XVI.

MAXIMS MISAPPLIED

"Beware! yet once again beware!
Ere round thy inexperienced mind,
With voice and semblance falsely fair,
A chain Thessalian magic bind,--"

_Thomas Love Peacock_.





A friend of mine has a highbred Boston terrier named "Betty." Betty is a
bundle of nerves, has a well-developed "New-England Conscience," and among
other deviative (not degenerative) signs is possessed of an insatiate
desire to climb trees. More than once I have watched her frantic efforts to
achieve this end, and she really almost succeeds--at least she can reach
a higher point on the trunk of a tree than any other dog of her size I
know--say six feet; if the bark is rough, perhaps seven feet would not be
an overestimate. Her attempts are unremitting--once the frenzy is on it
is with the greatest difficulty that she can be separated, panting and
exhausted, from her task.

Betty's case furnishes an illustration of an inborn tendency, fostered
neither by precept nor example, persistently to attempt the impossible,
and to fret and fume when forced to discontinue. Some children are by
inheritance similarly endowed. Imagine Betty a child. It is safe to assume