Vileness

“ They smile and laugh, and even chuckle with delight, when the intrigue of double-dealing has ensnared its victim—when the lewd debauchee ogles his mistress, and by some sudden spring seizes her by surprise—when virtue is made to look ridiculous by the tenderness of her scruples—when the doctrines and precepts of our holy religion are caricatured by the profane witling of the stage—and when vice, disgusting and appalling vice, speaks out its profanity, or acts its part with the adroitness of consummate villainy. ”

“ VICE, (1) (Through Fr. from Lat. vitium) , a fault, blemish, more specifically a moral fault, hence depravity, sin, or a particular form of depravity. In the medieval morality plays a special character who acted as an attendant on the devil was styled “the Vice,” but sometimes took the name of specific vices such as Envy, Fraud, Iniquity and the like. He was usually dressed in the garb that is identified with that of the domestic fool or jester, and was armed with a wooden sword or dagger. ”

“ 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! ”

“ The horrible impress of naked and hardened villany—the light and mirthful delirium of crime—the wanton manifestations of vice, in all its shapes, and the unblushing front of debauchery and profligacy—constituted, when brought together in one hideous group, a sight which made his heart groan for human nature on the one hand, and the corruption of human law on the other. ”

“ All this may awaken in us contempt and disgust; but if we consider these figures in themselves as realities, and compare them with the evil figures of our drama, we find that they are mere venial sinners—light, fickle, amorous, fibbing—very human in their faults; human, trifling, mild, not at all monstrous, like all the art products of the Renaissance. ”

“ Wild, reckless, ruined, vicious, fickle, brutalised by association with wicked women! His feelings of delicacy, of true love, of virtue, which are the bloom of the human heart, have been early swept away from him. ”

“ Every husband, every father, every brother, feared and loathed him as the incarnation of the Evil one—in their mean, narrow, tedious nauseating philosophy they held him as a perjured villain of the deepest dye, steeped in utterest infamy! ”

“ I want to say to all those men: 'You are brutes!' to all those women: 'You are vile creatures!' I want to shout your name, your sacred name, to that idiotic crowd, to grovel at your feet and bite the dust, calling down upon myself all the scorn, all the insults, all the shame! ”

“ Most of the men and some of the women were of the scum of the gutter; filthy beyond description and evil-smelling to the point of nausea—the incarnation of all that is offensive and abominable in humanity. ”

“ But it is ridiculous, and seems ungrateful, for people to affect an appearance of indignation against those who provide for them one of the greatest enjoyments of their lives. To chuckle over scandal all the forenoon with every mark of pleasure, and decry it in the evening with affected anger, is as preposterous as it would be in a judge, first to seduce a poor wench to fornication, and then punish her for the sin. ”

“ There, unspeakable kindness, tenderness and forbearance, meet them at every turn. So wisely and tenderly are they governed, that their hereditary evils remain dormant— are not excited, or aroused into activity. Here, they are often forced to be spectators of shocking scenes—scenes in which the very malignities of hell pour themselves forth in obscenity, vulgarity, profanity, cruel calumnies, stinging taunts, and acts of violence, hatred and cruelty: There, they witness no exhibitions of turbulent passions or evil feelings in those around them; they hear no vulgar, profane or angry words ”

“ This insufferable impudence of these lustful wretches, stirred up her zeal to so much holy and detestation of what they proposed, that she, in a great passion, protested to 'Die a thousand deaths, if it were possible, and, by the most exquisite torments their hellish malice could invent, rather than to be inclosed within the walls of a nunnery; which she was satisfied was no other than a sink of sin, and plausible colour for lewdness and debauchery.' But they, without replying, offering to force her from the closet ”

“ A look of profoundest disgust overspread his handsome young face, a face which undoubtedly lent itself to very clear expression of such feelings as contempt, disgust and scorn, an unusual face, with the thin high-bridged nose of an English aristocrat, the large eyes and pencilled black brows of an Indian noble, the sallow yet cheek-flushed complexion of an Italian peasant-girl, and the firm lips, square jaw, and prominent chin of a fighting-man. ”

“ But there are two sorts of madness, the one that which the revengeful Furies send privily from hell, as often as they let loose their snakes and put into men's breasts either the desire of war, or an insatiate thirst after gold, or some dishonest love, or parricide, or incest, or sacrilege, or the like plagues, or when they terrify some guilty soul with the conscience of his crimes ”

“ We turn at once with instinctive disgust from the grosser embodyings of evil, abhorrent in their undisguised loathsomeness as the haggard forms and hideous heads of serpent-haired furies, and hence learn little of the essential guilt and overwhelming consequences of iniquity. But in this portraiture we read a high moral lesson; we look on it only to feel in our inmost being an ever widening recoil from the evil of one indulged sin, which can so weave a curse around all that was else lovely in the character. ”

“ Such persons in the other life, when they come into the state of their interiors, and are heard to speak and seen to act, appear as if infatuated; for from their evil lusts they break out into all manner of abominations—into contempt of others, ridicule, blasphemy, hatred and revenge. They contrive plans of mischief, some of them with such cunning and malice, that it can scarcely be believed that anything of the kind could exist in any man. ”

“ Say I’m a villain and a bad lot. Wouldn’t it be a good thing for me to tie up with a fine, straight-up young lady like you? Me, I like the way your eyes flash. You’ve got a devil of a temper, haven’t you? ”

“ I know the type perfectly, and mean, despicable, bullying villains they are; they will torment a weak woman for months together, but will fly in cowardly terror the moment you turn upon them in righteous anger! ”

“ A creature debased below the level of the brute, with the hate of a devil in her soul and the fire of hell in her eyes. Lewd of gesture, strident of voice, wanton of gaze, using language so foul as to shock the pot-house ruffian, and laughter whose sound makes the blood run cold. A dreadful spectre, shameless, heartless, reckless, and horrible. A creature whose touch is contamination, whose words burn like a flame, whose leers and ogles make the soul sick. A creature living in drunkenness and filth. A moral blight. ”

“ Ye have too cruel eyes, and ye look wantonly towards the sufferers. Hath not your lust just disguised itself and taken the name of fellow-suffering?
And also this parable give I to you: Not a few who meant to cast out their devil, went thereby into the swine themselves.
To whom chastity is difficult, it is to be dissuaded: lest it become the road to hell—to filth and lust of soul.
Do I speak of filthy things? That is not the worst thing for me to do.
Not when the truth is filthy, but when it is shallow, does the discerning one go unwillingly into its waters. ”

“ I can see very well that a great deal here is revolting and oppressive and painful to your own self. For example, this fool quarrel with Boris or this flunky who beats a woman, and—, in general, the constant contemplation of every kind of filth, lust, bestiality, vulgarity, drunkenness. ”

“ Don't you perceive that whatever goes into the man from outside can't defile him, 7:19 because it doesn't go into his heart, but into his stomach, then into the latrine, thus making all foods clean?" 7:20 He said, "That which proceeds out of the man, that defiles the man. 7:21 For from within, out of the hearts of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, sexual sins, murders, thefts, 7:22 covetings, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. 7:23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man." ”

“ Then should we see depravity, impiety, drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long train of nameless sins against the natural affections and repulsions of mankind, overhanging the devoted spots, and creeping on, to blight the innocent and spread contagion among the pure. ”

“ Hereby we are taught, as Christians, to watch against, and lay aside, not only those more gross and fleshly dispositions and affections which denominate a person filthy, but all the disorders of a corrupt heart, which would prejudice it against the word and ways of God. Observe, 1. Sin is a defiling thing; it is called filthiness itself. 2. There is abundance of that which is evil in us, to be watched against; there is superfluity of naughtiness. 3. It is not enough to restrain evil affections, but they must be cast from us, or laid apart. ”

“ She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear, and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reed-like throat. ”

“ Suppose you still saw written upon beauty, and tempting actions and attire, The bait of lust, by which the devil corrupteth the minds of men to their damnation. Suppose you saw written on the play-house door, The stage of the mountebank of hell, who here cheateth men of their precious time, and enticeth them to vanity, luxury, and damnation, under pretence of instructing them by a nearer and more pleasant way than preachers do. ”

“ In pleasure they comprehend malevolence—that is, pleased at another's misfortune—delight, boastfulness, and the like. To lust they associate anger, fury, hatred, enmity, discord, wants, desire, and other feelings of that kind. ”

“ Hence proceed vile and provoking Words, bitter and cutting Reproaches, undue and indecent Reflections, horrid Wishes, Imprecations, Railing and Cursing; till, in short, they push one another on to the Gates of Hell, and need no Devil but their own ungoverned Rage, to thrust them in. ”

“ So through the meads she passed, half blind and slow,
And on her sisters somewhat now she thought;
And, pondering on the evil they had wrought,
The veil fell from her, and she saw their guile.
"Alas!" she said, "can death make folk so vile?
What wonder that the gods are glorious then,
Who cannot feel the hates and fears of men? ”

“ They have affected not only the taste, but I fear also the principles, of the young, the heedless, and the imaginative, by the exhibition of interesting and beautiful monsters. They render depravity attractive, sometimes by the polish of its manners, and sometimes by its very extravagance; and study to show off crime under all the advantages of cleverness and dexterity. ”

“ He began to understand something of the psychology of vice, to comprehend how small a part mere sensuality, how large a part the spirit of adventure and the craving for illegality, may play, in the career of those who are called evil livers. ”

“ But in this instance I was seduced by no love of low company, nor disposition to indulge in low vices. I have always despised the brutally vulgar; and I have always had a disgust at vice, whether in high or low life. ”

“ Everything that was secreted away in the lower depths of the soul, jealousy, secret hate, lewd curiosity, the malicious instincts inherent in the social animal, would burst forth with all the vehemence and joy of revenge. ”

“ On the other hand, those evil spirits, who by long custom, have contracted in the body, habits of lust, sensuality, malice and revenge, an aversion to every thing that is good, just, or laudable, are naturally seasoned and prepared for pain and misery. Their torments have already taken root in them; they cannot be happy when divested of the body, unless we may suppose, that Providence will in a manner create them anew, and work a miracle in the rectification of their faculties. ”

“ The progress of these girls in crime will be as rapid as the flight of a pestilence, resembling it too in its baneful influence and wide-spreading infection. Step by step, how many wretched females, within the sphere of every man’s observation, have become involved in a career of vice, frightful to contemplate ”

“ He could allude to the victims of misfortune in terms of charity that would draw tears to all eyes, and plead for the innocence of childhood and the chastity of woman in strains of eloquence that would send the burning tinge of shame to the most gloating sensualist, or the most hardened trafficker in that which robs a man of his reason and affections. ”

“ If one looks closely, one finds that the truly marvellous things are those which happen to us every day, and that duels, dagger thrusts, even automobile accidents, with accompanying hatred, jealousy, betrayed love, and treachery, are in reality the vulgar incidents in the enormous drama of our common life from birth to death. ”

“ Thou hadst a whore's forehead, a brazen face of thy own. Thou refusedst to be ashamed; thou didst enough to shame thee for ever, and yet wouldst not take shame to thyself." Blushing is the colour of virtue, or at least a relic of it; but those that are past shame (we say) are past hope. Those that have an adulterer's heart, if they indulge that, will come at length to have a whore's forehead, void of all shame and modesty. 4. They abounded in all manner of sin. ”

“ This irrepressible delight and interest in the active life of the world, what could it be but the tendency to evil, most strongly developed? These heart-burnings whenever she witnessed men and women rejoicing in the exercise of their natural affections, what could that be but the proneness to evil in its grossest form? ”