But if I find them giving themselves airs, or monopolizing my father, or at all ill-treating him, or worrying him with their artistic
beastliness, I intend to put my foot down, yes, firmly.
Fielding and Smollett could portray the
beastliness of their day in the beastliest language; we have plenty of foul subjects to deal with in our day, but we are not allowed to approach them very near, even with nice and guarded forms of speech.
Oh, the
beastliness! And it isn't the
beastliness of it that matters most!
Now he was seized with a desire to do horrible, sordid things; he wanted to roll himself in gutters; his whole being yearned for
beastliness; he wanted to grovel.
And this far for the cruelty committed, to give occasion unto others, and to such as hate the monstrous dealing of degenerate nobility, to look more diligently upon their behaviuours, and to paint them forth unto the world, that they themselves may be ashamed of their own
beastliness, and that the world may be advertised and admonished to abhor, detest, and avoid the company of all sic tyrants, who are not worthy of the society of men, but ought to be sent suddenly to the devil, with whom they must burn without end, for their contempt of God, and cruelty committed against his creatures.
And not only did Borckman sense it, but it served as a spur to drive him back into primitive
beastliness, and to fight to master this puppy as a primitive man, under dissimilar provocation, might have fought with the members of the first litter stolen from a wolf-den among the rocks.
"But you, who have opened the books and who share my awful confidence--you know him for what he is, brother to you and the dust, a cosmic joke, a sport of chemistry, a garmented beast that arose out of the ruck of screaming
beastliness by virtue and accident of two opposable great toes.
The desires for the good grub and soft beds ashore which a handsome pay-day brings them--the women and the drink, the gorging and the
beastliness which so truly expresses them, the best that is in them, their highest aspirations, their ideals, if you please.
All life had turned to rottenness and stench in them--love was a
beastliness, joy was a snare, and God was an imprecation.
Where is the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undismayed by his
beastliness?' And He will say, 'Come to me!
"All these texts," observes Reid-Pharr, "demonstrate Delany's interest in what one might call the
beastliness of human sexuality, the ways that our sexual desires and practices represent not only our need for affection and companionship but also an unquenchable fascination with violence and degradation" (129).
The selection of essays in the second part reflects the editor's particular interest in "radical evil." Kontos himself compares the radical or extreme evils identified by Aristotle in human individuals and communities respectively:
beastliness (theriotes;) in the one, complete breakdown of the rule of law in the other.