The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future by John McGovern
page 48 of 327 (14%)
page 48 of 327 (14%)
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should be on the lookout for gentleness and courage in man. If she finds
those qualities--if she can only become aware they are there, her heart will relent in spite of her, and there will be no hesitancy in her final choice, nor regret in her final retrospect. IN YOUR SISTER you behold the exact complement of yourself. Yourself and herself, brother and sister, are the links which your parents have left to hold their minds, their qualities, their aggregated development and progression, to the earth. All that your parents were, yourself and your sister will perpetuate, adding the acquirements of your own lives. You have in your sister an opportunity for self-study without its like or equal. Where your sister is weak, there are you weak (naturally) also. Your vanity may conceal the fact in your own nature, but her character will express it to you. STRENGTHEN UP THESE POINTS. As the calker goes through the hold of the ship, peering intently for light, or listening for the trickling of water, so should you, in observing your sister's character and family peculiarities, find and calk up all the treacherous leaks in your own nature. Her carelessness is your forgetfulness. Mend it. Her heedlessness is undoubtedly your recklessness. Send out scouts. Her impatience is possibly your high temper. Hit yourself when you are in rage, and thus learn its folly. I know of a man who once came within an inch of braining his fellow-soldier. They were lying on the grass, when the fellow struck my |
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