Renaissance. ”

“ They would not have it run without rubs, as if that style were more strong and manly that struck the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by themselves; have some singularity in a ruff cloak, or hat-band; or their beards specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon themselves. They would be reprehended while they are looked on. And this vice, one that is authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to them to be imitated; so that ofttimes the faults which be fell into the others seek for. ”

“ It required no unusual powers of observation to discover that as a janitor the new man was the rare and perfect specimen who keeps alive in a chilly world the tender plant of faith. Long before the sun was up his busy mop and broom were heard in the land, and the slip-slap of his carpet slippers, flopping along the halls as he made his nightly round, was the lullaby of dissipated souls who "retired" at eleven. ”

“ Perhaps, if we are still honest with ourselves, we shall admit that the thing that turned the balance for us was not a very creditable thing—that we were protected from ourselves not by any high virtue, but by something mean, a touch of cowardice, a paltry ambition, a consideration that we should be ashamed to confess. ”

“ Jansenius and the general mob of mankind with nothing but a grovelling consciousness of some few material facts, she felt in herself an exquisite sense and all-embracing conception of nature, shared only by her favorite poets and heroes of romance and history. ”

“ Should I die at this instant, must I be damned?" According to my Jansenists the matter was indubitable, but according to my conscience it appeared quite the contrary: terrified and floating in this cruel uncertainty, I had recourse to the most laughable expedient to resolve my doubts, for which I would willingly shut up any man as a lunatic should I see him practise the same folly. ”

“ Every man's conscience has, like Janus, two faces—one looks most plausibly to the world, with a smile of courteous benevolence, the other with a droll leer seems to say, I think we are doing them. In fact, not only would the world be impossible, and its business impracticable, but society itself would be a bear-garden without hypocrisy. ”

“ All those superior men, who felt themselves irresistibly urged on to throw off the yoke of some morality or other, had no other resource—if they were not really mad—than to feign madness, or actually to become insane. ”

“ Not to return evil for good.—Here we rise, in some respect, a degree in the moral scale. The two inferior degrees, namely, ingratitude and cruelty, have always and everywhere been considered as crimes. Nowhere has it ever been considered allowable to do harm to those who have done us good. But in nearly all societies, at a certain degree of civilization, has it been considered allowable, and even praiseworthy, to return evil for evil. ”

“ Of envy and delation.—Among the vices which may lead to the greatest injustices, and which already in themselves are odious as sentiments, the most blameworthy and the vilest is the passion of envy. We call envious him who suffers from the happiness of others, him who hates others because of the advantages they possess and the superiority they enjoy. In the first place, this sentiment is an injustice; for the happiness of one is not the cause of another’s misfortune; the health of one does not make the other sick ”

“ Here is a pretty dilemma for the luckless janitor, a searching test of his vaunted power and authority. His servile instinct quails before the regal mien of Zobéide, her gesture of command and blazing eyes that brook neither prevarication nor delay. Like the slave that he truly is, he turns to do her behest ”

“ I felt myself a new man, a spirit growing out of the miserable bondage that is the lot of the human brute.
"No," I replied, emphatically. "For weeks before the end came, I had ceased to care for her. ”

“ And now in Janey's second reading, not skipping one word, and going over the more difficult passages twice, she came again upon the sentence which they had discussed. She read it slowly.
"The publican and the harlot will go into the Kingdom before us, because it is easier for them [Pg 326] to flee with loathing from the sins of the flesh, and to press through the strait gate of humility, than it is for us to loathe and flee the sins of the spirit, egotism, pride, resentment, cruelty, insincerity." ”

“ These persons are in danger, for whilst they think to justify their ignorance by impudence, and their persons by clothes and outward ornaments, they use but a commission to deceive themselves: where, if we will look with our understanding, and not our senses, we may behold virtue and beauty (though covered with rags) in their brightness; and vice and deformity so much the fouler, in having all the splendour of riches to gild them, or the false light of honour and power to help them. ”

“ Whether from a self-inquisitorial habit that he grew into from jealousy of the sins to which men of thought are liable, he has acquired, in disentangling and demonstrating that particular form of moral disease, an acumen which no conscience can resist. ”

“ Human inclinations are divided into benevolent and malevolent inclinations. The first may develop into a passion, but not into a vice; the second alone become vices.
There is not a single benevolent inclination which, carried too far and beyond reason, may not become a more or less blameworthy passion. But, in the first place, we have no terms in our language to express the exaggerations of these kinds of passions, [157] and in the second, though they be exaggerations, we shall never call the tenderer affections of the human heart, however foolish they may be, vices, if they are sincere. ”

“ I saw myself for the first time clearly, as I have been ever since I can remember—a crook, thoughtless, vain, rapacious, ruthless, skulking in shadows and thinking myself an amazingly fine fellow because, between coups, I would play the gentleman a bit, venture into the light and swagger in the haunts of the gratin! In my poor, perverted brain I thought there was something fine and thrilling and romantic in the career of a great criminal and myself a wonderful figure—an enemy of society! ”

“ If any one ever spoke to him unnecessarily, this janitor fixed a murderous gaze on the offender, as if he would deeply relish killing him, if he weren’t too busy mopping or washing blackboards. All those who were not practising bravery avoided him as much as possible. ”

“ Doña Ángela. You think well upon it. Lorenzo, ought we to sacrifice our child to that woman's vanity?
Don Lorenzo. It is easy enough to lament vanity and misfortune. The important thing is to find a remedy against evil. ”

“ In the midst of religious and political parties, pursued by suspicion and slander, and in herself too tormented by jealousy, endangered rather than guarded by the possession of the highest dignity, she fell into a state of excitement bordering on madness. ”

“ Janille is good like God himself, and, through ignorance or prejudice, that perfect friend rejects my ideas of equality, and tries to convince me that I can love and pity and help the unfortunate without ceasing to think that they are naturally inferior to me. ”

“ I saw types such as only come to the surface when conflicting passions of the worst kind stir up the very dregs of society: dishevelled viragos, brutalised men, female fiends, men devils—hyænas, ready to spring and fasten their claws on you, were they not chained. ”

“ By a very common phenomenon, she was to incur throughout her life far more censure through freaks, audacious as breaches of custom, but intrinsically harmless, nor likely to set the fashion to others, than is often reserved for errors of a graver nature. ”