As promised in the process of reading “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” I’ve taken out a few quotes, which by the way was a difficult job since the novella is full of great, great lines, atmospheric and strong words sewn into terrifying or heart aching sentences.
As March tilts to its end, and #NaNoReMo is about to be concluded for this year, one tribute before the finale. If you find any of the following as spoilers, I apologies. No such intention to those who haven’t read it.
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“And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself.”
– Dr. Henry Jekyll
“Between these two, I now felt I had to choose….To cast it in
with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to
become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless.”
– Dr. Henry Jekyll
“…. no, it was in my ownperson that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience.”
– Dr. Henry Jekyll
“If each, I told myself, could be housed in separateidentities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable; the unjustmight go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of hismore upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely onhis upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands ofthis extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus boundtogetherthat in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling.”
– Dr. Henry Jekyll
“A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven, butthe wind was continually charging and routing these embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues of twilight; for here itwould be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glowof a rich, lurid brown, like the light of some strange conflagration;and here, for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and ahaggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths.The dismal quarter of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, withits muddy ways, and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyers eyes, like adistrict of some city in a nightmare.”
– Utterson
Weird fiction & the occasional book review 