The difficulties which beset personal and family life are rich
in compensation. We often speak of “keeping the wolf from the
door,” and the majority find this a hard fight. What trouble the
threatening animal gives us! If in the morning we are disposed
for a little extra slumber, the ominous howl startles us from
the pillow; if we are tempted to linger at the table, its fierce
breathings at the threshold summon us straightway to duty; if we
doze in the armchair, the gleaming eyes, the white teeth, the
red throat at the window-pane, bring us to our feet. And yet how
much the best of men, the most truly aristocratic families, owe
to the wolf! Solicitude, fatigue, difficulty, danger, hunger,
these are the true king-makers; and the misfortune with many
rich families to-day is, that they are being gradually let down
because they are losing sight of the wolf. The wolf not merely
suckled Romulus; it suckles all kings of men. The wolf is not a
wolf at all; it is an angel in wolves’ clothing, saving us from
rust, sloth, effeminacy, cowardice, baseness, from a miserable
superficiality of thought, life, and character.--W. L.
WATKINSON, “The Transfigured Sackcloth.”
(499)