Perhaps that person, with whom Providence has placed me, and whom I
dislike, whose look of disdain humiliates me, whose slowness worries me,
who makes me jealous by being more beloved, more successful, than myself,
whose chatter and lightheartedness, even her very attentions to myself,
annoy me.
Or it may be that person that I think has quarrelled with me, and my
imagination makes me fancy myself watched, criticised, turned into
ridicule.
She is always with me; all my efforts to separate are frustrated; by some
mysterious power she is always present, always near.
* * * * *
This is my heaviest cross; the rest are light in comparison.
Circumstances change, temptations diminish, troubles lessen; but those
people who trouble or offend us are an ever-present source of irritation.