Later, this same little girl came
to understand fully that she must have a real desire to get over her
anger in order to have better feelings come up after she had dropped
the contraction of the anger.
I know of a woman who has been holding such steady hatred for
certain other people that the strain of it has kept her ill. And it
is all a matter of feeling: first, that these people have interfered
with her welfare; second, that they differ from her in opinion.
Every once in a while her hatred finds a vent and spends itself in
tears and bitter words. Then, after the external relief of letting
out her pent-up feeling, she closes up again and one would think
from her voice and manner--if one did not look very deep in--that
she had only kindliness for every one. But she stays nervously ill
right along.
How could she do otherwise with that strain in her? If she were
constitutionally a strong woman this strain of hatred would have
worn on her, though possibly not have made her really ill; but,
being naturally sensitive and delicate, the strain has kept her an
invalid altogether.
"Mother, I can't stand Maria," one daughter says to her mother, and
when inquiry is made the mother finds that what her daughter "cannot
stand" is ways that differ from her own. Sometimes, however, they
are very disagreeable ways which are exactly like the ways of the
person who cannot stand them. If one person is imperious and
demanding she will get especially annoyed at another person for
being imperious and demanding, without a suspicion that she is
objecting vehemently to a reflection of herself.
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