Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/265

 should think it worth while to curtail it with their own hand. There is another shadow, too, which, apart from all finer feelings of the heart or intellect, has a pernicious effect on our interests and welfare. It is cast by our own opaque substances when we persist in an inconvenient attitude, commonly called "standing in our own light." Parents and guardians, those who have the care of young people, generally are well aware of its irritating persistency and disagreeable consequences. It is provoking to find all your efforts thwarted by the very person on whose behalf they are made. After much trouble, and the eating of more dirt than you can digest in comfort, you obtain for a lad a high stool in a counting-house, an appointment to the Indian army, or a berth in a Chinese merchantman, fondly hoping that in one way or another he is provided for, and off your