Suddenness

“ The suddenness with which men are frequently overtaken with the catastrophe which puts an end to their life, is seen by comparison with the fishes which are suddenly caught in the net, and the birds which are suddenly caught in the snare. ”

“ One is regarded in all the aspects of one, and with a reference to all the consequences which flow, either from the combination or the separation of them. The notion of transition involves the singular extra-temporal conception of 'suddenness.' This idea of 'suddenness' is based upon the contradiction which is involved in supposing that anything can be in two places at once. It is a mere fiction; and we may observe that similar antinomies have led modern philosophers to deny the reality of time and space. It is not the infinitesimal of time, but the negative of time. ”

“ There seemed a tension in the air—as if something was going to snap. Doubtless you have often felt it—a sensation as though pins and needles were pricking you all over. As though you wanted to scream—to cry out—against an uncertain sensation that gripped you. ”

“ If you were permitted to look upon the public and private life of this incredible world, your first sensation would be dizziness, not to mention the weirdness of all sights that would confront you at every turn. People would seem to be in a mad rush, and it would appear that all business is done with insane rapidity. ”

“ The delights and pains of the flesh, the agonies and raptures of the soul, these are fragmentary meteors fallen from thought’s harmonious system. But these burning experiences—how in any sense can they be mere pieces of thought’s heaven? For, if the fall is real, there is a world outside thought’s region, and, if the fall is apparent, then human error itself is not included there. ”

“ On the morning of the second day, after a sleep of thirty hours, I awoke again to the world, with a system utterly prostrate and unstrung, and a brain clouded with the lingering images of my visions. I knew where I was, and what had happened to me, but all that I saw still remained unreal and shadowy. ”

“ But, Sir, as it is only rarely that such a sudden transition from death to life takes place, by what signs are we to determine its actual occurrence, when it is the result of a more lengthened process? ”

“ Frightfully bruised, you lie annihilated in the midst of a chaos of nameless pains; then, little by little, thought follows the vertigo. As sight becomes accustomed to distinguishing the objects in the gloom, you begin, so to speak, to recognise yourself in your despair. ”

“ The idea, too, of the immediate danger, the consciousness that anything caught within its verge is inevitably hurried to a swift destination, swallowed up, annihilated, thrills the blood; the immensity of the picture, spreading a mile at least each way, and framed in by the interminable forests, adds to the feeling of grandeur; while the giddy, infinite motion of the headlong waters, dancing and leaping, and revelling and roaring, in their mad glee, gave me a sensation of rapturous terror, and at last caused a tension of the nerves in my head, which obliged me to turn away. ”

“ And are there not moments when we catch a glimpse of such a possibility? when brain and heart stand still, thoughtless, breathless? when life itself pauses in the transient revelation of such unsufferable light? ”

“ Suddenly as they strode along at a brisk pace, the earth slid from beneath them, and they fell feet first, down, down—they did not know where. Filled with terror, they could only think of what might happen when they struck something. ”

“ And then one morning, before the dawn broke, when life seemed to be at its lowest point, when hope was nearly gone, and the shadow of Death fell across the sick man’s face, there was suddenly a faint, strange flutter. ”

“ Punctual, commonplace, keeping all appointments, as I go my round in the obvious world, a bit of Chaos and old Night seems to linger on inside me; a dark bewilderment of mind, a nebulous sea of speculation, a looming of shadowy universes out of nothing, and their collapse, as in a dream. ”

“ You sense that the one before you is opening, but there is not much time. The burst of air carries you forward. Perhaps you scream, but you are now beyond sound, beyond sight, beyond everything. You do not even feel that it is cold. ”

“ Over and again, with a nervous start, consciousness would seize upon him, and he would be himself long enough to contrast his forlorn plight with the feignings of his dream, and so sink again into troubled slumber. ”

“ I had fallen asleep in that state of nerve tension with which one meets the continuous shock of sound or movement, and I had awakened, still tense, bracing myself to meet the pressure of something which no longer bore upon me. ”

“ Circumstances mould our lives so strangely and capriciously, that we are ever doing things, which in after moments surprise ourselves those unplanned, unplotted, spontaneous deeds of ours that spring from the natural source of action, directly as it is influenced by some passing circumstance of moment! ”

“ Had I had some definite knowledge as to the cause of my alarm I should not have suffered so much, but it [271] was my ignorance of what was there, of what I feared, that made my terror so poignant. Each second saw the agony of my suspense increase. I dared not move. I hardly dare breathe, and I dreaded lest the violent pulsation of my heart should attract the attention of the Unknown Presence and precipitate its coming out. ”

“ How trying are the moments when we wait in utter darkness, the explanation of some mystery which is inexplicable to us. What a thousand and one fancies rush through our brain, as we attempt to penetrate what is impenetrable! ”

“ Let a drop of water stray into your brain, and life makes a sudden pause, which borders on non-existence, and this pause continued is death. Sensation is the vibration of a few chords, which, when the instrument is broken, cease to sound. ”

“ For the second that they waited the earth, too, seemed to wait, a solemn, awe-filled moment of incalculable change, a tense moment, as if the unknown, mysterious forces of nature were gathering themselves together for some mighty, unprecedented effort. ”

“ Who can trace its reintegration as morning after morning we awaken, the flux and confluence of its countless factors interweaving, rebuilding, the dim first stirrings of the soul, the growth and synthesis of the unconscious to the subconscious, the sub-conscious to dawning consciousness, until at last we recognise ourselves again. ”

“ At times, it seems that you understand that I have a persistent and terrible idea, or that you suspect it, and endeavor to divine what it may be, and at times through my mind there passes the faney—strange, absurd, incredible—but still deludes for the duration of a flash of lightning, and which makes every nerve in my body quiver, this idea that you do know. ”

“ But the sudden and violent change in your whole disposition, has proved only too plainly, that some concealed and unfortunate event—some mysterious adventure, at which we cannot guess, is the cause of your melancholy; which cause, however remote, still continues to exercise over you the same destructive influence. ”

“ I was reminded that unexplained sudden deaths were of constant, of daily occurrence; that any emotion is liable to arrest the movements of life: terror, joy, good news or bad news,—anything that reaches the deeper nervous centres. ”

“ The transitions from cold to hot, dark to light, strain to relief, hunger to repletion, silence to sound, are all more or less interesting, and all more or less impressive. But then they are vehement and sensational. ”

“ A faint, searching woods perfume of dampness greets your nostrils. And somehow, mysteriously, in a manner not to be understood, the forces of the world seem in suspense, as though a touch might crystallize infinite possibilities into infinite power and motion. ”

“ This was followed by a sinking sensation, as if the body had resigned itself to passive dissolution, and then came, with electric rapidity, a succession of the most cruel agonies ever endured by mortal man. ”

“ This interval of being and repose is momentary: she will awake but only to perish at the spectacle of my ingratitude—she will awake only to the consciousness of instantly impending death. When she again sleeps she will wake no more. ”

“ And though the thought of death, and the particular disaster that had befallen him fell upon his spirit sometimes with a shadow that plunged the whole world into desperate darkness, he could not deny that the shadow was gradually lifting, and the character of the agony that had desolated him was becoming less spontaneous, till, in the end, it became almost a calculable emotion that might be indulged or banished at will. ”

“ As Yesterdays in pairs,
Unrolled its horror in my face —
Until it blocked my eyes —
My Brain — begun to laugh —
I mumbled — like a fool —
And tho' 'tis Years ago — that Day —
My Brain keeps giggling — still. ”

“ There are moments in which the intensity of nervous strain seems to make every sense trebly acute, in which, without knowing it, we are aware of every detail of sight and sound that forms the material setting for a moment of great emotion. ”

“ Surprise must therefore be strongly excited at its nativity, as those trains of ideas must instantly be dissevered by the sudden and violent sensations occasioned by the dry and cold atmosphere, the hardness of external bodies, light, sound, and odours ”

“ As, in this life, consciousness is interrupted by sleep and by accidents, so the temporal processes, in whatever variety they have, which fulfil in their wholeness and in their relations to the eternal order the life of an individual, may be, for all that I can see, in any one of a large number of relations to us and to one another, — contemporaneous, continuously successive, or discontinuously successive, with temporal gaps of any magnitude. ”

“ Thus, the whole imagination is seriously affected, and the most profound melancholy, together with a nervous fever, or, which is still more dreadful, with total insanity, are the inevitable consequences. ”

“ But up I came, the darkness got denser (I went so fast) ; it was vibrating, the dense agony vibrated faster; I was quivering, struggling, kicking out; everything was a convulsion of torture, my head seemed to come to the surface, a glimpse of light and air broke on the darkness, voices came through to me, and words ”

“ Who shall describe the sensation of the poor mortal, as he felt himself falling—falling down—down, a blind mass, through the darkened air? Those who have fallen, or have leaped even from a moderate height, can have no conception of the frenzied terror that took possession of him for a moment. ”

“ For hours we lay thus in all the intensity of an inner storm and stress, which it seemed could not fail to develop us, to mould us, to age us, to leave on us its scars, to bequeath us its peace or remorse or despair, as would some great mysterious dark experience direct from the sources of life. ”

“ My heart was beating rapidly, and I knew enough of the effect of emotion on the cardiac system to understand that it was caused by suspense. A thousand new terrors were in the air of which the experience and the sagacity of man were ignorant. ”

“ Might there not be, in the slow oscillations of nature, a degree of decay, on this side of death, from which a return should be possible, provided that the critical moment were passed in a state of sleep and under perfect conditions? ”

“ Thus in sleep, in a fever, in madness, or in any very violent emotions of soul, our ideas may approach to our impressions; as, on the other hand, it sometimes happens, that our impressions are so faint and low that we cannot distinguish them from our ideas. ”

“ When we are suddenly awaked by any violent stimulus, the surprise totally disunites the trains of our sleeping ideas from these of our waking ones; but if we gradually awake, this does not happen; and we readily unravel the preceding trains of imagination. ”

“ Sudden death, unconnected with outward and accidental causes, may occur in various ways. Very violent impressions on the feelings sometimes abruptly check the movements of the heart, and produce a mortal swoon. ”

“ The absence of sound, the inability to see for more than a few feet, the sense of isolation which every group experiences, the strange surroundings, the uncertainty of the future, the idea that some untoward event may happen,—all contribute to produce a suppressed excitement almost akin to nervousness. ”

“ Sleep, fainting, coma, epilepsy, and other ' unconscious ' conditions are apt to break in upon and occupy large durations of what we nevertheless consider the mental history of a single man. And, the fact of interruption being admitted, is it not possible that it may exist where we do not suspect it, and even perhaps in an incessant and fine-grained form ? ”

“ When the child first awakes to consciousness, all the impressions of surrounding nature immediately crowd upon him and are mingled to a vague chaos, in which no single thing stands out from among the general confusion. ”

“ In states of insanity brought on by some great shock, we see this morbid tendency to resuscitate the dead past fully developed, and remote events and circumstances becoming confused with present ones. ”