A scold is one who reproves tauntingly, no matter how much right he or she may have to give the reproof. Such reproof may check the immediate fault against which is directed; but it does little if any good. The difficulty is that it betrays a worse weakness on the part of the scolds themselves. It shows that they are controlled by anger or irritation--ungoverned vexation; it reveals a bad temper, an undisciplined mind, and a vengeful heart, that in rebuking one fault intensifies the shame it would awaken by casting up others, old scores, that should have been forgiven and forgotten. The scold vents he anger by saying, not "You are doing so and so!" but, "You are doing so again!" or, "You are always doing it!" The fault for which the unhappy erring one was punished the day before, and the day before, that, is brought up again, and he is made to suffer a fresh torture for it. His shame is intensified beyond all bounds of endurance without angry resentment, by feeling that he is enduring the penalty, not only of the present fault, but the fault for which he has already been made to suffer, and that at the hands of one who is indulging a propensity more wicked than his own. He feels this is unjust, his spirit rebels, and in the end he will be sure to avenge himself by some sort of retaliations. Often this retaliation is simply a sullen determination not to improve, but to take his scoldings with stolid indifference, and find a grim satisfaction in the annoyance he is capable of creating.

Censure should always come from proper authority, and it should be grave, calm, and free from the betrayal of passion. Better wait till you have settled down, or never reprove at all, than to do it in the heat and excitement of anger. Given thus justly, moderately, and fairly, without reference to previous offenses, it near fails to awaken respect and excite to better endeavors, and it ends in making the censured a better man and a firm admirer of his reprover.