Suspiria de Profundis quotes

The word “dissipation,” in one of its uses, expresses that effect; the action of thought and feeling is consciously dissipated and squandered. To reconcentrate them into meditative habits, a necessity is felt by all observing persons for sometimes retiring from crowds.

No man ever will unfold the capacities of his own intellect who does not at least checker his life with solitude. How much solitude, so much power.

Or, if not true in that rigour of expression, to this formula undoubtedly it is that the wise rule of life must approximate.

Whatever may be the number of those in whom this faculty of dreaming splendidly can be supposed to lurk, there are not, perhaps, very many in whom it is developed.

He whose talk is of oxen will probably dream of oxen

; and the condition of human life, which yokes so vast a majority to a daily experience incompatible with much elevation of thought, oftentimes neutralises the tone of grandeur in the reproductive faculty of dreaming, even for those whose minds are populous with solemn imagery.

Among the powers in man which suffer by this too intense life of the social instincts, none suffers more than the power of dreaming. Let no man think this a trifle.

The machinery for dreaming planted in the human brain was not planted for nothing.

That faculty, in alliance with the mystery of darkness, is the one great tube through which man communicates with the shadowy.

Were the ruin conditional, or were it in any point doubtful, it would be natural to utter ejaculations, and to seek sympathy. But, where the ruin is understood to be absolute, where sympathy cannot be consolation, and counsel cannot be hope, this is otherwise.

The voice perishes; the gestures are frozen; and the spirit of man flies back upon its own centre.

I, at least, upon seeing those awful gates closed and hung with draperies of woe, as for a death already past, spoke not, nor started, nor groaned. One profound sigh ascended from my heart, and I was silent for days.

Space, also, it amplifies by degrees that are sometimes terrific. But time it is upon which the exalting and multiplying power of opium chiefly spends its operation.

Time becomes infinitely elastic, stretching out to such immeasurable and vanishing termini that it seems ridiculous to compute the sense of it, on waking, by expressions commensurate to human life.

As in starry fields one computes by diameters of the Earth’s orbit, or of Jupiter’s, so, in valuing the virtual time lived during some dreams, the measurement by generations is ridiculous—by millennia is ridiculous;

O! moment of darkness and delirium, when a nurse awakened me from that delusion, and launched God’s thunderbolt at my heart in the assurance that my sister must die.

Rightly it is said of utter, utter misery, that it “cannot be remembered.”

Itself, as a remarkable thing, is swallowed up in its own chaos. Mere anarchy and confusion of mind fell upon me. Deaf and blind I was, as I reeled under the revelation.

so far, at least, as it is liable to any modification at all from accidents of scenery or season. The reason, as I there suggested, lies in the antagonism between the tropical redundancy of life in summer and the dark sterilities of the grave.

The summer we see, the grave we haunt with our thoughts; the glory is around us, the darkness is within us.

And the two coming into collision, each exalts the other into stronger relief. But in my case there was even a subtler reason why the summer had this intense power of vivifying the spectacle or the thoughts of death.

But so it was not. I stood checked for a moment; awe, not fear, fell upon me; and, whilst I stood, a solemn wind began to blow—the most mournful that ear ever heard. Mournful! that is saying nothing.

It was a wind that had swept the fields of mortality for a hundred centuries.

Many times since, upon a summer day, when the sun is about the hottest, I have remarked the same wind arising and uttering the same hollow, solemn, Memnonian, but saintly swell: it is in this world the one sole audible symbol of eternity.

Undoubtedly she would.

All of us ask not of God for a better thing than that we have lost; we ask for the same, even with its faults and its frailties.

It is true, that the sorrowing person will also be changed eventually, but that must be by death.

Interesting it is to observe how certainly all deep feelings agree in this, that they seek for solitude, and are nursed by solitude.

Deep grief, deep love, how naturally do these ally themselves with religious feeling; and all three⁠—love, grief, religion⁠—are haunters of solitary places.

Love, grief, the passion of reverie, or the mystery of devotion—what were these, without solitude?

The awful stillness occasionally of summer noons, when no winds were abroad, the appealing silence of gray or misty afternoons—these were fascinations as of witchcraft. Into the woods or the desert air I gazed, as if some comfort lay hid in them.

I wearied the heavens with my inquest of beseeching looks.

I tormented the blue depths with obstinate scrutiny, sweeping them with my eyes, and searching them forever after one angelic face that might, perhaps, have permission to reveal itself for a moment.

… struck me with amazement, that the two things which God made most beautiful among his works, namely, infancy and pure religion, should, by the folly of man (in yoking them together on erroneous principles), neutralize each other’s beauty, or even form a combination positively hateful.

The religion becomes nonsense, and the child becomes a hypocrite.

The religion is transfigured into cant, and the innocent child into a dissembling liar.

But in solitude, above all things, when made vocal by the truths and services of a national church, God holds “communion undisturbed” with children. Solitude, though silent as light, is, like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man.

All men come into this world alone; all leave it alone.

Even a little child has a dread, whispering consciousness, that if he should be summoned to travel into God’s presence, no gentle nurse will be allowed to lead him by the hand, nor mother to carry him in her arms, nor little sister to share …

Yes, there lies the fountain of human oblivions. It is Time, the great conqueror, it is the “strong hours” whose batteries storm every passion of men. For, in the fine expression of Schiller, “Was verschmerzte nicht der mensch?”

What sorrow is in man that will not finally fret itself to sleep?

Conquering, at last, gates of brass, or pyramids of granite, why should it be a marvel to us, or a triumph to Time, that he is able to conquer a frail human heart?

Besides that, as regards merely the personal image, always the smooth rotundity of baby features must vanish sooner, as being less individual than the features in a child of eight, touched with a pensive tenderness, and exalted into a characteristic expression by a premature intellect.

Rarely do things perish from my memory that are worth remembering. Rubbish dies instantly.

Hence it happens that passages in Latin or English poets, which I never could have read but once (and that thirty years ago), often begin to blossom anew when I am lying awake, unable to sleep. I become a distinguished compositor in the darkness:

How catch the reins? Why, through the windows, through the keyholes—anyhow.” Finally this contumacious coachman lengthened the check-strings into a sort of jury-reins communicating with the horses; with these he drove as steadily as Peking had any right to expect.

The Emperor returned after the briefest of circuits; he descended in great pomp from his throne, with the severest resolution never to remount it.

A public thanksgiving was ordered for his majesty’s happy escape from the disease of a broken neck; and the state-coach was dedicated thenceforward as a votive offering to the god Fo Fo—whom the learned more accurately called Fi Fi.

but by his faint sceptical smile he seemed to insinuate that he knew better—for that Ucalegon, as it happened, was not in the waybill, and therefore could not have been booked.

No dignity is perfect which does not at some point ally itself with the mysterious.

The connection of the mail with the state and the executive government—a connection obvious, but yet not strictly defined—gave to the whole mail establishment an official grandeur which did us service on the roads, and invested us with seasonable terrors.

Not the less impressive were those terrors because their legal limits were imperfectly ascertained.

Look at those turnpike gates: with what deferential hurry, with what an obedient start, they fly open at our approach!

Look at that long line of carts and carters ahead, audaciously usurping the very crest of the road. Ah! traitors, they do not hear us as yet;

199 + 1. Most truly I loved this beautiful and ingenuous girl; and, had it not been for the Bath mail, timing all courtships by post-office allowance, heaven only knows what might have come of it.

People talk of being over head and ears in love; now, the mail was the cause that I sank only over ears in love⁠—which, you know, still left a trifle of brain to overlook the whole conduct of the affair.

Ah, reader! when I look back upon those days, it seems to me that all things change—all things perish. “Perish the roses and the palms of kings”: perish even the crowns and trophies of Waterloo:

But, in spite of his blooming face, some infirmities he had; and one particularly in which he too much resembled a crocodile. This lay in a monstrous inaptitude for turning round.

The crocodile, I presume, owes that inaptitude to the absurd length of his back

; but in our grandpapa it arose rather from the absurd breadth of his back, combined, possibly, with some growing stiffness in his legs. Now, upon this crocodile infirmity of his I planted a human advantage for tendering my homage to Miss Fanny.

when I look back upon those days, it seems to me that all things change—all things perish. “Perish the roses and the palms of kings”: perish even the crowns and trophies of Waterloo: thunder and lightning are not the thunder and lightning which I remember.

Roses are degenerating. The Fannies of our island⁠—though this I say with reluctance⁠—are not visibly improving; and the Bath road is notoriously superannuated.

Crocodiles, you will say, are stationary. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does not change—that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be;

That may be; but the reason is that the crocodile does not live fast—he is a slow coach. I believe it is generally understood among naturalists that the crocodile is a blockhead.

It is my own impression that the Pharaohs were also blockheads.

Now, as the Pharaohs and the crocodile domineered over Egyptian society, this accounts for a singular mistake that prevailed through innumerable generations on the Nile. The crocodile made the ridiculous blunder of supposing man to be meant chiefly for his own eating.

Those poor women, again, who stop to gaze upon us with delight at the entrance of Barnet, and seem, by their air of weariness, to be returning from labour—do you mean to say that they are washerwomen and charwomen?

Oh, my poor friend, you are quite mistaken. I assure you they stand in a far higher rank; for this one night they feel themselves by birthright to be daughters of England, and answer to no humbler title.

Every joy, however, even rapturous joy—such is the sad law of Earth—may carry with it grief, or fear of grief, to some. Three miles beyond Barnet, we see approaching us another private carriage, nearly repeating the circumstances of the former case.

Once roused, however, I could not but observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. Ten years’ experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and I saw that we were now running thirteen miles an hour.

I pretend to no presence of mind.

On the contrary, my fear is that I am miserably and shamefully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies when the signal is flying for action.

The little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour; and the parties within it, being thus tenderly engaged, are naturally bending down their heads.

Between them and eternity, to all human calculation, there is but a minute and a half.

Oh heavens! what is it that I shall do? Speaking or acting, what help can I offer?

Here, then, all had been done that, by me, could be done; more on my part was not possible.

Mine had been the first step; the second was for the young man; the third was for God.

If, said I, this stranger is a brave man, and if indeed he loves the young girl at his side—or, loving her not, if he feels the obligation, pressing upon every man worthy to be called a man, of doing his utmost for a woman …

sudden had been the call upon him, and sudden was his answer to the call. He saw, he heard, he comprehended, the ruin that was coming down: already its gloomy shadow darkened above him; and already he was measuring his strength to deal with it.

Ah! what a vulgar thing does courage seem when we see nations buying it and selling it for a shilling a-day

: ah!

fifteen of the seventy seconds may still be unexhausted; and one almighty bound may avail to clear the ground. Hurry, then, hurry! for the flying moments—they hurry. Oh, hurry, hurry, my brave young man! for the cruel hoofs of our horses—they also hurry!

Fast are the flying moments, faster are the hoofs of our horses.

But fear not for him, if human energy can suffice; faithful was he that drove to his terrific duty; faithful was the horse to his command.

What power could answer the question? Glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel, which of these had speed enough to sweep between the question and the answer, and divide the one from the other?

Light does not tread upon the steps of light more indivisibly than did our all-conquering arrival upon the escaping efforts of the gig.

That must the young man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to us; not by sight could he any longer communicate with the peril;

The young man trembled not, nor shivered.

He sat like a rock. But his was the steadiness of agitation frozen into rest by horror.

As yet he dared not to look round; for he knew that, if anything remained to do, by him it could no longer be done. And as yet he knew not for certain if their safety were accomplished. But the lady—

Ah, vision too fearful of shuddering humanity on the brink of almighty abysses!—vision that didst start back, that didst reel away, like a shrivelling scroll from before the wrath of fire racing on the wings of the wind!

Epilepsy so brief of horror, wherefore is it that thou canst not die?

Passing so suddenly into darkness, wherefore is it that still thou sheddest thy sad funeral blights upon the gorgeous mosaics of dreams?

Fragment of music too passionate, heard once, and heard no more, what aileth thee, that thy deep rolling chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep, and after forty years have lost no element of horror?

Lo, it is summer⁠—almighty summer!

The everlasting gates of life and summer are thrown open wide; and on the ocean, tranquil and verdant as a savannah, the unknown lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are floating—she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker.

mimicries of earthborn flowers that for the eye raise phantoms of gaiety, as oftentimes for the ear they raise the echoes of fugitive laughter, mixing with the ravings and choir-voices of an angry sea.

What else than a natural and mighty palimpsest is the human brain?

Such a palimpsest is my brain; such a palimpsest, oh reader! is yours. Everlasting layers of ideas, images, feelings, have fallen upon your brain softly as light. Each succession has seemed to bury all that went before.

But by the hour of death, but by fever, but by the searchings of opium, all these can revive in strength.

They are not dead, but sleeping.

In the illustration imagined by myself from the case of some individual palimpsest, the Grecian tragedy had seemed to be displaced, but was not displaced, by the monkish legend;

that grief which one in a hundred has sensibility enough to gather from the sad retrospect of life in its closing stage for me shed its dews as a prelibation upon the fountains of life whilst yet sparkling to the morning sun.

I saw from afar and from before what I was to see from behind.

Is this the description of an early youth passed in the shades of gloom? No; but of a youth passed in the divinest happiness.

… life expands, it is more through the strife which besets us, strife from conflicting opinions, positions, passions, interests, that the funereal ground settles and deposits itself which sends upward the dark lustrous brilliancy through the jewel of life, else revealing a pale and superficial glitter.

Either the human being must suffer and struggle, as the price of a more searching vision, or his gaze must be shallow and without intellectual revelation.

… servants they are, they utter their pleasure not by sounds that perish, or by words that go astray, but by signs in heaven, by changes on Earth, by pulses in secret rivers, heraldries painted on darkness, and hieroglyphics written on the tablets of the brain.

They wheeled in mazes; I spelled the steps. They telegraphed from afar; I read the signals.

They conspired together; and on the mirrors of darkness my eye traced the plots. Theirs were the symbols; mine are the words.

They wheeled in mazes; I spelled the steps. They telegraphed from afar; I read the signals. They conspired together; and on the mirrors of darkness my eye traced the plots.

Theirs were the symbols; mine are the words.

What is it the Sisters are? What is it that they do?

eternal silence reigns in their kingdoms. They spoke not as they talked with Levana; they whispered not; they sang not; though oftentimes methought they might have sung: for I upon Earth had heard their mysteries oftentimes deciphered by harp and timbrel, by dulcimer and organ.

Like God, whose servants they are, they utter their pleasure not by sounds that perish, or by words that go astray, but by signs in heaven, by changes on Earth, by pulses in secret rivers, heraldries painted on darkness, and hieroglyphics written on the tablets of the brain.

They wheeled in mazes; I spelled the steps. They telegraphed from afar; I read the signals. They conspired together; and on the mirrors of darkness my eye traced the plots. Theirs were the symbols; mine are the words.

But she sighs inaudibly at intervals. Her sister, Madonna, is oftentimes stormy and frantic, raging in the highest against heaven, and demanding back her darlings. But Our Lady of Sighs never clamours, never defies, dreams not of rebellious aspirations. She is humble to abjectness.

Hers is the meekness that belongs to the hopeless.

Murmur she may, but it is in her sleep. Whisper she may, but it is to herself in the twilight.

through the treble veil of crape which she wears the fierce light of a blazing misery, that rests not for matins or for vespers, for noon of day or noon of night, for ebbing or for flowing tide, may be read from the very ground.

She is the defier of God. She also is the mother of lunacies, and the suggestress of suicides.

Deep lie the roots of her power; but narrow is the nation that she rules. For she can approach only those in whom a profound nature has been upheaved by central convulsions;

Suffering is a mightier agency in the hands of nature, as a Demiurgus creating the intellect, than most people are aware of.

The truth I heard often in sleep from the lips of the Dark Interpreter. Who is he? He is a shadow, reader, but a shadow with whom you must suffer me to make you acquainted.

According to my recollection, this case happened at Hoddesdon, which is in Middlesex. “Revenge is sweet!” was his hellish motto on that occasion, and that motto itself records the abysses which a human will can open.

Revenge is not sweet, unless by the mighty charm of a charity that seeketh not her own it has become benignant.

And what he had to revenge was woman’s scorn. He had been a plain farm-servant;

I shall have occasion to notice this point again.

There are creative agencies in every part of human nature, of which the thousandth part could never be revealed in one life.

You have heard, reader, in vision which describes our Ladies of Sorrow, particularly in the dark admonition of Madonna, to her wicked sister that hateth and tempteth, what root of dark uses may lie in moral convulsions:

not the uses hypocritically vaunted by theatrical devotion which affronts the majesty of God, that ever and in all things loves Truth—prefers sincerity that is erring to piety that cants.

Rebellion which is the sin of witchcraft is more pardonable in His sight than speechifying resignation, listening with complacency to its own self-conquests.

Show always as much neighbourhood as thou canst to grief that abases itself, which will cost thee but little effort if thine own grief hath been great.

“Tells also of bright calms that shall succeed.”

Pain driven to agony, or grief driven to frenzy, is essential to the ventilation of profound natures.

A sea which is deeper than any that Count Massigli measured cannot be searched and torn up from its sleeping depths without a levanter or a monsoon.

This trial is decisive.

You are now satisfied that the apparition is but a reflex of yourself; and, in uttering your secret feelings to him, you make this phantom the dark symbolic mirror for reflection to the daylight what else must be hidden forever.

Such a relation does the Dark Interpreter, whom immediately the reader will learn to know as an intruder into my dreams, bear to my own mind. He is originally a mere reflex of my inner nature.

God smote Savannah-la-mar, and in one night, by earthquake, removed her, with all her towers standing and population sleeping, from the steadfast foundations of the shore to the coral floors of ocean.

And God said, “Pompeii did I bury and conceal from men through seventeen centuries: this city I will bury, but not conceal. She shall be a monument to men of my mysterious anger, set in azure light through generations to come;

The future is the present of God, and to the future it is that he sacrifices the human present. Therefore it is that he works by earthquake. Therefore it is that he works by grief.

O, deep is the ploughing of earthquake!

O, deep”—(and his voice swelled like a sanctus rising from the choir of a cathedral)—“O, deep is the ploughing of grief! But oftentimes less would not suffice for the agriculture of God.

Such was the original sin of the Greek theories on Deity, which could not have been healed but by putting off their own nature, and kindling into a new principle—absolutely undiscoverable, as I contend, for the Grecian intellect.

Oftentimes an echo goes as it were to sleep: the series of reverberations has died away.

Suddenly a second series awakens: this subsides, then a third wakens up. So of actions done in youth. After great tumults all is quieted. You dream that they are over.