ABSTRACT
Ill-temper—it is almost as common a defect as the tendency to disparaging speech about others, concerning which the author spoke a little while ago. And, like that failing, it has become thus common owing to our faulty perspective. Irritableness and bad temper are ugly things to look at—that people feel; they forget that others feel it too, and that their own irritableness and bad temper are not exactly beautiful to look at. There is no failing which people strive more earnestly to cure in children. Some of the kindest persons in the world seem to be hard at work creating a minor martyrdom for those about them. Now it is an angry word, now an impatient gesture, now a frown—little things in themselves, but productive of the infinitude of pain which little things have such a wonderful knack of causing.
