a family failing.

we are a very ill-tempered family.

i want to say it, and not to unsay it by any explanations, because i think it is good for us to face the fact in the unadorned form in which it probably presents itself to the minds of our friends.

amongst ourselves we have always admitted it by pieces, as it were, or in negative propositions. we allow that we are firm of disposition; we know that we are straightforward; we show what we feel. we have opinions and principles of our own; we are not so thick-skinned as some good people, nor as cold-blooded as others.

when two of us quarrelled (and nurse used to say that no two of us ever agreed), the provocation always seemed, to each of us, great enough amply to [152]excuse the passion. but i have reason to think that people seldom exclaimed, "what grievances those poor children are exasperated with!" but that they often said, "what terrible tempers they all have!"

there are five of us: philip and i are the eldest; we are twins. my name is isobel, and i never allow it to be shortened into the ugly word bella nor into the still more hideous word izzy, by either the servants or the children. my aunt isobel never would, and neither will i.

"the children" are the other three. they are a good deal younger than philip and i, so we have always kept them in order. i do not mean that we taught them to behave wonderfully well, but i mean that we made them give way to us elder ones. among themselves they squabbled dreadfully.

we are a very ill-tempered family.