DAUGHTERS 327 



experience of moving about, the little hardships and 

 privations that come even in our modern luxurious 

 travelling, are an immense advantage and training to 

 children, revealing their individual characters to their 

 mother as no home life ever can. The impressions 

 gained through the eyes and ears are incomparably more 

 lasting and real than any information learnt from books. 



Bad temper in children is a thing that, in my opinion, 

 ought always to be treated with the utmost kindness, 

 gentleness, tenderness, and consideration. It is generally 

 a matter of health and nerves, and often may be, in some 

 mysterious way, inherited from the mother's irritability 

 during her pregnancy, which is caused very frequently 

 by a feeling of dislike at having a child at all. Surely, 

 then, this demands our utmost tenderness. I think that, 

 in a family, the children with good and even tempers 

 ought to be talked to in a way to make them understand 

 that, if they tease and annoy the child with the hot 

 temper, they are quite as much to blame as the irritable 

 ones themselves. The even-tempered child generally 

 means the indifferent one, and this in itself is an irrita- 

 tion to one who is excitable and highly strung. 

 Thwarting and contradicting only do harm ; love, tender- 

 ness, gentleness, and great attention to health may do 

 good. In short, the true situation is revealed to us 

 by the old Persian philosopher's prayer: '0 God! be 

 merciful to the wicked. To the good Thou hast already 

 been sufficiently merciful in making them good.' 



In my youth, and still more before my time, girls 

 were brought up to think that marriage was their one 

 and only chance in life, and that, if they did not marry 

 quite young, they would never marry at all. Now they 

 know much more about the difficulties and dangers of 

 life, and pride themselves on not thinking about marriage. 

 This seems to me a mistake; they ought to think of 



