Of course
irritable, quick-tempered, severe, discontented people can win
attention easily enough, and acquire the kind of consideration
which is generally conceded to anyone who can be unpleasant. How
often families and groups are drilled and cautioned by anxious
mothers and sisters not to say or do anything which will vex so-
and-so! Such irritable people get the rooms and the chairs and the
food that they like, and the talk in their presence is eagerly kept
upon subjects on which they can hold forth. But how little such
regard lasts, and how welcome a relief it is, when one that is thus
courted and deferred to is absent! Of course if one is wholly
indifferent whether one is regarded, needed, missed, loved, so long
as one can obtain the obedience and the conveniences one likes,
there is no more to be said. But I often think of that wonderful
poem of Christina Rossetti's about the revenant, the spirit that
returns to the familiar house, and finds himself unregretted:
"'To-morrow' and 'to-day,' they cried;
I was of yesterday!"
One sometimes sees, in the faces of old family servants, in
unregarded elderly relatives, bachelor uncles, maiden aunts, who
are entertained as a duty, or given a home in charity, a very
beautiful and tender look, indescribable in words but unmistakable,
when it seems as if self, and personal claims, and pride, and
complacency had really passed out of the expression, leaving
nothing but a hope of being loved, and a desire to do some humble
service.
Pages:
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184