Hardscrabble

It was this, that, inducing a certain irresoluteness of thought and action, had led him into a manifestation of peevish contradiction in his address to Ephraim Giles. There are moments, when, without knowing why, the nerves of the strongest--the purposes of the wisest, are unstrung--and when it requires all our tact and self-possession to conceal from others, the momentary weakness we almost blush to admit to ourselves.