This weakness of Arthur’s has been almost the only sorrow in our family. We each react to it in different ways, according to our temperaments. Father’s watchfulness, and the necessary work and care that are occasioned by this infirmity; his forgiveness, seventy times seven; and his optimism, are his ways of meeting the conditions; Mother suffers, pities him, and prays that with the grace of God he will yet be able to conquer; Sister, seeing the sorrow that follows in the wake of such indulgence, loses patience with a weakness she cannot understand, upbraids him, and chides the rest of us for lenience; yet, in spite of herself, breaks through her resolutions and, in practical ways, dispenses timely aid; and I, knowing it to be a disease, perhaps largely an inheritance, am bound to regard it charitably. Trying to throw around him what safeguards we can, I am thankful for the periods of well-doing, and can but be merciful when defeat comes. He tries hard, never stops trying, and suffers keen remorse at times. It is unspeakably pitiful, and especially in later years, since he has children of his own and sees how they suffer through his infirmity. Who knows how much inherited tendencies in certain ancestors, the poor state of Father’s and Mother’s health before and at the time of his birth, and that critical illness when a lad, may have had to do with giving him an organization seriously hampered from the beginning? How can any of us blame another for a given course since, if we were that other, and were confronted with identical conditions, we should have to react to them in the same way? We make the mistake of saying virtually, “If I were _you_, I would be _I_” whereas, the truth would be, “If I were you, I should _be_ you, and do as _you_ do.” But all my life with Brother has not been under a cloud. He used to let me go fishing with him (though I had to keep very still); sometimes go with him down to the pasture after Grandpa’s cows; and often when he went alone he would bring me back a flower--usually a syringa, “cabbaged” from a bush that overhung a fence we used to pass. This stolen sweet was precious to me, largely because he gave it, perhaps partly because it was stolen. One especially joyous memory is that of a visit to a cousin in a neighbouring village, and the happy time we children had there one sunny forenoon. Three things contributed to our pleasure: Brother and Sister, who usually bickered a lot, were amiable; the spearmint was luxurious and abundant; and we followed a path across a meadow to a spring--little things, simple things, but that particular day with its keen joy of life is a red-letter day in my memory. That was the one spring of my childhood. To this day the taste and smell of spearmint bring all this back, and I mentally substitute “spearmint” for Tennyson’s “violet”-- Who can tell Why to smell The violet recalls the dewy prime Of youth and buried time? The cause is nowhere found in rhyme.