Shamefacedness

“ Shame of a very different nature,—a moral shamefacedness,— which if not itself an instinctive virtue, is near akin to one, makes those who are endowed with the best and highest feelings, conceal them from all common eyes ”

“ Further, if shamefacedness were properly about a disgraceful action, it would follow that the more disgraceful the action the more ashamed would one be. Yet sometimes a man is more ashamed of lesser sins, while he glories in those which are most grievous, according to Ps. 51:3, "Why dost thou glory in malice?" Therefore shamefacedness is not properly about a disgraceful action. ”

“ Shyness is in fact an excess of modesty. And thus it is called shamefacedness, because the face exhibits the changes of the mind. For as dejection is defined to be the grief that makes people look on the ground, so shamefacedness is that shyness that cannot look people in the face. And so the orator said the shameless person had not pupils638 in his eyes but harlots. The bashful person on the other hand shows his delicacy and effeminacy of soul in his countenance, and palliates his weakness, which exposes him to defeat at the hands of the impudent, by the name of modesty. ”

“ The other kind of disgrace is penal so to speak, and it consists in the reproach that attaches to a person, just as the clarity of glory consists in a person being honored. And since this reproach has the character of an arduous evil, just as honor has the character of an arduous good, shamefacedness, which is fear of disgrace, regards first and foremost reproach or ignominy. And since reproach is properly due to vice, as honor is due to virtue, it follows that shamefacedness regards also the disgrace inherent to vice. ”

“ If I had but done sooner what Eve asked, this would not have happened. I will bear it.'
'Sir Edric, do not be angry with me, for if I did not say this, then I should be but an ill counsellor. And, firstly, do not use the word shame. The ways of nature are past all explaining; if a woman be frail and easily impressed, and other circumstances concur, then in some few rare cases a thing of this sort does happen. If there be shame, it is not upon you but upon nature—to whom one would not lightly impute shame. ”

“ You have endeavoured to put a brand of shame upon a man who never, consciously, was guilty of a dishonourable action in his life."
"Well, and how do you feel?"
"Feel! God forgive me, but I feel as though I should like to kill you." ”

“ I said it; martyrdom or shame! It is shame which awaits me.
So spoke the Curé, when Marianne had taken away her young mistress, and his conscience exaggerated the gravity and the consequences of his imprudent rapture.
—Yes, it is shame, it is shame.
—Do not despair in this way, said a jeering voice.
Marcel turned round, terror-struck.
His servant was behind him.
She had approached, noiselessly, and was looking at him with her strange, green eyes.
—Shame lies in scandal, she added sententiously. Reassure yourself; that pretty young lady will hold her tongue. ”

“ No, your shame is known to all men, and the shame of all who belong to you. Again, what think you of the woman who, because it is the fashion, goes out to balls indecently and improperly dressed—who is not covered as becomes a Christian matron or maiden, but is so clad as to bring the blush of lust to the face of the brazen, and of shame to that of the pure in heart; or of those who go to all sort of plays and spectacles, who encourage the most questionable of dances and ballets, and bring up their children in the same spirit? Is their modesty known to all men? ”

“ You have brought shame upon your parents and shame upon your son, and that shame you can never wipe out. If you had in you a spark of human feeling, if you were not worthless and heartless you would blush to look me in the face or your child in the face. ”

“ I shuddered, too, when I contemplated the shame which awaited me, should some future event, yet hidden in the lap of time, reveal to the world the secret villainy of the man who had borne himself so proudly among his fellows. Yet even these regrets, even the apprehension of fresh difficulties in the concealment of my crime, were insufficient to deter me from the prosecution of my original intention; and blinded by the intemperance of misguided affection, heedless of the shame and misery into which I was about to plunge the woman I adored, I sought and obtained your hand. ”

“ Oh, the ineffable misery of an exposed shame! the terrible sense that we are to meet abroad and before the world the stern condemnation our conscience has already pronounced, and that henceforth we are to be shunned and avoided! There is not left to us any longer one mood of mind that can bring repose. If we are depressed, it is in the mourning of our guilt we seem to be dressed; if for a moment we assume the air of light-heartedness, it is to shock the world by the want of feeling for our shame! It is written that we are to be outcasts and live apart!
“May I come in, Loo?” ”

“ Shame, man, shame; he is your guest, the guest, too, of a woman whose truth you know—whose whole life is beyond suspicion. You leave her every day to go here or there, and does she ask you where you have been—what you have done? Does she suspect you? Why, Dutch Pugh, you wretched maniac, if she saw you talking to a score of pretty women how would she act? ”

“ I will take shame from no man, and no lie from any living throat. If there should be dark days, let them come; I will not let you go from me—no, for here life is, nor can there be sin or shame in that which God has given. ”

“ We feel ashamed of that man, for he has covered us all with disgrace, and filled our hearts with pain. We hope he may live to feel ashamed of himself, and to know what it is to be refused any sympathy in any great trouble he may have. ”

“ His face was darkened with shame to be so degraded.
"It is cowardice and disgrace for a man who has lived as I have to be willing to die this way; for a man who has always faced his enemy to hide himself away now in his last moments—shame on him! ”

“ Or could this man, so vex’d in early time, By this strong feeling for his father’s crime; Who to the parent’s sin was barely just, And mix’d with filial fear the man’s disgust— Could he, without some strong delusion, quit 410 The path of duty, and to shame submit? Cast off the virtue he so highly prized, ‘And be the very creature he despised?’ [Pg 331] “A tenant’s wife, half forward, half afraid, Features, it seem’d, of powerful cast displayed, That bore down faith and duty; common fame Speaks of a contract that augments the shame. ”

“ As in revenge or quittal of such strife:
But as he is my kinsman, my dear friend,
The shame and fault finds no excuse nor end.
'Shameful it is; ay, if the fact be known:
Hateful it is; there is no hate in loving:
I'll beg her love; but she is own:
The worst is but denial and reproving:
My will is strong, past reason's weak removing. ”

“ But as not only pain may be inflicted, but lust gratified on the body of another, whenever anything of this latter kind takes place, shame invades even a thoroughly pure spirit from which modesty has not departed,—shame, lest that act which could not be suffered without some sensual pleasure, should be believed to have been committed also with some assent of the will. ”

“ You duety may, and shame too, lay aside;
Disturbe my privacie, and I forsooth
Must be afeard even to be angry at you!
Anton. What shame is't to be mastred by such beautie?
Who but to serve you comes, how wants he dutie?
Or, if it be a shame, the shame is yours;
The fault is onely in your Eies, they drew me:
Cause you were lovely therefore did I love.
O, if to Love you anger you so much,
You should not have such cheekes nor lips to touch,
You should not have your snow nor currall spy'd;—
If you but looke on us in vaine you chide.
We must not see your face, nor heare your speech ”

“ Such in fact is the state of mind that shame gives expression to; the soul is stung as it were at the result; its remorse for its ill-considered attempt is a whip that makes it feel to the quick, and it would bring in oblivion to its aid against its tormentor. ”

“ O Lord, let me not be put to shame by those who insult me, for that I have called upon Thee. “Let the ungodly be ashamed, and be brought down to hell.” Let them rather who call upon stones be ashamed, and made to dwell with darkness. ”

“ And let thy princes and the court give ear!
’Tis time all heard how Vashti feels her shame.
Ahasueras
Shame is no word to couple with thy name!
Shame and a spotless woman may not meet,
Even in a sentence. Choose another word. ”

“ This kind of shame—this necessity of blushing—is certainly born with every man, and in some measure is commanded by the very laws of nature; so that, in this matter, even virtuous married people are ashamed. ”

“ He spoke as men do in fevers. I could see that there were some about us who set him down as mad. There were those who jeered, as fools will at the sight of a man’s anguish, when, in the abandonment of his shame, he trails his soul in the dust. ”

“ To no Frenchwoman of her rank in life could this statement have been an easy one, but by making it with a certain quiet outspokenness she hoped to cover up her foolish sense of shame. The moment was not made less difficult for her by the astonishment, mingled with embarrassment, with which he took her remark.
"You!" he cried. "You!"
"It isn't anything very unusual, is it?" she smiled.
"I'm not the first person in the world to make the attempt." ”

“ She could not be alone, prostrate, powerless as she was,—a cloud of faces looked up at her, giving her no idea of fierce vivid anger, or of personal danger, but a deep sense of shame that she should thus be the object of universal regard—a sense of shame so acute that it seemed as if she would fain have burrowed into the earth to hide herself, and yet she could not escape out of that unwinking glare of many eyes. ”

“ We only represent to you the higher, the adequate objects of those very faculties and affections. Let the man of ambition go on still to consider disgrace as the greatest evil, honour as his chief good. But disgrace in whose estimation? Honour in whose judgment? This is the only question. If shame, and delight in esteem, be spoken of as real, as any settled ground of pain or pleasure, both these must be in proportion to the supposed wisdom, and worth of him by whom we are contemned or esteemed. ”

“ He wanted to want to take her in his arms and kiss her lips and hold her tightly to him, and when desire refused to rise in him, shame took its place, and because he couldn't understand the shame, he supplanted it with anger.
"Men have no happiness!" ”

“ Sunk down in shame too deep for shame's control.
His kind keen eye was light to lighten hope
Where no man else might see life's darkness ope
And pity's touch bring forth from evil good,
Sweet as forgiveness, strong as fatherhood. ”

“ Lavendar. "Shame is a curious thing, William. It's like some of your medicines. The right amount cures. Too much kills. I've seen that with hard drinkers. Where a drunkard is a poor, uneducated fellow, shame gives him a good boost towards decency. But a man of education, William, a man of opportunity—if he wakes up to what he has been doing, shame gives him such a shove he is apt to go all round the circle, and come up just where he started! Shame is a blessed thing,—when you don't get too much of it. ”

“ You put a shame upon him, hiding who his father and his father’s people were, and you put a shame upon her that lies in the graveyard—as sweet a lass, as good, as ever lived on earth. Ay, a shame and a scandal! For your eyes were shut always to the sidelong looks, your ears never heard the things people said—‘A good-for-nothing ship-captain, a scamp and a ne’er-do-weel, one that had a lass at every port, and, maybe, wives too; one that none knew or ever had seen—a pirate maybe, or a slave-dealer, or a jail-bird, for all they knew! ”

“ The perpetual remembrance of those other woman brought her a constant burning shame that grew stronger every day, a shame that was only less strong than her ardent love, and a wild jealousy that tortured her with doubts and fears, an ever-present demon of suggestion reminding her of the past when it was not she who lay in his arms, nor her lips that received his kisses. ”

“ And now, if a man would be so mad as to be ashamed, for fear of the rebuke that he should have of such rebukeful beasts, to confess the faith of Christ, then, with fleeing from a shadow of shame, he would fall into a true shame—and a deadly painful shame indeed! ”

“ Until this recent act of shame, she had been kind, unselfish, gentle, and faithful. Who knows why she fell? Who could sound the depths of this strange mystery; who measure the capacity of her resistance; who judge her frailty with a righteous mind; who say that at that very moment she was not suffering unspeakable things? And then, was there any one so noble of character, with integrity so unfailing and so far beyond temptation, that he might say he was better than she? ”

“ The blush of shame, which is an excess of sensation, and the glow of anger, which is an excess of volition, continue some time, though the affected person finds, that those emotions were caused by mistaken facts, and endeavours to extinguish their appearance. ”

“ Now, every man and woman of us here, who has one spark of good feeling in them, will surely agree, that coming to shame is dreadful; and that there is no pain or torment on earth like the pain of being ashamed of oneself: nothing so painful. ”

“ Sometimes the thought of his shame, of his false position, would seem to force itself between him and his love, there, where no shame should exist, but the delight of the present hour stifled each pang of self-reproach as soon as it was born within him. ”

“ You begin with shame and regret. But the sight of your lover’s agonies, his indignation, his anger, madden you and you get the lust of cruelty. You become insane. You make new wounds. You tear open old ones. ”

“ Shame—shame on them, who have not even the poor pretext of damaged health! They will spend their money and enjoy themselves—ay, and more scandal for them!—will all the time sanctimoniously reprobate what is going on round them, and then return quite happy and as they came. ”