Hunger
George Franklin
Themoment seems due. Fashion had better take care. Beggars can spit very venomously. Weird-looking jumbles of bones in rags are leering and grinning, jostling and hustling very defiantly. Men are blowing their noses on doorsteps and wearing their hats in church. Hunger is no more passive. Time comes, and with it the fulfillment of every destiny prophesied by a fact. Hunger is sickly till Frenzy quickens it. Hunger has no brain, and does not consider. It curses and swears, is blear-eyed and croaks. It sneers, mocks, jeers, coughs. It spits and throws filth on fine linen. It pours out from cesspool haunts and stinks out the most respectable of neighborhoods. Hunger has no morality—is devoid of all shame. In highest moods hungry knaves will hurl stones, smash windows, pinch, eat, drink, tear down altars, stretch the necks of the Respectable between the head and the shoulders, use guns, laugh, grin, joke, mock, stick grass in mouths of their victims, use pikes, uproot bastiles, and without ceremony lop off heads with every consecutive second of the clock. Hunger startles the world from its slumber, with a shock. Beware, Friends! Hunger is lynx-eyed and sees behind every fact. It sniffs and can smell out anything suspicious. Hunger will hurt no man except he smell or look a little of Tyranny. Does Tyranny wear a powdered wig, talk good French and say “Monsieur”—Hunger looks, sniffs, finds it, and sends its head rolling into a bushel basket. Does it look like a New York banker, have crease in pants, talk grammatical English, wear gold chain, wipe nose with clean handkerchief, wear feathered plumes and fashionable gowns—Hunger noses it out and despatches it without delay. Respectability with its disdain; Education with its stupidity; Fashion with its vanity; Wealth with its luxury; all exhale the same odor to the sniffings of Hunger. When Hungersniffs, it is time for Fashion to drape itself in rags and give to its body a smell of dung. If Hunger cannot taste food, it will drink blood. There is only one passion stronger than Love—Hatred. Love will Sacrifice, but Hatred will live, though it torture the world with all the machinations of hell. Hatred and Hunger are dogs of the same kennel.... Hunger Hounds, starved, snarling, bloodshot eyes, fangs bared, straining at their chains—Friends, Beware!... Hunger—lean, bony, naked, and grimy—with talons and claws. Hunger with fever and mad. Hunger goaded. Hunger grinning. Hunger in consort with Death. Hunger—hideous, impalpable. Hunger that cannot die. Hunger, blood-smeared, ghastly, and sallow, with rotting teeth. Hunger that spits and leers. Hunger—devilish nightmare to all Tyrannies. Hunger, the fiendish torment of all Fashions and Respectabilities. Hunger without Reason—mad and demoniac. Hunger! Hunger! Hunger! Hunger! Friends, Beware! The moment seems due. Time will fulfill the destiny of a Fact.
To follow the impulses of my heart is my supreme law; what I can accomplish by obeying my instincts, is what I ought to do. Is that voice of instinct cursed or blessed? I do not know; but I yield to it, and never force myself to run counter to my inclination.—Richard Wagner.
To follow the impulses of my heart is my supreme law; what I can accomplish by obeying my instincts, is what I ought to do. Is that voice of instinct cursed or blessed? I do not know; but I yield to it, and never force myself to run counter to my inclination.
—Richard Wagner.