Reprisal

“ If we reflect for one moment on the effects of the passions, we shall perceive the necessity of repressing them, if we would spare ourselves vain regrets and useless sorrows, which certainly always afflict those who obey not the laws. Thus, a single reflection will suffice to show the impropriety of anger, the dreadful consequences of revenge, calumny, and backbiting. ”

“ I interposed, maddened into daring his full anger. "It is not my life I am buying, but hers, possibly yours; for it seems you have planned to perish with us. Is it not so?"
"Certainly," was his cold reply. "Am I an assassin? Would you expect me to live, knowing you to be perishing?" ”

“ Henceforth I determined to live, to resume the path of obscurity and labour which I had relinquished, and Wait till my God should summon me to retribution:—to anticipate his call is only to redouble our guilt. ”

“ The Drama of my Captivity and my Life as a Prisoner—The Commencement of Torture
My misfortunes, alas! are known to the public all over the world. But it is not on me that they weigh most heavily.
If calumny and persecution, assisted by the most powerful influences, have continually added blow upon blow, one truth, at least, is patent: I was not—I am not—mad, and those who endeavoured to affirm that I was insane, did so to their shame, and, I also hope, to their sorrow. ”

“ Shall a man with a heart feel this horrible injustice, and not rebel? Grant that I am rightly punished for my impatience, my pride, my jealousy, how have you been rewarded for your stainless youth, your innocent trust, your almost miraculous goodness? ”

“ Then spring up also pride and frowardness; and, when they are swollen up, the mind is lashed with the surge of hot passion, until a man is bound about with gloom of soul, and held prisoner. When this hath come to pass, then the hope of revenge beginneth its lying tale to him, and his reckless mood promiseth whatsoever his passion craveth. ”

“ Some internal and inscrutable feeling seemed to warn them that their hour of punishment was near, and that retribution was at hand—retribution for all the pain and misery which they had caused to others ever since they first sold themselves to work evil instead of endeavouring to lead good and pious lives, and to be a comfort instead of a plague and torment to their fellow-creatures. ”

“ Fell retribution, like a sleuth-hound, still The footsteps of the wicked sternly tracks, And in his mad career o'ertaking him, Brings, when he least expects it, swift destruction, And with a bitter, mocking justice, marks Each sin that did most easily beset him. ”

“ Would I could foresee a term to our misery!—Who but yourself shall find a remedy for our misfortunes? Shall we delay, until time brings to light that which is now a secret, and the affront we have received entail on us a shame more intolerable than death itself? ”

“ The giving up of my appointment was the finish of my mad career.
I awoke now to a consciousness of all my foolishness and wickedness; the revelation of the misery, present and future alike, which my conduct had prepared for me, coming to mind, with a sudden, sharp stroke of painful distinctness that prostrated me into an abyss of self-torture and repentance.
Ah! There is no use in repining, unless one mends matters by deeds, not words. Repentance is worth little if it be not followed up by reformation. ”

“ A RULE OF LIFE
‘If you want to annoy an opponent thoroughly, and even to harm him,’ said a crafty old knave to me, ‘you reproach him with the very defect or vice you are conscious of in yourself. Be indignant ... and reproach him!
‘To begin with, it will set others thinking you have not that vice.
‘In the second place, your indignation may well be sincere.... You can turn to account the pricks of your own conscience. ”

“ How awfully certain is it that "the way of the transgressor is hard!" This poor sufferer found it so; and as no iniquity can go unpunished, there must be a dreadful retribution for the man, who, not only shut up his bowels of compassion from him, in the day of his afflictions, but sported, like a demon, with his dreadful condition. ”

“ Remorse or self-accusation, if there be cause for such a feeling, is as the vinegar on the sponge to the man crucified by his own sin. One has but to come in contact with the material side of civilization to discover how desperately sordid this twentieth-century life can be. ”

“ This is demanded of the drama—that at once it satisfies a certain crude something subsisting under all outward glosses and veneers that might be in some a lively sense of right and wrong—the uprisal of a conscience, in fact, or in others a vague instinct of proper reward or punishment, which will even cover and sanction certain kinds of revenge or retaliation. The one feeling will emerge most among the cultured, and the other among the ruder and more ignorant ”

“ If one could vest the abstract with personal feelings, what an ample revenge would be hers at the sight of the renegade—sick-hearted, weary, and shamefaced—coming back to the ways of his youth and race, and succumbing to some one part of that which he had despised and rejected in toto! ”

“ Thou venturest again to aim against my life—against me, by whom thou wert raised from the condition of the beasts of the field, and from the certainty of everlasting perdition?—Away—away with thee to prison! ”

“ Whatever complaint I have made against my Fate is sufficient complaint. Know this, that true justice goeth from heart to heart [16] ; for thy sake will I die, I shall become the prey of ravens! [17] But as long as I live I shall weep and suffer enough for thee, too. ”

“ On the contrary, when we gaze upon the progress of the vicious and the criminal, however successful and prosperous in their brief space of action, to contempt and indignation, to disgust and horror, are added the same consciousness of a hereafter, and the certainty of an awful retribution. ”

“ But what you now propose to do.... Oh, the shame of it!... Listen, if you did that ... I should think of you as one thinks of ... I don't know what ... as one thinks of the most contemptible, the most revolting ... ”

“ The feeling of loneliness or homesickness, which has given rise to much good literature, shows repressed emotion. The wish to wreak revenge or to punish evil or to do away with injustice or to devote oneself to the following of an ambition or the pursuit of a certain kind of labour, are all symptoms of repressions. ”

“ Knowing that 'due decorum's' breach foulest disgrace will cause.
Those firm in mind will not slacken in their observance of the proprieties of life, knowing, as they do, the misery that flows from the transgression from them. ”

“ His power of resistance, once so vigorous, is now confused—confusion grows to paralysis—he can only now stare, distressed, at the dark temptation, there have swept over him such strong waters that struggle is no longer of avail—one last clutch at the vice, one last desperate and hateful pleasure, and he is gone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You can repress, and God knows how many boys and young men, how many young women and girls have struggled to do so, and are trying to do so to-day, with a sense always of guilt and shame in their minds, laying up mental difficulties for themselves, the psychologists tell us, by this repression. You know the type; you know the kind of person who becomes hard and narrow and uncomprehending. ”

“ But those who had brought away nothing and had traveled with comfort and ease, were overwhelmed with the fire of reprobation; they strike their heads upon the ground with the energy of remorse, and are filled with sighs and lamentations. ”

“ In order to illustrate the nature of evils of this class, I may take two instances—cruelty and lasciviousness. That these are great intrinsic evils, we may, I think, easily assure ourselves, by imagining the state of a man, whose mind is solely occupied by either of these passions, in their worst form. ”

“ It had been a small price to pay for what he had gained during that awful night of realities! Through the years his agitation, his fear, his almost lost fight with the cowardice that is every man’s trial would stand with him. ”

“ Do not you think, therefore, that there is any benefit, or that there is any advantage which can be procured by injustice, precious enough to counterbalance the constant pressure of remorse, and the haunting consciousness that retribution awaits the sinner, and hangs over his devoted head. ”

“ The sins, which the repentance of years had made more odious in the eyes of the old man, were narrated; the idleness and insubordination at first, then the reckless pursuit of pleasure, the craving for excitement, the defiance of rule and authority, till folly had become vice, and vice had led to crime. ”

“ Why should a stern, condemning voice declare in recesses of my soul, 'You could and should resist'? For years I have been daily yielding to temptation, and conscience as often pronounces sentence against me. ”

“ Men have been thy victims: now take the due reward of all thy wickedness. What art thou, that I should have idolized and gazed with rapture on that form?—something even more treacherous and perverted than myself. ”

“ You will laugh till probably tears of sorrowing pity fill your eyes at their constant exposition of their own lack of it. They began all things unreasonably—a round of absurdities and impossibilities for the abasement of the defenceless half of human kind, in the unreasonable imagining that they thereby exalted the other half; and to carry out their unreason they made their god unreasonable! ”

“ Could these men and women who had so long borne the bitterest yoke, who had been accustomed to the spectacle of the most ferocious punishments, when suddenly untrammelled, act with perfect clemency, moderation, or humanity? ”

“ This action of opposing forces with regard to the more primitive aspects of the mind is termed Repression Repression and so far as it manifests itself in consciousness finds its most usual expression in the emotions of disgust, anger and fear. ”

“ Are you not ashamed, you little scoundrel, to attempt to do hurt to those who have never injured you, and to want to add to the suffering of those who already are sufficiently miserable? Although you escape now, be assured, sir, that if you do not repent and mend your manners, you will meet with a severe punishment for your bad behavior. ”

“ Bowed down by shame and remorse, the unhappy man slunk back to his hermitage, miserable and degraded, bitterly lamenting his folly and infatuation, but resolved to atone for it by deep repentance and severe penance. ”

“ They worked amongst giant mechanisms beside which they were puny, but theirs was a life of force and strength which took from them the fear of anything that was merely human. Thus surprise changed to resentment, and resentment began to resolve itself into a slow and consuming anger. ”

“ No gleam of goodness throughout the whole for the heart to cling to,—no thought of remorseful penitence,—no spark of noble feeling; nothing but vice,—low, grovelling, brutal vice,—from the moment the curtain rises to display the obscene spectacle, to that which sees it fall between the fictitious infamy on one side, and the real impurity left on the other! ”

“ 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. ”

“ We deny, therefore, that the labours and sorrows of the present life, the loss of such joys as are left to us at its close, and the dreadful agonies and terrors with which death is often attended, have the nature of a penalty. ”

“ The primitive tendency to pursue the objects of desire without regard to the interests of fellow-men is gradually checked under the influence of four deterrents: the dread of retaliation, the dread of legal punishment, the dread of social dislike, and the dread of divine vengeance. ”

“ At length her virtuous resistance so inflamed this wretched being, that not being able to gratify his desires in the manner he wished, he formed the most diabolical plan of vengeance that ever entered the human mind. ”

“ Why am I called upon to do this, oh cruel, most cruel destiny? Cannot I fly from the horrid scene? Cannot I rather run a dagger into my heart? But no, 'tis plain my fate is ordained, sealed, fixed! and in vain I struggle,—I must fulfil the task appointed for me! ”

“ Many circumstances, I will own, may excuse what is called rebellion, but no circumstances can ever make it good for your cause, and however honourable to your feelings, it will reflect no credit on your judgments. It will bind you more closely to the block of the oppressor, and your children’s children, whilst they talk of your exploits, will feel that you have done them injury instead of benefit. ”

“ The nerve-pangs of irritability and impatience, of well-nigh uncontrollable rebellion and revolt—all concealed with difficulty, but not thereby conquered—seared her spirit far more deeply than her left forefinger was pricked and torn by the needle driven at unaccustomed speed. ”

“ I confess, that to my unsophisticated boyish feelings, subdued by the cunning of the scene, it seemed quite natural, that the sufferings of bitter remorse and repentance should suffice to ensure the pity and forgiveness of outraged society.—Happy age, when the generous impulses of our [1249, 1250] nature are not yet blunted by the stern experience of after life! ”

“ Punch, swaying alternately from clumsy deception to helpless rage, badgered into sullenness, and betrayed by the inherent weakness of his poor, peace-loving little soul, is a picture burdened with bitter truth, drawn with revengeful fidelity. ”