things that are happening before its eyes, of course it is shallowly
happy. And on the other hand, he who does see them, and is not
amiable, is grimly and Grendally happy. He likes to say disagreeable
things, and all this dismay and disaster scatter disagreeable things
broadcast along his path, so that all he has to do is to pick them up
and say them. Therefore this world is his paradise. He would not know
what to do with himself in a world where matters were sorted and folded
and laid away ready for you when you should want them. He likes to see
human affairs mixing themselves up in irretrievable confusion. If he
detects a symptom of straightening, it shall go hard but he will thrust
in his own fingers and snarl a thread or two. He is delighted to find
dogged duty and eager desire butting each other. All the irresistible
forces crashing against all the immovable bodies give him no shock,
only a pleasant titillation. He is never so happy as when men are
taking hold of things by the blade, and cutting their hands, and losing
blood. He tells them of it, but not in order to relieve so much as to
"aggravate" them; and he does aggravate them, and is satisfied. O, but
he is an aggravating person!
It is you, you who combine the heart of a seraph with the head of a
cherub, who know what trouble is. You see where the shoe pinches, but
your whole soul shrinks from pointing out the tender place. You see
why things go wrong, and how they might be set right; but you have a
mortal dread of being thought meddlesome and impertinent, or cold and
cruel, or restless and arrogant, if you attempt to demolish the wrong
or rebel against the custom. When you draw your bow at an abuse,
people think you are trying to bring down religion and propriety and
humanity. But your conscience will not let you see the abuse raving to
and fro over the earth without taking aim; so, either way, you are cut
to the heart.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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