Peevishness

“ Peevishness, indeed, would perhaps very little disturb the peace of mankind, were it always the consequence of superfluous delicacy; for it is the privilege only of deep reflection, or lively fancy, to destroy happiness by art and refinement. But by continual indulgence of a particular humour, or by long enjoyment of undisputed superiority, the dull and thoughtless may likewise acquire the power of tormenting themselves and others, and become sufficiently ridiculous or hateful to those who are within sight of their conduct, or reach of their influence. ”

“ This distemper of the mind seizes them upon the least occasion in the world, and perpetually without any real reason at all ; and by means of it they are plainly, every day, every waking hour of their lives, liable and in danger of running into the most extravagant outrages. Of a less boisterous, but not of a more innocent kind is peevishness ”

“ It is not easy to imagine a more unhappy condition than that of dependance on a peevish man. In every other state of inferiority the certainty of pleasing is perpetually increased by a fuller knowledge of our duty; and kindness and confidence are strengthened by every new act of trust, and proof of fidelity. But peevishness sacrifices to a momentory offence the obsequiousness or usefulness of half a life, and, as more is performed, increases her exactions. ”

“ When any man is so frivolous and vexatious as to make unreasonable complaints, and to harbour undue repinings in his heart, his peevishness will lessen the real good which he possesses, and the sourness of his temper shorten that allowance of comfort which he already thinks too scanty. ”

“ Peevishness is generally the vice of narrow minds, and, except when it is the effect of anguish and disease, by which the resolution is broken, and the mind made too feeble to bear the lightest addition to its miseries, proceeds from an unreasonable persuasion of the importance of trifles. ”

“ It is a violence done to the feelings, and an injury to the character. A life of rigid celibacy, though infinitely preferable to a life of dissipation, is yet fraught with many evils. Peevishness, restlessness, vague longings, and instability of character, are among the least of these. The mind is unsettled, and the judgment warped. ”

“ We therefore revenge our pains upon those on whom we resolve to charge them; and too often drive mankind away at the time we have the greatest need of tenderness and assistance.
But though peevishness may sometimes claim our compassion, as the consequence or concomitant of misery, it is very often found, where nothing can justify or excuse its admission. It is frequently one of the attendants on the prosperous, and is employed by insolence in exacting homage, or by tyranny in harassing subjection. It is the offspring of idleness or pride; of idleness anxious for trifles ”

“ Now moroseness, peevishness, severity, &c. are most apt to arise in those persons who have some real or imaginary superiority over others, from their rank, years, office, accomplishments, &c. which either magnifies the failures of duty in inferiors with respect to them, or engages them to be very attentive to these.—Bodily infirmities, and frequent disappointments, by making the common intercourses of life insipid, and enhancing small injuries; delicacy and effeminacy, by increasing the sensibility both of body and mind, with respect to pain and uneasiness ”

“ I have said the day of petting is past with me, and it should be past with all good men. I heard my leader say, the other day, that he could manage the affairs of this people and of the United States and of Europe with more ease to his mind than he can listen to the little, peevish, trifling complaints that women bring to him. A good deal of it is little peevishness.
What kind of matters do they trouble him with? Why, one woman runs and—"Brother Brigham, my old hen has laid an egg ”

“ Povy, through his prodigious folly, hath brought himself in his accounts, that if he be not a man of a great interest, he will be kicked out of his employment for a foole, is very strange, and that most deservedly that ever man was, for never any man, that understands accounts so little, ever went through so much, and yet goes through it with the greatest shame and yet with confidence that ever I saw man in my life. God deliver me in my owne business of my bill out of his hands, and if ever I foul my fingers with him again let me suffer for it! ”

“ Pepys is that a man should succeed in making himself seem so insignificant when really he must have been a man of considerable character and attainments. Who would guess it who read all these trivial comments, these catalogues of what he had for dinner, these inane domestic confidences—all the more interesting for their inanity! The effect left upon the mind is of some grotesque character in a play, fussy, self-conscious, blustering with women, timid with men, dress-proud, purse-proud, trimming in politics and in religion, a garrulous gossip immersed always in trifles. ”

“ Peevishism or Ill-nature is a lower degree of anger; and is therefore expressed in the above manner, only more moderate, with half sentences, and broken speeches, uttered hastily; the upper lip drawn up disdainfully; the eyes asquint upon the object of displeasure. ”

“ By being peevish?"
Who are the "lemon squeezers of society"? They are people who predict evil, extinguish hope, and see only the worst side,—"people whose very look curdles the milk and sets your teeth on edge." ”

“ Make a clean sweep of the whole matter; eradicate your—what shall I call it?—the cause of your hairiness; make yourself a woman all over, so as not to deceive us, not half-man and half-woman. Whom do you wish to please? Frail womankind? Please them as a man. "Yes, but they like smooth men." Oh, go hang! And if they liked sexual perverts, would you have become such a pervert? Is this your business in life, is this what you were born for, that licentious women should take pleasure in you? ”

“ It may be said that we all of us write such a diary in airy characters upon our brain; but I fear there is a distinction to be made; I fear that as we render to our consciousness an account of our daily fortunes and behaviour, we too often weave a tissue of romantic compliments and dull excuses; and even if Pepys were the ass and coward that men call him, we must take rank as sillier and more cowardly than he. ”

“ Peverell beheld was the sight of two women, no longer young, lost to all sense of foolishness in their behavior, emotionalized beyond control, swept beyond self-criticism by a thing, all young with life, that kicked its bare legs and crowed and bubbled at its lips, then lying still, lay looking at them with great eyes of wisdom as though in wonder at their folly. ”

“ Yet it is necessary just to say that, as documentary evidence concerning the inner life of the court and society, the inconceivable, the unutterable profligacy of the King and his followers, the irresponsibility of those in charge of public affairs, the complete demoralization of the upper classes during the early years of the Restoration, Pepys’s chronicle furnishes a record that we cannot afford to overlook. His simplicity, insouciance, and habitual self-possession are often more telling than the most eloquent descriptions of historians, the most fervid denunciations of moralists. ”

“ He tells me she is a woman of a very bad fame and very impudent, and has told my Lord so, yet for all that my Lord do spend all his evenings with her, though he be at court in the day time, and that the world do take notice of it, and that Pickering is only there as a blind, that the world may think that my Lord spends his time with him when he do worse, and that hence it is that my Lord has no more mind to go into the country than he has. ”

“ Introspective examination shows that when the sexual emotion is awakened, disgust and the sentiments of pride and self respect are suppressed, and the momentarily activating instinct determines all sorts of sophistical reasoning by which the perversion is justified to herself. As soon as the instinct accomplishes its aim it becomes exhausted, and at once intense disgust, meeting with no opposition, becomes awakened and in turn determines once more her right-minded ideas. ”

“ So there come a man with him back of good fashion. He says he saw him with her, which pacified me, but I did soundly threaten him before him, and so to dinner, and then had a little scolding with my wife for not being fine enough to go to the christening to-day, which she excused by being ill, as she was indeed, and cried, but I was in an ill humour and ashamed, indeed, that she should not go dressed. ”

“ First, he started a discourse of a talke he hears about the towne, which, says he, is a very bad one, and fit to be suppressed, if we knew how which is, the comparing of the successe of the last year with that of this; saying that that was good, and that bad. I was as sparing in speaking as I could, being jealous of him and myself also, but wished it could be stopped; but said I doubted it could not otherwise than by the fleete's being abroad again, and so finding other worke for men's minds and discourse. ”

“ How petty will our present age seem in comparison! This fawning for favors and good-will from above, this servile disposition, this envious struggle against one another for the best place, carried on by the lowest and most spiteful means, and, at the same time, suppression of one’s true convictions, concealing of good qualities that might displease those whose favor it sought, emasculation of character, the feigning of opinions and feelings that one does not possess—all these qualities that may be termed cowardice and hypocrisy, are daily becoming more pronounced. ”

“ An accidental word of his will often lay bare a condition of things which lengthy analysis, supported by innumerable references to authorities will hardly make us realize, a few passing 93sentences, penned au jour le jour, having frequently the power of throwing some circumstance, otherwise almost incredible, into sudden and lurid relief. Indeed, the mere fact that the temper of moral indignation is not one to which Pepys often or easily gives way, itself lends added force to all he writes, and intensifies the meaning of his rare exclamations of horror or protest. ”

“ So, also, must the bold, swaggering, assertive, compelling bearing of youth be interpreted. The shy or modish, dandified, lackadaisical cane-carrying youth is naturally disliked as a sexual perversion. ”

“ But pride, vanity, egotism, so unamiable and offensive in private life, are vices which partake of the character of crimes in the conduct of public affairs. The unfortunate victim of these passions cannot see beyond the little, petty, contemptible circle of his own personal interests. ”

“ She laid her hands in her lap, pressing them hotly together, and returned his gaze fearlessly because of her rising anger: "You are given power to lead, the right to lead, and in your stupid self-glorification you step into by-ways hugging your petty vanity. ”

“ I did pity the woman with all my heart, and gave her the best council I could; and so, falling to other discourse, I made her laugh and merry, as sad as she came to me; so that I perceive no passion in a woman can be lasting long; and so parted and I home, and there teaching my girle Barker part of my song "It is decreed," which she will sing prettily, and so after supper to bed. ”

“ Thence to the Old Exchange together, he telling me that he believes there will be no such turning out of great men as is talked of, but that it is only to fright people, but I do fear there may be such a thing doing. He do mightily inveigh against the folly of the King to bring his matters to wrack thus, and that we must all be undone without help. ”

“ But if you are a poor creature—poisoned by a wretched upbringing in some house full of vulgar jealousies and senseless quarrels—saddled, by no choice of your own, with some loathsome sexual perversion—nagged day in and day out by an inferiority complex that makes you snap at your best friends—do not despair. ”

“ Why is it, by the by, that to be pleased with one’s-self is the surest way of offending every body else? If any one, male or female, an evident admirer of his or her own perfections, enter a room, how perturbed, restless, and unhappy every individual of the offender’s sex instantly becomes: for them not only enjoyment but tranquillity is over, and if they could annihilate the unconscious victim of their spleen, I fully believe no Christian toleration would come in the way of that last extreme of animosity. ”

“ However, by a strange contradiction, I felt that I was becoming interested in Madame de Pënâfiel, for the very reason that she occupied so high a position that none of these hateful stories would ever reach her ears. What is the most frightful thing in these society slanders, which attack persons whose importance commands the respect, or rather the base flattery, of every one, is that those in high places live in an atmosphere of lies and hatred, the air they breathe is saturated with falsehood, and yet they are unconscious of it all. ”

“ Can the reader conjure up any worse fate for a youth than to make the startling discovery that he, though extremely conscientious and offenceless, is a type of sexual cripple that has always been regarded by the sexually full-fledged—because of their ignorance and Phariseeism—as the lowest of the low, a monster of wickedness, and an outcast from society? ”

“ If we wish to contend with sexual perversions acquired at an early age, or the precocious development of an unhealthy sexual appetite, this is not to be effected by prudery or vague moral preaching, but by affection and frankness. In this case, evasive replies, combined with so-called strict morals, only lead to estrangement, dissimulation and hypocrisy, and the result is often irreparable. ”