We are a very ill-tempered family.

CHAPTER II.

ILL-TEMPERED PEOPLE AND THEIR FRIENDS—­NARROW ESCAPES—­THE HATCHET-QUARREL.

I do not wish for a moment to defend ill-temper, but I do think that people who suffer from ill-tempered people often talk as if they were the only ones who do suffer in the matter; and as if the ill-tempered people themselves quite enjoyed being in a rage.

And yet how much misery is endured by those who have never got the victory over their own ill-temper!  To feel wretched and exasperated by little annoyances which good-humoured people get over with a shrug or a smile; to have things rankle in my mind like a splinter in the flesh, which glide lightly off yours, and leave no mark; to be unable to bear a joke, knowing that one is doubly laughed at because one can’t; to have this deadly sore at heart—­“I cannot forgive; I cannot forget,” there is no pleasure in these things.  The tears of sorrow are not more bitter than the tears of anger, of hurt pride or thwarted will.  As to the fit of passion in which one is giddy, blind, and deaf, if there is a relief to the overcharged mind in saying the sharpest things and hitting the heaviest blows one can at the moment, the pleasantness is less than momentary, for almost as we strike we foresee the pains of regret and of humbling ourselves to beg pardon which must ensue.  Our friends do not always pity as well as blame us, though they are sorry for those who were possessed by devils long ago.

Good-tempered people, too, who I fancy would find it quite easy not to be provoking, and to be a little patient and forbearing, really seem sometimes to irritate hot-tempered ones on purpose, as if they thought it was good for them to get used to it.

I do not mean that I think ill-tempered people should be constantly yielded to, as Nurse says Mrs. Rampant and the servants have given way to Mr. Rampant till he has got to be quite as unreasonable and nearly as dangerous as most maniacs, and his friends never cross him, for the same reason that they would hot stir up a mad bull.

Perhaps I do not quite know how I would have our friends treat us who are cursed with bad tempers.  I think to avoid unnecessary provocation, and to be patient with us in the height of our passion, is wise as well as kind.  But no principle should be conceded to us, and rights that we have unjustly attacked should be faithfully defended when we are calm enough to listen.  I fancy that where gentle Mrs. Rampant is wrong is that she allows Mr. Rampant to think that what really are concessions to his weakness are concessions to his wisdom.  And what is not founded on truth cannot do lasting good.  And if, years ago, before he became a sort of gunpowder cask at large, he had been asked if he wished Mrs. Rampant to persuade herself, and Mrs. Rampant, the little Rampants, and the servants to combine to persuade him, that he was right when he was wrong, and wise when he was foolish, and reasonable when he was unjust, I think he would have said No.  I do not believe one could deliberately desire to be befooled by one’s family for all the best years of one’s life.  And yet how many people are!