The sad—the chilling conviction therefore, went to the old man’s heart, that the only being left to solace him on earth, had deserted him; and his spirit was bowed down in despair.

George W M Reynolds, Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf

Hermetic quote Reynolds Wagner despair

Consider also:

  1. “Speak, old man—wouldst thou change thy condition?”
  2. “The dense black clouds were driving restlessly athwart the sky; and when the vivid lightning gleamed forth with rapid and eccentric glare, it seemed as if the dark jaws of some hideous monster, floating high above, opened to vomit flame. And as the abrupt but furious gusts of wind swept through the forest, they raised strange echoes—as if the impervious mazes of that mighty wood were the abode of hideous fiends and evil spirits, who responded in shrieks, moans, and lamentations to the fearful din of the tempest.”
  3. “In this way, Thrones became described as various types of fiery wheels in relation to their function in the chariot of God, as in Ezekiel 1: 15–20: Now as I beheld the living creates, behold one wheel upon the earth by the living creatures, with his four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like unto the color of a beryl: and they four had one likeness: and their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When they went, they went upon their four sides: and they turned not when they went. As for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four. And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Withersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels of the living creature was in the wheels. When those went, these went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.”
  4. “Do not tell me it is too late to be successful or happy. Do not tell me you are sick or broken in spirit, the spirit cannot be sick or broken, because it is of God.”
  5. “Here, she is willing. Stands the Absolute Reaching its arms toward me. I am mute, I draw toward. Oh, suddenly I see The treason-pledge, the royal prostitute. One moment, and I should have passed beyond Linked unto spirit by the fourfold bond. Not dead to earth, but living as divine, A priest, a king, an oracle, a shrine, A saviour! Yet my misty spirit conned The secret murmur: ‘Gereth, I am thine!'”