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