The fox, he felt, had never seen his past disposed of like a fall of water. He had never measured off his day in moments: another-...-another--another. But now, thrown down so deeply in himself, into the darkness of the well, surprised by pain and hunger, might he not revert to an earlier condition, regain capacities which formerly were useless to him, pass from animal to Henry, become human in his prison, X his days, count, wait, listen for another--another--another--another?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
'Tis of the essence of life here, Though we choose greatly, still to lack... The lasting memory at all clear, That life has for us on the wrack Nothing but what we somehow chose; Thus are we wholly stripped of pride In the pain that has but one close, Bearing it crushed and mystified.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and desc...ent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair, That dust I am and shall to dust return.... O welcome hour whenever! Why delays His hand to execute what his decree Fixed on this day? Why do I overlive? Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet Mortality, my sentence, and be earth Insensible! how glad would lay me down As in my mother's lap!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Failing to divide its social chromosomes and split up into new cells, each bearing some portion of the original inheritance, the c...ity continues to grow inorganically, indeed cancerously, by a continuous breaking down of old tissues, and an overgrowth of formless new tissue. Here the city has absorbed villages and little towns, reducing them to place names, like Manhattanville and Harlem in New York; there it has, more happily, left the organs of local government and the vestiges of an independent life, even assisted their revival, as in Chelsea and Kensington in London; but it has nevertheless enveloped those areas in its physical organization and built up the open land that once served to ensure their identity and integrity.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This way could not serve to reach the peak, so Martin began to climb straight up the face of the rocks. Occasionally some root or ...moss patch at which he clutched detached itself from the stone, and feverishly he would seek a support with his foot, or else it was his foothold that gave, and he would be left hanging by his hands and have to pull himself painfully up. The peak was almost within reach when he suddenly slipped and started to slither down, clutching at shrublets of rough flowers; he lost his grip, felt a burning pain as his knee scraped against the rock, attempted to embrace the steepness that was gliding up and past him--and abruptly salvation bumped against his soles.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every pleasure or pain has a sort of rivet with which it fastens the soul to the body and pins it down and makes it corporeal, acc...epting as true whatever the body certifies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Look at your lake, Christine. You'll love it here, when you get used to the dark. And you'll love the dark, too. It's friendly. An...d peaceful. It brings rest and relief from pain. It's right under the Opera. The music comes down and the darkness distills it, cleanses it of the suffering that made it, then it's all beauty and life here is like a resurrection.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Time is bearing another son. Kill Time! She turns in her pain!... The oak is felled in the acorn And the hawk in the egg kills the wren.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »