But these things are relics of
the past; they do not belong to the normal, typical life of our time. It
is useless to say that human nature is the same in all ages. That is one
of the facile axioms of psychological incompetence. Far be it from me to
deny that malice, hatred, spite, and the spirit of retaliation are, and
will be until the millennium, among the most active forces in human
nature. But most people are coming to recognize that life is too short
for deliberate, elaborate, cold-drawn revenge. They will hit back when
they conveniently can; they will cherish for half a lifetime a passive,
an obstructive, ill-will; they will even await for years an opportunity
of "getting their knife into" an enemy. But they have grown chary of
"cutting off their nose to spite their face"; they will very rarely
sacrifice their own comfort in life to the mere joy of protracted,
elaborate reprisals. Vitriol and the revolver--an outburst of rage,
culminating in a "short, sharp shock"--these belong, if you will, to
modern life.
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