In
polite and educated circles, these weapons are replaced by sarcasm and
innuendo. There are, of course, many advantages gained by the
substitution of this more refined mode of warfare, but the mere fact
that the intellectual skill which it displays gives pleasure to the
bystanders, and wins social applause, renders its employment far more
frequent than, on cool reflexion, could be justified by the occasions
for it. There can be no doubt that it gives pain, often intense pain,
especially where the victim is not ready enough to retaliate effectively
in kind. And there can be no more justification for inflicting this
peculiar kind of pain than any other, unless the circumstances are such
as to demand it. Any one, who will take the trouble to analyse his acts
and motives, will generally find, when he employs these weapons, that he
is actuated not so much by any desire to reform the object of his attack
or to deter, by these means, him or others from wrong-doing, as by a
desire to show off his own cleverness and to leave behind him a mark of
his power in the smart which he inflicts. These unamiable motives are
least justifiable, when the victim is a social inferior, or a person
who, by his age or position, is unable to retaliate on equal terms. To
vanity and cruelty are then added cowardice, and, though all these vices
may only be displayed on a very small scale, they are none the less
really present.
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