Character and Conduct – 27 April – The Unamiable

OF all mortals none are so awfully self-deluded as the unamiable.  They do not, any more than others, sin for the sake of sinning, but it may be doubted whether, in the hour when all shall be uncovered to the eternal day, there will be revealed a lower depth than the hell which they have made.  They inflict torments with an unconsciousness almost worthy of spirits of light.  The spirit sinks under the prospect of the retribution of the unamiable, if all that happens be indeed for eternity, if there be, indeed, a record of every chilling frown, of every querulous tone, of every bitter jest, of every insulting word, of all abuses of that tremendous power which mind has over mind.  The throbbing pulse, the quivering nerves, the wrung hearts that surround the unamiable;  what a cloud of witnesses is here!  The terror of innocents who should know no fear, the vindictive emotions of dependents who dare not complain, the faintness of heart of lifelong companions, the anguish of those who love;  what an array of judges is here!  The unamiable, the domestic torturer, has heaped wrong upon wrong, woe upon woe, through the whole portion of time which was given into his power, till it would be rash to say that any others are more guilty than he.

HARRIET MARTINEAU.

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