You will see something similar in social life among men and women equally--petty jealousies, personalities, slanderings, mean little stories of no great consequence in themselves, except in the converse sense of showing how small and contemptible everything and everyone concerned is.

A keen eye notes with some depression the absence from both spheres of a fine manliness, a generous conception of things, a large outlook, that prevents a squabble with a smile, and because of a consciousness of the need for determination in a great fight for a principle, holds in true contempt the trivialities of an hour.

For in all the mean little bickerings of life there is involved not a principle, but a petty pride.

One has to note these things and decide a line of action.

In the abstract the right course seems quite natural and easy, but in fact it is not so.