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Page 4
"I wish I knew how, mother."
"Well, you say things went wrong with you this afternoon. I think I know
what some of these things were. They were not so pleasant as they might
have been, certainly. They were troublesome. But don't you think the
greatest trouble of all was in your own heart?"
"No, ma'am. I was well enough until the things began to go wrong; and then
I felt bad, and I couldn't help it."
Mrs Standish laughed, as she said, "So, then, as soon as the things begin
to go wrong, you take the liberty to go wrong too. Every thing works well
inside, until it is disturbed by something outside?"
"That is it, mother."
"And when the things inside go smoothly, because every thing is smooth
outside, you have a very good and happy disposition?"
"Pretty good, I think."
"And so, when there is a hurricane inside, because the wind blows rather
more than usual outside, you are cross, and unhappy, and bad enough to make
up for being so good before?"
"Yes, ma'am, I am afraid I am, sometimes."
"No, my child, you are wrong, all wrong. If all was right inside, the other
things you speak of would not disturb you so, if they should happen to go
wrong."
"Why, mother, wouldn't they disturb me at all?"
"They might, occasionally, but not near as much. Do you remember that our
clock went wrong last winter?"
"Yes, ma'am; we couldn't tell what time it was, and it used to strike all
sorts of ways."
"What do you suppose made the clock act so, Angeline? It goes well enough
now, you know."
"I believe Mr Mercer said one of the wheels was out of order."
"That was all. It was not the weather--not because we forgot to wind it
up--not because things did not go right in the room. Now, your mind is
something like a clock. If it is kept in order, it will run pretty well, I
guess--no matter whether it rains or shines--whether it is winter or
summer. Milton says, very beautifully, in his poem called the 'Paradise
Lost,'
"'The mind is its own place, and of itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.'
"He means by this, that our happiness or unhappiness depends more upon what
is within us than it does upon what is without. And he is right. Do you
understand, my child?"
"I understand what you mean, but it is not so easy to see how I am to go to
work and be good all the time, like cousin Jeannette. I'm not like her,
mother, and I never can be like her, I know."
"True, you will always be very unlike your cousin. But I don't know of any
thing to hinder your being as good and amiable as she is, for all that."
"Oh, mother! I'd give every thing in the world, if I only knew how!"
"I think you can learn, my child, with much less expense; though, to be
sure, you will have to give up some things that perhaps you will find it
hard to part with. You will be obliged to give up some of your bad habits."
"That would be easy enough."
"Not so easy as you think, it may be. It is a good deal easier to let a bad
habit come in, than it is to turn one out. But 'where there's a will,
there's a way,' you know."
"Well, mother, what shall I do? I should like to begin pretty soon, for
scarcely any body loves me now,"
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