102
" No longer mourn for me when I am dead
than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
give warning to the world that I am fled
from this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:
nay, if you read this line, remember not
the hand that writ it, for I love you so,
that I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
if thinking on me then should make you woe.
O! if, I say, you look upon this verse
when I perhaps compounded am with clay,
do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
but let your love even with my life decay;
lest the wise world should look into your moan,
and mock you with me after I am gone.
"
― William Shakespeare , Shakespeare's Sonnets
107
" 8 April 1891
The obscenity of nostrils and mouths; the ignominious cupidity of smiles and women encountered in the street; the shifty baseness on every side, as of hyenas and wild beasts ready to bite: tradesmen in their shops and strollers on their pavements. How long must I suffer this? I have suffered it before, as a child, when, descending by chance to the servant's quarters, I overheard in astonishment their vile gossip, tearing up my own kind with their lovely teeth.
This hostility to the entire race, this muted detestation of lynxes in human form, I must have rediscovered it later while at school. I had a repugnance and horror for all base instincts, but am I not myself instinctively violent and lewd, murderous and sensual? Am I any different, in essence, from the members of the riotous and murderous mob of a hundred years ago, who hurled the town sergeants into the Seine and cried, 'String up the aristos!' just as they shout 'Down with the army!' or 'Death to the Jews! "
― Jean Lorrain , Monsieur De Phocas