Scarring

“ A weary and harassing thing it is even where the body is the aggressor—when the fevered blood, darting like liquid fire through the veins, mounts to the throbbing brow, and, pressing like molten lead upon the brain, crushes out thought and feeling, leaving but a dull consciousness of the racking agony which renders each limb a separate instrument of torture. ”

“ Gashings and tearings of the flesh make wounds which leave scars. If the blood-offerings which entail them are made by relatives to the departed spirit of an ordinary person, these scars are not likely to have any permanent significance; but, if they are made in propitiation of some deceased chief, not by his relatives alone, but by unrelated members of the tribe who stood in awe of him and fear his ghost, then like other mutilations they become signs of subjection. ”

“ It was with difficulty that I kept from a cry of horror—the wound was so ugly, and it scarce seemed possible that a human creature could take so evil a hurt and still live. It was to succour this poor wretch, who, for all I knew, was even now fast sinking into the sleep of death, that I had been brought to this underground den. Alas! I had not the remotest knowledge of surgery, and I stood there wavering, with the inquisitive eyes of those two ruffians upon me, helpless, nonplussed, and with a growing sensation of fear. ”

“ One of these cuts is made for each enemy that has been slain, and some distinguished warriors have their legs absolutely striped with scars. As the wound is a tolerably deep one, and as ashes are plentifully rubbed into it, the scar remains for life, and is more conspicuous than it would be in an European, leaving a white track upon the dark skin. ”

“ The scar which disfigured me in other eyes had been, as I thought, no detriment in his. He loved me, and saw nothing in me but what was consistent with that love. And now I heard him with my own ears speak contemptuously of that scar. All that I had hoped, all that I had confided in, was gone from me in an instant, and I felt myself toppling into a misery I could neither contemplate nor fathom. For an hour I walked the paths of that small wood, communing with myself; then I took my resolve. Life, which had brought me nothing but pain and humiliation, was not worth living. ”

“ Noses are bitten, ears torn, sensitive places kicked, hair pulled, arms twisted, the head stamped on and pounded on stones, fingers twisted, and hoodlums sometimes deliberately try to strangle, gouge out an eye, pull off an ear, pull out the tongue, break teeth, nose, or bones, or dislocate jaws or other joints, wring the neck, bite off a lip, and torture in utterly nameless ways. In unrestrained anger, man becomes a demon in love with the blood of his victim. ”

“ But more suggestive than any of these shams was the stern reality of a purple scar which ran round the back of his neck, from ear to ear. More than one man must have been hurt, when that scar was made. ”

“ Certainly, everybody will answer, in cases where there is a palpable organic change brought about, as when a blow on the head produces insanity. Fools! How long will it be before we shall learn that for every wound which betrays itself to the sight by a scar, there are a thousand unseen mutilations that cripple, each of them, some one or more of our highest faculties? ”

“ You might have put on your gloves."
"I might—and suffered your scarifying mirth, which would have been much worse. 'He jests at scars that never felt a wound,' but he who jests at them after he has felt them is the hero. Observe that I still jest." He put his lips to a bleeding tear on his wrist as he spoke. "My only regret is that the rose haws were not where they are now when I photographed the horses. Only, mine is not a colour camera. I must get one and have it with me when I drive, in case of emergencies like this one." ”

“ In anger the eyes are fiery and the pupils contracted; in modesty the cheeks are suffused with blushes; in fear, and under a sense of infamy and of shame, the face is pale, but the ears burn as if for the evil they heard or were to hear; in lust how quickly is the member distended with blood and erected! But, above all, and this is of the highest interest to the medical practitioner,—how speedily is pain relieved or removed by the detraction of blood, the application of cupping-glasses, or the compression of the artery which leads to a part? ”

“ Those that are most painted and pricked you may know to be of high rank and noble birth."
But a further cause exists for this conflict of meanings. There remains to be named a species of skin-mutilation having another origin and different implication.
Besides scars resulting from lacerations made in propitiation of dead relatives, dead chiefs, and deities, there are scars resulting from wounds received in battle. The presence of many such implies many conflicts with enemies; and hence, all the world over, they are held in honor and displayed with pride. ”

“ Such are the signs that for the first days foreshadow the end; but as the sickness begins to advance and gather violence, then indeed their eyes burn and their breath is fetched deep, heavy with broken moans, their flanks below heave with long-drawn sobs, black blood oozes from their nostrils, and their throat is blocked by their rough and swollen tongue. ”

“ I have always had an insurmountable horror of blood; when I was a boy, the sight of an open wound affected me so much that I would fall into a swoon, which on more than one occasion nearly cost me my life. ”

“ An instant before he had been fighting like a tiger cat, now he was a motionless, grotesque shadow. Blood streamed from my lacerated hand, and I bound up the wound in a neckerchief stripped from around my throat, hardly conscious of the pain, my breath steadying, my muscles growing tense. Then I bent down, and straightened the man out, upturning his face to the moon. ”

“ However it had come about, poor Scarry had indubitably been put into the earth face downward.
When terror and absurdity make alliance, the effect is frightful. This strong-hearted and daring man, this hardy night worker among the dead, this defiant antagonist of darkness and desolation, succumbed to a ridiculous surprise. ”

“ Paler than the dead who lay so still in their quiet rest in the churchyard; colder than the very touch of death itself; rigid as the body when the breath has gone forever; there he stood, the epitome of awful fear. With eyeballs starting from their sockets, open mouth, dilated nostrils, he seemed the very personification of incredulous horror. ”

“ The horrible sight of the mangled, bleeding bodies, the set eyes, and jaws locked from excessive torture, will surely fasten on his eye forever, and blister his sight. Horrid dreams, wherein jibing fiends shall mock at him and the wail of the damned ring forever in his ears, shall surely visit his pillow and haunt him every night. Each voice that he hears amid the carnage shall seem, in after-time, to be the voice of an accusing angel telling him of his guilt. ”

“ It is as true of scars on the brain and nervous system as of those on any less important parts of the body, that they will not wash out, nor grow out.
3. Scars on the brain or nervous system may be made by physical or mental habits, and are the basis of the self-propagative power of habits.
4. When the scars or grooves in which a habit runs are made deep, the habit becomes automatic or self-acting and perhaps involuntary.
5. The grooves worn or scars made by good and bad habits may be inherited. ”

“ A poor creature with dishevelled hair, with a horrible wound in her throat, clasping a baby in her arms, and her bosom dabbled with the child’s blood. She swayed herself, the agony of despair in her eyes ”

“ I tell you, Beatrice, there's more to be figured out here than can be done in half an hour.
“As I see it, some vast catastrophe must have rent the earth, a thousand or fifteen hundred years ago, as a result of which everybody was killed except you and me. We're standing now on the edge of the scar left by that explosion, or whatever it was. How deep or how wide that scar is, I don't know. Everything depends on our finding out, or at least on our guessing it with some degree of accuracy.” ”

“ Pure spring water is brought, and as the kind sister dashes it over the girl's face, and rubs the scarred features softly with her hands, lo! every scar and spot and blemish vanishes, and the face comes out fair and beautiful as it never was before. ”

“ Suppose that person knew of the soul scar, the old wound, knew from the dreams the conflict between the various persons—and encouraged the dream actors—in real life. Suppose, too, that that person, learning of what Vail Wilford was doing, had a personal grievance—a spite—a desire for bitter revenge. ”

“ That frightful scar running all the way down one side of his clean-shaven face, from his eye to his chin, must have been made with a knife; but no one knew how it had been done, and that made it all the more mysterious. ”

“ It would be hard to imagine a more terrible spectacle than that of one of these demoniac fits. The body pulsates with tremors and violent shocks. The muscles are contracted, so tense that we might believe them to be on the point of bursting. Great bounds, frightful cries and howlings, confused vociferations, indescribable contortions which we would not have supposed a human creature capable of making—such is the hideous picture which the hysterical patient presents when she is seized with an attack. ”

“ I heard a short, sharp cry behind me, a fall, and turning saw an awful face rushing upon me,—not human, not animal, but hellish, brown, seamed with red branching scars, red drops starting out upon it, and the lidless eyes ablaze. ”

“ When we consider that blood is red; that the smell of it is, or may be, or has been, associated with that vivid hue in the animal's mind; that blood, seen and smelt is, or has been, associated with the sight of wounds and with cries of pain and rage or terror from the wounded or captive animal, there appears at first sight to be some reason for connecting these two instinctive passions as having the same origin--namely, terror and rage caused by the sight of a member of the herd struck down and bleeding, or struggling for life in the grasp of an enemy. ”

“ My arms ached with the pain arising from the unnatural position in which they were sustained; and my head throbbed acutely, probably from the effects of the drug exhaled by the phial.
In what place I stood it was impossible to tell, for there lay a darkness all around as black and oppressive as though a pall had been flung over me. Fear imparts the wildest fancies to the human mind. ”

“ If, for example, an individual has received a rather long but shallow knife wound and a deep stab in the back, the first will cause him very considerable burning sensation, the latter only the feeling of a heavy blow. Later on, at the examination, the cut has healed and is no longer painful; the dangerous stab which may have reached the lung, causes pain and great difficulty in breathing, so that the wounded man assigns the incidence of the stab to the painful sensation of the cut, and conversely. ”

“ Up, up, up they came, until I saw the dark, indefinite shape of something very horrid, but which I could not—I dare not—define. It was accompanied by the clanging of a pail. I tried to scream, but my tongue cleaving to the roof of my mouth prevented my uttering a syllable, and when I essayed to move, I found I was temporarily paralysed. The thing came rushing down on me. I grew icy cold all over, and when it was within a few feet of me, my horror was so great, I fainted. ”

“ Then she thought she had a clue, for, in answer to a sudden jest on her part, the stranger laughed until his glasses fell off and dropped to the floor, and as he stooped to pick them up, she caught sight of a tiny scar on his right eyelid. Surely she had seen that scar before, or, at least, one much like it; and once more she went through her friends, trying to place the mark, but with no better success than before. ”

“ Stop the murderer who is going to kill me—he has a razor to cut my throat!’ His face wore a terrible expression of fear, the furrows on the brow, the dilated nostrils, contracted lips, the gnashing of the teeth, gave evidence of a desperate struggle. ”

“ Just then the prostrate monster’s hideous head changed suddenly to a human visage almost as horrible—a brutal, ruffianly, soulless face, with a bristling red beard and a low, receding forehead, across which ran a broad smear of blood. ”

“ Death seemed reaching out its bony hands to clutch me by the throat. The next instant my blood froze with terror, for out of the night there came to me, lying there in the inky blackness of my room, a long drawn animal-like cry. ”

“ She clasp'd her hands in pangs severe,
And shrieks reveal'd her agony.
And fainting on the earth she lay,
With struggles of convulsive breath,
As if weak life had fled away
In terror at the sight of death. ”

“ A third, already sensible of the physical agonies that accompany the action of poison on the human system, rocked her body to and fro, every separate nerve writhing and quivering in the extremity of pain, yet still retained so much mastery over her tortures as to repress all outward indications of her suffering and approaching dissolution, beyond a low, choking sob, a fearful and indescribable sound, between a hiccough and a groan. ”

“ The scar, which would soon pass, did distance or time intervene, can not heal from hourly irritation, One quarrel brings the memory of its predecessor, and grievances and mortifications are treasured up for perpetual reference. ”