Iron County register., 1880-01-08
Aptitude for Injury.

A limited number of people possess
what may be called an aptitude for in
iury.. They not only accept it ateyery
turn and receive it at every pore s-but
actually seem to hunt It up and lie in
wait for it. Nothing falls that does not
hit them; nothing breaks that does not
hurt them; nothing happens any way
that they do not reap a golden harvest
of wrong from it. These people are
miserable, as matter of course-that
goes without saying; but they would be
utterly and hopelessly miserable if they
could not At any moment scrape the
substance Of an injury together to solace
some heavy hour FdestitutH of other ex-
citement.y II eornebody has mot back
bitten them, somebody's Just about to
do so; if somebody has not cheated
| them, somebody would like to cheat
| them; and if the number of the ill-in-
! tentioned living is sufficient to feed the
| Appetite for boasted suffering, there is
always an anccstry-fortunate thing =
to fall back upon, whose wrong-doings
have been innumerable, and the results
| of whose wrong doings are incalculable.
1-Of course these injured beings never
do any thing to provoke injury. They
never insinuate or whine; they never
openly or underhandedly charge the. in
hoce1it with outrage they never weary
the patient with, complaining, or repay
good intentions with unceasing re-
proach, 81 ssTlag, theworn till it turns :;
| they never abuse any body's friends !;
they never criticise any body person !;
they never make themselves so disa-
greeable that people avoid them and
escape them in self-defense; and they
are never by any means 50 insolent over
! imaginary injuries that it becomes im-
possible for those having any sehzre-
spect at all to explain the circrImstanees
and do away with the error; they never
in effect do any thing but conduct them
selves like suffering saints waiting for
their translation.@ ysa@ =
Why, then, it may be asked, should
any body want to injure them? But
there is the mystery, the problem they are
always trying to solve, and whose solu-
ton, though they reach it twenty ways,
will never be other than to the satisfac-
ton Of their self-esteem; and they inva-
riably fall back on q comforting belief
that they receive the injury because of
their superior virtues, graces, beauties,
/ opposition. & & Z g
| These people, it may be seen, are
possessed of a singular sort OF folly, If 1t
may be SO mildly denOminated, and it
be not in reality an idiosyncrasy bor-
dering on the nature of insanity. There
is wisdom ordinarily in doing the utmost
to have the world believe you to be well
thought of, held in esteem, and treated
with consideration. If people in general
observe that you have the cOuntenance
of others, you are tolcrably sure to stand
well in their favor; but~if others are
found to regard you rs worth nothing
but injury, the natural inference may be
that nothing but injury is what you de-
serve. 1t is only the beggars that ex-
hibit their sores; and those that have
any common sense with their vanity,
and wish the world to hold whatever is
said or thought of them of consequence,
instead of parading the ill conceit that
others have of them, will take every OPP
portunity of making manifest precisely
| the contrary, and swelling their sclf-im-
pOrtance by the means of it. But no
such idea enters the minds of these un-
fortunates;I their vanity feeds on their
| martyrdOm.
1t is not always, either, that they are
entirely satisfied with the ills they have !;
| ceiving some positive and tremendous
wrong. If somebody would slap their
faces, they would have real exultation;
if their wives would run away, if their
husbands would try to take their lives,
bliss-bliss, that is, OF their melancholy
kind - could hardly go farther with
them. n# SS
In what the enjoyment of this sort of
emotion consists it is not easy to say,
nor even to imagine. If it were in the
exhibition to spectators of the patience
and meekness and fortitude with which
the wrongs, real or imaginary, are
borne, one might gather some compre-
hensisn of it, in view of the self-conl-
placency gratified by such exhibition.
But as the spectators see nothing OF the
sort, but, on the other hand, see every
opposite method used-not fortitude,
but whines, not meeknes, but defiance,
and no other patience than that simu-
lated sort which is a mockery of those
whom it accuses-it remains something
as yet unexplained why there are people
in the world who love tosbe injured, and
who are happier the more injured they
are-people who know that nobody pos
sesses such power Of creating intense
discomfort in the hearts and souls of
those that mean to do right as them
selves, such power to annoy, to humble.
to worry, to sadden, to distress in every
way, and who do not hesitate to exercise
the power to its fullest extent, till one is
ready to declare that there is no such
imp of torment in any home as one of
these saints and martyrs. - Hdrper's
Bazar.