The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

by Robert Louis Stevenson

“I feel very strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of judgment. You start a question, and it’s like starting a stone. You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his own back garden and the family have to change their name. No sir, I make it a rule of mine: the more it looks like Queer Street, the less I ask.”

There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down-right detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why.

“If he be Mr. Hyde,” he had thought, “I shall be Mr. Seek.”

The evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I had just deposed.

I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome. This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human.

It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery.

Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged. With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow; and it was not till weariness had begun to succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my delirium, struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror.

As the acuteness of this remorse began to die away, it was succeeded by a sense of joy.

the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made my discovery.

insurgent horror was knit to him closer than a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him, and deposed him out of life.