Reputation is only the shadow of character, and a very small house
sometimes will cast a very long shadow. The lips may seem to drop with
myrrh and cassia, and the disposition to be as bright and warm as a
sheaf of sunbeams, and yet they may only be a magnificent show window
to a wretched stock of goods. There is many a man who is affable in
public life and amid commercial spheres who, in a cowardly way, takes
his anger and his petulance home, and drops them on the domestic
circle.
The reason men do not display their bad temper in public is because
they do not want to be knocked down. There are men who hide their
petulance and their irritability just for the same reason that they do
not let their notes go to protest. It does not pay. Or for the same
reason that they do not want a man in their stock company to sell his
stock at less than the right price, lest it depreciate the value. As
at some time the wind rises, so after a sunshiny day there may be a
tempestuous night. There are people who in public act the
philanthropist, who at home act the Nero, with respect to their
slippers and their gown.