Free Doctor Hudson’s Secret Journal by Lloyd C. Douglas

would be justified.
    It delighted me to see that what I was doing for Tim had not only done his personality no damage, but was rapidly calling out good talents which he had never been given a chance to exercise.
    Little Joyce helped, too. She immediately became devoted to him. If she needed any spoiling, at that early period of her life, which I can’t believe possible, Tim slavishly attended to it; and the undisguised affection she showered upon him must have made him feel exalted. Sometimes a man will get much the same quality of spiritual uplift from his dog. Dogs make good evangelists because they overlook so many obvious imperfections. One can’t say as much for cats, who seem to have no capacity for concealing their contempt.

9
    Brightwood Hospital
November 25, 1913, 10:30 P.M.
    N ancy Ashford and I have been holding an informal conference in my office for the past hour. Sometimes I wonder how I could get along without her uncommonly wise counsel. I’m afraid I have come to take Nancy too much for granted. If anything were to happen to her, I might find out how heavily I had depended on her business efficiency and loyal comradeship.
    The past few days have been exceptionally trying. I should not have thought it possible for a nine-year-old child to stir up so much excitement. It seems clear enough now that a public school is no place for Joyce; at least, not yet. So we have gone back to the nurse-governess idea. Nancy found the new teacher, a Miss Wingate, who gives promise of being a good choice. She is considerate but she will be firm. She is well-balanced and has the instincts of a lady. Joyce likes her, so far. One has to make allowances for my child’s wilfulness and instability. We have had too many different types of people working on this job. But I couldn’t be both father and mother.
    It has often struck me as a peculiar thing that so many people, who have been able to redirect and improve the lives of comparative strangers, are helpless when they try to do something beneficial for their own flesh and blood.
    I raised this question with Nancy tonight, and she offered an explanation. Persons living restless, unhappy, undisciplined lives are so because they are in a battle with themselves. Their conscience gets after them for their misdemeanors, and shames them until they resent any counsel from their ‘censor mind’. Nancy thinks it a fallacy to believe that conscience is always a wise counselor. She holds that a conscience is just as likely to be defective as a thyroid gland. That is to say, an overactive thyroid can throw one’s whole emotional machinery out of balance; and an over-zealous conscience can be so brutally intolerant and tactless that it destroys what little self-esteem you have left, after committing some indiscretion.
    I couldn’t help showing my amusement over this fantastic theory, but Nancy stood by her guns.
    “That’s why some children resent parental advice,” she continued. “They are constantly besieged by an abnormally energetic conscience; and they are so integrally blood-related to their parents, and have so many quirks and kinks in common, that father’s admonition is just another annoying harangue of the sort that the conscience delivers.”
    “I gather, then,” said I, “that a child’s unwillingness to heed her father’s advice is not because she lacks a conscience, but has too much of it”; and then added, “Nancy, sometimes you have the foolest ideas, but I’ll admit they satisfy, even when they haven’t a leg to stand on.”
    “I’d rather hold on to a legless idea that had the makings of consolation in it,” she replied, “than a sound idea that makes you unhappy.”
    “But you have given up Santa Claus,” I drawled.
    “Yes, and that was a mistake. I was much happier when I believed in Santa Claus,” she said, pensively, “and better, too.”
    “You couldn’t be any better than you are, Nancy,” I said. “I never knew anyone with a sweeter