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“My dear,” said the old man gently, “I think that you are repeating what you have heard older people say. You are pretending to be touchy; but you are not really. Stop being so tiresome,
But it is sometimes as difficult to lose one’s temper as it is difficult at other times to keep it.
“My father has that effect on nearly everyone,” he informed her. “He will try to be kind.” “I hope we all try,” said she, smiling nervously. “Because we think it improves our characters. But he is kind to people because he loves them; and they find him out, and are offended, or frightened.”
“How can he be unhappy when he is strong and alive? What more is one to give him? And think how he has been brought up—free from all the superstition and ignorance that lead men to hate one another in the name of God. With such an education as that, I thought he was bound to grow up happy.”
why does it distress him? We know that we come from the winds, and that we shall return to them; that all life is perhaps a knot, a tangle, a blemish in the eternal smoothness. But why should this make us unhappy? Let us rather love one another, and work and rejoice. I don’t believe in this world sorrow.”
The kingdom of music is not the kingdom of this world; it will accept those whom breeding and intellect and culture have alike rejected. The commonplace person begins to
I cannot help thinking that there is something to admire in everyone, even if you do not approve of them.”
Miss Alan was always thus being charitable against her better judgement. A delicate pathos perfumed her disconnected remarks, giving them unexpected beauty, just as in the decaying autumn woods there sometimes rise odours reminiscent of spring.
