Shackle

“ A sturdy-looking old fellow with grizzled beard and flowing locks steps out of the shack, and, as has been his wont for years, he scans the horizon for a sail or perchance for other more modern craft of the sea. ”

“ He idled along after them, revolving in his mind his plans for the evening—some boards to be nailed tight on the storm-shed, and certain repairs on the south side of the pen.
Although the lamb had delayed him, the sun was still above the horizon as he drew near home—if a word which means so much may be applied to a herder's shack. A shack is a residence about like a farmer's smokehouse, being taller than it is wide or long; and as it is intended only for sleeping purposes there is just enough floor space to allow for a door, and room to turn yourself in as you shut the door. ”

“ And thou, if thou seest but a little drop falling from the roof, throwest the whole house into confusion, calling thy slaves and disturbing every thing: while he, laid in rags, and straw, and dirt, has to bear all the cold. ”

“ The seventh shaft does pierce the eye, Envy, which grudges others’ good; A shaft which, however we may feel, Is one which never does us good. When these in his hand the enemy takes, Many they are by’s arms destroyed; He never shoots but what he strikes, And never strikes but what he kills. Son of God, I’ll place a pater, And the apostles’ creed as well, Between me and these wounding arms, With five psalms, or six or seven. Seven. [157] ”

“ The opening of the sack surpassed all that human language can convey of human horror. As his lordship loosened the cord which fastened the sack’s mouth, the dog fixed his eyes on it, stood over it with wild and trembling eagerness, as if ready to seize and devour the contents. The contents appeared, and the extreme of horror was displayed. A human body, as if murdered in bed, being covered only with a bloody shirt, and that clotted, and still damp, as if recently shed ”

“ Where?"
"That line behind the shack—don't you see?—a little streak right through the grass."
"No; I don't see anything."
"Come along and I'll show you. Come along, boys. We'll get him. He's only going on his belly."
"Yes, and be croaked, like this poor guy! Don't forget that the bird over there can give you a dose of lead." ”

“ To my horror I find that though the leaps are high yet they do not carry me far; and on the fourth or fifth the man is waiting for me with the hammer. I give myself up for lost, and come down receiving a fearful blow on the head. ”

“ In order that thou mayest see that the judgment is inevitable, and the punishment not to be eluded. For from a flying sword some one might perchance be able to escape, but from a sickle, falling upon the neck, and acting in the place of a cord, [28] no one can escape. ”

“ And the strongest chains may be broken, the thickest wall pierced through,—steep ramparts have been scaled before now,—and you might one day burst your yoke and be again let loose upon society, like an infuriated beast, marking your passage with murder and destruction; for none would be safe from your Herculean strength, or from the sharpness of your knife ”

“ The house, once shapely in form and carefully thatched, degenerates into a mere shack, and every carved bowl, paddle and implement becomes rude, ugly and misshapen. All care in manufacture degenerates, and in proportion does the light of their intellectual life fade out. ”

“ Having seen the shack, and le Père Battin and that one overcrowded room where flies in dense black swarms settled on everything, where dogs scratched and where age-old dirt gathered more dirt to its arms with the dawning of every day, that jam pot contained so many possibilities, we felt that to eat its contents would be sheer murder. ”

“ The streets however are nasty.
But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells—crack, crack—crack, crack—what a fuss thou makest!—as if it concerned the good people to be informed, that a man with pale face and clad in black, had the honour to be driven into Paris at nine o'clock at night, by a postillion in a tawny yellow jerkin, turned up with red calamanco—crack, crack—crack, crack—crack, crack,—I wish thy whip—
—But 'tis the spirit of thy nation; so crack—crack on. ”

“ It was a little wooden shack, sagging and discolored, its windows broken and its whole appearance denoting that utter desolation to which only a deserted homestead can attain; not even a human wreck can equal this silent abandonment. ”

“ The ground behind them lifted, heaved; the walls, the roof of the shack rose, cracked like eggshells, and scattered in flying pieces—and the mighty, deafening detonation of the explosion echoed up and down the gorge, echoed again—and died away. ”

“ Against the high bench!
With, "Fo, there is a stench!
Gather up, thou wench;
Seest thou not what is fall?
Take up dirt and all,
And bear out of the hall:
God give it ill preving
Cleanly as evil cheving!" ”

“ The uncared for and uncoffined little body is cast away anywhere; and as it is carried out of the door the house is swept, crackers are fired, and gongs beaten to frighten the spirit so that it may never dare enter the house again. ”

“ I saw plain enough there was no chance of saving the shack, so I snatched up what I could lay my hands on in the way of food and clothing and blankets, and tore out. I don't remember putting the knife in my pocket, but that's where I found it later. The shack burned down to nothing, and that thing burned with it; probably not a bone of it left. The scientists were out of luck and the mystery of mankind would remain unsolved. ”

“ I am ashamed that so unskilfully, I conduct myself: if I take even one corpse, all men perceive it.—25. In the houses weeping and in the streets, also wailing: and even unto the gates of Sheol, they groan over me.—26. Groan over yourselves that ye are thus hateful, and ye hate me: Sheol henceforth shall groan over you, O murderers!—27. ”

“ Poor old screws, who have usually to pull the family coach of an afternoon, broken-down hunters, an apology for hacks, are to be seen carrying their fair burdens, who look anything but at home in their saddles, with hair piled up in latest but most unworkmanlike fashion, flapping blouses, and habits that look as though night-gowns, still worn, were beneath. Of course many people cannot afford expensive hacks, but I would sooner any day have a broken-winded or broken-kneed screw that was well-bred and well-shaped, than a sound one who looked an underbred, lazy, three-cornered beast. ”

“ If a mob is climbing the stairs thirsting for your blood, you do not want to stand upright with your arms stretched out, a good eighteen inches from the door, while you go over at some length the varied incidents leading up to the annoyance. ”

“ Sir, if I look, I cannot miss seeing that there be three such shafts already cut short by doorways: so that it hath fair ensample to follow.
Tutor. Then will I take other ground, Sir, and affirm (for I trust I have not learned Logic in vain) that to cut short the shaft were a common and vulgar thing to do. But indeed a single arch, where folk might smoothly enter in, were wholly adverse to Nature, who formeth never a mouth without setting a tongue as an obstacle in the midst thereof. ”

“ And unless one from time to time emits a deep breathing, and unless a continuous groaning is uttered with the breathing, and unless the tunic passes gracefully through the girdle (not to mention the very disuse of the girdle itself) , and unless our cloak flows aslant down our backs—the omission of anyone of these niceties is a pretext for war against us. And on such grounds as these, they gather together to battle against us, man by man [6] , township by township, even down to all sorts of out-of-the-way places. ”

“ When she went out on an errand, wrapped in her faded shawl, walking fast, looking neither to the right nor to the left, meeting with cold and impassive glance, the stare of the passing stranger, how many men, and women too, would turn and look after the girl, struck by her pale quiet face. ”

“ For we see many barren ones entering those walls; we see that many intemperate, usurious persons, slave dealers, enter these walls, and such as resort to fortune-tellers, go to enchanters and enchantresses when they have a headache. ”

“ Shaking-head took the cloak, and the two went away together, the king's son riding on the light black steed, and having the double-handed sword at his back. When out of sight of the giant, Shaking-head put on the cloak, and was n't to be seen, and no other man could have been seen in his place. Then the king's son looked around, and began to call and search for his man,—he was lonely without him and grieved not to see him. Shaking-head, glad to see the affection of the king's son, took off the cloak and was at his side again. ”

“ Then in my dream I went up to Help and said to him, Sir, since this place is on the way from The City of Destruction to The Wicket Gate, how is it that no one mends this patch of ground, so that those who come by may not fall in the slough?
Help.—This slough is such a place as no one can mend. It is the spot to which doth run the scum and filth that wait on sin, and that is why men call it the Slough of Despond. ”

“ Thinkest thou men are formed of straw to be bound with paper chains? Have they not arms? have they not swords? Tremble, foolish wretch! Be what thou art,—a sycophant.—No, thou art not human; but in these filthy vaults thou hast swollen, as a vile toad or rank mushroom ”

“ Another of this class is the noun ‘sack.’ In its ordinary acceptation it means a large bag, and is derived from the Anglo-Saxon ‘sacc’ and the Latin ‘saccus.’ Hence comes the verb. To ‘sack’ a city is to carry off the plunder in a ‘bag.’ But another meaning of this word is found in ‘sack,’ a sort of wine. ”

“ Ever to grind to soil for grass.
(The way it is will do for moss.)
There he had built his stolen shack.
It had to be a stolen shack
Because of the fears of fire and loss
That trouble the sleep of lumber folk:
Visions of half the world burned black
And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke.
We know who when they come to town
Bring berries under the wagon seat,
Or a basket of eggs between their feet ”

“ Where now are those who are clad in threadbare cloaks, and display a long beard, and carry staves in the right hand; the philosophers of the world, [11] who are more abject in disposition than the dogs under the table; and do every thing for the sake of the belly? All these men then forsook the city, they all hasted away, and hid themselves in caves! ”

“ Man has placed but one habitation upon this toy of the great waters, and that a fisherman's shack, surrounded with the usual net-drying racks and other crude tools of the fisherfolk. One would rightly guess that the occupant of an abode built upon such a tiny bit of old mother earth must be a hardy customer, who understood the ways of the winds and sea and who dared combat them. ”

“ The men?—they looked like demons of the pit! All were hatless, all stripped to the waist, their reeking skins black with blotches of powder and spattered with gouts of blood. They worked like madmen, with rammer and cartridge, lever and lanyard. ”

“ Therefore all things are turned upside down, and all is full of disturbance, the things within, the things without, and we are in nothing different from a city thrown into confusion from being overrun by barbarians; and what takes place in us is as though a serpent were setting on a brood of sparrows, and the sparrows, with their feeble cries, were flying about every way affrighted, and full of trouble, without having any place whither to go and end their consternation. ”

“ The hooks, with which its outer end was garnished, caught in the crevices of the ruined wall, and a slender communication was established, although the slight structure which bridged the abyss was scarcely capable of supporting the weight of a human being. ”

“ Evidence of a Feeble Mind
A dirty shack in a mud hole in the country is merely another reflection of the same condition that causes the slums of the city. In our glowing spirit of humanity we cry out to raise up "the submerged tenth." ”

“ No one will chide her for resorting on the fatal night to the protection of male attire,—a good enough Shaksperian device,—but how remarkable that a woman wandering crazily in the dark, and already sufficiently disguised, should borrow a tell-tale cloak and a worse than useless sword from a corpse that she happens to stumble upon! ”

“ Ashes and chalk would be employed to hide his identity by the one being freely thrown over his head, and his face painted with the latter, whilst individuals would often rush out of their houses to lay their hands upon him that they might thus transfer to him their sin, guilt, trouble, and death. ”

“ Who would not weep for me, with voice and wailing? for before the days of full moon I was chaste and crowned; and after the days of full moon, I was uncovered and made bare.
25. My chaste daughters of the chambers, wander in the fields; for the wrath that makes all drunken, has caused my honourable women to be despised. Let Thy mercy which gives peace to all, restore these beloved ones to honour!
26. My elder daughters and my younger, lo! they cry before Thee; the damsels with their voices, they that are aged with their tears; my virgins with their fasts, my chaste ones with their sackcloth! ”

“ So much are all kicking, like horses, and any wild asses, and they fill the place here with much dung, for like this is their discourse. And if indeed one could see the things spoken at each assemblage, [29] by men, by women, thou wouldest see their words more unclean than that dung. ”

“ In each case the scene is a masquerade. In each case the figure is cloaked. In each, there is a quarrel—that is to say, angry words pass between the parties. In each the beholder is enraged. In each the cloak and sword fall upon the floor. ”