Pettiness

“ I only care to see our fellow-creatures rise above pettiness, so that they may accept all God's ordinances with unvarying gratitude. Is it not pitiful to see a grown man trembling and waving his hand with angry disgust when the holy course of Nature is spoken of with gravity and composed resolution? I have seen a stout, strong man who had amassed enormous wealth fly into pettish rage like a spoiled child when a friend spoke to him about the final disposal of his riches. ”

“ We are in some danger of becoming petty in our study of pettiness; there is a terrible Circean law in the background that if the soul stoops too ostentatiously to examine anything it never gets up again. There is no class of vulgar publications about which there is, to my mind, more utterly ridiculous exaggeration and misconception than the current boys' literature of the lowest stratum. ”

“ I think I was a little disappointed in her. I expected then people to be more of a piece than I do now, and I was distressed to find so much vindictiveness in so charming a creature. I did not realise how motley are the qualities that go to make up a human being. Now I am well aware that pettiness and grandeur, malice and charity, hatred and love, can find place side by side in the same human heart. ”

“ What's of significance is sweet, however mistaken; one could make up one's mind to what's insignificant even. But pettiness, pettiness, that's what's insufferable.'
'Pettiness doesn't exist for a man so long as he refuses to recognise it.'
'H'm ... ”

“ The presence of our fellow creatures is a comfort to us when we have been tempted to take the measure of our pettiness. That is a kind of temptation which is always reserved for the best of us to yield to. ”

“ She strove at first to take pleasure in the society of the place; but its frivolities and pettiness of purpose soon wearied that masculine and grasping mind, already made insensible to the often healthful, often innocent, excitement of trifles, by the terrible ordeal it had passed. ”

“ The loss of much that is fine? Perhaps. There are some who think that it will scourge men's souls clean of pettiness, teach them proportion, give them a larger outlook. But is it petty to labour and love? ”

“ They had furtive eyes and weak chins. There was no wickedness in them, but only pettiness and vulgarity. ”

“ She has faults of pettiness that seem impossibly opposed to her large and generous qualities; but with all the disintegrating impulses of variable temperament and contradictory moods, she has a strength of will that gives her character and direction. ”

“ Ah, well, my woman’s vanity is on the rack. Though some troubles may seem petty indeed, I have learned, unfortunately, that in the home there are no petty troubles. For everything there is magnified by incessant contact with sensations, with desires, with ideas. ”

“ The petty annoyance, instead of being thrown from us, sits down beside us and becomes a sorrow, and the little offense is brooded over till, in the hot-bed of rumination, it grows into a great injury, under whose poisonous shadow springs up hatred and revenge. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The petty cares and worries concerning matters not worth a moment's thought, the mean desires and fears with which we disfigure ourselves, fell from them. There came to them broader thought, a wider charity, a deeper pity. Their love grew greater even than their needs, overflowing towards all things. ”

“ It is the philosophy of disenchantment, and about the book hangs the inevitable atmosphere of defeat, of mortification, of unheroic resignation. It is life, commonplace, quotidian life, and truth is stamped on its portals. All is vanity and vexation of spirit. The tragedy of the petty has never before been so mockingly, so menacingly, so absolutely displayed. ”

“ You accept the fact that the person is petted and ill-tempered: you regret it and blame it once for all. And after this once you take as of course all new manifestations of pettedness and ill-temper. And you are no more surprised at them, or angry with them, than you are at lead for being heavy, or at down for being light. ”

“ How petty seems the work on which they are hurrying and skurrying! How childishly they jostle against one another and turn to snarl and scratch! They jabber and screech and curse, but their puny voices do not reach up here. ”

“ I am to be pitied, for here am I doing all I can to win the heart of a perverse and stubborn girl, and I meet with nothing but contempt and hate. I am to be pitied. I am a man; I love you, and am defied and repulsed, and fled from as though I had the pestilence, and my house were a plague hospital. ”

“ Our psychological insight does not amount to very much if it does not recognize that there is a form of pity which enhances the pleasure of cruelty. There may indeed be discovered, when we dig deep enough into the abysses of the soul, an aspect of pity which thrills us with a most delicate sensation of tenderness and yet which remains an aspect of pity by no means incompatible with the fact that we continue the process of causing pain to the object of such tenderness. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We pity even strangers, and such as are perfectly indifferent to us: And if our ill-will to another proceed from any harm or injury, it is not, properly speaking, malice, but revenge. But if we examine these affections of pity and malice we shall find them to be secondary ones, arising from original affection; which are varied by some particular turn of thought and imagination.
’Twill be easy to explain the passion of pity, from the precedent reasoning concerning sympathy. We have a lively idea of every thing related to us. All human creatures are related to us by resemblance. ”

“ It was then that began for me a frightful period of sombre misery, the recollection of which suffices to fill me with disgust and humiliation.
Harassed by a feeling that, more than any other, stirs up in man the dregs of his being, I suffered every torture that a woman can make a feeble, passionate, and ever-wakeful soul suffer. The fire of a terrible sensual jealousy, kindled by suspicion, dried up in me every honest source, fed on the dregs deposited in the baser depths of my animal nature. ”

“ She had treated him much as other men, evoking the love of his ardent temperament by that subtle witchery which was second nature to her and which can be such a potent weapon in the hands of a woman whose own emotions remain untouched. And now the thwarted passion of the lover and the savage anger of a man who felt himself deceived and duped broke over her in a resistless storm—an outburst so bitter and so trenchant that for the moment she remained speechless before it, buffeted into helpless, resentful silence. ”

“ Everything that was secreted away in the lower depths of the soul, jealousy, secret hate, lewd curiosity, the malicious instincts inherent in the social animal, would burst forth with all the vehemence and joy of revenge. ”

“ The Harmlessness of Malice.—The aim of malice is not the suffering of others in itself, but our own enjoyment; for instance, as the feeling of revenge, or stronger nervous excitement. All teasing, even, shows the pleasure it gives to exercise our power on others and bring it to an enjoyable feeling of preponderance. Is it immoral to taste pleasure at the expense of another's pain? ”

“ There is with these a softness of deportment and delicacy of expression, an abstinence from all violent and boisterous expressions of their feelings and sentiments, and above all, the entire freedom from petty scandal, which makes them lovely, and to be loved by every honorable and high-bred gentleman who may chance to know them and cultivate their association. ”

“ Thus you will find it among mankind. Weak, mean, petty characters are suspicious, snarling, and petulant. They raise an outcry against their superiors in talents and reputation, of whom they stand in awe, and put on airs of defiance and insolence through mere cowardice. But the truly great are calm and inoffensive. They fear no injury, and offer none. ”

“ Coquetry, affectation, prudery, are imperfections which you never knew. And with all this, do you think it possible not to esteem you above the rest of humankind? What beasts in petticoats are the most excellent of those, whom I see dispersed throughout the world, in comparison of you! On seeing, on hearing them, I say a hundred times a day, speak not, look not, think not, do nothing like those wretches. What a misfortune to be the occasion of bringing down contempt on so many women ”

“ Have you seen a sick animal looking at you pleadingly? Pity is a monster! First one tentacle, then another, and finally one is pulled under and devoured. One should never feel pity. But you were gone. ”

“ The fearful protection from laughter and derision. Ah, full well I can now comprehend her coldness, her antipathy, wretched, wretched woman!" Then, stopping all at once, as though melted by some tender recollection, he resumed, in a hoarse tone, "Aversion! Alas! too well I know its cause. I inspire her with loathing, with disgust!" Then, after a lengthened silence, he cried, in a voice broken by sighs, "Yet, was it my fault or my misfortune? Should she have wronged me thus for a calamity beyond my power to avert? Surely I am a more fitting object for her pity than scorn and hatred." ”

“ What is the use of your alternate sweetness and petulance if it all leads to nothing?”
“How can it lead to anything? I am pleasant to them if things are happening as I like, and I suppose I am petulant if I feel cross. One cannot act on a plan when one is angry.”
“That’s the very thing. You should never exhibit anger or pleasure unless to serve a purpose. You must learn to conceal your feelings.”
“I have never been able to do that hitherto. But what is the purpose which this concealment is to serve?”
“The estrangement of Count Mortimer from M. Drakovics. ”

“ Why, then, are you angry with her, because the poor woman has gone astray in the greatest matters, and has been transformed from a human being into a viper? Why do you not, if anything, rather pity her? As we pity the blind and the halt, why do we not pity those who have been made blind and halt in their governing faculties? ”

“ Petty sorrows vanish—the smaller and selfish desires and aspirations disappear. Into my spirit comes a delicious exultation, as though being with you cleansed my heart and filled my mind with ardent and noble thoughts.... ”

“ Pity can make the human face almost like the face of an angel; there is no emotion that is so transforming. When pride, self-will, and selfishness, resign their sway, and pity, heaven-born and god-like, dawns, all that is mean, and coarse, and earthly, seems to fade before it, to grow dumb and quiet in the calm radiance of its risen fullness. ”

“ Disapproval—calm disapproval—is a better judge in the exercise of "divine selection" than angry antagonism. Pity, as well as love, is a divine attribute, but hate is an attribute of the devil. Pity suggests change of conditions producing inharmonious results. Hate suggests punishment of the victim of the inharmony.
In its relation to personal comfort, the practice of not permitting hate, nor annoyance, nor irritation, nor repulsion to possess one's feelings, will bring greatest good results. ”

“ Yet you are concerned whether the rest of mankind pity you?—Yes, but I do not deserve to be pitied.—And so you are pained at that? And is the man who is pained worthy of pity?—Yes.—How, then, do you fail to deserve pity after all? By the very emotion which you feel concerning pity you make yourself worthy of pity. ”

“ Under fear are comprehended sloth, shame, terror, cowardice, fainting, confusion, astonishment.—In pleasure they comprehend malevolence, that is pleased at another's misfortune, delight, boastfulness, and the like. To lust they associate anger, fury, hatred, enmity, discord, wants, desire, and other feelings of that kind. ”

“ She could not imagine him swept away by any of the petty emotions—the vanities, the jealousies, the small rages, the small passions and loves that made up the petty days of the small creatures who inhabit the world and call it theirs. ”

“ It is the continual petty fret to one’s feelings, and a disregard to the small courtesies of daily life, that we find more galling and more difficult to bear than the open insult: the latter may be atoned for and forgiven, but the former grows like a canker, spreading over and destroying all social relations. ”

“ And then she became dumb, and kissed me with the kisses she alone was able to give, and in comparison with which the caresses of any other woman were but an insipidity.
The constraint and the silence enhanced the furious tension of my nerves. Surprise, the joy of revenge, and, perhaps, a somewhat perverse jealousy inflamed my desires. The elastic firmness of her flesh and the supple violence of the movements wherewith she enveloped me demanded, promised, and deserved the most ardent caresses. ”

“ 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. ”