The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner quotes

… faction, and that another jovial party had issued from the house in their defence, and was now engaged in an unequal combat, the sparks likewise flew, to the field to back their defenders with all their prowess, without troubling their heads about who they were.

A mob is like a spring tide in an eastern storm, that retires only to return with more overwhelming fury.

The crowd was taken by surprise when such a strong and well-armed party issued from the house with so great fury, laying all prostrate that came in their way.

for Wringhim’s whole system of popular declamation consisted, it seems, in this—to denounce all men and women to destruction, and then hold out hopes to his adherents that they were the chosen few, included in the promises, and who could never fall away.

It would appear that this pharisaical doctrine is a very delicious one, and the most grateful of all others to the worst characters.

But the ways of heaven are altogether inscrutable, and soar as far above and beyond the works and the comprehensions of man as the sun, flaming in majesty, is above the tiny boy’s evening rocket.

It would appear that this pharisaical doctrine is a very delicious one, and the most grateful of all others to the worst characters.

But the ways of heaven are altogether inscrutable, and soar as far above and beyond the works and the comprehensions of man as the sun, flaming in majesty, is above the tiny boy’s evening rocket.

It is the controller of Nature alone that can bring light out of darkness, and order out of confusion. Who is he that causeth the mole, from his secret path of darkness, to throw up the gem, the gold, and the precious ore?

“Relate some of the particulars, if you please.”

“Sir, the thieves didna stand upon particulars: they were halesale dealers in a’ our best wares.”

“I mean, what passed between your mistress and you on the occasion?”

For all that, I was impressed with a terror and anxiety that I could not overcome, but it only made me mark every event with the more intense curiosity.

The Highlander, whom I still could not help regarding as the evil genius of Thomas Drummond, performed every action as with the quickness of thought.

He concealed the youth in black in a narrow entry, a little to the westward of my windows, and, as he was leading him across the moonlight green by the shoulder, I perceived, for the first time, that both of them were armed with rapiers.

My life has been a life of trouble and turmoil; of change and vicissitude; of anger and exultation; of sorrow and of vengeance.

My sorrows have all been for a slighted gospel, and my vengeance has been wreaked on its adversaries. Therefore, in the might of Heaven, I will sit down and write:

I said this with that strong display of fervour for which I was remarkable at my years, and expected old Barnet to be utterly confounded; but he only shook his head, and, with the most provoking grin, said: “There he goes!

Sickan sublime and ridiculous sophistry I never heard come out of another mouth but ane.

There needs nae aiths to be sworn afore the session wha is your father, young goodman. I ne’er, for my part, saw a son sae like a dad, sin’ my een first opened.” With that he went away, saying with an ill-natured wince:

“That saying is ten times worse than the other, John; it is a manifest insult: it is just telling me to my face that you think me a bad man.”

“A body canna help his thoughts, sir.”

“No, but a man’s thoughts are generally formed from observation. Now I should like to know, even from the mouth of a misbeliever, what part of my conduct warrants such a conclusion.”

“Why, if it be an Old Testament character, I hope it is Melchizedek, for at all events you cannot deny there is one point of resemblance: I, like him, am a preacher of righteousness.

If it be a New Testament character, I suppose you mean the Apostle of the Gentiles, of whom I am an unworthy representative.

”

This may be by some people accounted a great sin in me; but I deny it, for

I did it as a duty, and what a man or boy does for the right will never be put into the sum of his transgressions.

This boy, whose name was M’Gill, was, at all his leisure hours, engaged in drawing profane pictures of beasts, men, women, houses, and trees, and, in short, of all things that his eye encountered. These profane things the master often smiled at, and admired;

That strange youth and I approached each other in silence, and slowly, with our eyes fixed on each other’s eyes. We approached till not more than a yard intervened between us, and then stood still and gazed, measuring each other from head to foot.

What was my astonishment on perceiving that he was the same being as myself!

The clothes were the same to the smallest item. The form was the same; the apparent age; the colour of the hair; the eyes;

As well might I have laid my account with shunning the light of day.

He was constant to me as my shadow, and by degrees he acquired such an ascendency over me that I never was happy out of his company, nor greatly so in it.

When I repeated to him all that Mr. Blanchard had said, his countenance kindled with indignation and rage; and then by degrees his eyes sunk inward, his brow lowered, so that I was awed, and withdrew my eyes from looking at him.

When he paused and looked abroad on nature, the act was highly impressive: he seemed conscious of being all alone, and conversant only with God and the elements of his creation.

Never was there such a picture of human inadvertency! a man approaching step by step to the one that was to hurl him out of one existence into another with as much ease and indifference as the ox goeth to the stall.

Hideous vision, wilt thou not be gone from my mental sight! if not, let me bear with thee as I can!

On this occasion I said nothing, but, concealing his poniard in my clothes, I hasted up the mountain, determined to execute my purpose before any misgivings should again visit me; and I never had more ado than in keeping firm my resolution.

I could not help my thoughts, and there are certain trains and classes of thoughts that have great power in enervating the mind.

I thought of the awful thing of plunging a fellow creature from the top of a cliff into the dark and misty void below—of his being dashed to pieces on the protruding rocks, and of hearing his shrieks as he descended the cloud, and beheld …

This was an anomaly not to be accounted for by any philosophy of mine, and I was many times, in contemplating it, excited to terrors and mental torments hardly describable.

To be in a state of consciousness and unconsciousness, at the same time, in the same body and same spirit, was impossible.

I was under the greatest anxiety, dreading some change would take place momently in my nature; for of dates I could make nothing: one-half, or two-thirds of my time, seemed to me totally lost.

I had heart-burnings, longings, and, yearnings that would not be satisfied; and I seemed hardly to be an accountable creature; being thus in the habit of executing transactions of the utmost moment without being sensible that I did them.

I was a being incomprehensible to myself.

Either I had a second self, who transacted business in my likeness, or else my body was at times possessed by a spirit over which it had no control, and of whose actions my own soul was wholly unconscious.

With my riches, my unhappiness was increased tenfold; and here, with another great acquisition of property, for which I had pleaed, and which I had gained in a dream, my miseries and difficulties were increasing.

My principal feeling, about this time, was an insatiable longing for something that I cannot describe or denominate properly, unless I say it was for utter oblivion that I longed.

I desired to sleep; but it was for a deeper and longer sleep than that in which the senses were nightly steeped.

Nay, I can scarce conceive it possible that any earthly sounds could be so discordant, so repulsive to every feeling of a human soul, as the tones of the voice that grated on my ear at that moment.

They were the sounds of the pit, wheezed through a grated cranny, or seemed so to my distempered imagination.

“So! Thou shudderest at my approach now, dost thou?” said he. “Is this all the gratitude that you deign for an attachment of which the annals of the world furnish no parallel?

“

Sooner shall you make the mother abandon the child of her bosom; nay, sooner cause the shadow to relinquish the substance, than separate me from your side.

Our beings are amalgamated, as it were, and consociated in one, and never shall I depart from this country until I can carry you in triumph with me.”

I was like Daniel in the den of lions, without his faith in Divine support, and wholly at their mercy.

I felt as one round whose body a deadly snake is twisted, which continues to hold him in its fangs, without injuring him, further than in moving its scaly infernal folds with exulting delight, to let its victim feel to whose power he has subjected himself

; and thus did I for a space drag an existence from day to day, in utter weariness and helplessness;

he pockets the money, gies the Galloway drover time o’ day, an’ comes his way. An’ wha’s to blame?

Man mind yoursel is the first commandment.

A Cameronian’s principles never came atween him an’ his purse, nor sanna in the present case; for, as I canna bide to make you out a leear, I’ll thank you for my wages.”

The good people of Auchtermuchty were in perfect raptures with the preacher, who had thus sent them to Hell by the slump, tag-rag, and bobtail!

Nothing in the world delights a truly religious people so much as consigning them to eternal damnation.

They wandered after the preacher—they crowded together, and spoke of his sermon with admiration, and still, as they conversed, the wonder and the admiration increased; so that honest Robin Ruthven’s words would not be listened to.

an’ it appears whiles where ane wadna think o’t.

It will keek out frae aneath the parson’s gown, the lawyer’s wig, and the Cameronian’s blue bannet

; but still there is a gouden rule whereby to detect it, an’ that never, never fails.’ The auld witch didna gie me the rule, an’ though I hae heard tell o’t often an’ often, shame fa’ me an I ken what it is!