Sophia.'
'That would rather deter me,' said Clarence good-humouredly.
'A card-playing old age is despicable,' pronounced Miss Emily, much
to our amusement.
After that we got into a bewilderment. We knew nothing of the
future question of temperance versus total abstinence; but after it
had been extracted that Miss Newton regarded cards as the devil's
books, the inconsistent little sister changed sides, and declared it
narrow and evangelical to renounce what was innocent. Clarence
argued that what might be harmless for others might be dangerous for
such as himself, and that his real difficulty in making even a
mental vow was that, if broken, there was an additional sin.
'It is not oneself that one trusts,' I said.
'No,' said Clarence emphatically; 'and setting up a vow seems as if
it might be sticking up the reed of one's own word, and leaning on
THAT--when it breaks, at least mine does. If I could always get the
grasp of Him that I felt to-day, there would be no more bewildered
heart and failing spirit, which are worse than the actual falls they
cause.' And as Emily said she did not understand, he replied in
words I wrote down and thought over, 'What we ARE is the point, more
than even what we DO. We DO as we ARE; and yet we form ourselves by
what we DO.'
'And,' I put in, 'I know somebody who won a victory last night over
himself and his two brothers.
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