Irascibility

“ Every day I exist, I the more fervently [102] congratulate myself upon having forsaken the deceitful splendour of a false ambition, for wherever I look around among those who belong to that undeservedly honoured section of society I was forced to leave in disgust, I observe so much of envy, inquietude, pride, folly, hatred, ignorance, ambition, and tyranny, I wonder that such things the prejudices of custom can regard with homage. ”

“ Unreason and injustice at the top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason and injustice from beginning to end—if it ever has an end—how should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Canning in postponing the consideration of the breach of privilege supports the inference of the irresponsibility of the individual, for a reason apparent from the very foolish nature of the act itself. ”

“ And here, you may take this passing remark—How much more odious people are who have radical faults, than those who commit, I do not say positive crimes, but occasional weaknesses. Even a noble nature may fall into a great error; but what is that to the ever-enduring pride, envy, malice, and conceit of a little mind? Yes, I would at any time rather be the fallen than the one, so exult over the fall of another. ”

“ The sense of wrong, of hardship, of bitterness, of personal injustice, seems by degrees to melt away from it, and therefore it can be better faced. At least it is well that we should tell ourselves so. ”

“ But what renders your injustice toward the pious still more cruel, is, that it is your own examples, your irregularities, and even your censures, which stagger, weaken, and force them sometimes to imitate you; it is the corruption of your manners which becomes the continual and the most dangerous snare to their innocence; it is those foolish derisions with which you continually assault virtue, that force them reluctantly to shelter themselves under the appearances of guilt. ”

“ You exaggerate their weaknesses, and you make a crime to them of the slightest imperfections; and that is an inhumanity. You turn even their zeal and fervour into ridicule; and that is an impiety. And behold, my brethren, the three descriptions of the world's injustice toward the pious: — an injustice of temerity, which always suspects their intentions; an injustice of inhumanity, which gives no palliation to the slightest imperfections; an injustice of impiety, which, of their zeal and sanctity, makes a subject of contempt and derision. ”

“ And if a man fall into it, there followeth upon it a whole flood of all unhappy mischief: arrogant manner, high solemn bearing, overlooking the poor in word and countenance, displeasant and disdainful behaviour, ravine, extortion, oppression, hatred and cruelty. ”

“ They also err, who arrange habit under consequent power, as that mildness is a command of anger, and that courage and justice are the control of fear and lucre, for the impassive man is said to be courageous and mild, but he is self-controlled, who, when he suffers, is not carried away. ”

“ It is no rare thing for him whose indignation is kindled at a tale of wicked injustice, cruel oppression, base slander, or misery inflicted by unbridled indulgence; whose anger flames in behalf of the injured and ruined victims of wrong; to be in some relation unjust, or oppressive, or envious, or self-indulgent, or a careless talker of others. How wonderfully indignant the penurious man often is, at the avarice or want of public spirit of another! ”

“ 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. ”

“ In order to illustrate the nature of evils of this class, I may take two instances—cruelty and lasciviousness. That these are great intrinsic evils, we may, I think, easily assure ourselves, by imagining the state of a man, whose mind is solely occupied by either of these passions, in their worst form. ”

“ Thus those who commit injustice, yet have the wit or the good fortune to escape the consequences of their actions, climb into the seats of the stronger and share their immunity from moral restrictions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She looked once or twice at him in helpless, appealing misery, but his face now was stern and implacable, he seemed to her to be the presentment of a relentless justice about to fall on an innocent man. ”

“ Envy, anger and avarice reign among some; modesty is banished among others; these abandon themselves to intemperance and sloth, and the pride of these rises to insolence. It is all over; I will dwell no longer among the seven deadly sins."
LE SAGE (Gil-Blas) .
I must take my courage with both hands to continue to unfold before you the events however simple of this simple tale. Already I hear the eternal flock of hypocrites and fools protesting and crying out at outraged morality. I know them, these indignant voices of the defenders of morality. ”

“ May that king live long and no evil befall him!
63. 'A being subject to sorrow, death and sickness, subdued by cupidity and hatred, consumed by his evil actions is a person to be pitied. Who ought to get angry with such a one?
64. 'And should that line of conduct [199] be ever so preferable, O that his sin might ripen (its unavoidable result) in detriment of no other but me! For to people accustomed to pleasure meeting with suffering, even for a short time, is keen and unbearable. ”

“ If these Impressions were Inbred, and the Errors purely their Own, it would be a Point, not only of Good Nature, but of Common Justice, and Humanity, to have a Tenderness for People under an Invincible Mistake: But you have Started the Strongest Argument in the World, against your self here, by Enforcing the Necessity of Clearing the Stage of the Seditious Oracles, that Inspire These Desperate Resolutions. ”

“ It is easy to see that the very ferocity--as it seems to us the utter and inconceivable ferocity--of these enactments is in the main a proof of the pitiable and deplorable weakness of those who passed them, and to this weakness we must look for their excuse, so far as they admitted of excuse at all. ”

“ A morbid sensitiveness, a pitiful lack of moral and mental equilibrium, a consuming pride, and a disgust at his own privileged position which points to a latent reserve of nobility, is legible in every line of this description. ”

“ But the evils that surround us—that come to our knowledge and under our very eyes—are real and tangible and dreadful. So much the more reason for our being here;—but so much the less likely that you, gently reared and delicately cared for, will be allowed to risk your delicate nurture in this land of savages. ”

“ To say nothing of those evils one man brings upon another, as poverty, imprisonment, infamy, dishonesty, racks, snares, treachery, reproaches, actions, deceits--but I'm got into as endless a work as numbering the sands--for what offenses mankind have deserved these things, or what angry god compelled them to be born into such miseries is not my present business. ”

“ But whence the Cause of this strange Misconduct and Omission? It springs, as I take it, from Ignorance, or Inconsiderateness, or Partiality, or Passion, or from all together; but the most frequently of any, from false Tenderness, and blind Indulgence.
Every Man has his own way of judging, and generally abides by it right or wrong. I knew a Gentleman of refined Understanding, who frequently forfeited it, by a boundless injudicious Fondness for his Children. ”

“ Hardened and impenitent sinner! the measure of your iniquity is full: the 321 price of crime has been paid: here shall your spirit dwell for ever, and for ever. You have dreamed away life’s joyous hour, nor made atonement for error, nor denied yourself aught that the fair earth presented you. ”

“ Say to yourself, “For what I suffer I condemn another man, or I accuse the Arch-Invisible, be it a Destiny, be it a Maker!” and the logical sequel is to add evil to evil, folly to folly—to retort on the man who so wrongs, or on the Arch-Invisible who so afflicts you. ”

“ He had seen similar evils to those which we have seen and suffered. “There is an evil which I have seen under the sun as an error which proceedeth from the ruler: folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place. I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.” ”

“ He felt now the smarting anger, the outraged vanity of the wrong-doer who, having argued down his own conscience, and believing he has blinded others as himself, suddenly finds that himself and his motives are naked before the world. ”

“ Thus in a word, to avoid a long detail, those suspicious attachments, loose conversations, ridiculous compliances, and desires of pleasing, too much attended, have filled you with dispositions so nearly allied to guilt and debauchery, that you are no longer capable of resistance against any of their attacks; the corruption prepared by the whole train of your past actions, will be lighted up in an instant; your weakness will overcome your reflection; your heart will go against glory, duty, and yourself. ”

“ He passes from specious civility to impatient rage, to the surly clamor of importunity, to bursts of disappointment, to the livid coldness of a mind made up to vengeance, and the scowling insolence of a summons before the courts. ”

“ Knowing that 'due decorum's' breach foulest disgrace will cause.
Those firm in mind will not slacken in their observance of the proprieties of life, knowing, as they do, the misery that flows from the transgression from them. ”

“ And this pathetic burden of utterly needless misery in great measure consists of that which we heedlessly or maliciously inflict upon one another by making known, with quite inadequate reason, our knowledge or suspicion of the misconduct of other people. ”

“ It would be melancholy, were we forced to admit that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all human misfortunes; that it is this which, in time, draws man out of his original state, in which he would have spent his days insensibly in peace and innocence; that it is this faculty, which, successively producing in different ages his discoveries and his errors, his vices and his virtues, makes him at length a tyrant both over himself and over nature. ”

“ There is an evident intrinsic irrationality, and thereby moral evil, in such sins as intemperance, peevishness, and vanity. But let us take an instance of an act, apparently harmless in itself, and evil solely because of the consequences. ”

“ I see all the captious jealousy of conscious usurpation dreaded, detested, and obeyed—the giddiness and intoxication of splendid but unmerited success—the arrogance, the presumption, the self-will of unlimited and idolized power, and—more dreadful than all in the plenitude of authority—the restless and incessant activity of guilty but unsated ambition. ”

“ THERE are few constitutional misfortunes that lead to more unhappiness and disgrace than a wavering, unsettled disposition. In all its aspects of ambiguous expression, variable opinion, and contradictory behaviour, it is blameable and hideous. It is always open to censure, and is often the parent of deceit, dissimulation, and treachery. ”

“ And though, in my former troubles, I had not shrunk from upbraiding God's providence for oppressing an innocent man, as I called myself, I could not but feel that this new misfortune was the just consequence of my own folly and extravagance. ”

“ There are few, even of the élite, who have ever done it, and they belong to the Moral Aristocracy—the smallest and most rigid in the world. This thing that you're just opening your eyes to, is the rage against restraint that goes with decadence. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You stand, each of you, a striking and awful example to others, of the wickedness which men commit, and the misery which inevitably follows it, when they throw off the restraint of the laws of God and man, and give themselves up to their own unbridled passions. I can only pray that your unhappy example may be the means of preventing all others from treading in your steps. ”

“ If you go on widening and spreading and inflating the privilege, it will presently come to be conceded that each man's sacred things are the only ones, and the rest of the human race will have to be humbly reverent toward them or suffer for it. That can surely happen, and when it happens, the word Irreverence will be regarded as the most meaningless, and foolish, and self-conceited, and insolent, and impudent and dictatorial word in the language. ”