converse sense of showing how small and contemptible everything and
everyone concerned is. A keen eye notes with some depression the absence
from both spheres of a fine manliness, a generous conception of things,
a large outlook, that prevents a squabble with a smile, and because of a
consciousness of the need for determination in a great fight for a
principle, holds in true contempt the trivialities of an hour. For in
all the mean little bickerings of life there is involved not a
principle, but a petty pride. One has to note these things and decide a
line of action. In the abstract the right course seems quite natural and
easy, but in fact it is not so. A man finds another act towards him with
unconscious impudence or arrogance, and at once flies into a rage; there
is a fierce wrangle, and at the end he finds no purpose served, for
nothing was at stake. He has lost his temper for nothing. In his heat he
may tell you "he wouldn't let so-and-so do so-and-so," but on the same
principle he should hold a street-argument with every fish-wife who
might call him a name. He may tell you "he will make so-and-so respect
him," but he offends his own self-respect if he cannot consider some
things beneath him. One must have a sense of proportion and not elevate
every little act of impudence into a challenge of life to be fought over
as for life and death. It may be corrected with a little humour or a
little disdain, but always with sympathy for the narrow mind whose view
of life cannot reach beyond these petty things. Yet, to repeat, it is
not easy. An irritable temper will be on fire before reason can check
it; the process of correction will prove uncomfortable--the reasons will
be there, but the feelings in revolt. Still, little by little, it is
brought under, and in the end the nasty little irritability is killed
just like a troublesome nerve; and, by and by, what once provoked a
fierce rage becomes a subject for humorous reflection. Let no one fear
we kill the nerve for the great Battle of Life; this we but strengthen
and make constant. Every act of personal discipline is contributing to a