We admit and entertain dark thoughts, and at the
first alarm of exposure deny that we ever saw them before; we
cover up our motives, forget where we have hidden them, and wax
justly indignant when they are dug out and confronted with us. We
are scandalized, quite honestly, when others are caught doing what
we ourselves have done. We are horrified and cry "Monster!" when
others do what we ourselves refrain from doing only through lack
of the bad courage.
No man is a hero who is not a hero to his valet; and no woman a
lady unless her maid thinks so. Margaret Severence's new maid
Selina was engaged to be married; the lover had gone on a spree,
had started a free fight in the streets, and had got himself into
jail for a fortnight. It was the first week of his imprisonment,
and Selina had committed a series of faults intolerable in a maid.
She sent Margaret to a ball with a long tear in her skirt; she let
her go out, open in the back, both in blouse and in placket; she
upset a cup of hot cafe au lait on her arm; finally she tore a
strap off a shoe as she was fastening it on Margaret's foot.
Though no one has been able to fathom it, there must be a reason
for the perversity whereby our outbursts of anger against any
seriously-offending fellow-being always break on some trivial
offense, never on one of the real and deep causes of wrath.
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