Annoyance

“ MAN WITH THE FLOWER: Well, you ought to thank God that you've nothing worse than annoyances!— (A pause.) Some of us, you know, are worse off than that! (A pause.) I'm telling you that I need to attach myself in my imagination to the lives other people lead. But—in my peculiar way—without pleasure—without any real interest, even—in such a way, in fact—yes, just so—in such a way, precisely, as to sense the annoyances they encounter. ”

“ The greatest annoyance, perhaps, is the way in which the servants and effects suffer; a long journey almost invariably knocks up the former for an unconscionable time, and permanently ruins the latter. ”

“ Every one has surely felt, some time or other in life, the insufferable annoyance of having his thoughts and reflections interfered with, and broken in upon by the vulgar impertinence and egotism of some “bore,” who, mistaking your abstraction for attention and your despair for delight, inflicts upon you his whole life and adventures, when your own immediate destinies are perhaps vacillating in the scale. ”

“ It has neither weight nor mental force above it, that it should make the earth tremble. No, monsieur, you are searching for excuses for your annoyance with me. You are annoyed all the time. I vex you by my silence, still more by my speech. ”

“ It is probably exactly at the time when you are too much elated by praise and admiration that you are sent some counterbalancing annoyance, or perhaps suffered to fall into some fault of temper which will lessen you in your own eyes, as well as in those of others. You are often troubled by some annoyance, too, when you have blamed others for being too easily overcome by an annoyance of the very same kind. ”

“ Any recently aroused (and perhaps to some extent legitimate) feeling of annoyance is reinforced by the emotions set free by the stirring up of the still powerful parent complexes of infancy and childhood. ”

“ To let that pass as too fine a speculation, we know well enough that very trifling circumstances do give us great and daily annoyance, and as often prove too much for our philosophy and forbearance, as matters of the highest moment. A lump of soot spoiling a man’s dinner, a plate of toast falling in the ashes, the being disappointed of a ribbon to a cap or a ticket for a ball, have led to serious and almost tragical consequences. ”

“ In the same way, if your special infirmity lies in the temper; if you are easily provoked, or apt to fall into sullenness; if a sudden annoyance excites an uncontrollable passion in your mind, or drops into your heart seeds of bitterness which rapidly grow and become ineradicable; you have your work cut out for you ”

“ What woman ever saw the man she loved out of temper without seeking to pour oil upon the troubled waters, even at the risk of being charged with her sex's constitutional curiosity? for an attempt to soothe includes a desire to fathom the secret cause of annoyance. ”

“ On the contrary, if you forcibly withdraw yourself from any thought respecting the human instrument that has inflicted the wounds from which you suffer or are likely to suffer,—if you look upon the annoyance only as an opportunity of improvement and a message of mercy from God himself,—you will then gradually get rid of all mental irritation, and feel nothing but pity for your tormentors, feeling that you have in reality been benefited instead of injured. ”

“ Then close your eyes and search your mind carefully for situations past, present or anticipated that arouse anger in you. The anger may take the form of any reaction ranging from mild irritation to rage. The degree of the emotion you experience does not matter. You will become increasingly aware that a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury. ”

“ To obtain a vast advantage, at the price of the misery and destruction of another, would not have occasioned him a moment’s remorse, or in any degree have ruffled his equanimity or serenity, but to accomplish that task by the aid of a small knot of low rascals, was the source of extreme annoyance and vexation to him. ”

“ All the petty annoyances of life—a sudden fall, an unlucky [pg 103] word, a headache, a paltry quarrel—were set down to the agency of fiends; and all the fierce emotions that rend the mind—love, hate, jealousy, and madness—were equally the work of these invisible tormentors. Men and women stood in constant danger of them. ”

“ Under present circumstances, any indulged reflection upon the minute features of the offence, and the possible feelings of the offender, will be more likely to increase your irritation than to subdue it; you will not be able to view your own case through an unprejudiced medium, until you have acquired the power of compelling your thoughts to dwell on those features only of an annoyance which may tend to soften your feelings, while you avoid all such as may irritate them. ”

“ Before you crawl in there, stop to think of the annoyance the act may cause not merely to our hunt, but possibly to a wife, otherwise to sisters, friends, or hospital nurses, even, it may be, to an undertaker—though he will not object. ”

“ To feel provoked or exasperated at a trifle, when the nerves are exhausted, is, perhaps, natural to us in our imperfect state. But why put into the shape of speech the annoyance which, once uttered, is remembered ”

“ Usually it is not sufficiently noticeable to cause much annoyance, but occasionally it is, as is demonstrated at night when we take off a shoe with such a sigh of relief that we realize in retrospect it had been vaguely troubling us all day. ”

“ Great annoyance is experienced, by many respectable people being applied to by beggars with letters and petitions, which they buy ready drawn up, and are couched in the most abject terms; stating their sufferings, and exaggerating their privations. ”

“ Its annoyances are all of the small and mean order; its regrets all of a selfish kind; its presence is perpetual; and the scant meal, and the grudged fire, are repeated day by day, yet who can become accustomed to them? ”

“ Once or twice he had looked back, in the uneasy anticipation that he was again about to experience the same mysterious annoyances which had so disconcerted him a week before, and earnestly hoping that he might see some form to account naturally for the sounds. ”

“ The merest accident. I got some soap in my eye and was about to give way to my temper, when I thought to myself that the true poet ought to rise above petty annoyances of that nature—in other words, above mundane things. ”

“ And beneath all the light wit which circulates, beneath all the laughter, which often has a false ring, each retains his or her particular worry, or distress of mind, at times so acute that it becomes perfect agony. ”

“ Phrases like "to sit on thorns," "to be on pins and needles," "to drain the cup of misery to the dregs," show with graphic power the folly and curse of worry. Why should one sit on thorns, or on pins and needles? If one does so accidentally he arises in a hurry, yet in worrying, one seems deliberately, with intent, to sit down upon prickles in order to compel himself to discomfort, distress, and pain. Is there any wisdom, when one has the cup of misery at his lips, in deliberately keeping it there, and persistently drinking it to the "very dregs"? ”

“ The mood is sometimes expansive and benevolent, interruption in the flow of talk may suddenly change the subject of the conversation or the patient may with equal suddenness fly into a violent rage, use foul and obscene language, ending with loud laughter and protestations of eternal friendship. ”

“ A word, a look, nay the very appearance of a slight, throws me into the greatest uneasiness and confusion; and though I can govern my temper enough to hide it from the world, my heart is ready to burst with indignation. ”

“ The deep angry remonstrant eyes, the shaggy eyebrows, telling tales of frequent anger,—of anger frequent but generally silent,—the repressed indignation of the habitual frown, the long nose and large powerful mouth, the deep furrows on the cheek, and the general look of thought and suffering, all combined to make the appearance of the man remarkable, and to describe to the beholders at once his true character. ”

“ When the present feeling of resentment has passed away, when passion has cooled, and reason returned, there will arise some Allison, or some Macaulay, or some Lecky, to trace for our indignant posterity the story of this hour. ”

“ For my own part, I am violent, but not malignant; for only fresh provocations can awaken my resentments. To you, who are colder and more concentrated, I would just hint, that you may sometimes mistake the depth of a cold anger for dignity, and a worse feeling for duty. ”

“ No; we must annoy them if we can. It will always annoy them most, to see us keep an upright position, and a bold face. You stand before the world, and say,—‘Treat me well, if you please, or treat me ill. ”

“ You're not worrying!"
"No, of course not," she answered, with a sudden show of indignation, that he should suspect her of such weakness. "What would I be worrying about?"
"I thought you could n't be. You're too red-headed. Red heads don't worry; they get mad." ”

“ Then indignation and the sense of outraged modesty seized her.
'You must be mad to speak like that!' she said in a voice that trembled with concentrated anger. 'You forget yourself. Be good enough to consider our friendship as suspended till you have recovered your senses and have suitably apologised for this intolerable insult. ”

“ As shame alternately with anger strove The brain, confused with muddy ale, to move, In haste and stammering he perform'd his part, And look'd the rage that rankled in his heart: (So will each lover inly curse his fate, Too soon made happy, and made wise too late:) I saw his features take a savage gloom, And deeply threaten for the days to come. ”

“ Now he was simultaneously moved to anger, to weeping, and to laughter, and he neither wept nor laughed nor stormed. Where then was he to find a word that should express both anger and weeping and laughter? ”

“ Pathetic accents suit a melancholy countenance; words full of menace, an angry one; wanton expressions, a sportive look; and serious matter, an austere one. For nature forms us first within to every modification of circumstances; she delights or impels us to anger, or depresses us to the earth and afflicts us with heavy sorrow: then expresses those emotions of the mind by the tongue, its interpreter. ”

“ His habits of circumgyration, with sudden stops and starts,—his strange air of abstractedness, a sort of excogitative look, apparently puzzled to find something out,—odd way of talking to himself, as if he himself were some other person, saying, “what a noise the fellow makes,” “I think the fellow’s a fool,” and striking his face in apparent anger,—strange mode of mentioning names once familiar to him,—putting a question,—seeming to listen, and giving an answer quite foreign to it, are most striking, and such as no descriptive powers can enable another to conceive, without seeing him. ”

“ Sometimes I am patient, but at other times I break out with anger. Then her own irritation is launched forth in a flood of insults, in charges of imaginary crimes and all carried to the highest degree by sobs, tears, and retreats through the house to the most improbable spots. ”

“ Indeed, we cannot suppress feelings of indignation toward those who presume to deny final causes, and have the rashness to say that the mouth was not made to eat and speak with—that the eyes are not admirably contrived for seeing, the ears for hearing, the nerves for feeling. ”

“ As an angry man after many hard cutting words relents somewhat and speaks calmly if still coldly, so nature, that had been stingingly severe the evening before, was now quietly letting fall a few final hints of the harsh mood that was passing away. ”

“ Noises, especially sudden noises, startle her, and the cries and laughter of children have become distresses of which she is ashamed, and of which she complains or not, as her nature is weak or enduring. ”

“ It may signify rage, or nothing more than the joy of living, and of having a place in which to yell. It is this cry that is uncannily human-like in sound, and when heard for the first time it seems to register anguish. ”

“ Lit up, in the agitation of speaking, by many a harsh or scornful beam, yet always sinking, in moments of repose, to an expression of high-bred melancholy, it was a face that looked, after all, made for suffering—already half pleading, half defiant—as of a creature you could hurt, but to the last never shake a hair's breadth from its estimate of yourself. ”

“ Then, some evening, you will burst into a passion, and, as some trifle affords you a pretext, you will make a scene, in the course of which your anger will make you divulge the secret of your distress. ”

“ You ought to be writing rhymes, and sulking and nursing your own petty thoughts and sensations, and busying yourself with psychological fancies and subtleties of all sorts, but at least don't mistake your sickly, nervous whims and irritability for manly indignation, for the honest anger of a man of convictions! ”

“ He smiled mirthlessly.
"Anger is a peculiar thing," he said. "It burns itself out by its very intensity. When I was finally released, my hatred had vanished, leaving me cold. Only hopelessness remained." ”

“ Deep, chronic pains of the soul, especially if accompanied by a strong exertion of thought—among which I would give a prominent place to that lingering anger which men call indignation—gnaw the very foundations of physical life, and dry up the sap that nourish it. ”

“ This gave his conduct an appearance of fitfulness and caprice, varying suddenly from moodiness to mirth, and from silent gravity to shallow laughter; causing surprise and ridicule in those who were not aware of the sickness of heart which lay beneath. ”