"
She could not help interrupting him with:
"Yes, that's just how you are, and how you used to be, even as a child.
When you once stumbled, you let yourself fall like a log of wood; one
must convert the stumble into a hop, as the old proverb says. Cheer up.
Do you know what one must do, when people try to hurt one?"
"One must keep out of their way."
"No, one must hurt them, if one can--and one hurts them most by standing
up and achieving something. But you always stand there and say to the
world: 'Do what you like to me, good or bad; kiss me or beat me, just as
you will.' That's easy enough; you let people do anything to you, and
then pity yourself. I should like it right well myself, if some one
would place me here and there, and do everything for me. But you must
look out for yourself now. You've let yourself be pushed about quite
enough in the world; now you must play the master for awhile."
Reproof and teaching often seem like hardness and injustice in the eyes
of the unhappy; and Damie took his sister's words as such. It was
dreadful that she did not see that he was the most unhappy creature on
earth. She strongly urged him not to believe that, and said that if he
did not believe it, it would not be so. But it is the most difficult of
all undertakings to inspire a man with confidence in himself; most
people acquire it only after they have succeeded.
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