What exile from himself can flee?
To zones though more and more remote
Still, still pursues, where'er I be,
The blight of life--the demon Thought.
_Childe Harold, Canto I_. LORD BYRON.
Now conscience wakes despair
That slumbered, wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. IV_. MILTON.
Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.
_Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 1_. SHAKESPEARE.
MACBETH.--Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff,
Which weighs upon the heart?
DOCTOR.-- Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
_Macbeth, Act v. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon 't,
A brother's murder.
_Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 3_. SHAKESPEARE.
How guilt once harbored in the conscious breast,
Intimidates the brave, degrades the great.
_Irene, Act iv. Sc. 8_. DR. S. JOHNSON.
High minds, of native pride and force,
Most deeply feel thy pangs, Remorse!
Fear for their scourge, mean villains have,
Thou art the torturer of the brave!
_Marmion, Canto III_. SIR W. SCOTT.
Amid the roses, fierce Repentance rears
Her snaky crest; a quick-returning pang
Shoots through the conscious heart.
_The Seasons: Spring_. J. THOMSON.
There is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self-condemned
He deals on his own soul.
_Manfred, Act iii. Sc. 1_. LORD BYRON.