For really it was the refinement of civilized cruelty, this spick, span, and ingenious affair of shining leather and gleaming steel, which hoisted you and tilted you and fitted reassuringly into the small of your back and cupped your head tenderly between padded cushions. It ensured for you a more complete muscular relaxation than any armchair that you could buy for your own home: but it left your tormented nerves without even the solace of a counter-irritant. In the old days the victim's attention had at least been distracted by an ache in the back, a crick in the neck, pins and needles in the legs, and the uneasy tickling of plush under the palm. But now, too efficiently suspended between heaven and earth, you were at liberty to concentrate on hell. .Jan Struther
About This Quote
In the old days victims of a hanging would be given a chance to prepare. They would be given a shot of ether and they would be tied up in a chair with a rope or rope around their necks, giving them time to drift into unconsciousness. Then their executioner would hoist them up into the air by the rope around their necks and drop them, with a sickening thud. In this quote, the author is describing the way in which modern hanging has been greatly improved over the old method.
The condemned person will now be hanged in an efficient and comfortable chair, and not simply dropped through a trapdoor onto a trap door below. However, aside from the comfort of the chair, one cannot help but feel that there is something else missing: an ache in the back, a crick in the neck, pins and needles in the legs, and the uneasy tickling of plush under the palm.
Source: Mrs. Miniver
Some Similar Quotes
- I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but...
- If pain must come, may it come quickly. Because I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him...
- The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.
- Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart.
- One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.
More Quotes By Jan Struther
- ...[A] certain degree of un-understanding (not mis-, but un-) is the only possible sanctuary which one human being can offer to another in the midst of the devastating intimacy of a happy marriage.
- A single person is a manageable entity, whom you can either make friends with or leave alone. But half of a married couple is not exactly a whole human being: if the marriage is successful it is something a little more than that; if unsuccessful,...
- [M]rs. Miniver was beginning to feel more than a little weary of exchanging ideas (especially political ones) and of hearing other people exchange theirs. It's all very well, she reflected, when the ideas have had time to flower, or at least to bud, so that...
- ..[F]ireworks had for her a direct and magical appeal. Their attraction was more complex than that of any other form of art. They had pattern and sequence, colour and sound, brilliance and mobility; they had suspense, surprise, and a faint hint of danger; above all,...
- For really it was the refinement of civilized cruelty, this spick, span, and ingenious affair of shining leather and gleaming steel, which hoisted you and tilted you and fitted reassuringly into the small of your back and cupped your head tenderly between padded cushions. It...