public inspection in the market-place; we
betray the secrets intrusted to us in the
weakness of a fond moment; we hint at
this, and we insinuate that; sometimes we
make a bolder and more concrete accusation;
and when we have done all we can to
ruin the man by whom we fancy ourselves
aggrieved, we feel that we have had our
revenge, and are content. This is revenge
in the nineteenth century, in countries
where law in some sort dominates passion
and impulses are kept in check by fear of
the policeman and the prison-van.

But there are other forms of taking
revenge; and among the most ingenious is
that of heaping coals of fire on the head of
an offender—exaggerating the virtues of
obedience, and patience, and forgiveness till
they become instruments of torture instead
of gracious gifts of blessing, and essentially
vices if nominally virtues. Yet it is
difficult to complain of this exaggeration,
because of the holy texts and wise words
wherewith it is defended. If, however,
you disregard this defence work, and say
that it is possible to be too good, too
virtuous, and that any quality, even of
those named specially Christian, if carried
out of the bounds of common sense and
into the region of excess, becomes a vice,
you are set down as a heathen outright:
you must be content to bear the stigma of
irreligion because of your philosophic
passion for limitation. If, on the other hand,
you give in without a struggle, you know
that henceforth your doom is sealed, and
that your tormentor has the best of it, and
will keep what he has; that all you have
to do now is to accept patiently the heaping
up of burning coals which will, to the end
of time, be piled on your devoted head.

This taking revenge by heaping up coals
of fire may be shown in many ways. Let us
take one, by no means uncommon in a
certain kind of home—that of excessive and
exaggerated patience during, and long after, a
temporary attack of ill-temper on your part,
and of an unrelenting obedience to your
transient wishes, if they have been
petulantly expressed. Most people are at
times afflicted with peevish humours; and
you are not exempt from the ordinary
feelings of humanity. But your humour
was temporary, and you are heartily
ashamed of it, and sorry that you gave
way to it as you did; and when it has
passed, and you are again in your right
mind, you wish for nothing so much as
a candid oblivion on both sides. You are
ready to make any apology that may be
needed, and you would bear meekly even
an uncompromising rating, if only it might
end in frank forgiveness and forgetfulness.
But your coal-heaper does not forgive, and
cannot forget; and takes good care that
neither shall you. If you plunge head-
foremost into an apology, you are stopped
with the loftiest, the most intense
expression of meekness and forbearance.
"My dear," deprecatingly, "why say a
word about it? I assure you I bear no ill
will! I know my duty, and I hope I shall
have strength given me to do it, so pray
say no more!" Perhaps with the addition,
smiling plaintively, "Am I not accustomed
to it?"

This is the revenge which your coal-
heaper takes: and it is a severe one. No
remonstrance, no anger, no fit of sulks even
would be so bad as that saintly, statuesque,
resigned patience, which makes you feel a
brute in your own eyes, and shows you
that you are past all redemption in the
eyes of others.

Another form of coal-heaping is an
exaggerated attention to your hasty words.
Say you have found fault with your wife
or housekeeper, for something that has gone
wrong in her special department; say even
that, because of a temporary derangement
of your health with derangement of temper
to correspond, the fault found was
disproportioned to the offence committed; yet
all you meant to inculcate was the necessity
of a reasonable reform in a slight
misdemeanour, and better ordering in some
affair of minor mismanagement. Your
heaper-up of burning coals is determined
that the reform shall not be reasonable,
and that in its excess shall be your punishment.
You have committed the offence of
remonstrating against certain wastefulness
in the home commissariat—something
which has been absurdly wasteful, and
quite beyond all harmony with your means;
your coal-heaper stints herself in elemental
comforts, rigidly cuts herself off from her
fried bacon at breakfast and her glass of
wine at dinner, on the plea of your not being
able to afford it: and if you remonstrate
with her, and tell her she is ridiculous, she
answers meekly that "you told her to keep
down the bills, and as she does not know
in what else to retrench—as she is sure no
one can keep house more economically than
she does—she has begun with herself."
At the same time she makes your mess like
Benjamin's, and redoubles your most
expensive luxuries, which are yours only. She
never complains, remember; she only