For this is one of our real troubles, when either young or
old, that sometimes there is a feeling of discomfort and vexation
about us that, without knowing why, makes everything go amiss, causes
everybody else to appear cross, and all tasks, all orders, all
misadventures, to become great grievances. Grown-up people feel this
as well as children; but they have gone through it often enough to
know what is the matter, and they have, or ought to have, more self-
command. But children have yet to learn by experience that the outer
things are not harder and more untoward, so much as that they
themselves are out of sorts. This is poor comfort; and certainly it
is dangerous to say to ourselves that being poorly is any excuse for
letting ourselves be cross, or for not doing our best. If Mrs.
Merrifield had thought so, what miserable lives her husband and
children would have led! No, the way to use the certain fact that
the state of our bodies affects our tempers and spirits, is to say to
ourselves, "Well, if this person or this thing do seem disagreeable,
or if this work, or even this little bit of obedience, be very
tiresome, perhaps it may really be only a fancy of mine, and if I go
to it with a good will, I may work off the notion;" or, "Perhaps I am
cross to-day, let me take good care how I answer.
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