“But, Marie, how unjust is the world! how unjust both in praise and blame.”
OLDTOWN FOLKS.
Selfish love.
These dear, good souls who wear their life out for you, have they not a right to scold you, and dictate to you, and tie up your liberty, and make your life a burden to you? If they have not, who has? If you complain, you break their worthy old hearts. They insist on the privilege of seeking your happiness by thwarting you in everything you want to do, and putting their will instead of yours in every step of your life.
Expressive silence.
Aunt Lois, as I have often said before, was a good Christian, and held it her duty to govern her tongue. True, she said many sharp and bitter things; but nobody but herself and her God knew how many more she would have said had she not reined herself up in conscientious silence. But never was there a woman whose silence could express more contempt and displeasure than hers. You could feel it in the air about you, though she never said a word. You could feel it in the rustle of her dress, in the tap of her heels over the floor, in the occasional flash of her sharp black eye. She was like a thunder-cloud, whose quiet is portentous, and from which you every moment expect a flash or an explosion.
Power of a tone.
That kind of tone which sounds so much like a blow that one dodges one’s head involuntarily.