Animosity

“ But, it seems, the inventor of that maxim happened to be a little wiser than I, who lived to see this friendship first degenerate into indifference and suspicion, and thence corrupt into the greatest animosity and hatred; contrary to all appearances, and much to the discredit of me and my sagacity. By what degrees, and from what causes, their dissensions grew, I shall, as far as it may be safe and convenient, very impartially relate. ”

“ Everything is interconnected and interdependent. It is true that strife and animosities may be exaggerated, and so may peace. But whatever blame attaches to this, refers only to the exaggeration. It is not the animosity, but the excessive animosity which deserves censure. By recognizing the logical interconnection between peace and strife, the dispute of the parties is rendered saner. ”

“ Thus in the highest position there is the least liberty of action; and it becomes us to indulge neither partiality nor aversion, but least of all animosity; for what in others is called resentment, is in the powerful termed violence and cruelty. ”

“ Neither man ever mentioned it—their tongues were clenched between their teeth and they held themselves in check with harsh hands—but it was constantly in their minds, nevertheless. No man who has not suffered the manifold irritations of such an intimate association can appreciate the gnawing canker of animosity like this. ”

“ My reason—I will not say my excuse:—is that I have visited our late enemies' need and in the presence of human agony animosity dies. One ceases to question how far their suffering is the outcome of their folly ”

“ Nay, so strong is this temper of rivalry, of allowing no superiors, grown in us, that we have made now-a-days a god of what used to be considered the basest of all vices—the vice of envy—and dignify it with the names of equality and independence. Men in this temper of mind cannot be at peace. ”

“ I cannot bear your horse races and theatres, and this rage for rivalry in expense and party spirit. We unharness, and harness ourselves on the other side, we neigh against each other, we almost beat the air, as they do, and fling the dust towards heaven, like those which are excited; and under other masks satisfy our own rivalry, and become evil arbiters of emulation, and senseless judges of affairs. ”

“ Shall we, for any vexation, provocation, or in jury, tolerate within ourselves that baleful agent which has so often wrought misery, sown discord and disunion, arrayed brother against brother, and friend against friend, sundered the bonds of man's fellowship to man, desolated kingdoms, and covered the face of the earth with blood? ”

“ A tender and pleasant feeling insinuated itself into their souls, and the least opposition turned it into an impetuous fury: with love arose jealousy; discord triumphed, and human blood was sacrificed to the gentlest of all passions. ”

“ But such animosities, as insignificant and trifling as they may be among themselves, are yet of the last importance to their enemies, by giving them many fair opportunities of falling upon them, and reducing them to misery and slavery. ”

“ And there will be terrible companions, or rather foes, there. Eternal longings after society, but no companion, no love, and no sympathy there. Every one utterly selfish, hateful, and hating. Every one cunning, false, malignant, fierce, fell, and devilish. All commingle in the confusion and the carnage of one wide-spread, pitiless, truceless, desperate strife. And there will be terrible sights and sounds there. ”

“ Triumph over his malice by your manners and by your silence: you will heap living coals upon his head; you will gain the public on your side, you will leave nothing to your enemy but the infamy of his passion and of his impositions. ”

“ Happily the period of hostile rivalry appears passing away. The history of by-gone centuries is not the history of friends and brethren. We have met in bloody bravery, to exchange hatred for hatred and injury for injury. ”

“ It was to be expected that old animosities would be raked open, that would forever disturb the peace of society, when they took their stand beside their injured neighbors, weeping the loss of a father, a husband, or a son, who had perished in the dreadful conflict, many of them by the hands of a class of men now thrown back on their wounded feelings. ”

“ The darker passions of treachery, revenge, cherished animosities, cunning watchfulness for opportunity to gratify a grudge, and the practice of dissimulation were, of course, as human proclivities, found in their full power among the men of the woods. ”

“ You must leave that secret hatred, anger, and desire of revenge you have hitherto entertained against your neighbor, whom you could not bear to look at, or to speak a kind word to, and you must be reconciled to him from your heart. ”

“ But consider that man is over [105] against his enemy, with a mind like unto a walled city filled with armed men. Consider how in life's conflicts, thoughts become the swords of anger, the clubs of envy, stings for hissing hatred. ”

“ Any one answers too well for me, if he answers what I say: when the dispute is irregular and disordered, I leave the thing itself, and insist upon the form with anger and indiscretion; falling into wilful, malicious, and imperious way of disputation, of which I am afterwards ashamed. 'Tis impossible to deal fairly with a fool: my judgment is not only corrupted under the hand of so impetuous a master, but my conscience also. ”

“ If they begin with reason, they are commonly moved, in the last degree, by their animosities instead of reason. And as animosities are blind, they, of course, see nothing to respect, nothing to spare. ”

“ Is it wise to kindle new and bitter animosities in the breasts of those who now seem to be upon the point of losing the old ones, and to do that just at a period of time when you cannot expect much longer to withhold from them the power to act upon those new animosities? ”

“ Beneath a gentlemanly exterior, that other, whom we have seen depart from her side under such peculiar circumstances, hid a spirit of petty meanness and violence of temper, a soul that hardly merited the name, and which made him enemies everywhere, friends nowhere. ”

“ We may safely hope, that the souls of the brave and sincere on either side have long looked down with surprise and pity upon the ill-appreciated motives which caused their mutual hatred and hostility while in this valley of darkness, blood, and tears. ”

“ Such discord has been the effect of the unanimity into which so many have of late been seduced or bullied, or into the appearance of which they have sunk through mere despair. They have been told that their dissent from violent measures is an encouragement to rebellion. ”

“ CONSEQUENCES.—THE MACREADY CONTROVERSY AND RIOT.
Few persons have any adequate idea of the prevalence, the force, the subtile windings of envy and jealousy among men, especially among those classes into whose life the principle of rivalry directly enters. The more patiently and profoundly any one studies the workings of these passions in his own soul, the larger will be his estimate of the part they play in society. ”

“ Whatever their hostility is all about is a mystery to me, the innocent object of sundry scowls and angry gestures. One individual contemplates me for a minute with unconcealed aversion, and then breaks out into a torrent of angry words and excited gestures. ”

“ But if the adversaries become heated in the dispute, which always happens, when they suppose the matter important, or when they would defend the cause of their own self-love; from thence their passions sharpen, they grow angry, quarrels are provoked, they hate each other, and end by reciprocal injury. ”

“ Alarm for their lives, hatred and distrust of each other, or the lust of power, might make them confederate with us for the purpose of the moment. To this they might also be induced by that arrogant confidence, which is ever the concomitant of ignorance. They might hope to direct or command those with whom they had combined to destroy their enemies. ”

“ That discord breeds malignant, treacherous, and violent tempers to fill the magistracy. Are men, rendered miserable, by such evil moral qualities, the best agents for rendering a nation virtuous and happy? ”

“ There they vent their slander, calumny, and malice against me and the whole quarter, to the disturbance of the peace of the neighbourhood, and the promotion of dissension. Some they threaten, others they frighten; and, in short, would be lords paramount, and have every one govern himself according to their caprice, though they know not how to govern themselves. ”

“ To those of us who normally feel loyal to the nation, such a disloyal sentiment brings sharp indignation. As an index of our own sentiment and our own happy relations to the nation, this indignation has value. ”

“ Outside on the pavements with hundreds of like-excited men, with angry discussions and bitter recitals of complaints, the seeds of discord sown some time since, perhaps, sprout afresh, blossom and bear fruits. ”

“ Hatred and resentment on one side, mistrust and anger on the other, will finally result in a violent and terrible collision, especially when there exist elements interested in having disturbances, so that they may get something in the excitement, demonstrate their mighty power, foster lamentations and recriminations, or employ violent measures. ”

“ When an enemy reproaches us, let us look on him as an impartial relator of our faults; for he will tell us truer than our fondest friend will, and we may forgive his anger, whilst we make use of the plainness of his declamation. ”

“ There may be some, my lords, that will impute this absurdity of our conduct, this disregard of our interest, this desertion of our alliances, and this neglect of the most apparent opportunities of success, not to cowardice, but treachery; a cause more detestable, as more atrociously criminal. ”

“ The negociations of the late inglorious peace and the excise, will haunt him wherever he goes, and the terrors of the just resentment which he must be sure to meet from a brave and insulted people, and which must finally crush him, will be for ever before his eyes. ”

“ I will add only one sentiment more of that character—that is, nourish peace with their persons, but war against their manners. Every step we take towards the adoption of their manners is a step to perfect misery. ”

“ Men, who had always been peaceable and law abiding, seemed suddenly inspired with a mania for the murder, plunder and destruction of all who did not adhere to their opinions. Friends became enemies, neighbors looked upon each other with cold suspicion or expressed open hostility. ”

“ But though you cannot suffer as you deserve, you shall suffer all that an enemy can honorably inflict, that your example may teach others to observe the peace and alliance between our Kings which you have so perfidiously violated. ”

“ Here unhappily all evil influences seem to meet concentred; here, of all places, may jealousy and heat evolve itself. These many months, accordingly, man has been set against man. Washed against Unwashed; Patriot Soldier against Aristocrat Captain, ever the more bitterly: and a long score of grudges has been running up. ”

“ And where a struggle springs up from sheer formal love of fighting, which is also entirely impersonal and indifferent both to the material at issue and to the personal opponent, hatred and fury against the opponent as a person unavoidably increase in the course of the conflict, and probably also the interest in the stake at issue, because these affections stimulate and feed the psychical energy of the struggle. ”

“ Whether a discord is too violent or no, depends on what we have been accustomed to, and on how widely the new differs from the old, but in no case can we fuse and assimilate more than a very little new at a time without exhausting our tempering power—and hence presently our temper. ”

“ They came crowding round her, mocking and snatching and beating; shrieking with rage and spite, and swearing and snarling, for they knew her for their old enemy, that drove them back into the corners, and kept them from working their wicked wills. ”

“ An alliance was thus formed between cunning and ignorance—the cunning few and ignorant many—and no wonder that in a short time, all that was venerable and virtuous and generous, as well as all that had been tyrannical and oppressive, were furiously assailed and beaten to the ground. ”

“ Thus the force of the public and social obligations of life has been impaired, and those kind ties and sympathies, which bind man to man in their several relations, are converted by the poison of infidel principles, into food for malignant feelings, which inwardly rankle in the heart, and which outwardly evince themselves by discontent, distrust, and dislike; and when the opportunity presents itself, by violence, aggression, and outrage. ”

“ That is something like a great number of people I know. They will tear off in their own direction, and drag others after them who wish to go in another direction, and the fire of discord is between them. ”

“ These petty animosities, the offsprings of overgrown wealth, and of its too frequent accompaniments, arrogance and vanity, imperceptibly increased in time into national jealousies and into a political rivalry, of a character dangerous to the well-being of all the republics. ”