Lessons in Life; A Series of Familiar EssaysHolland, J. G. (Josiah Gilbert)
Philosophy
Lessons in Life; A Series of Familiar Essays
Holland, J. G. (Josiah Gilbert)
Conduct of life
But I am becoming abstruse--quite too much so, considering the
simple, practical truths to which I am seeking to introduce my
reader. I have been thinking how, in accordance with this law of
which we are talking, our moods, our passions, our sympathies, our
moral frames and conditions, reproduce themselves, after their
kind, in the minds and lives around us. I call my child to my knee
in anger; I strike him a hasty blow that carries with it the
peculiar sting of anger; I speak a loud reproof that bears with it
the spirit of anger; and I look in vain for any relenting in his
flashing eyes, flushed face, and compressed lips. I have made my
child angry, and my uncontrolled passion has produced after its
kind. I have sown anger, and I have reaped anger instantaneously.
Perhaps I become still more angry, in consequence of the passion
manifested by my child, and I speak and strike again. He is weak
and I am strong; but, though he bow his head, crushed into
silence, I may be sure that there is a sullen heart in the little
bosom, and anger the more bitter because it is impotent. I put the
child away from me, and think of what I have done. I am full of
relentings. I long to ask his pardon, for I know that I have
offended and deeply injured one of Christ's little ones. I call
him to me again, press his head to my breast, kiss him, and weep.
No word is spoken, but the little bosom heaves, the little heart
softens, the little eyes grow tenderly penitent, the little hands
come up and clasp my neck, and my relentings and my sorrow have
produced after their kind. The child is conquered, and so am I.
If I utter fretful words, they come back to me like echoes. If I
bristle all over with irritability, the quills will begin to rise
all about me. One thoroughly irritable person in a breakfast-room
spoils coffee and toast, sours milk, and destroys appetite for a
whole family. He produces after his kind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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