Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/289



LADY ANN (to a friend of proved discretion): Consistency?

It is very easy, of course, to overdo that sort of thing, to become so inflexible that one is the slave and victim of one’s own rules. The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. . . On the other hand, I have no patience with the people who say one thing today and another to-morrow, so that you never know where you are with them. Surely the wise course is to discover the great laws and hold to them unswervingly, only stepping aside by a hair’s breadth to left or right when the great laws quite obviously apply no longer. In the realm of principle I admit no compromise; Right is Right, and Wrong is Wrong, and no amount of special pleading can blur that distinction. ..

But, though I hold no brief for consistency, I should be vastly entertained to know exactly where you think I have been inconsistent. . . Not you personally, of course! We have known each other long enough to look out on life with