Digression

“ An injury, an offence, like that black blood gradually takes on all the colors,--hate, contempt, anger, self-pity, pain at the wrong, a desire to return evil for evil, and again to let all go to wreck and ruin. ”

“ For if thou chance to close thy eyes for ever, a victim to the maddened attack of the men-at-arms; -- by whatsoever doom thy breath be cut off, by sword or disease, by sea or soil, I forswear every wanton and corrupt flame, and vow myself to a death like thine; that they who were bound by one marriage-union may be embraced in one and the same punishment. ”

“ In his revolt, he could have called his eyes liars for presenting his wife to him in another man’s arms, and before he could see through the haze that clouded his vision, she was standing erect and staring at him with a dignity that defied either his suspicions or his revenge. ”

“ Whence it comes to pass, that in their results we have sometimes found the same spirit of cruelty and revenge, of malice and pride, the same blindness and obstinacy and unsteadiness, the same ungovernable rage and anger, the same injustice, sophistry, and fraud, that ever lodged in the breast of any individual. ”

“ Men in the heat of argument would suddenly break into abuse and invective, and then it was but a short step to blows, which if from fists would matter little, but when struck with sharp, shining blades became quite another matter. ”

“ If a list could be prepared of the people against whom some lunatic at large has sworn to be revenged for a grievance which exists solely in the imagination of the aggressor, it would be a very alarming document. ”

“ A RULE OF LIFE
‘If you want to annoy an opponent thoroughly, and even to harm him,’ said a crafty old knave to me, ‘you reproach him with the very defect or vice you are conscious of in yourself. Be indignant ... and reproach him!
‘To begin with, it will set others thinking you have not that vice.
‘In the second place, your indignation may well be sincere.... You can turn to account the pricks of your own conscience. ”

“ We have never gone out of our way to look for trouble, being more inclined to attend to our own affairs than to oversee those of our neighbors, and, yet, when, repeatedly, gross acts of injustice and cruelty have been forced under our observation, we have, at times, been aroused to a state of what we have honestly believed to be righteous indignation, and, in these circumstances, we have conducted ourselves in accordance with our ability and the fervor of our convictions. ”

“ No one more sincerely regrets the insults offered his person, and the injury done to his property; but I cannot restrain my indignation, when I hear the public virtue, that so promptly recoils from undue violence, stigmatized as time-serving conwardice. ”

“ And they did tear their hair in the violence of their rage; and with their mouths they did utter terrible sayings.
13 And they did say, Are we, then, women of Hu that we should do this wicked thing? Nay, the price of a virtuous woman, it is far above fifty shekels of gold.
14 ¶ And after they had vented the violence of their indignation, then was the matter expounded unto them; and their anger, it was appeased.
15 ¶ Now it came to pass that the rulers did make them councillors for to be over the fighters of the air. ”

“ When their evil passions are roused, they scold, yell, and shake these sticks in defiance. They beat the ground with them, stamp savagely, and at last, throwing off their rugs, approach each other and begin the encounter. ”

“ If this is really accomplished and some positive fact is established in the self-accusation, the question becomes one of finding the value seen by the confessor in blaming himself together with his fellow. Revenge, hatred, jealousy, envy, anger, suspicion, and other passions will be the forces in which this value will be found. One man brings his ancient comrade into jeopardy in revenge for the latter’s injustice in the division of the booty, or in deliberate anger at the commission of some dangerous stupidity in a burglary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Visionary terrors heighten the doubts, that he, for whose sake she endures all this, holds the sacrifice light. The domestic persecution—persecution the hardest to bear—goes on, eyes that once looked love, now turn on her in anger or disdain. ”

“ But unfortunately, when you are dealing with crimes of violence, moral suasion and gentle treatment produce nothing more poignant in the bosom of your adversary than a sensation of amused and derisive contempt. ”

“ Violence? Yes, but such acts were usually the result of sudden anger or of a feeling that under the conditions then existing each man must right his own wrongs or they would never be righted. Their ideas of right and wrong were peculiar, but they had such ideas nevertheless. I knew a young man who was well liked and had good prospects, who violated confidence and attempted to betray his benefactor. ”

“ Recently, when you have laid violent hands upon my person, and endangered my life, I said it was violence of temper, not malignity of heart, and I resolved, for your sake and mine, to keep our secret, and to bear with it. ”

“ And if acts, savouring of sheer revenge, were done by them, they should be regarded as but the ebullitions of men, under the excitement of great and damning wrongs, and which, in their dispassionate moments, they would condemn, even in themselves. ”

“ And yet, the women felt that if they broke out into loud-voiced complaints, there was danger that the men might be goaded into some act of violence, and if once this was done there was no telling what the end might be. ”

“ Such wrongs as that are indeed perpetrated every day in the year, on a large or a small scale. But once in a while Fate furnishes an example of how two such transgressors against the honor of their houses and against the property of another may oppose each other, and then these will unfailingly fight to the death and devour one the other like two savage beasts. ”

“ But the example is to be admitted to be equivocal. A more decisive argument is afforded by a consideration of the universal connexion of ferocity of manners, and a contempt of social ties, with the contempt of human life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is sufficiently clear that revenge, retaliation, atonement, expiation, are rules and motives, so far from deserving a place in any enlightened system of political life, that they are the chief sources of a prodigious class of miseries in the domestic circles of society. ”

“ For, from the beginning of the fourth month they had begun to make themselves hated and to be disorderly in the land; committing outrages, and molesting and harassing the nobles and ladies; and thenceforward my people rose up and besought me to part with them, and they bade me to choose between them and my dominions. ”

“ On the contrary, when we gaze upon the progress of the vicious and the criminal, however successful and prosperous in their brief space of action, to contempt and indignation, to disgust and horror, are added the same consciousness of a hereafter, and the certainty of an awful retribution. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The essence of aggression, the reason that it is forbidden, is that it causes pain. Pain, even when caused by, or a concomitant of, properly limited liberty, is in itself a wrong,—an antagonist of personal or social progress. If aggression were uniformly pleasant, it would be regarded as commendable. ”

“ Boasting and puffing up of self which are the result of anger or vainglory, are not the direct but the occasional cause of quarrels or strife, because, when a man resents another being preferred to him, his anger is aroused, and then his anger results in quarrel and strife. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With terms of defiance, the victim, in those solemn trials, commonly excites the animosities of his tormentors, as well as his own; and whilst we suffer for human nature, under the effect of its errors, we must admire its force. ”

“ I must have been mad to allow myself to be carried away so,” says she, gazing into the glass, which reflects back to her eyes the burning glance by which she appears to interrogate herself. “No violence; violence is the proof of weakness. ”

“ Is it possible that torments and useless cruelty, the instrument of furious fanaticism, or the impotency of tyrants, can be authorised by a political body? which, so far from being influenced by passion, should be the cool moderator of the passions of individuals. ”

“ The curses, the complaints, and reproaches for all the crimes, all the violence, all the oppression perpetrated in his name, are entirely thrown upon him, while his situation and occupation do not admit the seeing and hearing everything and everybody himself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ How many fall from Affluence to Want, from Splendor to a Goal, thro’ the Inveteracy of Revenge! Not all the Concessions of the opposite Party, not all the Tears of his Wife, nor the impending Ruin of his Children, can appease the Revengeful: Savage-like, he quits not his Hold till his Fury is glutted, till his Adversary is destroyed. Besides these, there are many other Species of Revenge, less obvious indeed, but perhaps not less criminal: there are Men whose Fury is less, but whose Malice is equal: Men with cooler Heads, but with inveterate Hearts. ”

“ If the aggression be prompted by the mere pleasure of aggression, the delight in violence of a past type, the reasonable course is to regard the aggressor as a diseased man, on a par with a lunatic, or delirium tremens patient. ”

“ All harshness and severity of judgment, all angry looks, resentful feelings, and evil speaking, all impatience, discontent, discord and moroseness, should be banished thence as so many malignant fiends. ”

“ The greatest crimes are regarded as mere transgressions of some arbitrary order. If such persons come in conflict with individuals, then, hatred, envy, and revenge take the place of coldness and negation, and their brutality and indifference to others know no bounds. ”

“ If we are reminded here and there of national exploits, such are for the most part conflicts waged against foreign aggressors, expeditions of pillage, reprisals of savagery with savagery, or deeds of one individual against another in the same people, in the narration of which lament and dejection or ecstatic jubilation over one conqueror after another, are the moods throughout prevailing. ”

“ No violent outbursts of indignation on your part, no abusive words, no insulting language are reported to me: which, while quite alien to culture and refinement, are specially unsuited to high power and place. For if your anger is implacable, it amounts to extreme harshness ”

“ Hence it necessarily follows that all accusations concern the State or the individual, the accused having acted either ignorantly and against his will, or voluntarily and with knowledge, and in the latter case with malice aforethought or from passion. We will speak of anger when we come to treat of the passions, and we have already stated in what circumstances and with what dispositions men act with deliberate purpose. ”

“ Often the fierceness of his temper, the righteous indignation that swelled his bosom, impelled him to hurl defiance at his foes, and to use language, the possible consequences of which, caused the more timid and abject of his followers, to tremble with apprehension. ”

“ Their determination to persist in extremity of wrong only brought on themselves repeated defeat, disaster, and dismay: the accumulated aggressions their infuriated pride and disappointed malice meditated against others, returned in just and aggravated punishment upon themselves: they heaped coals of fire upon their own heads ”

“ An angry child stamps, or rolls on its back and kicks its heels in the air; and in manhood, anger, first showing itself in frowns, in distended nostrils, in compressed lips, goes on to produce grinding of the teeth, clenching of the fingers, blows of the fist on the table, and perhaps ends in a violent attack on the offending person, or in throwing about and breaking the furniture. ”

“ We might now proceed with our speculation, and, progressively developing it from the same point of view, extend and apply it to the aggressive passions, which are based on a merely negative pursuit—the attack, annihilation, and destruction of their objects. I allude to the passion of hatred, in its three different elements or species, viz., anger, malice, and revenge. ”

“ There the great black creature lay, his face sullenly turned to the wall. What should I do? My instinct told me what. And here I recall the complexity of feelings I experienced: the shrinking from him at the recollection of his brutal rage; the thought that I had calmed that rage somewhat, and could still more if I could conquer my repugnance. Then came the recognition that I could only do it by exerting my power as a woman over him—the [Pg 303] discovery of a power that shortly before had made me sick with remorse. ”