"But if I don't," I continued, "if after being confirmed with Philip in the autumn, we come to just one of our old catastrophes in the very next holidays, as bad as ever, and spiting each other to the last—I shall take you all down to-morrow! I don't pretend to be able to persuade myself that black is white—like Mrs. Rampant; but I am not a hypocrite, I won't ornament my room with texts, and crosses, and pictures, and symbols of Eternal Patience, when I do not even mean to try to sacrifice myself, or to be patient."
It is curious how one's faith and practice hang together. I felt very doubtful whether it was even desirable that I should. Whether we did not misunderstand GOD'S will, in thinking that it is well that people in the right should ever sacrifice themselves for those who are in the wrong. I did not however hide from myself, that to say this was to unsay all my resolves about my besetting sin. I decided to take down my texts, pictures, and books, and grimly thought that I would frame a fine photograph Charles had given me of a lioness, and would make a new inscription, the motto of the old Highland Clan Chattan—with which our family is remotely connected—"Touch not the cat but a glove."[1]
[1] Anglicè "without a glove."
"Put on your gloves next time, Master Philip!" I thought. "I shall make no more of these feeble attempts to keep in my claws, which only tempt you to irritate me beyond endurance. We're an ill-tempered family, and you're not the most amiable member of it. For my own part, I can control my temper when it is not running away with me, and be fairly kind to the little ones, so long as they do what I tell them. But, at a crisis like this, I can no more yield to your unreasonable wishes, stifle my just anger, apologize for a little wrong to you who owe apologies for a big one, and pave the way to peace with my own broken will, than the leopard can change his spots."
"And yet—if I could!"
It broke from me almost like a cry, "If my besetting sin is a sin, if I have given way to it under provocation—if this moment is the very hardest of the battle, and the day is almost lost—and if now, even now, I could turn round and tread down this Satan under my feet. If this were to-morrow morning, and I had done it—O my soul, what triumph, what satisfaction in past prayers, what hope for the future!
"Then thou shouldest believe the old legends of sinners numbered with the saints, of tyrants taught to be gentle, of the unholy learning to be pure—for one believes with heartiness what he has experienced—then text and picture and cross should hang on, in spite of frailty, and in this sign shalt thou conquer."
One ought to be very thankful for the blessings of good health and strong nerves, but I sometimes wish I could cry more easily. I should not like to be like poor Mrs. Rampant, whose head or back is always aching, and whose nerves make me think of the strings of an Æolian harp, on which Mr. Rampant, like rude Boreas, is perpetually playing with the tones of his voice, the creak of his boots, and the bang of his doors. But her tears do relieve, if they exhaust her, and back-ache cannot be as bad as heart-ache—hot, dry heart-ache, or cold, hard heart-ache. I think if I could have cried I could have felt softer. As it was I began to wish that I could do what I felt sure that I could not.
If I dragged myself to Philip, and got out a few conciliatory words, I should break down in a worse fury than before if he sneered or rode the high horse, "as he probably would," thought I.
On my little carved Prayer-book shelf lay with other volumes a copy of À Kempis, which had belonged to my mother. Honesty had already whispered that if I deliberately gave up the fight with evil this must be banished with my texts and pictures. At the present moment a familiar passage came into my head: