Creature Revenge Quotes

What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by. Richard loves Richard; that is, I and I. Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am. Then fly! What, from myself? Great reason why: Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself? Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good That I myself have done unto myself? O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself For hateful deeds committed by myself. I am a villain. Yet I lie. I am not. Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter: My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for a villain. Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree; Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree; All several sins, all used in each degree, Throng to the bar, crying all, “Guilty! guilty!” I shall despair. There is no creature loves me, And if I die no soul will pity me. And wherefore should they, since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself?

Unicorns, dragons, witches may be creatures conjured up in dreams, but on the page their needs, joys, anguishes, and redemptions should be just as true as those of Madame Bovary or Martin Chuzzlewit.

All Creatures know that some must die That all the rest may take and eat; Sooner or later, all transform Their blood to wine, their flesh to meat. But Man alone seeks Vengefulness, And writes his abstract Laws on stone; For this false Justice he has made, He tortures limb and crushes bone. Is this the image of a god? My tooth for yours, your eye for mine? Oh, if Revenge did move the stars Instead of Love, they would not shine.

You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine, my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!

You don’t have any reason to be mad at me. You stole my life and I stole it back.

The greatest peril of life lies in the fact that human food consists entirely of souls. All the creatures that we to kill and eat, all those that we have to strike down and destroy to make clothes for ourselves, have souls, souls that do not perish with the body and which must therefore be pacified lest they revenge themselves on us for taking away their bodies

I’m such a negative person, and always have been. Was I born that way? I don’t know. I am constantly disgusted by reality, horrified and afraid. I cling desperately to the few things that give me some solace, that make me feel good. I hate most of humanity. Though I might be very fond of particular individuals, humanity in general fills me with contempt and despair. I hate most of what passes for civilization. I hate the modern world. For one thing there are just too Goddamn many people. I hate the hordes, the crowds in their vast cities, with all their hateful vehicles, their noise and their constant meaningless comings and goings. I hate cars. I hate modern architecture. Every building built after 1955 should be torn down! I despise modern music. Words cannot express how much it gets on my nerves – the false, pretentious, smug assertiveness of it. I hate business, having to deal with money. Money is one of the most hateful inventions of the human race. I hate the commodity culture, in which everything is bought and sold. No stone is left unturned. I hate the mass media, and how passively people suck up to it. I hate having to get up in the morning and face another day of this insanity. I hate having to eat, shit, maintain the body – I hate my body. The thought of my internal functions, the organs, digestion, the brain, the nervous system, horrify me. Nature is horrible. It’s not cute and loveable. It’s kill or be killed. It’s very dangerous out there. The natural world is filled with scary, murderous creatures and forces. I hate the whole way that nature functions. Sex is especially hateful and horrifying, the male penetrating the female, his dick goes into her hole, she’s impregnated, another being grows inside her, and then she must go through a painful ordeal as the new being pushes out of her, only to repeat the whole process in time. Reproduction – what could be more existentially repulsive? How I hate the courting ritual. I was always repelled by my own sex drive, which in my youth never left me alone. I was constantly driven by frustrated desires to do bizarre and unacceptable things with and to women. My soul was in constant conflict about it. I never was able to resolve it. Old age is the only relief. I hate the way the human psyche works, the way we are traumatized and stupidly imprinted in early childhood and have to spend the rest of our lives trying to overcome these infantile mental fixations. And we never ever fully succeed in this endeavor. I hate organized religions. I hate governments. It’s all a lot of power games played out by ambition-driven people, and foisted on the weak, the poor, and on children. Most humans are bullies. Adults pick on children. Older children pick on younger children. Men bully women. The rich bully the poor. People love to dominate. I hate the way humans worship power – one of the most disgusting of all human traits. I hate the human tendency towards revenge and vindictiveness. I hate the way humans are constantly trying to trick and deceive one another, to swindle, to cheat, and take unfair advantage of the innocent, the naïve and the ignorant. I hate the vacuous, false, banal conversation that goes on among people. Sometimes I feel suffocated; I want to flee from it. For me, to be human is, for the most part, to hate what I am. When I suddenly realize that I am one of them, I want to scream in horror.

Did you know that humans are the only living creatures to practice revenge ? - Ståle Aune

Beauty Smith was cruel in the way that cowards are cruel…he revenged himself, in turn, upon creatures weaker than he. All life likes power, and Beauty Smith was no exception. Denied the expression of power amongst his own kind, he fell back upon the lesser creatures and there vindicated the life that was in him.

But don’t be mistaken, Juliette.” His eyes swiveled to her slowly. That once-familiar stare was now fathomless, and Juliette’s breath caught in her throat, stilling like a creature in the headlights. She was ready. She knew what he would say. But it still tore into her, it still stung as mightily as razor wire wrapped around her heart, both ends pulled until it could wrap no tighter. “When this is over, I will have my revenge. You will answer to me for what you did.

My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine, my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!

He is entirely incapable of caring what any given creature might feel for him. He cares only what that creature might do for him. Or to him.

In a daze, he turned to see Arthur’s soul, the darkest of shadows, grappling with the heavy oak, swinging it shut, confining Keme—hammering the lock in place.

For Beauty Smith was cruel in the way that cowards are cruel. Cringing and snivelling himself before the blows or angry speech of a man, he revenged himself, in turn, upon creatures weaker than he.

Nevertheless, the potential and actual importance of fantastic literature lies in such psychic links: what appears to be the result of an overweening imagination, boldly and arbitrarily defying the laws of time, space and ordered causality, is closely connected with, and structured by, the categories of the subconscious, the inner impulses of man's nature. At first glance the scope of fantastic literature, free as it is from the restrictions of natural law, appears to be unlimited. A closer look, however, will show that a few dominant themes and motifs constantly recur: deals with the Devil; returns from the grave for revenge or atonement; invisible creatures; vampires; werewolves; golems; animated puppets or automatons; witchcraft and sorcery; human organs operating as separate entities, and so on. Fantastic literature is a kind of fiction that always leads us back to ourselves, however exotic the presentation; and the objects and events, however bizarre they seem, are simply externalizations of inner psychic states. This may often be mere mummery, but on occasion it seems to touch the heart in its inmost depths and become great literature.

For all that we may sometimes despise our fellows and be driven to rages and petty revenges, I think we are even darker creatures when we are alone. We can learn to fear our own thoughts more than the lash of the whip or the slap in the face.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.

Rage swallowed remorse. Rage drop-kicked self-pity. Rage murdered sorrow. And then, like blood-red wine tucked into the refrigerator, rage chilled to become cold, calculating anger. Anger was a creature that arrived on her doorstep with a suitcase full of strategy and vengeance. It tipped its hat at her and hopped into her brain. It knocked on the Logic Department's door. It found a broken mirror somewhere in the crevices between her hippocampus and her hypothalamus, and it was wondering if somebody had misplaced it. No retaliation? It scoffed. Think again, missy.

When one creature is murdered, another is immediately deprived of life in a slow, torturing manner; then the executioners, their hands yet reeking with the blood of innocence, believe that they have done a great deed. They call this retribution. Hateful name! When that word is pronounced, I know greater and more horrid punishments are going to be inflicted than the gloomiest tyrant has ever invented to satiate his utmost revenge.

Revenge, revenge, revenge. Did you know that humans are the only living creatures to practise revenge? The interesting thing about revenge—

In one way or another everything communicates. Human are the only creatures on earth, with the exception of cats, that are certain of the absolute critical nature of the message they try to convey. I have found that the only difference between the two is that cats are correct, while humans...eh...not so much. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time we are just making stuff up. And some of us have elevated it to a seriously messed up art form.

REMEMBER TOMORROW Starting point for search: It no longer avails to start with creatures and prove God. Yet it is impossible to rule God out. The only possible starting point: the strange fact of one's own invincible apathy - that if the proofs were proved and God presented himself, nothing would be changed. Here is the strangest fact of all. Abraham saw signs of God and believed. Now the only sign is that all the signs in the world make no difference. Is this God's ironic revenge? But I am onto him.

Imagine all of L.A. filled with windup men wandering empty-headed and waiting for orders and directions and purpose. That’s L.A. in a nutshell. A city of driven creatures, but no one is a hundred percent sure what they’re driven toward. Wealth. Fame. Power. Love. Revenge. These are all the obvious end points for the citizens of a spectral city, but none of them quite encompass a final goal. That’s more fragile. Something that slips away like smoke the moment it’s in your hands. It’s a moonshine cocktail of desperation and desire, the certainty that you can find perfection through sheer willpower and the cold terror that if you do reach the goal it will have twisted into something new. A new fevered need born of the search for this one. Searching for the next goal will breed another. And on and on. L.A. and Kill City full of Pinocchios with whirring gears for brains, all wanting to be real boys but sunk in the certainty that they’ll never become anything because they’re nothing. They came from nothing and are headed for a further and harder nothing.

WHICH OF COURSE has a bearing on stories about revenge, where Shadows run rampant. Who knows why Character A feels such an extreme loathing toward Character B? The Shadow knows, and until Character A knows too, and acknowledges the Shadow as a creature of his own making, he won’t be free of it.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world; but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sun will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain, the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature[.] [...] Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can do sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low. I live in calm, looking to the end.

Around him the chorus had begun, great swarms of creatures that he guessed to be insects, frogs maybe, everything else in this infernal country that had a voice. Why night? he thought. They don’t say a thing all day long. The sun goes down and they have some kind of contest to see who can croak and buzz the loudest. Just to keep us awake, I guess. Revenge for slapping at them all day, killing their cousins.

Themes of descent often turn on the struggle between the titanic and the demonic within the same person or group. In Moby Dick, Ahab’s quest for the whale may be mad and “monomaniacal,” as it is frequently called, or even evil so far as he sacrifices his crew and ship to it, but evil or revenge are not the point of the quest. The whale itself may be only a “dumb brute,” as the mate says, and even if it were malignantly determined to kill Ahab, such an attitude, in a whale hunted to the death, would certainly be understandable if it were there. What obsesses Ahab is in a dimension of reality much further down than any whale, in an amoral and alienating world that nothing normal in the human psyche can directly confront. The professed quest is to kill Moby Dick, but as the portents of disaster pile up it becomes clear that a will to identify with (not adjust to) what Conrad calls the destructive element is what is really driving Ahab. Ahab has, Melville says, become a “Prometheus” with a vulture feeding on him. The axis image appears in the maelstrom or descending spiral (“vortex”) of the last few pages, and perhaps in a remark by one of Ahab’s crew: “The skewer seems loosening out of the middle of the world.” But the descent is not purely demonic, or simply destructive: like other creative descents, it is partly a quest for wisdom, however fatal the attaining of such wisdom may be. A relation reminiscent of Lear and the fool develops at the end between Ahab and the little black cabin boy Pip, who has been left so long to swim in the sea that he has gone insane. Of him it is said that he has been “carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro . . . and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps.” Moby Dick is as profound a treatment as modern literature affords of the leviathan symbolism of the Bible, the titanic-demonic force that raises Egypt and Babylon to greatness and then hurls them into nothingness; that is both an enemy of God outside the creation, and, as notably in Job, a creature within it of whom God is rather proud. The leviathan is revealed to Job as the ultimate mystery of God’s ways, the “king over all the children of pride” (41:34), of whom Satan himself is merely an instrument. What this power looks like depends on how it is approached. Approached by Conrad’s Kurtz through his Antichrist psychosis, it is an unimaginable horror: but it may also be a source of energy that man can put to his own use. There are naturally considerable risks in trying to do so: risks that Rimbaud spoke of in his celebrated lettre du voyant as a “dérèglement de tous les sens.” The phrase indicates the close connection between the titanic and the demonic that Verlaine expressed in his phrase poète maudit, the attitude of poets who feel, like Ahab, that the right worship of the powers they invoke is defiance.

When one creature is murdered, another is immediately deprived of life in a slow torturing manner; then the executioners, their hands yet reeking with the blood of innocence, believe that they have done a great deed. They call this retribution. Hateful name! When that word is pronounced, I know greater and more horrid punishments are going to be inflicted than the gloomiest tyrant has ever invented to satiate his utmost revenge.

My artistic expression initially started out as revenge, a wound that unraveled and revealed itself in the unloved corners of houses, in yellowing pages. I settled into being creature of shadow and light, stealthy and secretly furious, almost like I believed that I was fated for a glorious future, and my meekness was a form of asking. I was passionately and decidedly isolated, alone was an artform. Any art I create, in any medium, is a reflection of that faint anger: of having believed in glory, and having lived instead.

Tarzan of the Apes was no sentimentalist. He knew nothing of the brotherhood of man. All things outside his own tribe were his deadly enemies, with the few exceptions of which Tantor, the elephant, was a marked example. And he realized all this without malice or hatred. To kill was the law of the wild world he knew. Few were his primitive pleasures, but the greatest of these was to hunt and kill, and so he accorded to others the right to cherish the same desires as he, even though he himself might be the object of their hunt. His strange life had left him neither morose nor bloodthirsty. That he joyed in killing, and that he killed with a joyous laugh upon his handsome lips betokened no innate cruelty. He killed for food most often, but, being a man, he sometimes killed for pleasure, a thing which no other animal does; for it has remained for man alone among all creatures to kill senselessly and wantonly for the mere pleasure of inflicting suffering and death. And when he killed for revenge, or in self-defense, he did that also without hysteria, for it was a very businesslike proceeding which admitted of no levity.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.  We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph!  Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend?  No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss.  Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.

Yet heaven bless thee, my dearest Justine, with resignation, and a confidence elevated beyond this world. Oh! how I hate its shews and mockeries! when one creature is murdered, another is immediately deprived of life in a slow torturing manner; then the executioners, their hands yet reeking with the blood of innocence, believe that they have done a great deed. They call this retribution. Hateful name! When that word is pronounced, I know greater and more horrid punishments are going to be inflicted than the gloomiest tyrant has ever invented to satiate his utmost revenge. Yet this is not consolation for you, my Justine, unless indeed that you may glory in escaping from so miserable a den.

Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room. Winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so pantherlike in the movement, something so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eyeteeth long and pointed. But the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organized plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count's leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorn through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank notes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count's face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm, and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity, of anger and hellish rage, which came over the Count's face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker's arm, ere his blow could fall, and grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the "ting" of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging. We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us. "You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine, my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!" With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor. Realizing the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall. "We have learnt something… much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us. He fears time, he fears want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of the wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he returns.

Will you dare to say so?–Have you never erred?–Have you never felt one impure sensation?–Have you never indulged a transient feeling of hatred, or malice, or revenge?–Have you never forgot to do the good you ought to do,–or remembered to do the evil you ought not to have done?–Have you never in trade overreached a dealer, or banquetted on the spoils of your starving debtor?–Have you never, as you went to your daily devotions, cursed from your heart the wanderings of your heretical brethren,–and while you dipped your fingers in the holy water, hoped that every drop that touched your pores, would be visited on them in drops of brimstone and sulphur?–Have you never, as you beheld the famished, illiterate, degraded populace of your country, exulted in the wretched and temporary superiority your wealth has given you,–and felt that the wheels of your carriage would not roll less smoothly if the way was paved with the heads of your countrymen? Orthodox Catholic–old Christian–as you boast yourself to be,–is not this true?–and dare you say you have not been an agent of Satan? I tell you, whenever you indulge one brutal passion, one sordid desire, one impure imagination–whenever you uttered one word that wrung the heart, or embittered the spirit of your fellow-creature–whenever you made that hour pass in pain to whose flight you might have lent wings of down–whenever you have seen the tear, which your hand might have wiped away, fall uncaught, or forced it from an eye which would have smiled on you in light had you permitted it–whenever you have done this, you have been ten times more an agent of the enemy of man than all the wretches whom terror, enfeebled nerves, or visionary credulity, has forced into the confession of an incredible compact with the author of evil, and whose confession has consigned them to flames much more substantial than those the imagination of their persecutors pictured them doomed to for an eternity of suffering! Enemy of mankind!' the speaker continued,–'Alas! how absurdly is that title bestowed on the great angelic chief,–the morning star fallen from its sphere! What enemy has man so deadly as himself? If he would ask on whom he should bestow that title aright, let him smite his bosom, and his heart will answer,–Bestow it here!

Doth pride lead to vanity? Doth vanity form imaginary wants? Do these wants prompt men to exert their power in requiring more from others than they would be willing to perform themselves, were the same required of them? Do these proceedings beget hard thoughts? Do hard thoughts, when ripe, become malice? Does malice, when ripe, become revengeful, and in the end inflict terrible pains on our fellow-creatures and spread desolations in the world? "Do mankind, walking in uprightness, delight in each other's happiness? And do those who are capable of this attainment, by giving way to an evil spirit, employ their skill and strength to afflict and destroy one another? Remember then, O my soul! the quietude of those in whom Christ governs, and in all thy proceedings feel after it.

I trembled, and my heart failed within me; when, on looking up, I saw, by the light of the moon, the dæmon at the casement. A ghastly grin wrinkled his lips as he gazed on me, where I sat fulfilling the task which he had allotted to me. Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he had loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide and desert heaths; and he now came to mark my progress, and claim the fulfilment of my promise. As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of malice and treachery. I thought with a sensation of madness on my promise of creating another like to him, and, trembling with passion, tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for happiness, and, with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew.

Recall from chapter 2 that any tendency toward violence must have evolved in a world in which everyone else was evolving the same tendency. (As Richard Dawkins put it, a living thing differs from a rock or a river because it is inclined to hit back.) That means that the first move toward harming a fellow human simultaneously accomplishes two things: 1. It increases the chance that the target will come to harm. 2. It gives the target an overriding goal of harming you before you harm him. Even if you prevail by killing him, you will have given his kin the goal of killing you in revenge. It stands to reason that initiating serious aggression in a symmetrical standoff is something a Darwinian creature must consider very, very carefully—a reticence experienced as anxiety or paralysis. Discretion is the better part of valor; compassion has nothing to do with it.

My Ten Commandments: 1. God is a verb, not a noun. 2. Prayers are important only if they lead to corresponding actions. 3. Creation is an art. Science provides the tools for the artist. Anybody with the tools is not necessarily an artist. 4. Religion involves exclusivity and superiority. Divinity is inclusive and involves humility. 5. God by definition should be omnipotent. He should not require intermediation by priests and prophets. 6. All prophets have displayed exclusivity and superiority. (Refer to #4 above) 7. Rituals involve intermediation and often cruelty towards other fellows of creation. 8. Inclusivity and humility towards all creations of God is divine. 9. Rituals are antithesis of the divine. Rituals indicate a god and his intermediaries who are greedy, arrogant, revengeful and cruel. 10. God exists only for increasing happiness of all creatures.

She has been unkind to you, no doubt, because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain – the impalpable principle of life and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature; whence it came it will return, perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man – perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No, I cannot believe that: I hold another creed, which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention, but in which I delight, and to which I cling, for it extends hope to all; it makes eternity a rest – a mighty home – not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime, I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last; with this creed, revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low; I live in calm, looking to the end.

Ha!’ cackled the fiend, ‘I expect you’d like revenge on that husband of yours. Murder shouldn’t go unpunished, and no creature enjoys delivering chastisement as much as I. What about giving him a taste of his own medicine? If you’d be so kind as to lend me your body, I’ll set him dancing to my tune.’ The wife’s spectre grimaced and nodded, at which the wicked Likho stripped off the nightgown, then the dead woman’s pliant skin, peeling back the flaccid folds. These it left in a slack heap. It gobbled her flesh and sucked the bones clean. These it hid behind the stove, before inserting itself inside the empty, wrinkled carcass, taking the former position of the corpse. Its fat tongue swiped the last juices from around its lips. When the husband returned home, all was as it had been; there was not a speck of blood to be seen, although the strangest smell of rotten eggs lingered

He moved a little, as if intending to push away from her, and she reached out impulsively, her short arms catching his broad shoulders. She embraced him protectively, although it might seem ridiculous to shelter such a physically powerful creature. Devlin stiffened. To her surprise, and perhaps his, he gradually accepted her hold, hunching over to accommodate her short stature. His black head lowered almost to her shoulder. Amanda put her hand on his nape of his neck, where the warm edge of skin met the crisp edge of his collar. "Jack..." She meant to sound sympathetic, but somehow her voice came out as briskly pragmatic as ever. "What you did was neither illegal nor immoral, and there is certainly no point in wasting your time with regrets. You needn't berate yourself for something you can't change. And as you say, you had no choice. If you wish for revenge against your father and siblings for their treatment of you, I suggest that you apply yourself to being happy." He gave a brief huff of laughter against her ear. "My practical princess," he muttered, his arms tightening around her.

He moved a little, as if intending to push away from her, and she reached out impulsively, her short arms catching his broad shoulders. She embraced him protectively, although it might seem ridiculous to shelter such a physically powerful creature. Devlin stiffened. To her surprise, and perhaps his, he gradually accepted her hold, hunching over to accommodate her short stature. His black head lowered almost to her shoulder. Amanda put her hand on the nape of his neck, where the warm edge of skin met the crisp edge of his collar. "Jack..." She meant to sound sympathetic, but somehow her voice came out as briskly pragmatic as ever. "What you did was neither illegal nor immoral, and there is certainly no point in wasting your time with regrets. You needn't berate yourself for something you can't change. And as you say, you had no choice. If you wish for revenge against your father and siblings for their treatment of you, I suggest that you apply yourself to being happy." He gave a brief huff of laughter against her ear. "My practical princess," he muttered, his arms tightening around her.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.

People often see themselves in terms of whichever one of their allegiances is most under attack. And sometimes, when a person doesn’t have the strength to defend that allegiance, he hides it. Then it remains buried deep down in the dark, awaiting its revenge. But whether he accepts or conceals it, proclaims it discreetly or flaunts it, it is with that allegiance that the person concerned identifies. And then, whether it relates to color, religion, language or class, it invades the person’s whole identity. Other people who share the same allegiance sympathize; they all gather together, join forces, encourage one another, challenge “the other side.” For them, “asserting their identity” inevitably becomes an act of courage, of liberation. In the midst of any community that has been wounded agitators naturally arise… The scene is now set and the war can begin. Whatever happens “the others” will have deserved it. […] What we conveniently call “murderous folly” is the propensity of our fellow-creatures to turn into butchers when they suspect that their “tribe” is being threatened. The emotions of fear or insecurity don’t always obey rational considerations. They may be exaggerated or even paranoid; but once a whole population is afraid, we are dealing with the reality of the fear rather than the reality of the threat.

In ancient times, the Gorgon Medusa lived on the far side of Oceanus in the land of Night. She was an awesome dragonlike creature with bronze claws, great golden wings, and fierce eyes that turned her beholder to stone. At one time she had been a beautiful young woman who filled the world with joy, not death, but in a moment of foolish pride she had compared herself to Athena. Such arrogance enraged the noble goddess, and in revenge she turned Medusa's lush hair into a tangle of vile, hissing snakes. From that moment on, Medusa's stare brought the stillness of death to anyone who dared look into her eyes. Meanwhile Polydectes, King of Seriphos, wanted to destroy Perseus, so he sent him off to bring back Medusa's head, knowing that her gaze would kill the young hero. But Athena heard the king's command. Still angry with Medusa, she gave Perseus her bronze shield to defend himself when he attacked the Gorgon. Holding the shield as a mirror, Perseus saw only Medusa's reflection, and her deadly stare did not harm him. He cut off her head and put it into a cloth bag, then flew away with the aid of a pair of winged sandals given to him by Hermes. As Perseus soared over the African desert, blood seeped through the bag and fell to the hot sands below. As each drop hit the scorching ground, it turned to steam, and the rising vapors transformed into three dangerously beautiful nymphs.

And of course if you ill-treat the body, it can throw you out of the house entirely, out of your body. It is like ill-treating objects. You know, objects are inanimate things; they lie about heavily, have no legs or wings, and people are often quite impatient with them. For instance, this book would like it very much better, I am sure, if it were lying near the center of the table where it is safe, but I have put it on the edge. It is an awkward position for that poor creature of a book. It may fall down and get injured. If I am impatient, if I touch them in an awkward way, it is a lamentable plight for the poor objects. Then they take their revenge on me. Because I illtreat them they turn against me and become contradictory in a peculiar way. I say, "Oh, these damned objects, dead things, despicable!"- and instantly they take on life. They begin to behave as if they were animated living things. You will then observe what the German philosopher tells about the die Tücke des Objekts. And the more you curse them, the more you use speech figures which insinuate life into them. For instance, "Where has that book hidden itself now? It has walked off and concealed itself somewhere." Or, "The devil is in that watch, where has it gone ?"Objects really take on dangerous qualities with people who are particularly impatient with them: they jump into your eyes, they bite your legs, they creep onto a chair and stick up a point upon which you sit-such things. Jung, C. G.. Nietzsche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934-1939. Two Volumes: 1-2, unabridged (Jung Seminars) (p. 351-352)

Put shortly, these are the two views, then. One, that man is intrinsically good, spoilt by circumstance; and the other that he is intrinsically limited, but disciplined by order and tradition to something fairly decent. To the one party man's nature is like a well, to the other like a bucket. The view which regards man as a well, a reservoir full of possibilities, I call the romantic; the one which regards him as a very finite and fixed creature, I call the classical. One may note here that the Church has always taken the classical view since the defeat of the Pelagian heresy and the adoption of the sane classical dogma of original sin. It would be a mistake to identify the classical view with that of materialism. On the contrary it is absolutely identical with the normal religious attitude. I should put it in this way: That part of the fixed nature of man is the belief in the Deity. This should be as fixed and true for every man as belief in the existence of matter and in the objective world. It is parallel to appetite, the instinct of sex, and all the other fixed qualities. Now at certain times, by the use of either force or rhetoric, these instincts have been suppressed - in Florence under Savonarola, in Geneva under Calvin, and here under the Roundheads. The inevitable result of such a process is that the repressed instinct bursts out in some abnormal direction. So with religion. By the perverted rhetoric of Rationalism, your natural instincts are suppressed and you are converted into an agnostic. Just as in the case of the other instincts, Nature has her revenge. The instincts that find their right and proper outlet in religion must come out in some other way. You don't believe in a God, so you begin to believe that man is a god. You don't believe in Heaven, so you begin to believe in a heaven on earth. In other words, you get romanticism. The concepts that are right and proper in their own sphere are spread over, and so mess up, falsify and blur the clear outlines of human experience. It is like pouring a pot of treacle over the dinner table. Romanticism then, and this is the best definition I can give of it, is spilt religion.

Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! (520) Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit That from her working all his visage wann'd, Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing! For Hecuba! What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, (530) That he should weep for her? What would he do, Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, (540) And can say nothing; no, not for a king, Upon whose property and most dear life A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat, As deep as to the lungs? who does me this? Ha! 'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall (550) To make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O, vengeance! Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murder'd, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, And fall a-cursing, like a very drab, (560) A scullion! Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard That guilty creatures sitting at a play Have by the very cunning of the scene Been struck so to the soul that presently They have proclaim'd their malefactions; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players Play something like the murder of my father Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks; (570) I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be the devil: and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds More relative than this: the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Ah, God! what trances of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own bloody nails in his palms. Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing of his life-spot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames and lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap down among them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, perhaps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the White Whale; this Ahab that had gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused him to burst from it in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living principle or soul in him; and in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its outer vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no longer an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose, by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of its own. Nay, could grimly live and burn, while the common vitality to which it was conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the unbidden and unfathered birth. Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated thing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be sure, but without an object to color, and therefore a blankness in itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates.

Flowers are sniffable. Weeds are scratchable. Grass is munchable and usually full of lots of curious creatures. And yet, despite the abundance of all three of these plants in his immediately vicinity, Hex finds himself on the roof, chasing after Grogg, who’s more fun than all three put together.

Longche willed himself to change into his true vampire form. As the helpless vampire watched the transformation, it started screaming. It was still screaming when Longche's rows of razor-sharp teeth sank into its throat. It had been thousands of years since he had drunk the blood of vampires. With each creature he consumed, he could feel himself growing stronger. Growing stronger - and growing closer to the Dark Mother, who was waiting to exact a terrible revenge upon him.

A strange anomaly was La of Opar—a creature of circumstance torn by conflicting emotions. Now the cruel and bloodthirsty creature of a heartless god and again a melting woman filled with compassion and tenderness. Sometimes the incarnation of jealousy and revenge and sometimes a sobbing maiden, generous and forgiving; at once a virgin and a wanton; but always—a woman. Such was La.

A huge army of creepers was swarming up the hill toward us, headed by the familiar figure of the baby creeper king sitting on his throne carried by four other baby creepers. “You have got to be kidding me,” I groaned. “Not again.” “You know these creatures?” “Unfortunately, yes. And he’s out for revenge by the looks of it.” The creeper baby king’s face was focused on mine, quivering and red. His eyes bulged. He jabbed his stumpy little hand in my direction. “I don’t think we should hang around to say hello,

The prospect of a revenge-driven, malevolent, vicious creature stalking her didn't phase Vic. In her earlier life, the cave girl Nat-ul was a staple to an assortment of ferocious beasts. Being on the menu but staying off the plate was the way you lived life in those days.

I’d fallen asleep so soundly it felt like I’d dropped into a black hole. Now I had to crawl back out, feeling my way like some underground creature startled by the light.

We had given AM sentience. Inadvertently, of course, but sentience nonetheless. But it had been trapped. AM wasn't God, he was a machine. We had created him to think, but there was nothing it could do with that creativity. In rage, in frenzy, the machine had killed the human race, almost all of us, and still it was trapped. AM could not wander, AM could not wonder, AM could not belong. He could merely be. And so, with the innate loathing that all machines had always held for the weak, soft creatures who had built them, he had sought revenge. And in his paranoia, he had decided to reprieve five of us, for a personal, everlasting punishment that would never serve to diminish his hatred ... that would merely keep him reminded, amused, proficient at hating man. Immortal, trapped, subject to any torment he could devise for us from the limitless miracles at his command.

He was what he was: a beast—a creature who lived for the kill. To be first. To be strong. Simple and selfish, Monster hid in the man until it was time to fight, time to walk by horror and see nothing, time to get revenge on those who loved him the most for hurting him the most. Undefeated and uncontrolled, Monster did what he wanted when he wanted. No one who tried to tell him otherwise survived. Until her. Violets and sweet biscuits. Silken skin and curves that begged for his caress. Fragile. Breakable. Treasure.

A progress of degradation with glowing phraseology, cajoleries and falsity. They put on exaggerated airs of mock-modesty, and assume a scornful pose before their admirers, all the time longing to be noticed. The old punctilious sense of honor have ceased to exist while finally the practices of the man of pleasure, the libertine modes, in full completeness, count at most only some forty years of life, – after which the reign of hypocrisy sets in. What is lighter than a feather? A woman. What is lighter than a woman? Nothing. Phrase found in a Latin satire. It means nothing more nothing less than this: women have always hated morality and seriousness, precise knowledge and deliberate wisdom, which in their eyes are merely silly and hypocritical pretensions that mark the class of professional phrase-mongers. Writers like Gorgias or Appolodorus, or orators like Hyperides, masters of the eloquence that thrills mankind. The Gown, whence springs the type of creatures that tear each other to pieces with tongue and pen. pg84 A kind o f a code of revenge, a guiding principle a point of honor that was held more sacred than life itself Vulsenade Pg94 Such extravagances were admitted by the principles of chivalry, an institution sane enough at its origins, but run mad before its end.” Dr Johannes Scheer, Society and Manners in Germany, Chivalry at Court Pg138 And many another indiscreet, prying teller of naughty tales, are far and away more instructive than formal history, which is either pedantic by convention or else dumb by constraint. In investigations of any kind details should be studied first, in order at a subsequent stage to elaborate the series of special observations made into a general survey of the subject. This is the only way to get good results pg154 A phrase well expressing an easiness of morals at once very frank and very French. Pg166 That treacherous gentleness women practice toward one another – every woman instinctively hates every other. pg164 A woman will allow herself to be told: you belong to a sex possessing a small brain and a half-developed organization; your disposition and instinctive are all disproportionate, inconsequent hypocritical, illogical and futile; your moral sense is deformed, your selfishness without a scruple and your vanity without a limit. All this will hardly so much as annoy her; but dare to say: you have short legs, and you have committed a dire offense woman’s nature can never forgive. Further on, Schopenhauer adds another curiously insulting passage: “The ancients,”he says, “would have laughed at our gallantry of the old French fashion and our stupid veneration for number two of the perfect realization of German-Christian silliness.” pg169 “A married woman’s first thought and care is to devise how to be a widow.” Brantley, Dames galantes, Fourth Discourse

The persecution of the Episcopalians by the prevailing powers in England was evidently from revenge for the persecution they had suffered themselves, and from political considerations and the prevalence of a party, seeing all other opinions and professions, however absurd, were tolerated, but in New England it must be confessed that bigotry and cruel zeal prevailed, and to that degree that no op[inions but their own could be tolerated. They were sincere but mistaken in their principles and, absurd as it is, it is too evident, they believed it to be for the glory of God to take away the lives of his creatures for maintaining tenets contrary to what they professed themselves. This occasioned complaints against the colony to the parliament and to Cromwell, but without success.[252]

The provenance of a churel is a woman wronged. A pregnant woman’s demise. Death at the hands of vicious in-laws or a violent husband. Dying during childbirth or within the twelve-day period of impurity afterward. Whenever a woman died grossly unfulfilled, she’d return as a churel. Those surviving her could attempt to stymie her transformation: bury rather than burn her, weigh her down with stones, dress her grave with thorns, set her in the ground facedown so as to disorient her. Were that she’d been given such healthy regard in life, rendering such measures moot. Nevertheless, if her revenge-lust was potent enough, she’d find her way home and so it would begin. Only a man would imagine retribution wrapped in lust rather than just painful death. Only a man would morph a wounded woman into a hideous monster. Only a man would then, for the sake of phallic pride, attribute her with shape-shifting powers, so that the creature he’d lain down with over and over again was deceptively gorgeous. the churel was a cautionary tale created by women for women? If the natural world afforded them no protection, then a supernatural story might. A way of terrifying men into considering a woman’s well-being from time to time.

Violence is his calling card, bloodshed his stock-in-trade, but the real beating heart of this man is revenge.

The boy knew—knew—better than to trust it, for he had read of demons as wicked creatures to be vanquished by only the most experienced of shamans and practitioners. But he looked to the yurt buried in the snow, to the black flame banner that had once flown high and mighty over the sprawling steppes of his homeland. And that rage and helpless despair sharpened into something else inside him. Better to be burned by the fire of his own fury, to taste the bitterness of his wish for revenge, than to feel that devastating emptiness of nothingness his loss had left him.

Nature does not provide one nerve without pairing it a second, he'd said. She invests us with two lungs, two kidneys, two eyes, two ears. The singular brain is divided into identical hemispheres; the heart has two corresponding auricles and ventricles. We are paired creatures, mourns Henry. He took the dress lodger's baby. She took his beloved in return. He should have realized: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Even revenge is paired.

Damien turned up a lip, but did not answer her right away. Instead, he just looked at her as if she should have known. “I’m demon spawn,” he eventually said as if thinking on it very hard. “Evil incarnate, the Abyss brought up…here. All of that.” “Sure, but, like,”—she sniffled and rolled her hands over one another as if trying to work through the idea aloud—“even evil creatures must feel love. I mean, you must at least love being evil, otherwise why do it?” “Why do—Amma, this is my purpose. There is no desire pushing me toward some malleable end based on a whim as fleeting as love. There is only duty and prophecy and revenge.” She scrunched up her face. “Gods, that sounds—” Amma cut herself off, gaze shifting past him to look on the stone wall beyond. Awful, she was going to say,

Something in her needed this, needed him, and needed the oneness that united male and female dualities. She had been separate and alone for far too long turning her into a cold, callous creature. Making peace with the enemy was just what she needed. Forging reconciliation with her adversary proved to be the very elixir her soul had long yearned for and this made all that was wrong in the world right. God and the devil had now called a truce.

Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different, unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. [...] Thus at every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature – but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.

Of course, the vile monsters now thriving inside of him were partly responsible. Each of the creatures wanted nothing more than to wreak its revenge on the society that had banished it to the netherworld. To Hell and all its darkness

I love other creatures almost as much as I hate people

wolpertinger?” “A mythological invention of German fantasy,” I replied. “We don’t yet know that,” Stoker riposted, clearly annoyed. “We most certainly do. It is a singularly ludicrous creature,” I explained to Tiberius, “with the body of a hare, the wings of a hawk, and a tiny set of antlers. Like a miniature deer.

You’re fae.” There was an immediate flicker of anger, as if it were wiped onto her face in one smooth motion. “Is that a problem?” I paused. People don’t like the fae. They’re not the cute little flying things at the bottom of the gardens, that’s fairies, and they’re mean little fuckers who eat people. The fae are creatures of magical energy, like sorcerers, but they’re also mean little fuckers. Ones that hold a grudge like it’s a security blanket, and will do anything and everything to get revenge on people they believe have slighted them. The fact that they’re able to use a person’s blood to track them not only over thousands of miles, but also through realms, means once you’ve pissed one off, they can find you anywhere. The fae have small translucent wings, which they can turn invisible as they wish. Considering I couldn’t see Agent Jensen’s, it was precisely what she had done. The wings give fae the ability to hover. Fae can also control light or shadow magic, but like sorcerers, not everyone who uses shadow magic is evil and not everyone who uses light magic is nice. Also, for some reason their hair and eyes are always shades of the same color. “I’m not aware of any problems,” I told her. Kelly’s eyes narrowed for a moment, before the smile came back to life. “Good.

Consider also that the fellow creature whom you hate is either a just man or a sinner. If a just man, it is certainly a great misfortune to be the declared enemy of a friend of God. If a sinner, it is no less deplorable that you should undertake to punish the malice of another by plunging your own soul into sin. And if your neighbor in his turn seeks vengeance for the injury you inflict upon him, where will your enmities end? Will there be any peace on the earth?   The Apostle teaches us a more noble revenge when he tells us "not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil by good" (Rom. 12:21 ) – that is, to triumph by our virtues over .the vices of our brethren. In endeavoring to bc revenged upon a fellow creature you are often disappointed and vanquished by anger itself. But if you overcome your passion, you gain a more glorious victory than he who conquers a city. Our noblest triumph is won by subduing ourselves, by subjecting our passions to the empire of reason,

And then there was Frankenstein. While in London, Melville had acquired from Bentley a copy of Mary Shelley’s novel about an errant genius who hunts down the quasi-human monster he has created after it has turned against him and murdered the woman he loves. Having tracked the creature to the icy North, Frankenstein commandeers a scientific expeditionary ship headed to the Arctic and turns it into an instrument of his private vengeance. This story of obsession and revenge so captured Melville’s imagination that when he read in Lamb’s Final Memorials about William Godwin’s (Mary Shelley’s father) gift for creating characters “marvellously endowed with galvanic life,” he wrote in the margin: “Frankenstein.

Stop,” Azriel roared, something like panic in his voice. “The cells—” From far away, she could sense it: the things lurking within the mountain, her mountain. Twisted, wretched creatures. Some had been here since Silene had trapped them. Had been contemplating their escape and revenge all this time. She’d let them out if she restored the mountain to its former glory. And in that moment, the mountain—the island—spoke to her.