nastiness

They neither comb their Head, nor wash their Face,

But think their virtuous Nastiness a grace.

[…] the hellish Noise, the Roaring, Swearing, and Clamour, the Stench and Nastiness and all the dreadful Crowd of afflicting Things that I saw there, joined together to make the Place seem an Emblem of Hell itself, and a Kind of entrance into it.

Among current novelists, Martin Amis lacks intellectual force but is well supplied with nastiness, which occasionally resembles humor.

Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness.

If we, who are educated, habitually submit to have copper in our preserves, red-lead in our cayenne, alum in our bread, pigments in our tea, and ineffable nastinesses in our fish-sauce, what can we expect of the poor?