Hyde Quotes

If he be Mr. Hyde" he had thought, "I shall be Mr. Seek.

Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.

You put me through hell. On purpose. Made me suffer. And there’s no end in sight. I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, ace, but this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde shit ain’t cutting it with me.

If I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.

All human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone, in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.

Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde had more than a son's indifference.

You point your feet out too much when you walk,” Will went on. He was busy polishing an apple on his shirtfront, and appeared not to notice Tessa glaring at him. “Camille walks delicately. Like a faun in the woods. Not like a duck.” “I do not walk like a duck.” “I like ducks,” Jem observed diplomatically. “Especially the ones in Hyde Park.” He glanced sideways at Will; both boys were sitting on the edge of the high table, their legs dangling over the side. “Remember when you tried to convince me to feed poultry pie to the mallards in the park to see if you could breed a race of cannibal ducks?” “They ate it too,” Will reminisced. “Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.

You must suffer me to go my own dark way.

Then I lost him for a brief period of time, and by the time I caught up with him, he had wandered into Hyde Park, waded into the Serpetine, spread his arms wide, and was shouting, 'Ducks, embrace me as your king!

I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.

I was just thinking of bundling up Cecily and feeding her to the ducks at Hyde Park," said Will, pushing his wet hair back and favoring Jem with a rare smile. "I could use your assistance." "Unfortunately, you may have to delay your plans for suicide a bit longer. Gabriel Lightwood is downstairs, and I have two words for you. Two of your favorite words, at least when you put them together." "'Utter simpleton'?" inquired Will. "'Worthless upstart'?" Jem grinned. "'Demon pox,'" he said.

I like ducks." Jem observed diplomatically. "Esspecially the ones in Hyde Park." He glanced side ways at Will; both boys were sitting at the edge of a high table, thier legs dangling over the side. "Remember when you tried to convince me to feed pultry pie the the mallards in the park to see if you couls breed a race of cannibal ducks?" "They ate it too," Will reminisced. "Bloodthirsty little beasts. Never trust a duck.

With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.

I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.

The hypocrisy was too much to bear, the institution was paying over a million dollars for Mr. Hyde to perform “values training” to “protect our culture,” while they simultaneously paid $2 million a year for Dr. Porter to destroy it. It was a laughable facade, but instead I wanted to cry.

There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure is filled at last; and this brief condescension to evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul.

Goats," said Maxwell Hyde, "are a special case. Mad as hatters, all of them.

You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others...

She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent.

He's so unlucky it's almost lucky," Gren said. "It's like he has reverse luck." "He's reverse good-looking, too" said Hyde. "I'm going to reverse punch you," Strag said to his brother. "That was reverse smart, man. It means you're going to punch yourself.

You've got a lifetime to mull over the Buddhist understanding of interconnectedness." He spoke every sentence as if he'd written it down, memorized it, and was now reciting it. "But while you were looking out the window, you missed the chance to explore the equally interesting Buddhist belief in being present for every facet of your daily life, of being truly present. Be present in this class. And then, when it's over, be present out there," he said, nodding toward the lake and beyond.' ~Dr. Hyde, pg 50

There's a Mr. Hyde for every happy Jekyll face, a dark face on the other side of the mirror.

There is no wrong way to perform an act of kindness.

I incline to Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly: "I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.

Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.

I rushed to the mirror. At the sight that met my eyes, my blood was changed to something thin and icy. Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened Edward Hyde. How was this to be explained? I asked myself; and then, with another bound of terror - how was it to be remedied?

The secret to a happiness is a small ego. And a big wallet. Good wine helps, too. But that's not really a secret, is it?

Irony has only emergency use. Carried over time it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.

If it takes you apart, that's not love. Love puts you back together.

Good and evil are so close as to be chained together in the soul.

I feel as though whenever I create something, my Mr. Hyde wakes up in the middle of the night and starts thrashing it. I sometimes love it the next morning, but other times it is an abomination.

I sometimes think if we knew all, we should be more glad to get away.

To cast in it with Hyde was to die a thousand interests and aspirations.

I missed her so much that I wanted to build a hundred-foot memorial to her with my bare hands. I wanted to see her sitting in a vast stone chair in Hyde Park, enjoying her view. Everybody passing could comprehend how much I miss her. How physical my missing is. I miss her so much it is a vast golden prince, a concert hall, a thousand trees, a lake, nine thousand buses, a million cars, twenty million birds and more. The whole city is my missing her. Eugh,

Some day...after I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn the right and wrong of this. I cannot tell you.

The less I understood of this farrago, the less I was in a position to judge of its importance.

Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde is a metaphor for alcoholism. He drinks a potion, becomes a monster. I know exactly how he feels.

I have been made to learn that the doom and burden of our life is bound forever on man’s shoulders; and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure.

More worryingly, my baby fangs were out, which usually happened only when I was perilously close to tipping over into Mr. Hyde territory. I quickly drew them back in. It didn’t help much. I still looked like Dracula’s daughter. Which was completely unfair, since he’d only been an uncle.

It came to me that Hyde Park has never belonged to London - that it has always been , in spirit, a stretch of countryside; and that it links the Londons of all periods together most magically - by remaining forever unchanged at the heart of a ever-changing town.

If you want to see a man come to his senses, try something like, Do you happen to carry a rubber in your wallet? Did I mention I'm not on the pill?

It was for one minute that I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like quills. Sir, if that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face?

His affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object.

You point your feet out too much when you walk,” Will went on. He was busy polishing an apple on his shirtfront, and appeared not to notice Tessa glaring at him. “Camille walks delicately. Like a faun in the woods. Not like a duck” “I do not walk like a duck.” “I like ducks,” Jem observed diplomatically. “Especially the ones in Hyde Park.

Hyde Park Corner is what happens when a bunch of urban planners take one look at the grinding circle of gridlock that surrounds the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and think—that’s what we want for our town.

I guess it's hard for people who are so used to things the way they are - even if they're bad - to change. 'Cause they kind of give up. And when they do, everybody kind of loses.

Nobody said it was a beautiful world with no scars.

Because it proves that you don't need much to change the entire world for the better. You can start with the most ordinary ingredients. You can start with the world you've got.

He's so unlucky it's almost lucky." Gren said. "It's like he has reverse luck." "He's reverse good-looking, too." said Hyde "I'm going to reverse punch you," Strag said to his brother. "That was revers smart, man. it means you're going to punch yourself.

the weak should fear the strong

She was born under the sign of Gemini. And that stands for the good and evil twin. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both hiding and residing inside her heart. Her good twin was not bad at all. But her evil twin was even better, and showed up to be way too fatal!

My mom is cool and my mom will treat you right.

That child of Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.

For God's sake!" Hart sprang to his feet. Everyone at the table stopped and stared at him, including Ian. "Do I have to be made a mockery of in my own house?" Mac leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head. "Would you prefer we made a mockery of you in the street? In Hyde Park, maybe? In the middle of Pall Mall? The card room in your club?" "Mac, shut it!

I have lost confidence in myself.

It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise. Our Barbie-doll president, with his Barbie-doll wife and his boxful of Barbie-doll children is also America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the Werewolf in us; the bully, the predatory shyster who turns into something unspeakable, full of claws and bleeding string-warts on nights when the moon comes too close…

Well, let me see. He stole a bicycle and rode it, not using his hands at any point, through Trafalgar Square. He attempted to climb Nelson’s Column and fight with Nelson. Then I lost him for a brief period of time, and by the time I caught up with him, he had wandered into Hyde Park, waded into the Serpentine, spread his arms wide, and was shouting, ‘Ducks, embrace me as your king!’” 

Thomas was frowning. “My aunt Tatiana is mad. My father has often said so, that his sister was driven to madness by what happened to her father and her husband. She blames our parents for their deaths.” “But James has never done anything to her,” said Christopher, his eyebrows knitting together. “He’s a Herondale,” said Thomas. “That’s enough.” “That’s ridiculous,” Christopher said. “It is as if one was bitten by a duck and years later one shot a completely different duck and ate it for dinner, and called that revenge.” “Please do not use metaphors, Christopher,” said Matthew. “It gives me the pip.” “This is bad enough without mentioning ducks,” said James. He had never fancied ducks since one had bitten him in Hyde Park as a small child.

Better to operate with detachment, then; better to have a way but infuse it with a little humor; best, to have no way at all but to have instead the wit constantly to make one's way anew from the materials at hand.

It's obvious which one you are,' Jimmy Hailler tells me as we walk through Hyde Park. 'If it's so obvious why can't I see it.' 'Because you live in your own world and can't see anything.' 'Then which one am I?' 'You're all four. You're constantly bitching things under your breath, you come across bloody stupid because you don't speak, on a particular angle in that uniform on an overcast day with your hair up, you've got that stocky butch thing happening, plus you're pashing other girl's boyfriends which makes you a slut.

Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.

I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated, the trembling immateriality, the mistlike transience, of this seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired.

The most racking pangs succeeded: a grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death. Then these agonies began swiftly to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness. There was something strange in my sensations, something indescribably sweet. I felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of obligation, an unknown but innocent freedom of the soul. I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine.

I decided that not talking is like a litmus test for a real friend. You can just sit there and be. Not always be filling up the air with words

Piper, stop," he said in that firm, bossy voice. I stopped. I don't get how those guys can ignore that tone. "Turn around." I turned around. "Fuck," he murmured. Why can't that be an order?

I knew that most people would consider us too young to talk about lifelong commitments or marriage, but I couldn’t imagine taking her to bed without that promise. Even if it meant never being with her, I didn’t want to have one desperate, hurried, hidden night. I wanted to put a ring on her finger. I wanted a future—or nothing. I knew, in her heart, that she would want that, too

Things are so easy to do, so hard to undo.

As I looked there came, I thought a change - he seemed to swell - his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter...

I slept after the prostration of the day, with a stringent and profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me could avail to break.

about as emotional as a bagpipe.

I had learned to dwell with pleasure as a beloved daydream on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each I told myself could be housed in separate identities life would be relieved of all that was unbearable the unjust might go his way delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path doing the good things in which he found his pleasure and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.

He recollected his courage.

The closer you get to heaven, the less air there is, because when you get to heaven for real, you don't need to breathe anymore.

It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the hands of opportunity;

... even though it was beautiful and comfortable, and even though it was the world, it was also a little bit boring. No, wait. Maybe boring isn’t the right word. What’s the word I’m wanting here? Lonely. That’s it. It was a little bit lonely.

I keep telling you the future isn't set in stone. It's not all decided yet. The future is just what's down the road we decided to walk on today. You can change roads anytime. And that changes where you end up.

It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound togetherthat in the agonised womb of consciousness these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How then were they dissociated

While I respect the Judeo-Christian ethic, as well as the eastern philosophies and of course the teachings of Mohammed, I find that organized religion has corrupted those beliefs to justify countless atrocities throughout history. Were I to attend church, I'd be a hypocrite.

On the stage Tristen bent over the piano, his fingers swift and sure, his blond hair gleaming under the spotlight. I glanced around at the audience, watching their faces, gratified that they were as captivated as I was by the dark, thunderous song that Tristen conjured.

[Grace talking to Billy.] "It's like people who want to feel only happy but not sad," she said. "It never works. You either feel things or you don't. You don't get to pick and choose. At least, I don't think so.

Under the strain of this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and solely occupied by one thought: the horror of my other self.

I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgement. You start a question, and it's like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden, and the family have to change their name. No, sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.

Everybody is a good person and a bad person at the same time. The only real variation is in the balance. How much good to how much bad. When a person has a bigger good side, we call him a good person. But it’s never absolute.

Abandoned. The word alone sends shudders down a sensitive spine, troubling the thoughts of pained souls as their hurt swells in ripples. It is a sentence of undesired solitude often pronounced on the innocent, the trusting—administered without warning or satisfactory cause. One day the moon is yours, or so you believe. The next, his countenance transforms from Jekyll to Hyde with no intention of ever turning back, and you are left trampled upon in a deserted street, concealed by dirty fog that squelches all illumination or any hope for future rays of light. It is the worst of mysteries why a beast considered noble would forsake his duty, exhibiting a heart of stone. And all who once looked on him, now turn down their eyes and suffer, beguiled. Some poisons have no antidote, but are slow, silent, torturous ends that curl up the broken body swept into a cold, dark corner. There she is left to drown in her tears—a dying heart. Abandoned.

Most people prefer to think that their resentment is entirely the fault of the person they resent, and that twisted logic seems to make sense in their minds. But it makes no sense to me at all... But it's a popular point of view. Probably because it's so much easier. It relieves you of the burden of any and all self-examination. (Nathan to Nat)

This was the shocking thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices; that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life. And this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life.

However, the majority of women are neither harlots nor courtesans; nor do they sit clasping pug dogs to dusty velvet all through the summer afternoon. But what do they do then? and there came to my mind’s eye one of those long streets somewhere south of the river whose infinite rows are innumerably populated. With the eye of the imagination I saw a very ancient lady crossing the street on the arm of a middle-aged woman, her daughter, perhaps, both so respectably booted and furred that their dressing in the afternoon must be a ritual, and the clothes themselves put away in cupboards with camphor, year after year, throughout the summer months. They cross the road when the lamps are being lit (for the dusk is their favourite hour), as they must have done year after year. The elder is close on eighty; but if one asked her what her life has meant to her, she would say that she remembered the streets lit for the battle of Balaclava, or had heard the guns fire in Hyde Park for the birth of King Edward the Seventh. And if one asked her, longing to pin down the moment with date and season, but what were you doing on the fifth of April 1868, or the second of November 1875, she would look vague and say that she could remember nothing. For all the dinners are cooked; the plates and cups washed; the children sent to school and gone out into the world. Nothing remains of it all. All has vanished. No biography or history has a word to say about it. And the novels, without meaning to, inevitably lie. All these infinitely obscure lives remain to be recorded, I said, addressing Mary Carmichael as if she were present; and went on in thought through the streets of London feeling in imagination the pressure of dumbness, the accumulation of unrecorded life, whether from the women at the street corners with their arms akimbo, and the rings embedded in their fat swollen fingers, talking with a gesticulation like the swing of Shakespeare’s words; or from the violet-sellers and match-sellers and old crones stationed under doorways; or from drifting girls whose faces, like waves in sun and cloud, signal the coming of men and women and the flickering lights of shop windows. All that you will have to explore, I said to Mary Carmichael, holding your torch firm in your hand.

And in every one of us, there's a war going on. It's a civil war. I don't care who you are, I don't care where you live, there is a civil war going on in your life. And every time you set out to be good, there's something pulling on you, telling you to be evil. It's going on in your life. Every time you set out to love, something keeps pulling on you, trying to get you to hate. Every time you set out to be kind and say nice things about people, something is pulling on you to be jealous and envious and to spread evil gossip about them. There's a civil war going on. There is a schizophrenia, as the psychologists or the psychiatrists would call it, going on within all of us. And there are times that all of us know somehow that there is a Mr. Hyde and a Dr. Jekyll in us...There's a tension at the heart of human nature. And whenever we set out to dream our dreams and to build our temples, we must be honest enough to recognize it.

He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn’t specify the point. He’s an extraordinary-looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No sir; I can make no hand of it; I can’t describe him. And it’s not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment.

...That insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life.

Something about you caught me by surprise Though I always knew you’d be my demise. “I didn’t want you to love me Didn’t want you thinking of me   So I kept my distance Tried to ignore your existence I was blinded by my pride With you, the Jekyll to my Hyde   But that’s where you found me Baby, that’s where you unwound me   Loving you would be as easy as taking a breath But to look at you, that’s a dance with death   I’d risk it all, For you I would You’d make me fall, And fall I would   Loving you would be as easy as taking a breath But to be by you, that’s a dance with death. “I thought once was enough You turned to me and called my bluff, Maybe I should have walked away but I couldn’t resist, I needed replay after replay   Loving you would be as easy as taking a breath But to give you up, that’s a dance with death   We were over from the start I never said I’d give my heart So now it’s time for this to end After all, a friend is just a friend   Loving you would be as easy as taking a breath But to give you up, that’s a dance with death   So now it’s time for this to end After all, a friend is just a friend.

Erik Erikson has commented: Potentially creative men like (Bernard) Shaw build the personal fundament of their work during a self-decreed moratorium, during which they often starve themselves, socially, erotically, and, at last but not least, nutritionally, in order to let the grosser weeds die out, and make way for the growth of their inner garden.

Most artists are brought to their vocation when their own nascent gifts are awakened by the work of a master. That is to say, most artists are converted to art by art itself. Finding one's voice isn't just an emptying and purifying oneself of the words of others but an adopting and embracing of filiations, communities, and discourses. Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced. Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos. Any artist knows these truths, no matter how deeply he or she submerges that knowing.

What do you know about bipolar disorder?” I almost say, What do you know about it? But I make myself breathe and smile. “Is that the Jekyll-Hyde thing?” My voice sounds flat and even. Maybe a little bored, even though my mind and body are on alert. “Some people call it manic depression. It’s a brain disorder that causes extreme shifts in mood and energy. It runs in families, but it can be treated.” I continue to breathe, even if I’m not smiling anymore, but here is what is happening: my brain and my heart are pounding out different rhythms; my hands are turning cold and the back of my neck is turning hot; my throat has gone completely dry. The thing I know about bipolar disorder is that it’s a label. One you give crazy people. I know this because I’ve taken junior-year psychology and I’ve seen movies and I’ve watched my father in action for almost eighteen years, even though you could never slap a label on him because he would kill you. Labels like “bipolar” say This is why you are the way you are. This is who you are. They explain people away as illnesses.

No!" he cried and his face pinched with frustration and pain. "I don't want to hear more reasons why we shouldn't be together. No more confessions to explain why you want to run away from what we share." "Julian," she attempted to interrupt again, but he held up a trembling hand. His dark gaze held hers. "I have moved heaven and earth to bring you back to me. I refuse to let you leave again. You are mine and you shall be mine for the rest of my life. Not as my mistress, but as my wife. And if you don't say yes, I shall be forced to drag you into Hyde Park and make love to you in plain view of everyone. Then you will have to accept my proposal in order to save your reputation." His face softened. "I love you, Cecilia.

Magnus,” he said. “What on earth happened to James?” “What happened?” Magnus asked musingly. “Well, let me see. He stole a bicycle and rode it, not using his hands at any point, through Trafalgar Square. He attempted to climb Nelson’s Column and fight with Nelson. Then I lost him for a brief period of time, and by the time I caught up with him, he had wandered into Hyde Park, waded into the Serpentine, spread his arms wide, and was shouting, ‘Ducks, embrace me as your king!’” “Dear God,” said Will. “He must have been vilely drunk. Tessa, I can bear it no longer. He is taking awful risks with his life and rejecting all the principles I hold most dear. If he continues making an exhibition of himself throughout London, he will be called to Idris and kept there away from the mundanes. Does he not realize that?” Magnus shrugged. “He also made inappropriate amorous advances to a startled grandmotherly sort selling flowers, an Irish wolfhound, an innocent hat stand in a dwelling he broke into, and myself. I will add that I do not believe his admiration of my person, dazzling though I am, to be sincere. He told me I was a beautiful, sparkling lady. Then he abruptly collapsed, naturally in the path of an oncoming train from Dover, and I decided it was well past time to take him home and place him in the bosom of his family. If you had rather I put him in an orphanage, I fully understand.

I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two. I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens. I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together—that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated?

I had a bizarre rapport with this mirror and spent a lot of time gazing into the glass to see who was there. Sometimes it looked like me. At other times, I could see someone similar but different in the reflection. A few times, I caught the switch in mid-stare, my expression re-forming like melting rubber, the creases and features of my face softening or hardening until the mutation was complete. Jekyll to Hyde, or Hyde to Jekyll. I felt my inner core change at the same time. I would feel more confident or less confident; mature or childlike; freezing cold or sticky hot, a state that would drive Mum mad as I escaped to the bathroom where I would remain for two hours scrubbing my skin until it was raw. The change was triggered by different emotions: on hearing a particular piece of music; the sight of my father, the smell of his brand of aftershave. I would pick up a book with the certainty that I had not read it before and hear the words as I read them like an echo inside my head. Like Alice in the Lewis Carroll story, I slipped into the depths of the looking glass and couldn’t be sure if it was me standing there or an impostor, a lookalike. I felt fully awake most of the time, but sometimes while I was awake it felt as if I were dreaming. In this dream state I didn’t feel like me, the real me. I felt numb. My fingers prickled. My eyes in the mirror’s reflection were glazed like the eyes of a mannequin in a shop window, my colour, my shape, but without light or focus. These changes were described by Dr Purvis as mood swings and by Mother as floods, but I knew better. All teenagers are moody when it suits them. My Switches could take place when I was alone, transforming me from a bright sixteen-year-old doing her homework into a sobbing child curled on the bed staring at the wall. The weeping fit would pass and I would drag myself back to the mirror expecting to see a child version of myself. ‘Who are you?’ I’d ask. I could hear the words; it sounded like me but it wasn’t me. I’d watch my lips moving and say it again, ‘Who are you?

It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together—that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated?