Repoussé

“ It is your own thoughts that take bodily shape to haunt you. But this sad accident calls loudly for reparation and repentance. Confess your sins to God, Henry. Ask Him to forgive them—tell Him everything—your unhallowed wishes and desires, your hasty temper and revenge, your disregard of advice and entreaty. ”

“ Reuther began to notice her pallor, and the judge to look grave. She was forced to complain of a cold (and in this she was truthful enough) to account for her alternations of feverish impulse and deadly lassitude.
The trouble she had suppressed was having its quiet revenge. Should she continue to lie inert and breathless under the threatening hand of Fate, or risk precipitating the doom she sought to evade, by proceeding with inquiries upon the result of which she could no longer calculate? ”

“ Still, there was an air of such sweet resignation in every feature, such a dignity in the port of her person—still symmetrical, though it had lost something of its roundness—such a majesty in her still-brilliant eyes—that even the wretches who had determined on her destruction dared not meet the glance of her whom they so foully wronged. ”

“ A night of repose might perhaps succeed, to be disturbed at its close by a cause for alarm, and those pleasant resting-places must be abandoned, the happy party be divided, and scattered far and wide, to encounter fatigue, danger, perchance even death, ere they met again. ”

“ Arrived at this agreeable asylum, to which I have travelled so far in search of repose, I ought to find it in a retired, convenient, and pleasant habitation; the master of which, a man of understanding and worth, spares for nothing to render it agreeable to me. But what repose can be tasted in life, when the heart is agitated? ”

“ Suspense, more wearing even than sorrow, had held him on the rack. Sleep had seldom visited his eyes; and when it came, it had been broken and fitful.
Now the worst had befallen him. Suspense was over; certainty had come. This brought at first a kind of rest to the overtaxed mind and frame. He was as one who hears a sentence of death, but who is taken off the rack. ”

“ We have had not only one incident for every day in the week, but two or three; we have not simply been stunned with the alarming noise of one terrific clash, but another, and another, and another, have followed upon each other's heels, like Job's messengers, till we have needed Job's patience and resignation to hear the dreadful tale of woes. ”

“ Orme. 'You have much to bear, but no evil lasts for ever.'
'Will not sin last for ever;—sin such as mine?'
'Not if you repent;—repent and make such restitution as is possible. Lady Mason, say that you have repented. ”

“ Remorse, or a painful sense of guilt; casts down the countenance, and clouds it with anxiety; hangs down the head, draws the eyebrows down upon the eyes; the right hand beats the breast; the teeth gnash with anguish; the whole body is strained and violently agitated. ”

“ After the parries come the ripostes. On this subject a few words will suffice. Never forget that the parry and riposte are twin sisters, [Pg 95] whose lives are so closely bound up in each other, that they cannot exist apart. Riposte and parry ought to be so closely allied that the riposte may seem to be the second part of the parry. Therefore, as a general principle, riposte direct, in the line in which you have found the blade. Changing the line wastes time, and gives your adversary an opportunity to pull himself together and make a remise or renew the attack. ”

“ It is mournful to remember that we have seen this ploughing continue till the sun has touched the horizon and the night dews have begun to fall. Even then the long-suffering God has followed up his work—ploughing, ploughing, ploughing, ploughing, till darkness ended all. Do I address any aged ones whose lease must soon run out? ”

“ Death and Devastation are the certain Consequences of Delay; every Moment is infinitely precious; an Hour lost may deluge your Country in Blood, and entail perpetual Slavery upon the few of your Posterity who may survive the Carnage. ”

“ The retreat was in consequence determined on, to the great glee of our men, who were tired of inaction, and imagined they should feel their sovereign's sufferings less if engaged hand to hand with, the foe, in his service, than watching him as they had lately done, and dreading yet greater evils. ”

“ After days and nights of restless agitation, he has obtained one long, last night of sweet repose, reserved for those, who die prepared, and who have endeavored to do their duty. He has gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest. ”

“ I RENEW AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE For three days I remained shut into my rooms at the “Orient,” not daring to go out, a prey to the utmost nervousness and agitation. Do not suppose that on that account I was the less determined in my plans for vengeance. But revenge that lays itself open to retribution misses the better half of itself. I remembered my old friend Mr. Roper’s dictum, and beat my brains only for the means to strike with impunity. I was not from the first without a design. The difficulty was to give it practical effect; because for the moment I could not use Gogo. ”

“ CHAPTER XXII ONE afternoon, toward dusk the fifth day of her captivity—Retrospection seized her and whirled her away in his purple chariot.
Retrospection, who is one of the unmentioned gods of tragedy, is never very particular about his backgrounds ”

“ The rapturous crisis came at last and laid us prostrate with soul-killing ecstasies. We each retained the dear object of our mutual caresses within our lips and our fingers remained within the delightful recesses that had so much contributed to the excessive raptures we had enjoyed. We lay for some time in this sweet languid enjoyment. ”

“ There, in the midst of ruthless foes, a thousand miles away from home and its endearments, we stood wet, ragged, and forlorn; chained, yes, chained together, like felons, like oxen, like wild beasts. Had it not been for the comforting spirit of God, I am certain that I should have sunk at this juncture with despair ”

“ He would unfold to them the glorious conquests which, in His name, they were on earth to achieve, as His standard-bearers and apostles, and the ineffable bliss awaiting them in that Heaven whither He was about to ascend as their Forerunner and Precursor. It must indeed have been to them a season of severe and bitter trial! They had in their hearts a full and tender impression—a gushing recollection of three years’ unvarying kindness and affection—sorrows soothed—burdens eased—ingratitude overlooked—treachery forgiven. ”

“ One would think that if obliged to pronounce such a doom upon any, he would do it with tears—that he would retire into his closet, and throw ashes upon his head, and come forth in sackcloth, overwhelmed at the hard necessity which compelled the stern decree. ”

“ This is the source of the erroneous excesses of Remorse and Revenge; the one extending itself over the future, and the other over the past; provinces in which their suggestions can only be the sources of evil. The purpose of a resolution to act more wisely and virtuously in future, and the sense of a necessity of caution in repressing an enemy, are the sources from which the enormous superstitions implied in the words cited have arisen. ”

“ Be the cold chains shaken
To the dust where your kindred repose, repose:
Their bones in the grave will start and move,
When they hear the voices of those they love,
Most loud in the holy combat above. ”

“ At the best one encounters a sort of revolt. This feeling of revolt, I suffered, in varying degrees of intensity, at the hands of almost every one who came near me; it would seem that nothing inflicts a deeper wound than suddenly to make one's distance felt. ”

“ Loosening is not perhaps an exact rendering, which is rather "unstiffening," or destroying the rigor mortis, as a preparative to healing a mortal wound, and breaking the sleep of death. These three waters always appear in stories, where this incident is used. ”

“ At the surface snorting, in the depths in deadly silence, with jaws interlocked, rolling over and over, spinning in the perpendicular, they wrestled in that desperate struggle which must end in lordship for the one, death or exile for the other. ”

“ There came indeed a moment when being unable to resist longer, my body, like that of others of my comrades who had the fortune or misfortune to be still alive, dragged itself back across the gutters, stumbling over unburied bodies that seemed less than human among the debris. ”

“ And then the gentlemen ushers, in like manner brake their rods, and threw them into the vault with exceeding sorrow and heaviness, not without grievous sighs and tears, not only of them, but of many others, as well of the meaner sort, as of the nobility, very piteous and sorrowful to behold. ”

“ Take, for instance, this passage from Sir Walter Raleigh’s account of the loss of the Revenge, published in 1591. He begins admirably: “All the powder of the Revenge was now spent, all her pikes were broken, forty of her best men slain, and the most part of the rest hurt.” ”

“ I know him. When danger came his way, it found him ready, but he did not foresee. That was my trouble always,—I foresaw. Any peril to be encountered, any risk to be run,—I foresaw them. I foresaw something else besides. ”

“ Your unworthy suspicions, your abominable design of revenge, and the impudent letter you wrote me, are the only causes of your no doubt bitter repentance. I hope that it will restore peace to your conscience. Our messengers have crossed, through no fault of mine. I send you the twenty-five Louis; you can give them to the man yourself. ”

“ The horrors of the retreat can only be known by those who experienced them, and there was little light amid the darkness of apparent failure. It must be remembered that our men were fighting all the time, sometimes it seemed to them succeeding, but really only succeeding in allowing the main body to retreat to the rear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is too late now to repent of an act which has brought its own just and bitter punishment. The only reparation I can make is to endeavour to repair the evil consequences which have ensued. The one aim of my life, after the settlement with my wife is accomplished, will be to find my son. ”

“ And among the weapons of conquest must be included the weapon of patience and of resignation, but a passionate patience and a passionate resignation, containing within itself an active principle and antecedent longings. ”

“ Have not the fierce pangs of famine driven mothers to eat their own children, incredibly savage as it seems? In line, sleep itself, which is justly called repose, how little of repose there sometimes is in it when disturbed with dreams and visions; and with what terror is the wretched mind overwhelmed by the appearances of things which are so presented, and which, as it were, so stand out before the senses, that we cannot distinguish them from realities! ”

“ The art of inducing a condition of repose can be readily acquired by any one who will carefully and faithfully do as follows: Place yourself in an easy lying or lounging position in a quiet place, with fresh air. ”

“ The good man having made a very Christian exhortation to me not to let the joy of my reprieve put the remembrance of my past sorrow out of my mind, and told me that he must leave me, to go and enter the reprieve in the books, and show it to the sheriffs, he stood up just before his going away, and in a very earnest manner prayed to God for me, that my repentance might be made unfeigned and sincere ”

“ When the time for bidding them farewell drew near, the king grew very sad again, and sighing deeply, said—
“I cannot tell you, my children, what a sad foreboding haunts me that some evil threatens you. If I should not return from this journey, I fear it will not be safe for you to remain here. Take my advice [103] therefore, and go away secretly, as soon as you are sure that there is no hope of my return. When you start, remember you must go towards the East—you will then soon arrive at a high, steep rock; when you have climbed this rock you will come to a long, narrow valley. ”

“ A thousand years or a single instant—for time is a relative thing—the respite lasted. Then, I sank, as it seemed, to the old level of consciousness, and the torment was renewed.
Endure it now I knew that I must—and why. A strange new purpose filled my being. The light of understanding had dawned upon my soul.
And so I came to resume my vigil in the home of Velma and Louis. ”

“ But, even as the term "commutation" has passed from such like things to those actions and passions which confer reverence or injury, harm or profit on another person, so too the term "restitution" is applied, to things which though they be transitory in reality, yet remain in their effect; whether this touch his body, as when the body is hurt by being struck, or his reputation, as when a man remains defamed or dishonored by injurious words. ”

“ The quiet, and the gloom, and the dropping rain, strangely affected him now, as he plied his punt-pole; once he could have wept in his remorse, and another time he almost shrieked in fear. How lonesome it seemed! how dreadful! and that death-dyed face behind him—ha! woman, away I say! ”