ssion, is wise as
well as kind. But no principle should be conceded to us, and rights
that we have unjustly attacked should be faithfully defended when we
are calm enough to listen. I fancy that where gentle Mrs. Rampant is
wrong is that she allows Mr. Rampant to think that what really are
concessions to his weakness are concessions to his wisdom. And what is
not founded on truth cannot do lasting good. And if, years ago, before
he became a sort of gunpowder cask at large, he had been asked if he
wished Mrs. Rampant to persuade herself, and Mrs. Rampant, the little
Rampants, and the servants to combine to persuade him, that he was
right when he was wrong, and wise when he was foolish, and reasonable
when he was unjust, I think he would have said No. I do not believe
one could deliberately desire to be befooled by one's family for all
the best years of one's life. And yet how many people are!

I do not think I am ever likely to be so loved and feared by those I
live with as to have my ill-humours made into laws. I hope not. But I
am sometimes thankful, on the other hand, that GOD is more
forbearing with us than we commonly are with each other, and does not
lead us into temptation when we are at our worst and weakest.

Any one who has a bad temper must sometimes look back at the years
before he learned self-control, and feel thankful that he is not a
murderer, or burdened for life by the weight on his conscience of
some calamity of which he was the cause. If the knife which furious
Fred threw at his sister before he was out of petticoats had hit the
child's eye instead of her forehead, could he ever have looked into
the blinded face without a pang? If the blow with which impatient
Annie flattered herself she was correcting her younger brother had
thrown the naughty little lad out of the boat instead of into the
sailor's arms, and he had been drowned--at ten years old a murderess,
how could she endure for life the weight of her unavailing remorse?

I very nearly killed Philip once. It makes me shudder to think of it,
and I often wonder I ever could lose my temper again.

We were eight years old, and out in the garden together. We had
settled to build a moss-house for my dolls, and had borrowed the
hatchet out of the wood-house, without leave, to chop the stakes with.
It was entirely my idea, and I had collected all the moss and most of
the sticks. It was I, too, who had taken the hatchet. Philip had been
very tiresome