This, too, is true of the moody girl. She is pre-eminently a faultfinder. In this she is the more to blame that they who find fault are they who seek fault. She is lavish of her censure and is chary of her praise. She should be told what a Frenchwoman has said—
“’Tis in a sort to participate in good deeds to praise them.” In the Frenchwoman’s language, “C’est en quelque sorte se donner aux belles actions que de les louer.”
The suppositions of a moody girl are sometimes singular. “I suppose,” says one Sybil, “any of us could remember six unpleasant circumstances in our lives more easily than six pleasant.”
This Sybil it was who cited to her father the famous line regarding “the loud laugh,” and who learnt from him that the loud groan shows every whit as much “the vacant mind.”
What makes for moodiness? A life of ease according to the poet to whom belongs the phrase “stretched on the rack of a too-easy chair.” The rich girl who wishes she was poor is full as common as the poor girl who wishes she was rich.
Her brother does not spare the moody girl. Sometimes his gibes are stupid; once in a while they are fairly clever. As boy’s satire, what follows appears to me rather good.
“Any baby can put its finger in its eye and cry.”
As girl’s satire, what next follows—being the speech of a girl not moody on the subject of a moody girl—is excellent.
“She is one of those people who always bring up miserable subjects and—sympathise.”
