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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031237997 
 
A BACHELOR'S TALKS 
 
 MARRIED LIFE AND THINGS ADJACENT. 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM AIKMAN, D. D., 
 
 A uihor of 
 "LIFE AT HOME," "MORAL POWER OF THE SEA," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 FOWLER & WELLS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 753 Broadway. 
 
 1884. 
 
70- 
 
 -9. 
 
 y 
 
 'O L '.I' 
 
 /i73-^ 
 
 do 6 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1883, BY 
 
 FOWLKR & WELLS. 
 
 Edward O. Jenkins, 
 
 Printer and Stereotyper, 
 
 20 North William Street, Neiu York. 
 
TO 
 ELIJAH PRICE BAKER, M.D., 
 
 OF AURORA, CAYUGA LAKE, n. Y., 
 
 WITHOUT WHOSE PROFESSIONAL SKILL 
 
 AND AFFECTIONATE DEVOTION, 
 
 IT WOULD PROBABLY 
 
 NEVER HAVE HAD 
 
 AN EXISTENCE, 
 
 €l]i3 36Dok 
 
 DEDICATED. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 My Brother's Parlor 9 
 
 II. 
 Homes 14 
 
 III. 
 A Home not like Heaven 18 
 
 IV. 
 Frank Holman's New Home 22 
 
 V. 
 Mrs. Frank Holman's Housekeeping. — I., . . 28 
 
 VI. 
 Mrs. Frank Holman's Housekeeping. — II., . . 33 
 
 VII. 
 Mrs. Frank Holman's Housekeeping. — III., . 38 
 
 VIII. 
 Mrs. Frank Holman's Housekeeping.— IV., . 43 
 
 IX. 
 Mrs. Holman's Baby, 48 
 
 X. 
 
 Obedient Babies 54 
 
 XI. 
 In the Place of God, 59 
 
 (5) 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 XII. 
 Frank Holman's Family Worship, . . • 64 
 
 XIII. 
 The Dead Babe, 69 
 
 XIV. 
 About the Baby Gone, 75 
 
 XV. 
 The Newly Married Praying Together, . . 80 
 
 XVI. 
 After the Honeymoon, 85 
 
 XVII. 
 A Young Wife's Troubles, 92 
 
 XVIII. 
 The Clouds Gone, 99 
 
 XIX. 
 The Inner Shrine 105 
 
 XX. 
 The Inner Shrine Protected, .... 109 
 
 XXI. 
 Taking and not Giving, 115 
 
 XXII. 
 Politeness in the Home, 120 
 
 XXIII. 
 Reproduced Characteristics, . . . .125 
 
 XXIV. 
 Justice to Children, '. 132 
 
CONTENTS. 7 
 
 XXV. 
 Promises to Children Broken 136 
 
 XXVI. 
 "A Horse, Sir, is like a Child," . . . .142 
 
 XXVII. 
 Mr. Frownell's Boys, 147 
 
 XXVITI. 
 In the Country with the Boys, . . . ,152 
 
 XXIX. 
 On Politeness to the Boys, 157 
 
 XXX. 
 "If we had only Known," 162 
 
 XXXI. 
 On Saying "No" to Children, . . . .168 
 
 XXXII. 
 Children's " Blues," 175 
 
 XXXIII. 
 The Spirit's Touch, 180 
 
 XXXIV. 
 Children's Joining the Church 185 
 
 XXXV. 
 The First "No!" is the Thing, . . . .191 
 
 XXXVI. 
 Bossing It, 196 
 
 XXXVII. 
 Questionable Books, 201 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 The Youngest Boy, 207 
 
 XXXIX. 
 Teasing, 212 
 
 XL. 
 Sabbath the Worfingman's Day, .... 217 
 
 XLI. 
 Family Birthdays 222 
 
 XLII. 
 The Aged in the House, 227 
 
 XLIII. 
 How Mr. Farwell's Daughter Felt, . . .231 
 
 XLIV. 
 The Sin Returned, 236 
 
 XLV. 
 Grandparents. — 1 241 
 
 XLVI. 
 Grandparents. — II., 247 
 
 XLVII. 
 Grandparents on the Battle-Field, . . . 254 
 
 XLVIII. 
 Responsibility put on the Inexperienced, . 259 
 
 XL IX. 
 Little Courtesies, 264 
 
 L. 
 
 The Golden Wedding, 269 
 
MY BROTHER S PARLOR. 
 
 '"r^HE other evening I sat in my brother's house 
 ■'- with his bright family around the centre- 
 table in the parlor. My brother and his wife use 
 their parlor. It has a wonderfully cozy look. The 
 walls have pictures and engravings — not all paint- 
 ings, nor any of them very costly, but all of them 
 tasteful. He says that he can't afford to have 
 many pictures, and certainly not many paintings, 
 but whatever he does have must be good. So he 
 pays a fair price for a good engraving, rather than 
 the same for a pretentious painting, which after 
 all is only a daub. The furniture of their par- 
 lor has a home-like and not a shop-like air. Have 
 you never noticed how some parlors that you and I 
 often see make you think of a furniture wareroom ? 
 — the articles are all so new and so primly fixed in 
 their places, they seem to say to you, " Now, look 
 
 (9) 
 
lo A bachelor's talks. 
 
 at us; are we not handsome? wouldn't you like 
 to buy us ? but be careful how you touch us ! " 
 
 It is not so in my brother's house. Each sepa- 
 rate chair (and they are of no uniform pattern), the 
 small rocker, the big arm-chair, the low-seated high- 
 back, the moderately-sized ones — not with rounded 
 backs that cut you under each shoulder-blade, and 
 let you through a great vacancy where there ought 
 to be a support — all seem to smile on you and say, 
 " Just put yourself on one of us ; we will not groan 
 nor creak nor break down ; we will hold you nicely ; 
 and if you don't like us, there is our brother sofa 
 that will be sure to make you comfortable." 
 
 They have a good deal of mahogany about them. 
 They, my brother and his wife, say, " Mahogany is 
 best. Those chairs " (they were her grandmother's, 
 carved back and legs they have) " are mahogany. 
 That is the wood to last. It is not like your shoddy 
 black-walnut. It grows better by age, deepens its 
 color, and lays out its grain as it grows old." 
 
 When, after supper, the family gather in the back 
 parlor around the centre-table under the gaslight, 
 with books and papers and games, the little one on 
 the floor with blocks or cards, and you hear laugh- 
 ing and merry talk, the picture is a very pleasant 
 one. At least it is so to me. 
 
MY BROTHERS PARLOR. II 
 
 I am an old bachelor. It is nobody's business 
 why I am. I love to get out of my den in my 
 boarding-house and be with my brother's family at 
 night. I am at home there. Phrenologists would 
 say that in my mental make-up the organ of Inhab- 
 itiveness must be strong. I had been thinking of 
 the family life there, and almost as soon as I was 
 seated with them, I laughingly said, " I propose to 
 write at once some articles on a special topic, and 
 what do you think it shall be about ? A series of 
 papers on home and the family, training of chil- 
 dren, and all that ! " 
 
 " Why, Uncle William ! " exclaimed my niece, a 
 blue-eyed girl of seventeen, " what do you know 
 about home and children ? And yet," she thought- 
 fully added, " I don't know but that you would be 
 a first-rate writer on such topics, for you have a won- 
 derful faculty of using your eyes." 
 
 " That is just it," I replied, " I do look and think, 
 and I am not sure but that I am really more com- 
 petent than a good many fathers and mothers to 
 talk about such things ; at all events, they can 
 not turn on me and say, ' He don't follow his own 
 teachings.' I am safe there. Then, you see, I 
 can stand on one side, and, at least, give what I 
 think are good theories. 
 
12 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 " Now, for instance," I added, " take just this 
 scene to-night in your home ! You know I like to 
 be with you, but if your mother — my good little 
 sister here — had kept this parlor shut up, or with 
 the gas turned down dimly, and had sent you all 
 to the basement, and made the dining-room the 
 sitting-room ; or had left you all to find some place 
 where as best you could to spend the evening, I 
 should not have been here at all. There is our 
 friend Mrs. Primsey; she is a notable housekeeper, 
 and she has everything so nice that she takes no 
 comfort in anything about her house. Did you 
 ever see her parlor lit up at night except on some 
 special occasion ? The family never sit in the par- 
 lor, and what is in it is evidently too good to be 
 used. Now, I like what I see here. The carpet is 
 not too costly to be walked on ; your chairs are not 
 too frail to be sat on, and (you need not be vain if 
 I say it) you, children, are not too ill-bred to grace 
 this, the best place in the house. Here, around 
 this table, with your books, and your work, and 
 your laugh, and your chat, that is what I like to 
 see. I wish there were more parlors like yours. 
 As I walk through the streets, I suspect from the 
 dark windov/s that there are not many. So you 
 see, my dears, a bachelor can talk about home." 
 
MY brother's parlor. 1 3 
 
 They all laughed, and my sister looked pleased, 
 while her daughter — not the small, but the tall one 
 ■ — came round and kissed the little bare spot on my 
 cheek which neither whisker nor mustache covered, 
 and told me that however I might succeed, I was 
 an appreciative uncle, and I might come there as 
 often as I liked and say all the good things I could. 
 
II. 
 
 HOMES. 
 
 IT is a very great mistake to suppose we bach- 
 elors do not know anything about home or 
 children. Because I have not a wife and do not 
 keep house and have no children that I can call 
 my own, it by no means implies that I have not 
 some very excellent ideas about wives and homes 
 and children. Ah me! if I had not had some 
 ideas, perhaps I might have had them all! But 
 let that pass. 
 
 I have seen some homes, some children, and — 
 you need not laugh — some wives, that have come 
 somewhat up to my ideal. Not many, I admit ; 
 yet there are some that I know. I can not paint a 
 picture, but I am sure that I know a well-painted 
 one, when I see it, a good deal better than some 
 whose business is to make pictures. I can tell what 
 a home ought to be, though I have never set one up. 
 (14) 
 
HOMES 15 
 
 After all, when one comes to think of it, there 
 are not many homes. There are, of course, innu- 
 merable places which go by the name of home, called 
 so for want of a better designation, or because ev- 
 erybody calls the place where he eats and sleeps 
 " home "; but when you come down to the real and 
 sober fact, homes are comparatively scarce. 
 
 A home is a refuge-place from the storms, the 
 fret and worry of life. It is a place where the hus- 
 band comes as to a sanctuary, where smiles and lov- 
 ing words answer his smiles and loving greetings ; 
 it is a place where the wife reigns in her benignity 
 and grace, not it may be the grace of outward 
 beauty or cultivation, but of true womanhood, 
 where she receives honor and love even as she 
 gives them both ; it is a place where children are 
 happier than anywhere else in all the world, be- 
 cause there are the cheeriest words, the brightest 
 looks, and the kindest acts. Such are not the ma- 
 jority of homes as we find them. 
 
 How does it happen that when you see a real 
 home, a light, pleasant spot where every one seems 
 to be happy, where if husband and wife have mis- 
 understandings no one ever knows it, where children 
 seem to be helpful of one another, where laughter 
 and smiles are perpetual guests, why does it strike 
 
1 6 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 one as peculiar and noticeable? Simply because 
 there are so few of them. 
 
 I will not ask you to think of your own home. 
 Let us indulge in the luxury of talking about our 
 neighbors. There is Thornly's house. What are 
 your ideas about his home? You see him go in at 
 nightfall, looking used up by the wear of the day, 
 and you see him come out of it as if there had 
 been wear and tear instead of rest or peace for 
 mind or body. Did you ever see Thornly's wife 
 come to the door and stand watching him and wav- 
 ing a smile at him as he went away? Not exactly ! 
 Did you ever see Thornly's boys run down the 
 street to get hold of his hand ? Possibly you have 
 seen them suddenly disappear as he came in sight. 
 
 If you could step in with'Thornly and be there 
 an invisible presence, I don't believe you would be 
 wholly charmed with the look of things. Possibly 
 the first words of Thornly are directed indefinitely, 
 " What's all this noise about ? I don't see why 
 these children are always kicking up such a row." 
 The said children take the hint and move out of 
 the way, not thinking — for which they are pardona- 
 ble — to say, " Good-evening," to their father. He 
 soon " settles " them. The family sit down to the 
 evening meal. Thornly feels tired and don't care 
 
HOMES. 17 
 
 to talk ; the children have something to say, but 
 they learned long ago that father does not care to 
 be bothered with their tales of school, nor to be 
 asked questions about kites and balls. He has for- 
 gotten all he ever knew about them, or indeed that 
 he ever had them. They, sensibly enough, keep 
 still. On the whole they have, if not a bad, a very 
 stupid time. The family is a company of animals, 
 who feed and leave when they have had enough. 
 
 If the children can get out they go. Thornly 
 finds occasion to stroll out, or if staying at home is 
 in order, he takes a newspaper to read or doze over 
 while Mrs. Thornly keeps the children from quar- 
 relling. They do not know precisely what to do 
 with themselves, so they mope round and are glad 
 to go to bed, though they don't want to go, except 
 to escape the dullness. 
 
 Now that is not a beautiful picture, but is it a 
 very uncommon one? An honest confession would 
 tell of more homes of that sort than of better ones. 
 Are they real homes ? 
 
III. 
 
 A HOME NOT^LIKE HEAVEN. 
 
 I WAS riding to a funeral the other day, an au- 
 tumnal day whose softened gleam on the 
 tinted woods and whose chilly air were in harmony 
 with the sorrowful errand we were on. By my side 
 sat a widow whose life had been made very sad by 
 repeated and heavy bereavements. As we had sev- 
 eral miles to pass over before the cemetery could 
 be reached, there was opportunity for the inter- 
 change of many thoughts. Some of hers made a 
 deep impression upon me. I recall one of them. 
 
 We were talking about heaven, and especially 
 about our recognition of friends and their probable 
 present knowledge of us. Said she : 
 
 " I hope and I expect to see many that I love 
 
 there, but I have a strange feeling in respect to my 
 
 mother. I want to see her, and yet when I think 
 
 of being with her and remaining in her company, I 
 (i8) 
 
A HOME NOT LIKE HEAVEN. I9 
 
 have a sort of shrinking from it as if I did not care 
 to be there. You know, sir," she added, " that my 
 parents were Scotch, and that we had the old-fash- 
 ioned training of a home in Scotland. My-mother 
 and father were so cold and so strict. All was law 
 and duty. Why, I never had any idea of God as 
 my heavenly Father till I was a woman grown ; in- 
 deed, not until these later years. All my knowl- 
 edge of Him from the teachings of my home was 
 that of a stern and inexorable lawgiver, without a 
 thought of sympathy or tenderness. And this 
 passed into the discipline and the training of our 
 home. We were taught to be obedient and moral 
 and religious ; the Bible, the catechism, the church 
 were all made familiar to us ; but around them and 
 around our whole life there was thrown nothing of 
 sweetness or tenderness. And so it came to pass 
 that over our home there reigned an air of stern- 
 ness and severity that was only repulsive while we 
 were in it, and has nothing pleasant now in mem- 
 ory to give us. I think of my parents with love 
 and respect, but over the love and respect there 
 are no sweet or affectionate emotions. I find that 
 the same feelings come up when I think of them in 
 heaven. I would like to see them, to greet them, 
 but not to be with them all the time and forever." 
 
20 A BACHELOR S TALKS. 
 
 I listened to this with surprise. I had never 
 heard just such things. I suppose the same senti- 
 ments have not often been expressed, although I 
 doubt not very many have had them in their minds. 
 It seemed to me then as I heard this lady speaking, 
 and it seems to me now, inexpressibly sad. Here 
 was a Christian home, hallowed by the family altar 
 and made sacred by careful religious instruction, 
 yet a home around which clung not one pleasant 
 association, and which projected even into the an- 
 ticipations of heaven an air of repulsiveness. 
 
 Was it an exceptional home ? Did these parents 
 leave behind them memories such as no other par- 
 ents have ever left ? I wish that I could think so ; 
 but I know of other homes and other parents of 
 whom the same things might be said. They are 
 homes from which all elements of tenderness and 
 manifested affection have been left out. They are 
 parents who never give a caress, from whose lips 
 never comes a pet name or an intonation that 
 speaks of fondness or love. I know of children 
 now grown to manhood who look back to child- 
 hood, as connected-with home, without an emotion 
 of pleasure. They can not remember ever to have 
 been taken in the arms, ever to have been hugged 
 or kissed, except in a formal way. If they ever 
 
A HOME NOT LIKE HEAVEN. 21 
 
 were, it was when they were too young now to re- 
 member it. I know, too, how they ceaselessly re- 
 gret it; how they wish that, amid the scenes of 
 those bygone years, there mingled some sweeter 
 visions of father or mother. Instructions, prayers, 
 duties they remember ; but no tender sympathies, 
 no smiles, no words of love. A world which to 
 some is like a paradise in memory, is to them only 
 full of gloom, which they care not to think of. 
 
 Perhaps some parents who read this will stop for 
 a moment and think. They will be certain that 
 they have tried to be very faithful ; that they have 
 instructed and trained their children carefully ; that 
 they have tried to have them obedient and even re- 
 ligious ; but they will also be just as certain that 
 the element of tenderness they have left out of 
 their home life. Law and duty have been always 
 there ; manifested affection has been always absent. 
 
 I do not know whether or not it is too late to 
 make it different ; but it will be very sorrowful if 
 your children shall, as did my friend, think that 
 heaven would be more attractive if they could be 
 sure that you would not be always near them. 
 
IV. 
 
 FRANK HOLMAN'S NEW HOME. 
 
 I HAVE just returned from a call on Frank Hol- 
 man. Frank is one of our best clerks — a wide- 
 awake, able young fellow, on whom we depend for 
 intelligent and steady work. A year or two ago we 
 were a little afraid that New York would be too 
 much for him in the way of temptation ; but when 
 we understood that he was pretty firmly held by 
 the attractions of a young lady up-town, we were 
 satisfied that he was safe. I never feel very anx- 
 ious about a young man who shows a fondness for 
 virtuous ladies' society. 
 
 Frank consulted me, a while since, in a half apol- 
 ogetic way — not in the words, but in the manner — 
 about his contemplated marriage. I have an idea 
 that he was slightly afraid that I would think that 
 he was about to do an imprudent thing. He was evi- 
 
 (22) 
 
FRANK HOLMAN'S NEW HOME. 23 
 
 dently quite relieved when I replied, cheerily, '' I am 
 glad of it, Frank, you are wise in this matter." 
 
 I noticed, especially after my answer, a sort of 
 confidence in his tone, as he begged me to come 
 and see him when in his new home. He evidently 
 imagined that what I would find there would be what 
 I would approve, and would make me express my 
 satisfaction even more emphatically. 
 
 Now, since I have seen the wife and the home, 
 I am of the opinion that the boy had good grounds 
 for his belief. In temperament and mental devel- 
 opment, they appeared to be admirably adapted to 
 each other, and, in marrying, they have each made 
 a happy choice. He has, I am sure, done a wise 
 thing. I wish that I had done as well when I was 
 as young as he. 
 
 I confess, however, that I was a little surprised 
 when he spoke to me of his intended marriage. Hol- 
 man's salary is not large, and I did not suppose that a 
 young man of his characteristics — aspiring, energetic, 
 and active — would care to marry so soon. I had, 
 therefore, considerable curiosity to see what would be 
 the style of his housekeeping. I was all the more 
 curious as I knew Fanny, his wife, to be of a family, 
 if not wealthy, yet of excellent position and means. 
 With her tastes, education, refinement, and connec- 
 
24 A BACHELOR S TALKS. 
 
 tions, I did not see precisely how they would man- 
 age housekeeping on what I knew Frank's means 
 to be. 
 
 I walked home with him this afternoon. His 
 house is not very far up-town, and certainly in not 
 a very fashionable street, but both house and street 
 are neat and quiet and respectable. 
 
 He took me at once up-stairs, as he said, with a 
 smile, "You see, I don't hire the whole of this 
 house ; that would hardly do for me, you know." 
 That banished any misgivings I may have had. If 
 Frank's wife was willing to live in half of a house, 
 the rest would be easy. 
 
 He ushered me into a neat little parlor that had 
 a look of welcome in it, even if a cheery, joyous 
 voice and sudden kiss had not met him as he 
 opened the door. As I saw the young wife, with 
 the glow of fulfilled expectation on her face, her 
 trim figure so tastefully yet plainly arrayed, with 
 just a little blush on her cheek, as if she had been 
 caught naughtily kissing her husband before some- 
 body, I envied him then and there, and thought 
 that it did not require so very much courage, after 
 all, to go to housekeeping, when one was sure of 
 all that on every evening. 
 
 Frank had an errand out. He made it, I sus- 
 
FRANK HOLMAN S NEW HOME. 2$ 
 
 pected, that I might have an opportunity of seeing 
 what his wife was. When he was by, she had 
 been indined largely to leave the conversation to 
 him. 
 
 I had known Fanny before, and we soon fell into 
 a lively conversation which she made to go in the 
 direction of their new home. 
 
 " Now, I know, Mr. Elwood," she said, archly, 
 " that you had just a little curiosity to see how we 
 managed this matter of housekeeping. I will not 
 make you confess, and I don't blame you a bit for 
 being curious about it. I imagine, too, that when 
 Frank told you he was married, that you thought 
 him an imprudent young man. I don't wonder at 
 that either ; though, wise as you are, you were, this 
 once, mistaken. You see, Frank and I talked it all 
 over, during many an evening and on many a walk. 
 He was willing, so he said, to wait. But I knew 
 that it was a very impatient sort of willingness, 
 and, as for myself, I was not willing at all. We 
 often said to each other, ' Life is not very long at 
 the best, and is very uncertain. We do not know 
 how long we shall be spared to each pther. It may 
 be that a very few years or even months will cover 
 it all for us. Why should we spend so much of 
 it in mere waiting, which, after all, is sometimes 
 
26 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 dreary enough ? ' So we determined to end the 
 waiting." 
 
 " But, Mrs. Fanny," I said, " how is it that you 
 had courage to begin in this way? Your rooms 
 are pretty, and I can not tell you how much I am 
 delighted with your home, but I know that you 
 have been accustomed to things on a broader scale 
 than this." 
 
 " Oh," she replied, " it did not require much 
 courage ; only a little common sense, and," she 
 added quietly, "love. You know that it would 
 have been all folly for us to think of living in the 
 style of our parents. If that had been our idea, we 
 would not have thought of marriage for many a 
 year. But we thought that it would be wise, at 
 least, to begin where they began, and not where 
 they left off. They did not begin in a brown-stone 
 front. Frank's salary would not afford us a whole 
 house, so we took this nice half of one. It did 
 seem a little strange at first, and I would rather, of 
 course, be alone ; but it seemed best not to go out 
 of the city, and here we are. Don't you think 
 this a pretty parlor? Our other rooms are just as 
 pretty in their way. You shall stay to dinner, and 
 I will show you how nicely some of our wedding 
 presents look on the table." 
 
FRANK HOLMAN'S NEW HOME. 2J 
 
 So she ran on till Frank came in. Perhaps I will 
 tell hereafter a little of what this young wife said 
 about the housekeeping, but, whether I do or not, 
 I came away from Frank Holman's house satisfied 
 that he had done a wise thing in marrying that no- 
 ble wife of his, and in marrying when he did. 
 
V. 
 
 MRS. FRANK HOLMAN S HOUSEKEEPING.- 
 
 T DID not intend to take dinner with Frank Hol- 
 -■- man when I went home with him the other 
 day, but there was no refusing Mrs. Holman's 
 quiet taking it for granted that I would remain. 
 " You will take dinner with us ; you shall see some 
 of the pretty things of our wedding on the table," 
 she said, and there was an air in it that settled the 
 matter. 
 
 I had been a little curious to see how the young 
 wife would accept the bringing home by her hus- 
 band, of a friend just before dinner. It is within 
 my observation that if you wish to test a woman's 
 amiability and equanimity, contrive to go home 
 with her husband unexpectedly, and time it so 
 that you shall arrive with him about ten minutes 
 before dinner. Then observe how his wife receives 
 him. Of course she will not say anything disagree- 
 
 (28) 
 
MRS. FRANK HOLMAN's HOUSEKEEPING. 29 
 
 able, but quietly see whether her face flushes or not, 
 whether she forgets to kiss him, whether she grows 
 nervous and begins to bustle around. If you notice 
 any of these things you may be tolerably sure that 
 there will be a breeze when you are gone, and a 
 " I think you might let me know when you are 
 going to bring home company to dinner." 
 
 I am happy to say that Mrs. Frank Holman bore 
 well this test. She was quiet and self-possessed, 
 and evidently felt satisfied that all was right. I 
 think that Frank went out at her hint to order the 
 ice-cream that made our dessert ; but, if so, it must 
 have been given in some cabalistic way that I did 
 not understand, while she was making the acquaint- 
 ance, which I had with her as a girl, ripen at once 
 into a friendship of a wife for her husband's friend. 
 
 We went into their little dining-room, where a 
 small round table, covered with the neatest and 
 whitest service, welcomed us. As we sat around 
 it, -we three — I, a sort of father-friend, and they 
 two children with smiles that spoke the happiness 
 of two young lives just in its full — it was but the 
 expression of what was in our hearts as we bowed 
 our heads with brief words of thanks to God. We 
 could not but bless the heavenly Father for the 
 good of that hour. Indeed, I do not see how a 
 
30 A BACHELOR S TALKS. 
 
 young husband and wife, whose hopes God has 
 crowned with fruition, can bear not to thank Him 
 together in prayer. 
 
 I could not help saying to Mrs. Holman, " You 
 must have been unusually fortunate in securing, at 
 the outset, so admirable a cook — her excellent prod- 
 ucts praise her." 
 
 " There ! how mistaken you are," she triumph- 
 antly exclaimed ; " my girl is very young, and, I 
 must whisper it, very raw ; you know that it would 
 not exactly comport with our establishment to have 
 a ' confessed cook,' as mother's Dinah calls herself. 
 That sort of article is expensive. I had to content 
 myself with a low-priced one." 
 
 " But some one has used brain-work ; some one 
 has known how to do it, and I am of the opinion 
 that your own experience was not world-wide in 
 the cooking department." 
 
 " That is true," she said, laughingly, " we did 
 not do much of that work at home." 
 
 " Where, then, did you learn ? " 
 
 " Oh, that is not so difficult, after all. Do you 
 see that book on the window-sill ? That is my 
 kitchen literature, which I study diligently. Then 
 I use something in here," and she tapped lightly 
 her white forehead ; " so it is all very easy. A 
 
MRS. FRANK HOLMAN'S HOUSEKEEPING. 3 1 
 
 good cook-book and some brains are all one wants ; 
 and then, with a willing and not too stupid servant, 
 all comes out well. 
 
 " I have time now," she went on in her captivat- 
 ing way, while Frank looked on with considerably- 
 more than content in his face, " for these things. 
 I don't practice or play much now ; we have no 
 room " — it was said with a significant laugh — " for 
 a piano ; it would fill that parlor so that we could 
 not move around. Some of these days, when we 
 have grown out of these snug quarters, perhaps it 
 will come. And then I don't have quite so much 
 shopping to do now, nor so many calls to make, nor 
 so many parties to attend as before our marriage. 
 Frank comes home tired, often, and when I have 
 gotten him in his slippers, we are too indolent to 
 go out again. I am afraid we shall grow unsocial 
 by and by, for, somehow, we foolishly think that 
 our little home is the nicest place we know of. A 
 call or so a week, with our church meetings, ordi- 
 narily does for us. We do not give large parties ; 
 our rooms are not quite saloon-like enough for that. 
 Indeed, Mr. Elwood," she said, with a playful tone, 
 and yet with meaning hidden in it, " we live with- 
 in our means. I don't intend that Frank shall 
 always be a clerk, even with so kind an employer 
 
32 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 as you. By and by we intend to have a business 
 and a home of our own," and there was a mock im- 
 portance, but with it a look that proclaimed the 
 woman true and noble in the words. She added : 
 
 " So, expensive concerts, carriages, suppers, and 
 all that, are now out of our line. Indeed, we don't 
 feel the need of them." 
 
 But I will not tell you all that young wife said. 
 She said enough to make me think, as I looked 
 upon her stately figure, so full of youthful life, and 
 in her face, beaming with sweetness and sympathetic 
 with character, that Frank Holman had found that 
 treasure which the good book says is " above rubies." 
 
VI. 
 
 MRS. FRANK HOLMAN'S HOUSEKEEPING. — II. 
 
 1KN0W that you want to hear how Mrs. Frank 
 Holman's housekeeping comes on, now that 
 the novelty and the poetry of a new beginning and 
 the halo of " love's young dream " have drifted off. 
 You will remember that I said that Frank was 
 one of our clerks, on the whole the best in our 
 establishment, and his income was made up wholly 
 of the salary which he earns by his industry and 
 ability. His wife is the daughter of wealthy par- 
 ents, and all her life she had been accustomed to 
 luxury, at least to the gratification of every reason- 
 able want. It was a surprise to the most of their 
 friends when they married. Everybody expected 
 that they would wait till Frank was established in 
 business. Everybody was still more surprised when 
 they not only were married, but went to house- 
 3 (33) 
 
34 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 keeping in the modest home they took for them- 
 selves. The expectation was that " the old folks " 
 on either side would set them up in, if not a large, 
 at least handsome establishment, and that the young 
 couple would begin their married life in somewhat 
 the style to which they had been accustomed in 
 their former homes. 
 
 When that was not done, and when Frank and 
 his wife neither had a house given them nor took 
 apartments in a boarding-house, but selected a quiet 
 street, hired half of a neat house, and set up house- 
 keeping in a very quiet way, there were not only a 
 good many eyebrows elevated, but a good many 
 heads shaken and a volume of expressions of doubt 
 and surprise published. 
 
 After the conversation that I had with Mrs. 
 Frank Holman, I knew that it would all be well. 
 I was certain that the good sense and the affection 
 that had led them to make at once a home for 
 themselves, to build a nest with their own hands, 
 would make it only sweet and beaatiful. The in- 
 telligence and energy of the wife I was sure would 
 make up for all her inexperience ; her cheerfulness 
 and affection would make all the cares light. 
 
 So I have not been at all surprised that when- 
 ever I have gone into their home I have found the 
 
MRS. FRANK HOLMAN'S HOUSEKEEPING. 35 
 
 same perpetual spring air of comfort and grace 
 reigning. The rooms that I was permitted to see 
 — and Mrs. Frank would compel me to look at 
 them all — displayed the same neatness and beauty 
 after months, that they did at the beginning; ex- 
 cept that, as I noticed, pictures and ornaments, in- 
 expensive, indeed, but selected with a refined taste, 
 were from time to time taking little nooks and cor- 
 ners and pieces of bare wall into possession, and 
 making them beautiful. The young wife was al- 
 ways the same sprightly, well-dressed, ready-to-wel- 
 come girl that she was at the beginning. If, as 
 once or twice it occurred, I chanced to come in at 
 an unexpected moment in the morning, she never 
 kept me waiting. It would not be long before her 
 quick step would be heard on the stair, and she 
 would come with her own sunny air and smile and 
 — you may be surprised that I should notice such 
 a matter — not in a faded or greasy silk dress, nor in 
 a fine one suddenly donned for the occasion, and 
 which she had delayed to slip on, but in a neat and 
 nicely fitting calico, which made her look, to me, 
 exceedingly fresh and charming. 
 
 I think I know why, but somehow a pretty calico 
 dress on a trim form, and, indeed, on any woman's 
 form, has for me a peculiar charm. I should not, 
 
36 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 of course, like to see it in a parlor at a reception, 
 or as if it were intended for state occasions, but in 
 the working hours of home I do not know of any- 
 thing more attractive. 
 
 Perhaps the girls will not care much for what an 
 old fellow — but you don't know how old I am ; 
 younger than you perhaps think — like me, thinks ; 
 but if they want to wear a certain indescribable 
 and taking charm in the eyes of that particular 
 young man whose good opinion they somehow 
 just a little care for, let them allow themselves on 
 some morning to be surprised in well-selected and 
 tastefully-made-up calico. If its clean freshness, 
 its bright, cheerful colors do not attract, and if its 
 well-fitting folds as they clasp the waist do not 
 suggest a more than half-formed wish to cover 
 them with a bent arm, why, then that particular 
 young man is not made of the stuff that I think he 
 ought to be. I do not say that I have any such 
 ideas. I only say that I think that he would have 
 them. At all events I always thought that Mrs. 
 Holman looked very sweet and attractive in her 
 morning calico, and did not wonder at all that she 
 never kept me waiting for her appearance. Indeed 
 I should not wonder if she knew just how well she 
 
MRS. FRANK HOLMAN'S HOUSEKEEPING. 3/ 
 
 looked. I half suspect that her husband gives her 
 the good-bye kiss in the morning with quite as 
 much if not more satisfaction, as his arm clasps the 
 calico dress of the morning, than when it touches a 
 little more daintily the more pretentious dress on 
 coming home at night. 
 
VII. 
 
 MRS. FRANK HOLMAN'S HOUSEKEEPING.— III. 
 
 SOME added cares and heavier expenses have 
 lately come to them, and I have had a little 
 curiosity to know whether housekeeping was the 
 same easy, pleasant thing that Mrs. Holman had 
 hoped it would be soon after her married days begun. 
 
 I asked her how it was — whether the expenses 
 were not greater than she anticipated, and whether 
 she did not find its care irksome and disagreeable. 
 
 " Well," she replied, " as to the expenses, one 
 thing was fixed at the beginning : we set out to 
 live within our means. I knew what Frank's in- 
 come was and would probably be for some time to 
 come, and so knew where the limit of exf>enditure 
 must be planted. We determined not only not to 
 be in debt, but every year, if our lives and health 
 
 were spared, to save something from our income as 
 (38) 
 
MRS. FRANK HOLMAN'S HOUSEKEEPING. 39 
 
 well as conscientiously to give away for benevolent 
 purposes a part of it. 
 
 " It did not take long to discover that care was 
 needed. I had never been accustomed to buy any- 
 thing except in the dry-goods, the shoe, and the 
 hat stores, and so all the market and the grocery 
 business was very new to me. Frank had no time 
 to attend to those matters, and, after going out 
 with him a few mornings to the market, I found 
 that I could do the business better and cheaper 
 than he. A gentleman can give neither the time 
 nor the care which I felt were necessary in our case. 
 So I took that matter on myself. I made my own 
 purchases. It did not take very long to learn that 
 part of housekeeping. I do it at a regular hour, 
 and it is soon despatched. 
 
 " I said that we found that to make the expenses 
 come within the proper bounds, needed care. We 
 had both been accustomed to keeping accounts of 
 our income and expenditures. Frank, of course, 
 did it naturally as a business man ; and my mother, 
 one of the most methodical of women, with all her 
 easy ways, always taught us girls to do the same. 
 She meted out to us week by week our allowance, 
 and we were expected to keep an account of how 
 it was expended. So, when the housekeeping be- 
 
40 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 gan, it was a great deal easier than not to set down 
 in our expense-book what had been paid out. As 
 we, from the first, determined to pay for everything 
 as it was bought, and to have no outstanding bills 
 or running accounts, it was tolerably easy to make 
 the entries. Yet, you would have been amused if 
 you could have seen us more than once — yes, a 
 good many times — with serious, perplexed faces, 
 poring over our little book, and trying to find out 
 where all the money had gone. Frank would be 
 sure, although he hardly dared assert it, that he 
 had not lost any money ; I felt sure that I could ac- 
 count for all that I had had, and yet a large amount 
 had most unaccountably departed — so large, that 
 we both felt almost certain that it had not legiti- 
 mately gone. We have again and again searched 
 our purses and pocket-books and counted our bal 
 ances, to make sure that by some accident a stray 
 five-dollars had not hidden itself away. Then we 
 would go over the week and ' think up ' what we 
 had bought. 
 
 " ' Oh, I forgot to set down that '; ' Didn't you 
 put that bill in the collection-box for missions last 
 Sunday, and forget to set it down ? ' or something 
 like those would be our mutual accusations and 
 convictions, and we always found, when all was 
 
MRS. FRANK HOLMAN'S HOUSEKEEPING. 4I 
 
 hunted up and duly entered, that the missing funds 
 were always accounted for. Yet I verily believe, 
 indeed I know, that if we had not kept our ex- 
 pense-book, we would either have grown careless 
 or else we would have fretted ourselves under what 
 we would have thought the certainty that the miss- 
 ing money had been lost or stolen. Indeed, more 
 than once a suspicion crossed our minds that our 
 servant had been guilty. You may imagine how 
 guilty we felt at the suspicion when we discovered 
 that no money at all had been lost, but that only 
 our carelessness had been at fault. 
 
 "We soon learned that money, when one is keep- 
 ing house, has a most wonderful and mysterious 
 fashion of making way with itself ; that a pocket- 
 book or portmonnaie, however well you may clasp 
 it, somehow or other will let a prodigious amount 
 go out of its little folds without your knowing it — 
 that is, if you don't keep watch most carefully over 
 it. My little expense-book has been a great help 
 to me, a sort of black-and-tan terrier to bark at the 
 right moment — at least to give me notice and keep 
 me well aware of what was going on in the estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 " We soon learned, however, by the accounts 
 which we kept, just what was about our average 
 
42 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 expenses, or what they ought to be, and we reso- 
 lutely forced them down to the proper place. The 
 first few weeks I acknowledge we behaved rather 
 badly, and we came out somewhat behind the sum 
 we had fixed for that period. That was the origin 
 of all that hunting for what we thought was lost 
 funds. But when we found that we two were re- 
 sponsible for the getting away of the dollars, we 
 looked over the accounts and discovered where the 
 least necessary expenditure was, and avoided that 
 spot the next time." 
 
 " Well," I interrupted, " how did that sort of 
 thing seem? I' suppose that it was a new sort of 
 experience to you both. Frank in his young bach- 
 elorhood was pretty free with his money, and I 
 don't believe that you ever felt the need of very 
 dreadful economy." 
 
 She laughed, and went on : 
 
 " Oh, I don't say that it seemed particularly nice, 
 but it was necessary, and so on the whole it was 
 good." 
 
 She said some more things worth repeating, but 
 I will not tell them in this talk. 
 
VIII. 
 
 MRS. FRANK HOLMAN'S HOUSEKEEPING. — IV. 
 
 WHILE we were engaged in our conversa- 
 tion, in which I was much interested 
 about the success of her housekeeping, her servant 
 announced the dinner, and almost at the same mo- 
 ment Frank came into the room. The young folks 
 evidently were both punctual people. The dinner 
 did not wait for Frank, and Frank did not wait for 
 the dinner. I imagined that this was one of those 
 quiet ways that the wife and husband had of keep- 
 ing each other's tempers in good order, and that 
 Mrs. Holman was at the bottom of it all. 
 
 She has a quiet method of doing things that 
 clearly makes all go along smoothly as well as effi- 
 ciently. She seems to take the housekeeping easi- 
 ly, indeed she says that she likes it and does not 
 find it at all troublesome. 
 
 She has a servant. I suppose that Frank must 
 
 (43) 
 
44 A BACHELOR S TALKS. 
 
 have thought that I might think them extravagant 
 in keeping — for their small household — so expen- 
 sive an article. I had no such thought. He said, 
 however : 
 
 " There is just one thing that I resolved upon 
 when we went to housekeeping, and that was my 
 wife should not be worn down with drudgery, to 
 which she has never been accustomed, and to which 
 her strength is unequal. So I insisted from the 
 beginning that my wife should provide herself with 
 a servant. I considered it best and wisest to econ- 
 omize, if it should be necessary, at other points, 
 and be extravagant, if so it should be, at this. You 
 see," he added, " I did not want that bloom to go 
 off from Fanny's face any sooner than was neces- 
 sary. She has kept it pretty well, you notice." 
 
 " But," I answered, " I had been in doubt how 
 you were going to make all come out square, as I 
 know that your income is not what the most of 
 young people in your position deem absolutely 
 necessary to keep house upon." 
 
 " I overheard," he said, " my wife telling you 
 somewhat how she orders the matter. If she were 
 not here, and if I were not afraid of making her 
 blush, I would tell you some things about her man- 
 agement that she has not told to you. After all, 
 
MRS. FRANK HOLMAN S HOUSEKEEPING. 45 
 
 my bachelor friends contrive to spend on their lone 
 selves pretty much the same amount as I do upon 
 my little household. I understand it precisely, for 
 I have had their experience. 
 
 " When I was an unmarried man I had some 
 habits that made expenditures, and my position 
 made others absolutely necessary that are quite 
 avoided now. My cigars used to make quite a re- 
 spectable item, for it was not simply those that I 
 used myself, but those that every friendly man who 
 smokes must provide for his smoking acquaintances 
 that made the sum. Then, this young lady oppo- 
 site cost me something in other days. We had 
 operas and concerts to go to and parties to attend. 
 You are pretty well aware that nowadays and in the 
 city it is not a very small or a light matter for a 
 young man to take a young lady friend to a con- 
 cert. It is not that he himself must be got up in 
 style, but he would not dare to propose a walk or a 
 ride in an omnibus or the cars. Indeed, he could 
 hardly do so. The dress which his lady friend 
 wears on such an occasion might be forever spoiled 
 by one such ride, even were it not that every eye 
 in the conveyance would be fixed curiously upon 
 her. He must call for her in a carriage appropriate 
 to the occasion. That carriage must return at the 
 
46 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 hour when the affair is over. It must wait for them 
 at the saloon where the supper — at least, the oys- 
 ters or the cream — are taken. No respectable 
 young man could think of conveying the lady 
 home without some refreshments, and some young 
 ladies are not at all modest in their calls, or mod- 
 erate in their partakings on such occasions. So by 
 the time the lady, larger or smaller, is safely gotten 
 home, there has been an aperture made in the 
 pocket-book that can be very easily recognized 
 next day by this privileged young man. That was 
 the way with me many a time. I liked it, did not 
 complain of it, though I confess that it did not 
 come entirely easy, and could not be repeated as 
 often as I would have wished. 
 
 " But," he added, " we have not those things to 
 do now. We go to the concerts and the oratorios 
 when we wish, but then, as we are husband and 
 wife, we do as we please, and we take what convey- 
 ance we please. The after-supper we do not usu- 
 ally find necessary. And, more than all, we don't 
 go very often, for we find this cozy home about the 
 best place to stay in at night. I come home often 
 rather tired, and, when dinner is over and I am 
 comfortably in my slippers, with Fanny not far off, 
 we are too lazy to go out. Somehow our friends 
 
MRS. FRANK HOLMAN'S HOUSEKEEPING. 4/ 
 
 have gotten the idea that our parlor is a tolerably- 
 pleasant place, and we are not left many evenings 
 to ourselves — none certainly more than we want. 
 I find, take it altogether, that our expenditures are 
 not so very much more than when I had no wife 
 or baby to provide for. 
 
 " I am afraid," he said, looking up laughingly to 
 his wife, " that Fanny has had some trouble to get 
 me in my present habits, for she has a good many 
 times, when I have been about to launch out in the 
 old style, had to say to me in that peculiar taking 
 way she has, ' Do you think, Frank, you had bet- 
 ter?' But so it is. I don't take any of the credit 
 to myself in the matter." 
 
 As we sat at that pleasant table and chatted the 
 hour away I wished that some young people that I 
 know, who have been waiting weariedly for years 
 till they were well enough off to marry, had been 
 with us. I imagine the bright home, and the bright 
 philosophy of it, would have been a new revelation 
 to them. 
 
IX. 
 
 MRS. HOLMAN S BABY. 
 
 1HAVE just been to see Mrs. Frank Holman's 
 baby. Frank, some weeks ago, with a gratifi- 
 cation and pride which greatly pleased me, told me 
 that a little boy had made his appearance in their 
 house. As I am very apt to find out the babies 
 among my friends, I took the first proper moment 
 to go to their home to see this one, in whom I 
 could not but be deeply interested. 
 
 Just as I should have expected, this new baby- 
 boy has come to them as a great joy. I have 
 known many parents to look upon the advent of 
 a child as simply an unmeasured calamity, to be 
 spoken of only with vexation or sorrow. I have 
 had young fathers almost apologize for the fact 
 that they were compelled to say that a new-comer 
 
 was in their home. It was not so with Frank Hol- 
 (48) 
 
MRS. HOLMAN'S baby. 49 
 
 man. He spoke of his baby with an unassumed 
 dignity, a subdued gratitude and glowing satisfac- 
 tion that made a jest all out of place, and almost 
 compelled my hearty congratulations, while it lifted 
 my esteem for him into respect and admiration. 
 
 It was so with his wife. I admired her before. 
 She was bright and pretty. But now, with the 
 glow of pride and joy upon her face as she held her 
 baby before me, she was more beautiful than I had 
 ever seen her. Clearly this gift which nestled in 
 her arms and upon which she gazed with supreme 
 fondness, was not esteemed a misfortune or a sor- 
 row. 
 
 She did not ask me if I did not think the baby a 
 pretty one, she had too much of good sense and 
 good taste for that, even if she had the idea that it 
 was beautiful. Neither did I say that it was. I 
 have been put in very uncomfortable circumstances 
 by proud young mothers insisting by their ques- 
 tions that I should say what I did not think was at 
 all true, holding before me a sorry specimen of a 
 baby, and demanding that I should say that it was 
 an angel in beauty. I suppose they have called 
 me, more than once, a crusty old bachelor because 
 I declined the invitation. 
 
 I did not say that Mrs. Holman's baby was pretty, 
 4 
 
50 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 though I am sure that I would be more Hkely to see 
 hers in its fairest light than almost any one else's. 
 I did not think that it was beautiful, new babies 
 never are so to me. Give them time and they will 
 be. I want always to wait till the little red face 
 has grown white, and the eyes have expanded into 
 the radiance that shows the soul within. I love to 
 see them, I have a high respect for them. I can 
 even hold them for a moment or two. There, you 
 need not laugh at that ; I persist that I do under- 
 stand how to hold them, and by a cunning insertion 
 of my big hand under their necks, to keep their 
 heads from dropping off — but I do not think them 
 pretty. 
 
 Mrs. Holman thought so too, for she said gayly 
 yet feelingly, " I don't want you to say that he is 
 beautiful. I don't think he is, but I knew that 
 you would cordially give me these congratula- 
 tions and good wishes, that I appreciate so very 
 much." 
 
 " I could not help doing so," I said ; " you have 
 in your arms the brightest and best gift that God 
 gives to mortals, and it is just what I expected from 
 you when I see that you think it so." 
 
 In a subdued tone she said ; " I do indeed think 
 so. 1 half tremble sometimes as I look upon my 
 
MRS. HOLMAN's baby. 51 
 
 baby. I can scarcely believe that he is mine, the 
 gift seems so great and so precious. I know that 
 in this little form there is for me a world of care, 
 perhaps of sorrow, for he may not be left always to 
 me ; but he is immortal, he has been bought by the 
 Saviour, he has been given to me. I accept the 
 gift with unbounded joy. God help me to be a 
 good mother to my boy ! " 
 
 " You will be, my child. The true heart that 
 welcomed and the thoughtful soul that valued, 
 make certain all the rest that a mother ought 
 to be." 
 
 " I thank you, and all the more feelingly since I 
 have only now recovered from a call that I have a 
 few moments since had from my schoolmate, Mrs. 
 Frivilton, whom you know. I should not have 
 cared for her evident indifference to my baby, for, 
 in my folly, I had brought him into the room with 
 me. She scarcely stopped to look at him, did not 
 wait to ask a question or hear a word, but at once 
 exclaimed, ' So you have a baby to tie you at 
 home. I am really sorry for you. That is an end, 
 my dear, of all your good times out with Frank ; 
 that little tyrant will hold you now.' So she rat- 
 tled on, and in my surprise and vexation I hardly 
 
52 A BACHELOR S TALKS. 
 
 knew what to say. But I managed to reply that I 
 did not think it a misfortune ; that, indeed, this Httle 
 one that she said was to end my pleasure was the 
 brightest and best thing, next to my husband, that 
 had ever come to my life ; that I thought that she 
 was the one to be condoled with. She laughed at 
 what she called my prosy way of looking at things, 
 and said that I was always an old-fashioned piece,- 
 aiid so we ceased to talk of baby any more. When 
 she went away, and I looked down into this little 
 fellow's face and thought of all that he is, all that 
 he may be, that he is one of Christ's little ones and 
 will be one day in glory with Him, that he has been 
 given me, my feelings of vexation turned into pity 
 for my friend." 
 
 " I am glad," I replied, " that you said just those 
 things to Mrs. Frivilton. I am acquainted with 
 her, and am sometimes in her house. It has not 
 the cheery feel of yours, and its stillness is not 
 pleasant to me. I miss the sound of small feet and 
 the voices of boys and girls. Yours will have music 
 that hers can not have. Not one of her beautiful 
 pieces of furniture unscratched by careless boys will 
 compare with your baby's cradle. I think that 
 when she comes home at midnight, she will hardly 
 
MRS. HOLMAN'S baby. 53 
 
 be able to look down on any treasure like that 
 which lies all rosy and sleeping there. I guess 
 that what you see there will make up for being 
 tied sometimes at home ! " 
 
 " I guess so, I guess so," she said, as she laid the 
 baby, now fast asleep, from her arms. 
 
X. 
 
 OBEDIENT BABIES. 
 
 « '\ T THY, now, Uncle William, you don't mean 
 ' ' that, do you ? You are not so ab- 
 surd as to talk about making a baby obey you ? " 
 So said my lively young sister-in-law — not my 
 brother John's wife, she knows all about these 
 things — as she held her six months' old lovingly in 
 her arms. " You do not intend to say that I am 
 to begin my family government — oh, I am half 
 afraid of the word — right away with this little 
 pussy, whom I have nestled up to me now?" 
 
 " Well," I answered, " my dear, it does look at 
 first glance rather absurd ; but I suppose that you 
 intend to have some government in your house- 
 hold, and just a little, at least, of family training, 
 don't you ? " 
 
 " Why, yes ; you know I do. What sort of a 
 family would it be if it had neither training nor 
 government ? " 
 (54) 
 
OBEDIENT BABIES. 55 
 
 " About what time, then, do you propose to be- 
 gin the government and to start the training ? " 
 
 " I have not fixed the time yet," she replied, 
 looking up to me with half surprise, as if my ques- 
 tion had started a new thought ; and then added, 
 " but I suppose both ought to begin just as soon 
 as a child is able to understand what you want." 
 
 " How soon is that ? " I asked ; and I was pretty 
 sure what the answer would be, for my little sister- 
 in-law is bright and intelligent, and has a baby which, 
 like all young mothers, she fully appreciates as 
 being a child remarkably forward and knowing. 
 " Your baby, I believe, is about six months old. 
 He is, of course, too young to show many signs of 
 intelligence. You can hardly make him under- 
 stand anything yet." 
 
 Her eye looked quickly into mine, and just a 
 little flush was in her face as she said, " You do 
 not know how bright he is. He shows intelligence 
 every day, so much that sometimes I think that he 
 knows all I say to him." 
 
 " But you do not mean to tell me that he ever 
 makes you think that he has any will of his own ? " 
 
 " Yes, I guess so ; he was not many days old 
 when his father saw him crying passionately in my 
 arms, and said, teasingly to me, ' The baby has in- 
 
56 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 herited his mother's temper and will.' I told him 
 that that was a part of his paternal inheritance. 
 However that was, we both concluded that it did 
 not take long for a baby to give evidence of want- 
 ing to have his own way." 
 
 " But did you ever make him understand what 
 you wanted him to do ? He is too young for that, 
 is he not ? " 
 
 "You do the little fellow injustice again, Uncle 
 William. I want you to understand that this baby 
 knows more than you think." Then, catching my 
 eye, she added, " I see what you are aiming at. 
 Yes, he has shown me clearly that he can under- 
 stand me. Yesterday I was struck with it. I 
 wanted him to go out for an airing with his nurse, 
 as he does every day. We were putting on his 
 wrapper. He stood the leggings and the cloak 
 pretty well, but when it came to the hood and the 
 tying it under his fat chin, he rebelled. He turned 
 his head from side to side, and when we insisted 
 on his keeping still, and the strings being put under 
 it, he kicked and set up one of his good cries, not 
 of pain or uneasiness, but just a good, loud, pas- 
 sionate yell. You know, old bachelor as you are, 
 what the difference is between the cry of pain and 
 of passion from a baby." 
 
OBEDIENT BABIES. 57 
 
 " Oh, yes, I know fully what it is, for I had a 
 deep experience of it on the boat yesterday, as my 
 reading was all disturbed by the frantic yells of a 
 baby that insisted on scratching the face of a meek 
 little girl at its side, and made known its displeas- 
 ure at being hindered in the pleasant amusement 
 by flouncings and cries that set the boat in an up- 
 roar. I know the difference." 
 
 " I thought that it was only wilfulness, and as 
 he had done just so day after day before, kicking 
 and crying till nurse and I were all in a perspiration, 
 I resolved to try if the course of things could not 
 be changed. So I stopped, looked at him sternly, 
 tapped his chubby hand with my forefinger sharply, 
 and said, ' Baby, hush ! Baby, be still 1 ' To our 
 half wonder and half amusement, he looked at me for 
 an instant with a sort of surprise, and as I repeated 
 my command, suddenly ceased his crying, and kept 
 perfectly still till hood and cloak were adjusted. 
 This morning, when the going-out time came, I heard 
 the beginning of the same outcry, but just as soon 
 as he saw me at his side, and heard my voice tell- 
 ing him to hush, he kept as still as a mouse." 
 
 " I rather think, then, that he knew what you 
 wanted, and that his will must give way to yours. 
 Do you not think so ? " 
 
S8 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 " It certainly looks very like that, but I had not 
 philosophized about it." 
 
 " You have, my dear, I think, made a discovery 
 of infinite moment, if you take and act on all its 
 meaning. You did not think it, certainly your baby 
 did not know it, but you gave him yesterday his 
 first idea of law. You began your family govern- 
 ment. You taught him obedience to you, to yield 
 his will to a higher, God-appointed will. You be- 
 gan not one moment too early. Probably that 
 little incident, so casual and seemingly unimpor- 
 tant, will have a bearing on all his future existence. 
 It surely will if you, as a wise mother, go forward 
 in the same straight path." 
 
XI. 
 
 IN THE PLACE OF GOD. 
 
 1DID not tell all of my conversation with my 
 young sister-in-law in my last talk — the one 
 about " obedient babies." 
 
 My remark that she had given her baby already 
 his first great idea of law, and that what she had 
 done, if she would but follow on in the same path, 
 would have a bearing on all his future history, 
 seemed to catch and hold her attention. Her 
 baby-boy had fallen asleep on her bosom, and she 
 was holding one of his fat hands to her mouth, 
 half kissing, half covering it with her lips, while she 
 looked dreamily in his face. After a moment or 
 two of thoughtful silence she raised her eyes, and, 
 with a strange look of mingled solemnity and won- 
 der, said : 
 
 " Uncle William, you have startled me with a 
 new and very solemn thought. You tell me that I 
 
 (59) 
 
6o A bachelor's talks. 
 
 have begun to teach my baby to submit his will to 
 a higher will, and have begun a reign of law for 
 him. Did I understand you rightly ? " 
 
 " Yes," I replied, " that is what I intended to 
 say. Your will came in conflict with his will, and 
 you, though you perhaps did not see it at the mo- 
 ment, taught him obedience to law when his hood 
 was tied quietly under his chin." 
 
 " But I have just been thinking that if this be so, 
 what a strange and even fearful position it puts me 
 in. I must be a superior being who gives a law 
 that he is bound to obey. Indeed, I hardly dare 
 say what more it seems to me I am to him." 
 
 " What more do you mean ? " 
 
 " Why, my baby does not, can not know any 
 other being superior to me. If my will is his su- 
 preme law, then I must be in the place of God to 
 him ! He knows no other, can know no other God 
 but me or his father. It gives me a strange emo- 
 tion, half of terror, while I think or say it. Am I 
 wrong ? " 
 
 " No, my child, you are not wrong. I do not 
 see how, thoughtful mother that you are, you can 
 escape just that conclusion. There will be some 
 months, possibly years, before your little one can 
 have any idea of God, and during all this time his 
 
IN THE PLACE OF GOD. 6l 
 
 parents must be in God's stead to him. He is to 
 obey your authority, to love, while he obeys you, 
 above and beyond all other beings. You stand .in 
 that relation to him by the simple fact of his birth. 
 You will understand me, then, when I say that for 
 the present you are to your baby God's vicegerent ; 
 you are, as you have said, in God's place to him." 
 
 " But, oh, what a responsibility it puts on me ! 
 I shudder at it. What ought I to be ? How good, 
 how wise, how even holy ! If I am to be his law- 
 giver, what ought I to be myself ? " 
 
 There was a depth of emotion in the tones that 
 surprised me, and as I saw the tears starting to her 
 eyes that had a half-frightened look as they fixed 
 themselves on mine, I thought I had never seen 
 her look so beautiful, and I had a new conception 
 of what it must be to be a parent. 
 
 " I do not think," I said, " that you look at it at 
 all too seriously. It is the strange ordering of the 
 Creator that it should be so, but so it is. Do you 
 not think that there is some such meaning in the 
 fact that the fifth commandment stands just where 
 it does, midway among the ten ? It is to show that 
 next to God's the parental law is over the child. 
 Thus you stand next to God, and, in these infan- 
 tile years, for Him." 
 
63 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 " Then you said that what I did when I made 
 him obey me, would have a bearing perhaps on his 
 whole history. I do not know that I understand 
 precisely what you mean." 
 
 " Your little boy has been born into a world, a 
 universe of law. He will be, he is now under that 
 law. He is God's creature, and so by his being he 
 is a subject of God's law. If this little one whom 
 you hold so lovingly is to be happy here in this 
 world or in any world, he must be a loving and obe- 
 dient subject of God. If he is rebellious or disobe- 
 dient, he can not but,be unhappy. Do you not see 
 that clearly ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, it is very plain that no one can be 
 happy under a law that he is rebelling against, but 
 from which he can not escape." 
 
 " Well, have you never thought that these baby 
 years of your little one, when he knows no law but 
 yours, may bear on his character when by and by 
 he is old enough to understand his duty to God ? " 
 
 " You mean that if I train him to obey me from 
 the first, and have him form the habit of yielding 
 to right authority, that he will by that habit of 
 obedience be prepared to obey God ? " 
 
 " That is just it. These baby hours shape the 
 man's character and the eternal destiny." 
 
IN THE PLACE OF GOD. 63 
 
 " This opens a new world to me. It is almost a 
 fearful thing to be a mother or a father, and that, 
 not as regards the by and by when the babies are 
 grown, but just now while they are so little. They 
 know no other God but us. I know that I shall 
 pray as I never have, that I may be what I ought 
 to be as His representative. I will try to be gentle 
 and even and firm and all-loving, so that he shall 
 from this beginfting learn that there is a law over 
 him, but that it is good and blessed, as well as in- 
 exorable law." 
 
 She said this in a meditative way, as if she was 
 almost unconscious that I was there, and then rose 
 and laid the baby gently in his cradle. I am sure 
 that a prayer wrapped him closer than the white 
 covering that was tucked round his little form. 
 
XII. 
 
 FRANK HOLMAN'S FAMILY WORSHIP. 
 
 ¥ HAVE never told you about the family worship 
 -^ in Frank Holman's home. To me it is very 
 beautiful. 
 
 I have a very sunny feeling toward Frank's 
 household. He was one of the young men who 
 grew up in our establishment, and, when he con- 
 sulted me about his early marriage on a small sal- 
 ary, I advised him not to delay it, but to take the 
 sweet girl of his choice into such a home as he 
 could provide her. I had no fears of the result, 
 and the years as they have passed have made me 
 more than satisfied that my bachelor advice was 
 good. The years have given them the inevitable 
 cares and sorrows, but they have been also years 
 of perpetual comfort and joy. 
 
 A little family has grown up around them, and, 
 (64) 
 
FRANK HOLMAN'S FAMILY WORSHIP. 65 
 
 more than once as we have sat together, they have 
 been good enough to tell me of their gladness that 
 I encouraged them to make a venture which has 
 been so full of blessing. Christian themselves of a 
 bright cheery character, they have made from the 
 beginning a Christian family, and the family wor- 
 ship has been the centre of its life. As they have 
 told me, they began their married life in prayer, 
 and from the first the family altar was set up. Its 
 incense has not ceased to send up its fragrant col- 
 umn to God. It has been a privilege, very sweet 
 to me, often to be with them at the evening sacri- 
 fice. 
 
 They have their family worship early in the even- 
 ing, usually as soon as possible after Frank comes 
 home at night from his business. They tell me 
 that it sometimes is inconvenient, and occasionally 
 is interrupted, but these occasions are so compara- 
 tively rare that they do not seriously trouble them. 
 Old friends understand the habits of the household, 
 and expect to find them engaged at that hour, and, 
 as I have had occasion to know, so far from feeling 
 disappointed, have rather sought the opportunity of 
 breing present at a scene full of touching meaning. 
 
 Frank and his wife always sit side by side. I 
 have been present at the family worship in other 
 S 
 
66 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 households, where this seemed to be made of no 
 account ; but as soon as Frank takes the Bible or 
 hymn-book in his hand and seats himself for the 
 service, Fanny takes her place by his side. I have 
 never asked them why, but I understand it well. 
 They have an instinct that at this hour, when the 
 idea of family life comes peculiarly into visible 
 form, the husband and wife should be close by the 
 side of each other. 
 
 The children — there are three of them now — 
 take their places on either side, and they nestle as 
 close as possible to father and mother. In other 
 families I have seen them scattered over the room 
 and at a distance, but not here. My eyes have 
 sometimes filled as I have looked upon the picture 
 of that family group — a group indeed, when little 
 Willie (named after me) was resting his curly head 
 upon his father's knee, and little Mary (named 
 after my brother John's wife) close by her moth- 
 er's side and slyly holding her hand, was looking 
 intently into her father's face. They are both up- 
 roarious little folks — Willie brimful of fun and 
 frolic, making things rather lively at times, and 
 Mary, her father's " Tomboy," as he delights to 
 call her, is not far behind her brother in childlike 
 noise and play. But when family worship comes 
 
FRANK HOLMAN'S FAMILY WORSHIP. 6^ 
 
 they sit in a quietness which I confess has surprised 
 me. 
 
 I asked Fanny how this came about — how it was 
 that these little folks at just this one hour seemed 
 so transformed. 
 
 " I do not know," she said, " except it b'e that 
 they have never had any other idea than that when 
 we take our places for this service they are to be 
 reverently quiet." 
 
 " I notice," said I, " that you always have the 
 baby in your own arms at family worship, even 
 when the nurse is in the room." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I always do when it is at all possible. 
 We like to have the family as close together as pos- 
 sible, and you know that this little fellow makes a 
 considerable part of the family." 
 
 " He is a restless baby usually ; does he never 
 disturb your devotions ? " 
 
 "Very seldom. I may say never when he is 
 well. It is very curious to see how very early the 
 fact that he must be quiet at this time seems to fix 
 itself in a baby's mind. I can not tell you why, 
 but almost at once they seem to know that this 
 hour is different from every other hour of the day, 
 and they adapt themselves to it long before they 
 can at all understand its meaning." 
 
68 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 "Do you take the babies when they are very 
 young in your own arms at the family worship ? " 
 
 " Always, and almost as soon as I myself am able 
 to sit by my husband's side. I suppose, indeed, 
 that that is the secret of it all — the children have 
 never known anything else than to be still and at- 
 tentive at this time." 
 
 I did not need to ask any other questions. I saw 
 it all. When the faculty of Veneration is exercised 
 in the parents, that of the children is awakened just 
 as those of sorrow or mirth are instinctively made 
 active in the young nature. This is the way, by 
 example, to " Train up a child " with the sure 
 promise of the desired result. 
 
 "Ah," I thought, "wise little wife and mother! 
 how far-reaching and how true that intuition of 
 thine! Would that more mothers had caught a 
 little of its inspiration ! " 
 
XIII. 
 
 THE DEAD BABE. 
 
 JOHN HOLMAN and his young wife have been 
 in trouble of late. Their baby is dead. Their 
 home is so sweet and pleasant a place that I am 
 often there, and so when the great sorrow darkened 
 their dwelling they sent for me. I was, however 
 (for the report had reached me), on my way when 
 the messenger met me. 
 
 I always shrink when going to a home in trouble. 
 I have a dread of entering where I know my heart 
 will be wrung. Yet I never yield to the feeling, 
 but go at once, as one goes out into the black night 
 at the call of a friend in distress. I would think 
 meanly of myself were I to hesitate to go. 
 
 They met me at the door. John threw his arms 
 around my neck, leaned his head heavily on my 
 shoulder, and sobbed like a child. I folded and 
 
 (69) 
 
•JO A bachelor's talks. 
 
 caressed him. I know how manly a man John is, 
 and he was more manly then in his sorrow than 
 ever before. A less noble and sensitive soul would 
 have thought of himself, and, in his self-thought,- 
 would have restrained his feelings ; but, in the all- 
 confidence of his friendship, he took me to his 
 heart, and came more deeply than ever into mine. 
 
 John's wife met me calmly and wrung my hand 
 without a word. The woman seemed stronger than 
 the man. But her wan, pale face, her swollen eye- 
 lids, her half-neglected hair, and the look of intense 
 sorrow that cried from her blue eyes, told the un- 
 measured grief that was in her heart. 
 
 They took me into their own room and toward 
 the crib that was. standing by the side of their bed. 
 Through the slender railing around the sides of the 
 crib I could see the outHne of the little form as it 
 lay half defined and half hid under the snowy folds 
 of the covering. The side railing was raised, and 
 in its place. I do not know why they had put it 
 up, for the danger that the boy in his restlessness 
 might fall to the floor was gone forever. He was 
 sleeping too deeply now for that. 
 
 They said nothing, but we went to the side of 
 the crib and stood there; they with their arms 
 clasped round each other, I with mine over them 
 
THE DEAD BABE. 7 1 
 
 both. It was very still and seemed cold, though it 
 was a summer's day without. 
 
 Then the mother very gently raised the sheet 
 from the little face and laid it softly below the 
 dimpled hands that rested by the side of one an- 
 other on the breast. The blue eyes, sunken just a 
 little, gave their tint to the lids that layover them ; 
 the soft, white forehead ; the hair that was smoothed 
 from it and lay in curls by its side on the pillow ; the 
 smile — half sad, half joyous — that lingered round 
 the mouth, were all there. But our boy was gone. 
 
 We did not speak; we only stood and looked till 
 the white form faded away in the mist of our tears. 
 We did not attempt to go away. By and by the 
 father and mother — nestling side by side to each 
 other — were bending over the crib and gazing into 
 the face of the dead with long, dreamy, wistful 
 looks. 
 
 The deep silence must be broken, and, as I was 
 the one who was standing on the outer edge of the 
 sorrow, it was for me first to speak. Did you ever 
 notice how the words of the Bible seem just what 
 you want at such a moment ? They have an un- 
 earthliness about them, and seem midway between 
 the human and the divine ; so that while you use 
 them they are not your words at all, only God's 
 
72 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 words which come from another place than this 
 world. So the words of the Lord Jesus came up, 
 " Suffer the little children to come unto Me." I 
 softly repeated them, adding, " and he has gone to 
 Him." 
 
 Then came deep sobs, and the tears fell like rain- 
 drops. 
 
 "Yes," said John, "those were the words that 
 came to us when we watched his ebbing life. He 
 was breathing heavily, and the strange cloud was 
 over his face, so that we knew that his end was 
 near. It was nearly one o'clock in the day. The 
 city was very still. We seemed to be hearing the 
 Lord saying, ' Suffer little children to come unto 
 Me.' 'And now he is going,' we whispered one to 
 the other, as wesat alone with our boy. Just then 
 the clocks struck one. There was a long-drawn 
 breath, and then all was still. Our darling was 
 gone away. We knelt by the side of the crib, and 
 then and there gave thanks to God for the peaceful 
 departure and the blessed hope that was in it. We 
 told the Master how glad we had been over the gift 
 of our boy — how we had given him from his first 
 breath to God. How we prayed for grace and help 
 to bear this our first and deepest sorrow ! It is very 
 deep. A little while ago I came in the door from 
 
THE DEAD BABE. 73 
 
 the street, and as I saw the long white ribbon with 
 the black that bound it, my heart in its §gony 
 called his name till it broke with disappointment, 
 because it got no answer. But it is well we know 
 that it is well with the child." 
 
 So John talked, and I did not interrupt him. We 
 lingered there by the side of the crib and spoke of 
 the nearness of Heaven and its reality — more real 
 and near than ever before to them. We spoke of 
 Christ's love for little children, and how He is the 
 same unforgetful Saviour that He was when He 
 was on earth, and how safe the boy was with Him. 
 We talked till it seemed as if the little form before 
 us had grown angelic. We seemed to forget almost 
 that it was there at all, since the boy was so safe 
 and happy with Christ our Lord. 
 
 We spoke of God's wisdom and goodness. We 
 did not attempt to explain the bereavement — the 
 explanation lay too far out of our sight ; we did 
 not attempt to picture to ourselves any possible 
 sorrow or trouble in our boy's life, or say that had 
 he lived he might have gone astray. We only tried 
 to grasp the hand of the heavenly Father in the 
 dark, and to say, " He knows all. He loves us, and 
 He has done it. It must be, and it is well." 
 
74 
 
 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 We did not sit down. We lingered by the crib 
 till Qod and Heaven seemed very near. Then at 
 last I folded back the sheet — it seemed better for 
 me to do it — over the little hands and face, and we 
 went away ; not all sorrowful, but with a sort of 
 gladness in our hearts. 
 
XIV. 
 
 ABOUT THE BABY GONE. 
 
 /"^UR conversation at the crib where John Hol- 
 ^^-^ man's little boy lay dead, was in great con- 
 trast with what I have heard on similar occasions. 
 No one could mistake the intense grief of these 
 young parents. Could you have seen their fond- 
 ness when the baby was alive and well, or watched 
 the intense interest with which they regarded any 
 movement, you would not have had any doubt as 
 to the place which their boy held in their hearts. 
 
 But when once the fact of their child's death re- 
 vealed itself to them, and the unmeasured desola- 
 tion opened before them, they did not for a mo- 
 ment murmur or despond. The pale, weary look, 
 the silence of their step about the room, the tear 
 that would start whenever the name of the child 
 
 was mentioned, told how heavy was the stroke that 
 
 (75) 
 
76 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 had fallen upon them and how sweeping was the 
 bereavement. 
 
 I said " when the name of the child was men- 
 tioned." I have known other parents who neither 
 would themselves speak nor allow others to use the 
 name of the departed. They seemed to put that 
 name of the lost in the same category with the 
 names that only awaken shame or resentment or 
 pain, or as if there were a feeling of wrong that they 
 had suffered in the departure which they could not 
 bear to have suggested. 
 
 It was not so with John Holman and his wife. 
 The name of the child was often on their lips, and 
 that without a suggestion of bitterness. 
 
 I was struck with what appeared to me the Chris- 
 tian way in which they regarded their sorrow in the 
 loss of their child. They did not attempt to ex- 
 plain to themselves why it was that God had taken 
 him. Said John to me the last time I was at his 
 house : " Our friend Tillson was here yesterday, 
 and was exceedingly kind and sympathetic. But 
 we can not, wife and I, enter into the thoughts 
 which he suggested in reference to our bereave- 
 ment. They were not unusual or new. He said 
 that there were greater griefs than the loss of a 
 little child ; that it must always be a matter of 
 
ABOUT THE BABY GONE. -JJ 
 
 uncertainty what the future history of any child 
 would be ; that this Httle one might, had he grown 
 to be a man, have had a life of sorrow, and espec- 
 ially might have been led away by temptation into 
 a life of sin ; might have brought disgrace and sor- 
 row into our hearts, and make this early death to 
 have been infinitely more desirable. 
 
 " I can not see it so, and can not take any sub- 
 stantial comfort from such thoughts. In our pict- 
 ures of our child's life we have a different scene 
 before us. From his first breath we gave him to 
 God. We shall never forget how, when the danger 
 was past and our child lay by his mother's side, a 
 new-born babe, we prayed and rendered thanks to 
 God while we gave the boy, our heavenly Father's 
 best gift, back to Him. Then and there we conse- 
 crated him to God, and a hundred times since, the 
 dedication has been repeated. This comforts us 
 now; God has taken His own. 
 
 " We believe in God's great covenant with His 
 people, and this baby was a child of the covenant. 
 We can not think or imagine that he would have 
 grown up a wandering and guilty man, dishonoring 
 us and damaging the world, so that it would have 
 been well had he never lived. It is easier and far 
 sweeter to imagine and to believe that, had our 
 
78 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 boy lived, he would have been early renewed by the 
 Holy Spirit ; that he would have grown to be a 
 good man, and happy because good ; that his life 
 would have been a comfort and a blessing to us, 
 and a blessing and a treasure to the world. This, 
 much more than the other, seems to us to be the . 
 true expectation of faith. 
 
 " Somehow all such considerations seem to me to 
 be very inadequate at such a time as this, they do 
 not go to the bottom of our sorrow or help it at all. 
 Our hearts cry out for something better than this. 
 I have been saying to myself, ' Lead me to the rock 
 that is higher than I,' and these refuges which are 
 suggested seem no higher than I am ; they are poor 
 creature supports, and we want something better. 
 
 " We have found it better and best to just fall 
 back on the thought that our heavenly Father is in 
 our sorrow. He knows all about us, and especially 
 about our little boy. He loves us and He loved 
 him, and we are entirely sure that He would do 
 only just what is kindest and best. We do not see, 
 and we do not and can not know any hour of the 
 future. So we do not try to explain anything, we 
 do not try to imagine anything. We rest here : 
 He knows all, and has done wisely and well. 
 
 " We do not perplex ourselves with what might 
 
ABOUT THE BABY GONE. 79 
 
 have been had our boy lived ; we gladly leave him 
 in the very hands that we gave him to at the hour 
 of his birth. And we know that he is safe. There 
 are no other hands to which we would commit him. 
 We asked God to mark out his life. We would not 
 have dared to mark it out for him, even had we 
 been able, and now it does not seem either wise or 
 right for us to be doubting or all despondent over 
 the way in which his life has gone. The wisest 
 and the best being in the universe, our dearest and 
 best friend, has done it, and we do not want to go 
 back of that. It seems sufficient." 
 
 So my friend talked on. His wife would add 
 now and then a sentence full of a woman's insight 
 and tenderness. As they spoke and told me of 
 this rest of faith in God, their faces took on a sweet 
 and heavenly calm, and while every feature seemed 
 tearfully sad, there was something there that made 
 you think of smiles, just as I seem to see sunshine 
 behind those clouds that float before my window 
 on this rainy day as I write. 
 
XV. 
 
 THE NEWLY-MARRIED PRAYING TOGETHER. 
 
 A WEDDING which I attended a few years 
 ago, has been lately recalled to me in a most 
 pleasant way. I always enjoy mingling in scenes 
 that are so joyous and usually so full of promise. If 
 bachelors do not make principals they are not mer- 
 cilessly shut out as guests. 
 
 The couple were young, had known each other 
 long, and there was as much certainty of their hap- 
 piness as could well be looked for in a world where 
 happiness is reached and held by so frail a tenure. 
 
 They were neither of them professors of religion, 
 
 and this was the only thing that threw even the 
 
 faintest shadow over their future. Two persons 
 
 that love the Saviour and love each other, have a 
 
 double pledge of comfort and joy in their married 
 
 life. 
 
 (80) 
 
THE NEWLY-MARRIED PRAYING TOGETHER. 8 1 
 
 I thought of that when I greeted Fred Alston 
 and his bride. It happened that, when I was giv- 
 ing them my congratulations, as they stood under 
 the marriage-bell made of flowers, I was the only 
 one, at the moment, near them. As I grasped their 
 hands — after I had kissed the bride — a privilege 
 that my relations to her allowed — and held them in 
 mine, I said, " To-night you must pray together 
 before you sleep." They both looked at me in half 
 surprise, while I added, " It has a deep meaning in 
 it. You will be glad, by and by, that I said it." 
 
 Just then some one came up and I retired. 
 
 After their marriage they removed from the city, 
 and I did not see them again for several years. 
 Lately, however, I was in the distant city where 
 they have since resided, and took pains to find 
 them, and spent a delightful evening with them. 
 
 I happened to come to their house just at night- 
 fall and took supper with them. A pleasant sea- 
 son it was. The house seemed cosey and home- 
 like, and the picture of wife and children, as we sat 
 at the table, will not soon leave me. 
 
 As we rose from the table Fred said to me, " We 
 
 usually have our family worship after tea. We are 
 
 sometimes interrupted, but not usually ; and we 
 
 always take it for granted that our friends will be 
 
 6 
 
82 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 glad to join in what is, to us, a pleasant and a sacred 
 service." 
 
 This was said, not in any apologetic way, but 
 merely as a sort of introduction to a new topic of 
 thought. 
 
 I was not aware of the fact that my young friends 
 were Christian people till then, although the at- 
 mosphere of their home had suggested it. 
 
 We went from the table to their sitting-room. 
 The father and mother took their places beside one 
 another, their little boy rested his head on his moth- 
 er's knee, while the baby nestled in her arms. We 
 sang, after a short Scripture-reading, a simple even- 
 ing hymn, and, at his request, I led in the prayer. 
 It was a very simple service, but very sweet and 
 touching to me. 
 
 After it was over, I expressed my pleasure in 
 being permitted to mingle in their family de- 
 votions. 
 
 " Do you know," said Fred, " that we are largely 
 indebted to you for our family altar ? " 
 
 " No," I replied, " yet it would be very precious 
 to me could I think that I had any influence in 
 bringing about one of the things which, to me, 
 makes your home appear very beautiful." 
 
 " But you had. Do you remember what you 
 
THE NEWLY-MARRIED PRAYING TOGETHER. 83 
 
 said to us when, on our wedding-night, you con- 
 gratulated us ? " 
 
 " I think that I do. I told you to pray together, 
 did I not ? " 
 
 " Yes, you did. You said, ' Begin to-night to 
 pray together,' and you added, as you turned away, 
 ' You will be glad, by and by, if you do.' " 
 
 " Well, have you been glad ? Did it seem a 
 strange thing to say ? " 
 
 " We were surprised. The minister had not said 
 it, no one else had suggested it, and for the mo- 
 ment we wondered that you should say it, as you 
 knew that neither of us professed to be a Christian. 
 But we have been glad ever since." 
 " Then you did as I suggested ? " 
 " We will tell you. When the excitement of the 
 wedding was over, the company all gone, and we 
 were alone in our room, then, above all the pleas- 
 ant words of congratulation that had been spoken, 
 yours, ' Pray together to-night,' came up with a 
 strange meaning. At first we did not speak of 
 them, but as we sat together side by side with 
 clasped hands we seemed to hear them, and almost 
 repeated them aloud. We thought of and spoke of 
 the past, our hopes and our fears — fears that we 
 should never see this hour, so full of consummated 
 
84 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 joy ; fears that were all banished and hopes that were 
 all realized. Our hearts were full, and it did seem so 
 appropriate that, almost without thinking what we 
 were doing, we knelt with arms round each other. 
 I tried to pray, and Mary tried to pray, and we 
 both wept together as we asked God's blessing and 
 thanked Him. We think that it was the turning- 
 point in our lives." 
 
 " Yes," added his wife, " we have always prayed 
 together since. Our family worship followed natu- 
 rally, and, indeed, all our Christian life has grown 
 out of it. We can never be too grateful to you 
 that you said those few words to us on our wedding- 
 night. It was easy then to pray together. Per- 
 haps had we not begun then we would never have 
 done it. At least it would have been very much 
 harder. Then it seemed so natural, as if all our 
 hearts demanded it." 
 
 All this was said with radiant faces and glisten- 
 ing eyes, and mine, too, grew dim while I listened. 
 
XVI. 
 
 AFTER THE HONEYMOON. 
 
 MY nephew and niece, young husband and 
 wife, are in trouble. They may get out of 
 it. I think that they will ; but if they do, it will 
 require a good deal of care, forbearance, and mag- 
 nanimity from them both. 
 
 The niece is my brother John's eldest daughter 
 Mary, and her husband is Edward Talcott. They 
 have been neighbors, and have known each other 
 since almost childhood, and have been in love for 
 years with each other. They were married about 
 eight months ago, and they are now seeing some 
 of those cloudy and dreary nights that, I believe, 
 are apt to follow the honeymoon. 
 
 I suspected that all was not moving smoothly 
 
 and pleasantly in their new home, but did not 
 
 know that they would tell me of it. However, 
 
 like all the other nephews and nieces, they seem to 
 
 (85) 
 
86 A bachelor's TALKS. 
 
 look upon their bachelor uncle as one in whom 
 they can confide. I suppose it is because they 
 think he has no one to whom he naturally tells 
 everything — a good man who has a good and dis- 
 creet wife does, I take it — and so they talk to me 
 about things that they tell no one else, perhaps not 
 father and mother. 
 
 I was not surprised when my nephew Ed came 
 to me a few days ago, and with a sad face told me 
 that he was unhappy, and that his married life was 
 not what he had expected it to be. 
 
 I say that I was not surprised, because when I 
 was last at their snug little house, the atmosphere 
 of it was not just the atmosphere that I would like 
 to breathe. The young couple were polite to each 
 other — they were too well-bred to be uncourteous 
 — but there was an undefinable coldness abroad. 
 Coldness, you know, is absence of warmth, and that 
 was just the state of things there. It was not any- 
 thing specially that they said to each other, but 
 rather what they did not say ; not what they looked, 
 but what they did not look toward each other. 
 They did not have much to do with each other. 
 This was so marked and so clear to me that I do 
 notknow but that I should have spoken of it, had 
 I found an opportunity and had not Ed come to me. 
 
AFTER THE HONEYMOON. 8/ 
 
 He came, and I was quite prepared for what he 
 had to say. Indeed, I helped him to begin. 
 
 " Nephew Ed," said I, " married Hfe does not 
 flow in as smooth a channel as you thought, does 
 it?" 
 
 He looked for a moment in surprise, but seeing 
 by my eye that I had a meaning more than the 
 words seemed to imply, his face flushed, and, with 
 a little tremble in his voice, he said : 
 
 " No, Uncle William ; I am sad and disap- 
 pointed." 
 
 " Why, my dear boy, what is the matter ? Do 
 you and Mary not get along well together ? " 
 
 " No, we do not. I do not know what is the 
 matter, but something is wrong, and a cloud is 
 over our home. I do not know when it will be 
 lifted away." 
 
 " If there are clouds there you must get some 
 sunny influences to lift them. You must not per- 
 mit them to hang in your sky." 
 
 " I know that ; but I do not know what will let 
 the sunshine in or lift the clouds higher and out of 
 the way." 
 
 " But what kind of clouds are they ? " 
 
 " I would not. Uncle William, say a word to any 
 one except you. But you have known us both 
 
88 . A bachelor's talks. 
 
 since we were babies, and you also know how I 
 love Mary, and that I could give my life for her 
 happiness." 
 
 As Ed spoke the tears were in his eyes. 
 
 " That, my boy, is just the reason that I permit 
 you to say a word to me about the matter. I think 
 you too much of a man and a gentleman to talk 
 abroad of such things. But what is the matter ? " 
 
 " I can not well tell you. But our old love of so 
 many years seems to have almost died out. Mary 
 does not look at me nor speak to me as she did a 
 while ago and before we were married. She is 
 silent and almost moody. She does not talk with 
 the frankness and confidence of the first weeks of 
 our marriage. She seems irritable, and sometimes 
 does not answer when I speak to her. When I 
 come home she does not seem to have anything to 
 say, and when she replies it is with the fewest pos- 
 sible words, and the words are sometimes sharp, 
 and do not seem like hers at all. She seems 
 offended at me, and not to care whether I am with 
 her or not. But I can not, indeed, put it all in 
 words, and I am half ashamed to speak of it even 
 to you." 
 
 " Ed, the story you tell is not a very harrowing 
 one. It might be worse." 
 
AFTER THE HONEYMOON. 89 
 
 " No, Uncle William, I see that it does not seem 
 much when I put it in words ; but still I am very- 
 wretched about it, and it hangs like a leaden weight 
 on my heart." 
 
 " I am very glad that it does, and I am very glad, 
 too, that you are so unhappy about it. You must 
 not consider that I deem it a small thing. It is a 
 very great thing, and your whole future happiness 
 as husband and wife depends on how you act just 
 at this time. Your experience is not unusual or 
 exceptional. Other young married people have 
 had the same. But they do not all come out of it 
 as I hope you will." 
 
 " What can I do ? I am sure that I am willing 
 to do anything that will remove the difficulty." 
 
 " Let us see what you have done, and then we 
 may be able to say what you had better do by and 
 by. Have you conducted yourself toward Mary 
 since, exactly as you did before you were married ? 
 Have you been as gentle and as attentive and as 
 demonstrative in your affection ? Have you given 
 the many little attentions that you used to give .'' " 
 
 " I do not know that I have. Perhaps not. I 
 suppose that it is because we now seem so intimate. 
 No ; I have not been as particular in my attentions 
 as I was when we were only engaged." 
 
90 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 " But was it not just as important that you should 
 be ? Do you think that because you are closer 
 together than ever before, that you need not show 
 your affection as fully ? Have you been just as 
 tender as you ought to be ? I recall an incident. 
 When I met you on your wedding tour you per- 
 petrated a rough joke on your wife, and you spoke 
 in half contempt of her simplicity. I saw her lip 
 quiver and tears come to her eyes, and I felt like 
 castigating you and kissing her. Perhaps you did 
 not notice it. But it was wrong, and I should not 
 wonder if you have done a good many things like 
 that while you, at the same time, have never meant 
 any harm. Yet there was harm. I recall it now 
 only that you may understand what I mean. Per- 
 haps you have been in this and other ways careless 
 of Mary's feelings ; at least, not quite as tender as 
 you used to be. You ought to have been more so. 
 You took Mary away from her mother and sisters 
 and from her father, whom she almost adores. 
 Perhaps she has put you in comparison with him, 
 and you know with what refinement of courtesy 
 and affection he acts toward her mother. It be. 
 came you to be more than usually careful. I do not 
 say that it is so. I only hint the possibility of these 
 mistakes. You have come home tired and full of 
 
AFTER THE HONEYMOON. 9I 
 
 business thoughts, and possibly you have forgotten 
 your old caresses. Perhaps when she has come to 
 you with a little of the old fondling, it has seemed 
 almost annoying to you." 
 
 At this last remark Ed's face flushed for an instant, 
 but he did not say anything in reply except, in a 
 sad tone, " Perhaps it is so, and I am to blame. 
 At all events, it seems so to you, and you make if 
 look so. I am glad that you do. I do not want 
 you to blame Mary. I would have been angry if 
 you had thrown the blame on her. I see that, 
 without intending it, I have been making mistakes. 
 I thank you for letting some light in upon me." 
 
 " That is just like you, my dear boy, and I think 
 that it will come out all right in the end. There 
 is a rift in the cloud." 
 
 Ed went out of my office, I am sure, with not 
 quite so heavy a heart. I do not say what he will 
 do. But as he is a whole-souled and real man, I 
 can prophesy what will come to pass. 
 
XVII. 
 
 A YOUNG wife's TROUBLES. 
 
 I TOOK occasion on the afternoon of the day 
 when Ed, my nephew, had his conversation with 
 me about the troubles of his married life, to call on 
 his wife Mary. I wished to see how the matter 
 seemed to her. 
 
 She met me with the old greeting and the kiss 
 which she has given me since her infancy, and 
 which I value so much ; but she did not seem as 
 bright and joyous as I had been accustomed to see 
 her. I did not hear her sing, as was her wont, when 
 she left me for a few moments. 
 
 I thought that I would give her the same oppor- 
 tunity that I had given her husband. 
 
 " Come here, Mary," I said, " sit by my side. 
 What is the matter? You do not seem happy ; at 
 least, not as happy as you did a while ago. Does 
 married life go hard with you ? " 
 (92) 
 
A YOUNG wife's TROUBLES. 93 
 
 She looked at me for a moment to see what I 
 meant, and then she threw herself down by my side, 
 put her head on my shoulder, and sobbed. I placed 
 my arm around her and kissed her forehead as I 
 pushed back her brown hair. In a moment or two 
 she said, " O Uncle William, I am not happy ! So 
 disappointed ! " 
 
 " Disappointed, Mary ? disappointed at what ? 
 Not at married life, I hope ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, at married life ; certainly, at my mar- 
 ried life." 
 
 " I am sorry to hear you say that. But what has 
 disappointed you so ? " 
 
 " I can scarcely tell you ; but this I know — Ed- 
 ward and I are not happy together. He does not 
 seem the same. He does not appear to care for 
 me, and I am afraid sometimes that I have lost my 
 love for him. There is something between us keep- 
 ing us apart. He does not talk to me as he used 
 to talk ; he does not act toward me as he did a 
 while ago, he says things to me that are almost 
 like scolding, if not quite that ; it seems that just a 
 little more and they would be fault-finding and re- 
 proofs. I do not seem to be able to get near him 
 as I used to do. Now, for a long time we have had 
 little to say to each other, just as little as possible. 
 
94 A BACHELOR S TALKS, 
 
 He does not seem to love me, and I do not seem 
 to love him any more." And her bosom heaved 
 with her emotion. 
 
 "That is all very sad, my child," said I, as I 
 stroked her forehead and took her handkerchief to 
 wipe the tears from her cheek, " but, after all, it 
 appears to distress you a great deal." 
 
 " O uncle, I am very wretched about it." 
 
 " That is hopeful. That does not look as if all 
 your love had gone. There is, I think, some little 
 love left to care about." 
 
 She looked up and half smiled through her tears. 
 
 " I guess," said I, " that all is not lost yet, and if 
 my little niece is wise, I am quite sure she can get 
 her husband and herself from under the cloud. But 
 I imagine that it would be well to find out how you 
 got there. Have you not felt badly at some things 
 which you have seen in the closer intimacies of 
 married life ? Edward does not seem just the 
 same in his shirt-sleeves, unshaven and uncombed, 
 as he did when, in your courtship times, he came 
 to spend the evening with you. I was by your 
 side, one day, when you saw him enter the boat- 
 house from a rowing-match, with woolen shirt cut 
 low in the neck and without any arms. I saw you 
 look at him with what I thought almost a feeling 
 
A YOUNG wife's TROUBLES. 95 
 
 of disgust, at least as if you would be glad not to 
 see him any longer in that garb than was "nec- 
 essary." 
 
 Mary looked'surprised, and said, " I did not think 
 that any one saw how I felt. But I have always 
 been afraid of your eyes." 
 
 " Well, my child, you have been compelled to see 
 him a great many times of late in as sorry a plight, 
 and I am sure that he has not looked beautiful. 
 Do you not think that this may have taken a little 
 of the romance out of your ideas, and unconsciously 
 lowered your feeling of respect for your husband ? 
 And, then, you may have found out some habits 
 that were disagreeable and that you did not know 
 of. That has not helped matters." 
 
 " I will not say that it has not been so," said 
 Mary, " though I do not think that Ed has any very 
 bad habits. I would like him to change one or two 
 a little." 
 
 " When he has spoken hastily have you not given 
 as hasty a reply ? " 
 
 " No ; or not more than once or twice. I keep 
 still." 
 
 " Yes, you keep still ; but have you not kept 
 your displeasure in mind, and repaid the annoyance 
 by being very silent, and, hardly making any an- 
 
96 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 swers for a day or two, so as to let him see that you 
 were displeased ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have done just that." 
 
 " And," I replied, " I think that he has felt that 
 more keenly by far than if you had answered back 
 at once and gotten over it. I am certain that I 
 should have felt it so. Now just let me guess. 
 After thinking it over all day, and feeling more and 
 more offended at something occurring in the morn- 
 ing, have you ever, when you have seen him com- 
 ing toward, the house, taken care to be away from 
 the door, so as not to give him the usual kiss ? " 
 
 She looked curiously at me, and I added : 
 
 " Possibly you have done this so often that you 
 have gotten almost out of the habit of greeting 
 him in that way, and it has seemed awkward to be- 
 gin it again." 
 
 Mary did not say that it was not so, and I judged 
 from her silence that I was not far from right. 
 
 " Possibly," I went on to say, " you may have 
 thought that as he was not very demonstrative with 
 you, you would not be with him, and so you do not 
 take his hand, or put yours on his shoulder, or play 
 with his hair, or do some other pleasant little things 
 that were, a while ago, done by you unconsciously. 
 Now you can scarcely do them without a feeling of 
 
A YOUNG wife's TROUBLES. 97 
 
 restraint, as if you were afraid to do them lest he 
 should not enjoy them, or should be surprised at 
 them." 
 
 " O Uncle William," Mary exclaimed, " do not 
 go on. It has been so, till I am sad and weary. 
 I long and I almost cry out, when I am alone, for 
 something that I want and that seems to have gone 
 away from me." 
 
 And she sobbed again on my shoulder. 
 
 " Did you ever," I asked, " think that Ed feels as 
 badly about all this as you do ? " 
 
 " I do not know. I have been waiting for him 
 to speak about it. I think that if he feels as badly 
 as I do he would not let it go on so." 
 
 " Would it not have been good in you to have 
 yourself said something about it to him ? Why 
 have you waited for him ? If you had sometime 
 just thrown your arms around him and given him 
 a few of those warm kisses that you know how to 
 give, don't you think that the clouds would have 
 be«n chased away ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but why does he not do so ? I have 
 wanted it and waited for it." 
 
 " And that is another way of saying that you 
 have been permitting this pride of yours to keep 
 you out of your husband's love, and to make your- 
 7 
 
98 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 self very heartsore. Now," I added, " let your uncle 
 say this to you. Do not be a foolish child any 
 more. Do not let your pride stand in the way any 
 longer. Show how magnanimous you are. Be 
 quick to be the first to show your returning love 
 and to bring sunshine to your own and to your hus- 
 band's heart." 
 
 " I will try to do so," she said, with a determined 
 and brighter look as I left her. 
 
 I am of the opinion that my nephew and niece 
 will get out of their trouble before long. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 THE CLOUDS GONE. 
 
 A FEW days after my conversation with my 
 newly-married nephew and niece, Edward 
 came into my office with smiling face and with his 
 usual buoyancy of manner returned. 
 
 " I take it, Ed," said I, " from your looks, that 
 the clouds are gone from your sky, and I might al- 
 most imagine that the honeymoon has come back 
 again in its joyoijsness." 
 
 "Yes," Ed answered,"! hope that the clouds 
 have rolled away never to return. Both Mary and 
 I now think that we have been acting like two very 
 foolish children. We will be wiser in the future. 
 I can never be thankful enough to you for your 
 timely counsel. I am frightened when I consider 
 to what we were drifting." 
 
 " I saw, Ed, danger that you did not understand, 
 
 (99) 
 
loo A bachelor's talks. 
 
 and if I had not known you both so well, and had 
 not had such entire confidence in your affection for 
 each other, I would have feared that your married 
 life would be a failure, and only full of disappoint- 
 ment and misery." 
 
 " There was, uncle, disappointment and wretch-' 
 edness while our estrangement lasted, enough for 
 me to see that, were it protracted long, life could 
 have been only a burden." 
 
 " More lives than you or I dream of are merely 
 one long bondage, an endurance which is well-nigh 
 intolerable. And yet there was a time when hus- 
 band and wife really loved each other. But both 
 were stubborn, both were unwilling to make ac- 
 knowledgment of mistakes, and they allowed some 
 small thing to part them, for only a little, as they 
 perhaps thought, but it was forever. Once asun- 
 der, they drifted farther and farther away, till now, 
 though they may be side by side in the body, they 
 are a whole hemisphere apart. And -the distance 
 means wretchedness. All has gone out of their 
 life but bondage and regret. I am glad, my boy, 
 that in your case the danger has passed, and that 
 the skies over you and your wife are blue again. 
 May they never more be clouded ! " 
 
 " They shall not," Ed said, " if I can prevent it ; 
 
THE CLOUDS GONE. lOI 
 
 and I am sure that Mary will do more than I to 
 keep the harm away." 
 
 My nephew did not tell me, and of course I did 
 not ask, how the difficulty between this young couple 
 was so quickly overcome. Yet, naturally, I was 
 somewhat curious to know the effect of my conver- 
 sations with them, for I could not help flattering 
 myself with the idea that I had had some agency 
 in the matter. My niece, Mary, however, very 
 soon let me know all about it. A few days after- 
 ward when at her house she detained me, while she 
 made me to sit by her side to hear her tell how 
 happy she was, and how the care and the sorrow 
 that were on her heart had gone. She was pleased 
 to say that she regarded me as next to her father 
 and mother, and that now she was more than ever 
 before profoundly grateful to me for the service I 
 had done her. For this reason, she said, she wished 
 to tell me how the estrangement between her hus- 
 band and herself had been removed. 
 
 " You did not," said she, " tell me that you had 
 said anything to Ed about our trouble." 
 
 " Of course I did not," I answered, " and I did 
 not tell him that I intended to speak to you about 
 the matter. I knew that you were abundantly able 
 to care for the whole difficulty yourselves. If I had 
 
I02 A bachelor's TALKS. 
 
 believed that you required some one to go between 
 you, I should probably have shrunk from what 
 would have seemed to me a hopeless and a thank- 
 less task. It was simply an electric spark that I 
 sent between two bodies that were full of loving 
 affinity for each other. But how was it that you 
 came so quickly to a reconciliation ? " 
 
 " After you left," Mary said, " I felt not only very 
 sad, but very guilty. I also saw that I had been 
 very foolish, for I had been mistrusting one that I 
 knew loved me more than any other human being 
 loved me. I saw that I had been permitting my 
 pride — and a stupid pride it was — to stand between 
 my husband's love and me. I went to my room, 
 fell upon my knees, and told the Saviour that I 
 was wicked, but repentant. I asked Him to help 
 me to be a more tender, forgiving, forbearing, and 
 loving wife in the time to come. I looked over the 
 past of our life, saw the thousand evidences of Ed- 
 ward's love, and in it of God's goodness, and it 
 seemed madness for me to let it slip away from 
 me. I knew and I felt that all my happiness was 
 bound up in his love, and I trembled at the danger 
 of its loss, and any and every sacrifice that I could 
 make seemed not to be thought of an instant in 
 comparison with his confidence and affection. In 
 
THE CLOUDS GONE. I03 
 
 that light my pride seemed wicked, and the idea of 
 sacrifice or self-denial vanished away. While I was 
 sitting on the floor crying and longing to be at his 
 side again, I heard his step at the door. I did not 
 wait. I could not wait. I hardly knew what I was 
 doing. The door was scarcely closed when my arms 
 were around his neck, and I felt his around me, 
 lifting me from the floor as in the olden time. We 
 did not say anything ; we sat down together and I, 
 at least, had a good, long, and happy cry. Ed was 
 kept busy in wiping the tears from my face, although 
 he needed the service almost as much as I did my- 
 self. You will not think us foolish. No, the tears 
 in your own good eyes tell me that we were even a 
 wise husband and a wise wife." 
 
 " I suppose," I suggested, " that you had a good 
 many explanations to make and ask for, and a good 
 many things to speak of — things that had hurt each 
 other's feelings ? " 
 
 " No, you know that we did no such thing. We 
 were both just too glad to get together again to say 
 anything at all about the past. We did not make 
 any explanations at all nor any apologies. I tried 
 to do so, but Edward would not permit it. He 
 took the blame all on himself, and stopped my 
 words in his way by kissing my lips." 
 
I04 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 " That was," I said, " I should suppose, an affec- 
 tionate way of shutting a wife's mouth, and, under 
 the circumstances, the best thing to do." 
 
 "We did, however," Mary added, "make one 
 promise, and it was this : that if ever again there 
 should come a sign of estrangement, we would each 
 try to be the first to take it out of the way." 
 
 I came away from Mary's house with the com- 
 fortable reflection that bachelor uncles are some- 
 times of use. 
 
XIX. 
 
 THE INNER SHRINE. 
 
 \ LTHOUGH the estrangement of my nephew 
 ■*— *- and niece seems to have come to so happy 
 a conclusion, I have had just a trace of misgiving 
 about it, and that from what might at first sight 
 appear a singular sentiment. I could, I know, 
 easily have a sort of self-gratulatory feeling, from 
 the fact that they both made a confidant of me and 
 were willing to talk with me about their matrimo- 
 nial difficulties. It is pleasant to be thought worthy 
 of such confidence as this implies, and I confess 
 that I am not so different from other people as not 
 to have felt a good deal of gratification that these 
 young people were willing to say as much as they 
 did to me. But I still have been somewhat solici- 
 tous just at this point. 
 
 I think that married life makes an inner shrine 
 
 for husband and wife. They alone minister at the 
 
 (105) 
 
I06 A BACHELOR'S TALKS. 
 
 altar there. No stranger foot must tread that holy 
 place. I am thoroughly convinced that it is a very 
 dangerous thing for a wife or a husband to admit 
 a third person into the sacred enclosure of their 
 life even to ask or receive advice. 
 
 So I had a half feeling of shame, as if in some 
 way I had been guilty of an impropriety, as if I 
 had been where I ought not to have been found, 
 and had heard things that I ought not to have 
 heard — not exactly as if I had been eavesdropping, 
 but as one might feel who has accidentally heard 
 through a thin partition a conversation which was 
 intended for no one but the two who were speak- 
 ing in the freedom of, what they supposed, perfect 
 seclusion. Yet I am clear in my conscience about 
 the matter. Surely I did not seek to pry into or 
 even to know anything about the private life of 
 these two young people. They were, indeed, very 
 dear to me, and I suspected that something was 
 wrong, and that they were possibly at a critical 
 point in their history ; but I would never, from 
 any motive of curiosity, have asked a question or 
 have received a word of revealment from them. 
 
 If I had detected in either of them anything 
 that looked like captiousness or fault-finding with 
 the other, if I had noticed that either of them 
 
THE INNER SHRINE. 107 
 
 desired to throw the blame of the estrangement on 
 the other, I would have been indignant and would 
 have refused to listen a moment to their story, sad 
 or troubled though it might be. I would, on the 
 spot, have kindly but sternly rebuked them. But 
 what touched and deeply gratified me was the fact 
 that not for a moment or by a single word did 
 either Ed or Mary show that the other was consid- 
 ered in any way at fault. The feeling seemed to 
 be with both that a calamity was upon them whose 
 character they could not understand. Their natures 
 had, in the years of their intimacy and affection, 
 become attuned to a perfect harmony, and now 
 they felt through every nerve the dreadful discord, 
 but they could not tell on which cord the healing 
 touch must be placed. They were like children 
 lost from home, crying to get back again not only, 
 but wondering what each had done and how they 
 had become separated. It was dark, they were 
 away from each other's side, and they were asking 
 how their hands had gotten unclasped. 
 
 I saw, even had I been disposed to make it, that 
 neither of them would have brooked an insinua- 
 tion against the other. I do not forget the look 
 of Ed when he said to me, in a way that for the 
 moment threw into shadow the sorrow that was 
 
io8 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 pressing upon him and gave a flash to his eye, " I 
 am glad that you do not blame my wife. I would 
 have been, I think, indignant if you had." And 
 so, too, the whole tenor of Mary's conversation 
 with me was that of perfect confidence in her hus- 
 band, a confidence which not even this estrange- 
 ment had, for an instant, shaken. Seeing this very 
 clearly, I felt safe and willing to come in the place 
 which I esteemed so sacred, but which was solemnly 
 and tenderly opened to me. I felt almost sure 
 also that I was the only mortal that knew anything 
 of their difficulties. I knew that Ed was one of 
 those sons who had never ceased to reverence his 
 mother or to think that she was of all women the 
 wisest. I do not believe that he made even an ex- 
 ception of his wife. He probably esteemed her 
 equally able, but without the experience of his 
 mother, and so of course not yet by her side in 
 wisdom. I did not think, however, that Ed had 
 made his mother a confidant in this matter. So, 
 too, in respect to my niece. She had been life- 
 long accustomed to speak with the utmost freedom 
 of her most personal matters to her mother, and to 
 ■seek her advice at every point, but yet I did not 
 believe that, even in this perhaps her greatest 
 trouble, she had told her mother of it. 
 
XX. 
 
 THE INNER SHRINE PROTECTED. 
 
 AS I thought over the happily-ended estrange- 
 ment of my nephew and niece^ I was quite 
 desirous to know whether either of them had 
 sought for advice elsewhere or had made a confi- 
 dant of any one but myself. I could not have 
 been especially jealous of another's share in the 
 confidence, though I should in that case have felt 
 it no longer the beautiful and sacred trust that it 
 was now to me. Its sacredness would have van- 
 ished, for I would have felt that the inner shrine 
 had been profaned. 
 
 But I knew that so much depended on the feel- 
 ing of absolute unity being maintained between 
 them, that I wished to feel sure that neither had 
 gone to another outside person for help. 
 
 You may ask why, if I felt so sure of my young 
 
 friends, I should have been at any pains to make 
 
 (ioq) 
 
no A BACHELOR'S TALKS. 
 
 myself more certain ? Well, you know, that one 
 likes to say, though it may be only to himself, " I 
 told you so." Whatever the motive was, and how- 
 ever it may be interpreted, I determined to find 
 out how the case stood. 
 
 When next I saw Ed, without any preliminaries 
 I asked him, " Did you ever, Ed, speak to any one 
 but me of the trouble that clouded your home a 
 few days ago ? " 
 
 "You can not, uncle," said he, "think that of 
 me. It never occurred to me to tell the sorrow 
 that was oppressing my heart to any human being. 
 I did not think of saying anything even to you 
 about it. I felt that here was something that I 
 was to bear alone, and that no mortal could have 
 anything to do with but myself. I had an instinct 
 ive shrinking, indeed a sort of indignant feeling, 
 when I thought of any one coming between my 
 wife and me, even though it might help us. It 
 seemed as though that would invade the sanctity 
 of our life." 
 
 " That is," I replied, " just as I supposed you 
 would feel, and as every right-souled husband will 
 feel. A true married life, it seems to me, is apart 
 from all the world beside. They are wise who 
 keep it so." 
 
THE INNER SHRINE PROTECTED. Ill 
 
 This settled the point as it regarded the hus- 
 band ; how was it in respect to the wife ? I took 
 an early opportunity of calling on my sister-in-law. 
 Our conversation, as I expected, was not long in 
 drifting toward the newly-married pair. The mother 
 had much to tell me of her daughter's housekeep- 
 ing, and, what was especially on her mind, how 
 lonely at times Mary was, and what a trial it was 
 to herself to have this elcjest daughter away from 
 home just as she was in the fulness of a mother's 
 enjoyment of a daughter grown to be a woman. 
 " Then," said she, " I am afraid that the cares of 
 life, even though it be so beautiful and promising 
 as that of my Mary's, have come too soon and 
 press too heavily upon her. Perhaps we have per- 
 mitted her to go away from us too soon. She 
 seems, or she did for a while seem, to have lost her 
 buoyancy of spirit. I feared that she was about to 
 be ill or at least that something very sad was weigh- 
 ing upon her spirit. It has been different the last 
 few days, and she seems like herself again — bright 
 and happy. I do hope that she will have no re- 
 turns of her melancholy looks. Perhaps it was only 
 some of her old vaporings to which, even when a 
 child, she was subject." 
 
 "I suppose," I replied, "that we must let her 
 
112 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 indulge in the doubtful luxury of the blues, that 
 we all occasionally take to ourselves, and let her 
 work her own way out of them." 
 
 Having heard enough to set me at rest I permit- 
 ted the conversation to flow in another direction, 
 and came away satisfied that Mary's mother was in 
 blissful ignorance of any trouble between the young 
 people. 
 
 I saw Mary a little while afterward, and said 
 playfully to her, " Mary, I suppose that you talked 
 abouLi the cloudy weather, which you had here, 
 with your mother, and that she gave you plenty of 
 sympathy and some excellent advice." 
 
 She looked up to me with a little flush on her 
 face, but when she caugbt a laugh in my eye she 
 said, " Uncle William, you know better ! You 
 know — I see it in your eye — that I did no such 
 thing ! It only came out of itself to you ; and if I 
 had not known you so well, and that you were so 
 wise, and had no wife to talk it over with, and 
 withal loved me so well, I would have bitten my 
 tongue off rather than have said a word about it, 
 even to you." And then her face became earnest, 
 and h'er blue eye flashed as it looked into mine, and 
 she almost passionately said, " Did I say anything, 
 Uncle William, that sounded like a complaint when 
 
THE INNER SHRINE PROTECTED. II 3 
 
 I told you of my sorrow ? Did I say one small 
 word that blamed my husband or that made you 
 think even for a moment that I doubted him, or 
 did not love him as I did my life ? Did I ? " 
 
 The tears were in her eyes, and in mine too, as I 
 put my arm around her and said, " No, no, my 
 dear, not one word, not one word ! I would have 
 been amazed if you had. You spoke just like, 
 what I knew you were — a noble woman an_d a true 
 and loving wife." 
 
 " Oh, I am so glad that you say so to me ! Glad, 
 not that you call me noble — though that is not 
 bad to hear — but because you say that I did not 
 utter a word against my husband. My heart was 
 very sore, and I have been afraid that some ex- 
 pression may have slipped, from me, in my trouble, 
 that would have given you an impression of that 
 sort. If you were not as good as I know you are, 
 and had not done us such an inestimable service, 
 I could be almost ashamed that I had said anything 
 to you. I did not intend to — I did not, did I ? — 
 say anything that looked like wishing any one to 
 come between us." 
 
 I smiled at her earnestness and her iteration, and 
 assured her that she had not said one word that 
 8 
 
114 A BACHELORS TALKS, 
 
 the good wife, which she was, ought not to have 
 said. 
 
 I have no fear that my niece Mary will be one 
 of those foolish wives who make the fatal mistake 
 of telling their conjugal troubles abroad even to 
 dearest friends. 
 
XXI. 
 
 TAKING AND NOT GIVING. 
 
 IS it because I am an old bachelor that I have 
 been thinking so much about my friend Rath- 
 bone since the evening which I last spent with him? 
 Perhaps I should do just as he does had I been a 
 husband, but that doesn't make it right or wise. 
 
 I went home with him a short time since after 
 business hours, and spent part of the evening with 
 him and his family. He and I are old friends, and 
 I have been acquainted with his wife longer than 
 he has known her. I half wish that I, instead of 
 him, had gotten her for a wife. That is not " cov- 
 eting," for I do not wish for her now. 
 
 She was one of those fragile girls whom we fre- 
 quently see, never sick or requiring the physician's 
 care, but whose whole organization — -mental and 
 physical — asks that they shall be tenderly watched 
 
 over and sheltered well. They have frequently an 
 
 ("5) 
 
ii6 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 indomitable will — can bear, when it is demanded of 
 them, much of toil and care ; but, unless they re- 
 ceive what their whole nature demands of fostering 
 affection, they wither and die. 
 
 She has, I notice, grown, of late, rapidly old. She 
 has faded much faster, it seems to me, and looks 
 more worn than she should at her time of life. 
 She is bright — indeed, she could not be herself 
 without being that ; she speaks cheerily, and not 
 a look betrays anything but satisfaction with her 
 surroundings. Yet I thought I could see a shadow 
 of weariness at times steal over her face. 
 
 Indeed, I am sure that Rathbone is not all that 
 he ought to be to his wife. Instead of sheltering 
 and supporting her, he leans heavily upon her. 
 She, a clinging vine, reaches, or used to reach out 
 for support ; while he, a sturdy oak, demands that 
 the slender stem and hanging branches should hold 
 him up. 
 
 He has, undoubtedly, no other thought than that 
 he is doing all that he can to make her life happy. 
 He is kind and generous in his household, and has 
 her well-being closely at heart, but he does not un- 
 derstand how much he extracts from her life to help 
 his own. I shall talk to him about it. I do not 
 know that he will understand me, or whether he 
 
TAKING AND NOT GIVING. 11/ 
 
 will be able to do any differently, but I will give him 
 my ideas. He knows me too well to be offended. 
 
 This is what I noticed. When he came home he 
 was silent and undemonstrative. I know that he 
 had had a hard day in his business, and that he 
 was weary, but there was no need of his showing 
 it so plainly. He returned the greetings of his 
 wife not warmly enough to suit me — I could have 
 done it better — and then he threw himself on the 
 lounge with a long sigh and an exclamation about 
 his weariness. His wife expressed her concern and 
 sympathy, while she sat down by his side till she 
 was called away. 
 
 He and I are intimate enough to be silent if we 
 so wish when we are with each other, and so I was 
 not at all annoyed when, at the table, he permitted 
 his wife and eldest daughter to do all the talking to 
 me. He sat there evidently with the idea that they 
 were to entertain me and him also. It was, clearly, 
 no new procedure on his part, nor one surprising to 
 them. He was accustomed to be ministered to, not 
 only in the matter of food and drink, but of mental 
 and spirital nourishment. His wife was the chief 
 reservoir from which it was drawn. 
 
 It was an effort to interest and amuse him, but it 
 was made nicely and willingly. It cost, however. 
 
ii8 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 The case was not altered when the meal was over. 
 He did not attempt to interest or amuse them, or 
 even to make any sympathetic inquiries about their 
 affairs. He simply took all and gave nothing. 
 
 Now, to entertain a weary man, to rouse and rest 
 him, is no small or light work. Rathbone gave just 
 that task to his wife, and he gives a similar task to 
 her every day, and all the time, and she has been 
 accustomed to do it, and has done it willingly and 
 kindly. I do not believe that she has ever thought 
 much about it — her gentle and loving nature would 
 not lead her into an analysis which should reflect 
 on her husband — but I am certain that it has all 
 made a vast and wasting expenditure of nervous 
 and mental force. 
 
 I do not know what her day had been, but, with 
 her family of children and her household, she can 
 not but have a world of care. With her delicate 
 organization, she can not but feel heavily the pres- 
 sure. So I know that at the close of the day when 
 I was there, she, as well as he, must have been men- 
 tally weary. 
 
 What right had her husband to throw all his 
 weariness on her and ask that she should sustain 
 and refresh him ? He might — so I at least think — 
 instead of sitting down and passively receiving all 
 
TAKING AND NOT GIVING. II9 
 
 from her, have tried to give in word and look some- 
 thing to her. But he did not. He simply took all. 
 
 I could not but imagine that I saw the life-power 
 going out from her to him. It was not all imagina- 
 tion that saw it. There was life given and received. 
 
 I do not wonder that she has grown old. It is 
 selfish in him never to have thought of it. He 
 daily takes from her life to make up his own. If 
 he does not cease it, he will by and by take it all 
 away. A good many like him have done so. 
 
 His thoughtlessness in this matter has gone far- 
 ther than merely upon the life of his wife. It has 
 touched his children. A feeble mother can not 
 have strong and healthy children, and I sometimes 
 imagine that the vigor or feebleness may have rela- 
 tion to the mind quite as much as to the body of 
 the mother. A mother of frail body may be the 
 parent of even stalwart children, if she be mentally 
 and spiritually elastic and strong. But one men- 
 tally and spiritually exhausted does not and can 
 not give birth to rugged sons and daughters. 
 
XXII. 
 
 POLITENESS IN THE HOME. 
 
 I HARDLY intend to put myself among that ex- 
 ceedingly respectable company made up of " gen- 
 tlemen of the old school," but I should very gladly 
 be thought to beloug to it. I have had for a long 
 time an unpleasant conviction that, in this all-driv- 
 ing age, while we are advancing in a great many 
 different directions, we are retrograding in our man- 
 ners. It has seemed to me that we are so busy and 
 hurried, that we do not find time to attend to the 
 finer amenities and courtesies of life. In what may 
 be properly called our best society, there is too 
 often a lack of that high-toned, gentlemanlike ac- 
 tion common in other days. 
 
 I do not mean now our drawing-room manners — 
 the manners of gentlemen and ladies when they are 
 assembled for the very purpose of showing polite 
 
 (120) 
 
POLITENESS IN THE HOME. 121 
 
 attentions to one another — but rather the tone of 
 ordinary intercourse in our daily routine hfe. 
 
 The manners of our boys and girls, our young 
 men and young ladies, are justly criticised by for- 
 eigners. It is not easy to point out exactly the de- 
 ficiency ; it is one of those occult yet pervasive 
 things that one feels better than he can describe. 
 An instance, however, on the moment strikes me 
 which will, in a partial way, suggest at least the 
 idea. I happened a day or two since to be on the 
 street at a point and just at the moment when a 
 young man met his pastor — a man old enough to 
 be his father, and whom, I doubt not, he, as every 
 one else, respects. Now the office, the years, the 
 character, all demanded the best and most cour- 
 teous salutation. But this young man simply nod- 
 ded his head, said " Good-morning, doctor," and 
 passed on. The doctor, who is a polite man, in- 
 stinctively raised his hand as if for a salute, but the 
 movement faded away into a slight gesture as 
 he saw the nod of the young man, and, with a 
 pleasant word of recognition tempered with a 
 shadow of displeasure, he went on his way. It all 
 occurred in an instant, but it gave me an unpleas- 
 ant idea of the breeding of that young man. I was 
 satisfied, too, that the doctor had received the same 
 
122 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 sort of impression. I joined him in a moment or 
 two, and, after a few commonplaces, he quietly re- 
 marked : 
 
 "^Do you think, Mr. Elwood, that the manners 
 of our young people are of as high a grade as they 
 were when you and I were young? " 
 
 He made no allusion to what had just occurred, 
 but I was certain that it was the occasion of his 
 observation. I do not believe that he would have 
 made it had my young friend politely touched his 
 hat and respectfully saluted him. 
 
 The only place and the only way to make gen- 
 tlemen and ladies is in the home and by the fa- 
 ther's and mother's own politeness, first to each 
 other, and then by a reign of courtesy in the whole 
 family. 
 
 It is not every man that is polite to his wife. 
 Many a husband speaks and acts toward his wife as 
 if she, of all women, were the only one to whom he 
 need not be civil. He addresses her and acts tow- 
 ard her in a way, for which, if it were toward any 
 other woman who had a natural protector, he would 
 expect to be called rigorously to account. As she 
 is his wife, he can be brutish with impunity. At 
 this point the family training in politeness must 
 begin. 
 
POLITENESS IN THE HOME. 1 23 
 
 My brother John and his wife do this thing, it 
 seems to me, excellently well. They are not studi- 
 ously, but naturally, polite to one another. I do 
 not think that any one could ever think of them 
 for a moment as cold or distant in their manners 
 toward each other, but there is a refined courtesy 
 between them that has grown so into a habit that 
 it makes simply a part of their life. He waits upon 
 her as in the early days, almost, of courtship ; he 
 rises to give her a seat when she enters the room, 
 as in the olden time, and some one must be nearer 
 and quicker if her handkerchief, dropped accident- 
 ally, is handed to her by any one else. 
 
 The silent influence of this is seen on all the chil- 
 dren. I do not mean to hold them up as models of 
 perfection^though I confess I have an admiration 
 for my brother John's youngsters — but I think that 
 they are, at least, as far as my observation extends, 
 an unusually polite household, and their manners 
 are noticed by others to have a sort of evenness 
 and polish that is not everywhere seen. My im- 
 pression is that it comes from the style of inter- 
 course that they have always seen between their 
 father and mother. Children imitate words and 
 looks, but much more the general tone of the man- 
 ners of those about them. Too many — I had al- 
 
124 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 most said, the most of people — forget this. They 
 would like their children to be gentlemen and la- 
 dies. They send them to dancing-school to learn 
 manners, and sometimes wonder that they do not 
 have more polish, but they overlook the place where 
 the training is chiefly done. It is the home. If there 
 is an atmosphere of courtesy, if little polite atten- 
 tions between father and nother are common, if 
 parents insist on them between brothers and sis- 
 ters, all the rest will be easy ; .the children will grow 
 naturally to be courteous and polite. 
 
XXIII. 
 
 REPRODUCED CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 MY brother John's children have furnished me 
 all along with what the scientists would call 
 persistence of type. As I remember so well what 
 he was when a boy, it is not difficult for me to rec- 
 ognize the origin of a good many things that I see 
 in his children. 
 
 This morning, as I sat looking over the paper in 
 John's sitting-room, I heard a whoop and a halloa 
 and a crash on the stairs as Harry, came down three 
 steps at a time and landed with a jump on the mat 
 below. He came down right side up, however, and 
 with limbs all safe, ready to give me his "Good- 
 morning." 
 
 As Harry passed out of the room I laid the pa- 
 per down and closed my eyes. The noise and the 
 boy had had a strange power over me. The years 
 
 seemed to sweep backward, and I was in the old 
 
 (125) 
 
126 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 home once more with brothers and sisters as they 
 were in the bygone days. The shout and the leap 
 had brought all back again: it was John making the 
 house ring with boisterous uproar, and around the 
 boy began to come the forms of father and mother, 
 and the sister long gone away into the serene heav- 
 ens, and I was with them, boy again. Strange, 
 magic rod, to evoke such a vision ! 
 
 While I was musing, my brother John and his 
 wife came in, and I told them of the incident and 
 of my reflections. 
 
 " I do not wonder at it," said John, " I very often 
 see myself in the boys." 
 
 " And in the girls, too," added his wife. " I do 
 not think that you can Hmit the transmitted quali- 
 ties to the boys." 
 
 "Yes, I will admit that, my child (so John some- 
 times calls his wife, although she is only a couple 
 of years younger than himself), " but I am compelled 
 to add, that they have not wholly escaped those of 
 their mother." 
 
 " I know it, I know it," was her reply, half-jest- 
 ingly, half-sorrowfully given. 
 
 " But," I broke in, " you need not speak of the 
 thing as if you both had handed down only the poorer 
 or bad qualities ; you have passed along to them a 
 
REPRODUCED CHARACTERISTICS. 12/ 
 
 good many — you need not blush while I say it — 
 beautiful and lovable ones." 
 
 " We thank you, brother William, for that ; but, 
 sadly enough, the poorer and the bad characteris- 
 tics seem to take the surest hold and show the 
 sharpest definitions." 
 
 "I have," said John, "often had a sense of hu- 
 miliation come over me as I have seen some disa- 
 greeable or unlovely trait showing itself, while I 
 could see, all too plainly, whence it had been derived. 
 I have sometimes even felt a half-reluctance to re- 
 prove the children for what I recognized so well as 
 a too faithful reproduction of what could have been 
 seen in me, and what I had, alas ! too often unsuc- 
 cessfully tried to overcome." 
 
 " I am glad," I answered, " that the discovery 
 has not hindered your child-training. It was fair 
 to give your children the result of your labor, even 
 as they had, without your intention, inherited your 
 difficulties." 
 
 " Of course not. I have tried to give the boys 
 and the girls the result of my dearly-purchased expe- 
 rience, and have wished — oh, how many times — that 
 I could have them start off from the point I have 
 reached and so take a long step ahead of where I 
 am, after these long years of endeavor. But that 
 
128 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 can not, sadly enough, be done. We can give the 
 poor boys and girls a little help ; but, after all, they 
 must travel over the same painful path that we have 
 trod so sorely." 
 
 "You are in that measurably true," I said ; " but 
 I think that you are, perhaps, too sweeping in your 
 saying that your children must travel over all of the 
 same road that you have toiled over. They do gain 
 from you, and they do start at an advanced point. 
 The labor you expended on your characters was 
 not all lost. I can see that your less beautiful char- 
 acteristics are not as clearly defined in them as they 
 were in you. I can notice their outlines and some- 
 times a pretty definite filling up, but there is an im- 
 provement — speaking in the scientific way of now- 
 adays — in the species." 
 
 "That," said John, "is encouraging. Perhaps 
 in a half-dozen generations or so, if a careless or 
 more than ordinarily bad pair should not happen 
 to be interjected, the tribe may become a tolerably 
 respectable one." 
 
 "But," said Mary, "is it not very sad that this 
 thing must go on, and that our poor children must 
 take what we give them by the very fact of our 
 being their parents ? " 
 
 "True," I replied, "but it is a part of the con- 
 
REPRODUCED CHARACTERISTICS. 1 29 
 
 stitution of things as God has made them, and all 
 that fathers and mothers can do is to see and ac- 
 cept the facts while they order their life by them. 
 It is the inevitable responsibility of parentage. If 
 the young could only take a long look ahead there 
 would probably be a greater diligence in the per- 
 fection of a good many characters." 
 
 This matter goes farther and begins sooner than 
 most parents think. 
 
 I happened in upon my cousin Sarah lately at an 
 unfortunate moment. She was not in her best 
 fashion — something had worried her, and she did 
 not have her usually sunny look. She was, I am 
 sorry to say, fretful, and she complimented me 
 enough to show her fretfulness. No, you need 
 not smile and think that was sarcasm. I really 
 meant what I said. If she had been less intimate 
 or had felt less familiar with me, she would have 
 been at greater pains to hide her uncomfortable 
 feelings. As it was, she made me feel very much 
 at home, and I did not love her a bit the less for it. 
 
 But, as I was saying, she was a little fretful, and 
 it was very curious to notice how both the chil- 
 dren — the one that, was playing about the room, 
 and especially the one in her arms — seemed to par- 
 9 
 
130 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 take of her feelings, and how they gave a very ex- 
 cellent reproduction of them in her behavior. They 
 were peevish and fretful too. 
 
 I believe that my coming in at the time did 
 really mend matters, for I managed by the help of 
 a stick of candy and a picture-card, to get things in 
 better shape with the children. Then, as Sarah 
 had been kind enough to make no stranger of me 
 in the exhibition of her slightly unamiable condi- 
 tion, I took the liberty to talk to her somewhat 
 after this fashion : 
 
 " Sarah, I believe in a subtle atmosphere which 
 parents carry with them, a sort of emanation, that 
 surrounds them and in which their children live. 
 When children are as young a^ yours are, they are 
 almost all the time in it ; and a baby, such as that 
 one, is all enfolded in. it as he is held so closely in 
 your arms. The atmosphere there is full of the con- 
 stituents with which you have loaded it. Did you 
 not notice, I did, how wonderfully your baby 
 seemed to be like yourself a few moments ago ? 
 If I had not often seen it before I would have been 
 surprised at it. Your own feelings seemed to find 
 an exact expression in the little fellow's looks and 
 actions. Perhaps you have not thought of that 
 
REPRODUCED CHARACTERISTICS. 
 
 131 
 
 before, but you will now and hereafter. The silent 
 and unconscious life of a mother, her inward states 
 of anger or petulance, her serenity and sweetness, 
 are often manifoldly stronger than her words or 
 her actions." 
 
XXIV. 
 
 JUSTICE TO CHILDREN. 
 
 MY feelings are all wounded and sore, and 
 that not because any one has given me an 
 unkind word or look. I only saw, a few moments 
 ago, both of them given to a bright-looking boy, 
 as I walked along the street. His father, so he 
 seemed to me to be, was handing something from 
 a cart on which he was standing, and just as I 
 passed, with an ugly look, and a smarting word, 
 struck the boy, a fine fellow of about fourteen 
 years of age, with a coil of rope which was in his 
 hand. I do not know what occasioned it ; I saw 
 simply the angry look on the father's face, and the 
 surprised, half-angry, half-grieved, and, as he caught 
 my eye, the half-ashamed look of the boy. The 
 blow given was very little, but the tone and the 
 words were very much. I was sure that then and 
 
 there that father had laid away in store in his son's 
 (132) 
 
JUSTICE TO CHILDREN. I33 
 
 memory something very sad and bitter. The sense 
 of injustice and wrong done him — so I imagined I 
 saw on his countenance — will live there perhaps 
 many a year to come. 
 
 I may be all wrong about this particular case, 
 but it has suggested what I think of often, and 
 what I wish those who have boys and girls would 
 think of more — being just with them. 
 
 Every child has more or less a keen sense of jus- 
 tice within him. He may not be able to tell you 
 about it, but he knows. A boy will take a deserved 
 punishment calmly, and will cherish no resentment 
 afterward, while he will never cease to remember 
 with anger one which he did not merit. He will 
 forget the greater and severer punishment, while 
 a very slight one will live in vivid recollection for- 
 ever. 
 
 I sat lately with an old friend, and we happened 
 to be talking about the training of boys, and the 
 difficulties that fathers have in doing exactly the 
 right thing with them. He spoke of his father, 
 whom I had known so well and honored so much 
 as to make it proper for him to say what he did. 
 That father, long ago gone to heaven, was a man 
 of more than ordinary nobility and excellence of 
 Christian character, and had reared a large family 
 
134 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 of sons to usefulness and honor. What affected 
 me deeply, and impressed me profoundly, was this — 
 that when this son, now past middle life, spoke of 
 the family training, one incident seemed to separate 
 itself from all the rest, and stand out in sharp defi- 
 nition ; and, sadly enough, that one incident was 
 painful. A thousand others, in his boyhood his- 
 tory, as it connected itself with his father, had 
 passed away — this was abiding still. 
 
 After all it was a little thing, only this — his 
 sister and he had a childish quarrel. She ran away 
 to her mother, and falsely accused him of striking 
 her a blow. When the father came in, the case was 
 reported to him, with only the sister's version. 
 His father, refusing to listen to anything he had to 
 say, though backed by testimony of a cousin that 
 stood by his side and witnessed to his innocence, 
 hastily and angrily administered a castigation. As 
 my friend told the story, his face flushed and his 
 eye kindled, and he said, " Even now, after nearly 
 fifty years, I can not think of it without my whole 
 soul being nerved with indignation." 
 
 It was very sad and painful, for I loved, as he 
 did, and reverenced his father. How, I thought, a 
 sudden and inconsiderate act of injustice will live 
 in memory and blot the fairest record, and cloud 
 
JUSTICE TO CHILDREN. 1 35 
 
 the brightest scenes of the past ! What would we 
 not both have given could that long-past scene be 
 withdrawn from memory. But it stands. 
 
 The next time a sudden gust of anger at your 
 boy blows over your spirit, and you are about to 
 punish him — pause. Be sure that you axQjust. If 
 you are not, beware. One brief minute, one hasty 
 act, may hide as with a black cloud a thousand 
 kindly things you have done. The blow which you 
 give on the impulse of the moment, and because 
 you are angry, may seem but little, and you may 
 never think of it again, but it may make a vivid 
 and bitter memory in all your child's future ; it 
 may leave not a momentary mark behind on the 
 flesh, but it shall make a wound in the soul which 
 the years shall only heal, while the scar remains to 
 grow red half a century to come. 
 
XXV. 
 
 PROMISES TO CHILDREN BROKEN. 
 
 " T T ARRY, you will have to lose your allow- 
 -*- -*• ance for two or three weeks, to make up, 
 partially at least, for that money you have just 
 lost." So said my brother's wife in my hearing a 
 few days since. If I had not been one of the 
 family, and as much at home there as almost any 
 one of its immediate members, my sister would 
 not have made that remark to her boy. She is a 
 mother of too good sense to give either unneces- 
 sary pain or wanton humiliation to one of her chil- 
 dren by a reproof before a stranger. I have known 
 parents to do that thing, but am satisfied that it 
 was a very great mistake. 
 
 A parent ought to guard the self-respect of his 
 child with exceeding care, and should do nothing 
 which for a moment may wound it. The child has 
 
 a reputation to keep, and no parent should thought- 
 (136) 
 
PROMISES TO CHILDREN BROKEN. 1 37 
 
 lessly lower him in the opinion of others, and espec- 
 ially proclaim to his child that he has spoken dis- 
 respectfully of him. Respect your child, and regard 
 well his reputation. 
 
 As I am felt to be one of the household, it did 
 not seem at all out of place when my sister made ' 
 the above remark to her son Harry. Harry is a 
 good, intelligent "boy, but he has one besetting 
 fault — carelessness. He knows enough for a boy 
 of his years, studies well, reads a good deal, but 
 dreams too much. He forgets, and he makes mis- 
 takes when on his errands, so that he can not be 
 implicitly relied upon when he has had some trust 
 committed to him. You can not be sure that he 
 will do it just right. 
 
 His mother and father have tried hard to break 
 him of this habitual carelessness. Probably they 
 will be in a measure successful, for Harry sees the 
 fault, and I have no doubt tries to overcome it. 
 The incident which called out his mother's penalty, 
 was of the usual kind. Harry had been sent to the 
 store to purchase something. He took the bill in 
 his hand, and went whistling out of the house. 
 After a while he came home, not whistling, but 
 with a lugubrious face. 
 
 " What is the matter, Harry ? " 
 
138 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 " Why, mother, I went to the store, and got what 
 you sent me for, but when I went to pay for it, the 
 bill was gone." 
 
 " Well, what did you do with it ? I certainly 
 gave it to you, and you had it in your hand when 
 you left the room." 
 
 " I know it. But when I got to the store it was 
 gone. I met Tom Hanson on the corner, and we 
 went together. He showed me his new base-ball. 
 I think that I put the bill in my pocket when I 
 took his ball in my hand." 
 
 "Are you sure that you did ? " 
 
 " No, ma'am. I think I did. But I have looked 
 in all my pockets, and it isn't there." 
 
 " Well, Harry, I am very sorry, but you know 
 well that you have lost this money simply by your 
 carelessness. It is the old story — you did not think 
 about it, and it is gone. I am sure that you must, 
 if ever you are to be of any use in this world, be 
 broken of this inexcusable carelessness. I do not 
 know of any better way than to make you feel the 
 penalty somewhat in the line of your fault. I must 
 tell your father to Withhold your weekly allowance 
 of money for the next two weeks." 
 
 This, I know, was rather hard on the boy. His 
 parents give their boys and girls a fixed sum week 
 
PROMISES TO CHILDREN BROKEN. 1 39 
 
 by week for their spending money and benevolence. 
 It is not a large sum, but enough. For Harry to 
 have his regular income all cut off was a very griev- 
 ous thing. I was not at all surprised, then, when 
 he began to beg off. He knew well that it was of 
 no use to get his mother to go back from her de- 
 termination — and especially from her word — by 
 any ordinary mode of attack, so he shrewdly made 
 his approach on a side which he thought would be 
 effective — the side of justice and truthfulness. 
 
 " Mother," he said, " father promised me that 
 allowance. He said that I should have it every 
 week, and I have depended on it. I do not see how 
 he can break his promise. You have always taught 
 us to keep our word, even if we have promised 
 something we would like to get off from." 
 
 Harry's mother has a soft blue eye that, when 
 its owner pleases, can make up into a keen search- 
 ing look which her children can not well withstand. 
 She had that look when she raised her eyes and 
 fixed them on Harry's. 
 
 " Harry," she said, " do you really think all that ? 
 You know well enough that those are only words ; 
 you know better than that. The keeping back your 
 allowance is a punishment. Your doctrine, if car- 
 ried out, would make any penalty impossible. A 
 
140 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 thief must not be put into prison because the law 
 has promised him protection, and to guard his Hb- 
 erty. You thought it all right the other day that 
 we refused to take Gracie on her promised ride, be- 
 cause when I had left her all dressed and ready, and 
 told her to sit still on the stoop till the wagon 
 came, she deliberately went out and played in the 
 mud and soiled her clothes, so that she was unfit to 
 go. According to your words, I broke my promise 
 then. Did I?" 
 
 " Well, I thought she ought to be left home." 
 
 " Do you remember how, when the Israelites 
 came up to the borders of the promised land, the 
 land which God said should be theirs and their 
 children's, that they were all turned back, and mad'e 
 to die in the wilderness ? Did God break His 
 promise ? " 
 
 " No, I suppose that He did not." 
 
 " Promises, Harry, are always given on condi- 
 tions. When we — I mean your father and moth- 
 er — make you and the other children promises, it 
 is always understood that you are to deserve, by 
 your goodness and obedience, what we have said 
 you should have. If you are bad, or have committed 
 a fault, it alters the whole case. You have broken 
 the conditions, and so the promise falls away of it- 
 
PROMISES TO CHILDREN BROKEN. I4I 
 
 self. It won't do to give just alike to a good or 
 faithful, and to a bad or careless boy. Do you 
 think that it would ? " 
 
 I knew pretty well — I could see it in the twinkle 
 of his eye — that Harry did not believe his own 
 argument, and he saw that his mother understood 
 him. So he submitted to the inevitable, and went 
 slowly out of the room. I hope that the lesson 
 will be serviceable. 
 
XXVI. 
 
 'A HORSE, SIR, IS LIKE A CHILD.' 
 
 OTANDING, a few days since, just outside the 
 ^ cabin of a ferry-boat on the Hudson, looking 
 listlessly over the water through which we plowed 
 our way, I heard at my side the movement of har- 
 ness, and then a voice saying, in a playful tone, 
 " Now, Kate, behave yourself." I looked round, 
 and saw that the words came from a pleasant-look- 
 ing fellow, and were addressed to a bright-eyed, 
 powerfully built horse, against whose shoulder he 
 was leaning. 
 
 As he stood there, the horse would throw her 
 head around, and, opening her mouth, would reach 
 after him, while the young man would draw back, 
 repeating the words which had drawn my attention 
 to him, " Behave yourself, Kate." In her ungainly 
 way, the animal was sporting with her owner, and 
 
 he was answering her playfulness. 
 (142) 
 
" A HORSE, SIR, IS LIKE A CHILD." 143 
 
 " You seem," said I to him, " to have an intelli- 
 gent and playful horse, there." 
 
 " Yes, sir, she knows all I say to her. I am ac- 
 customed to play with her; and as I am standing 
 by her head, and touching her, she thinks that I 
 wish to have some fun with her now. She will fol- 
 low me at my call, and do anything I want her 
 to do." 
 
 " Have you owned her a long time ? " 
 
 " Not very long, sir ; about a year and a half. 
 You see she is not a young horse. She is some 
 twelve years old. But she can do more work, and 
 more willingly, than any horse I ever owned, and, 
 though I am a young man, I have owned a good 
 many." 
 
 " You did not, then, train her from the start to 
 this gentleness and docility?" 
 
 " Well, sir, not exactly. Yet when I first bought 
 that horse she was a very different beast. Why, sir, 
 she was ugly and stubborn, and if you put a moder- 
 ate load behind her, she would, likely as not, refuse 
 to budge a step. But when I saw how she was 
 handled by the man that owned her, I knew what 
 was the matter. The owner was cross and ugly to 
 her. He beat and banged about her, and hallooed 
 angrily td her. That made the horse ugly. You 
 
144 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 see, sir, a horse don't like that. If you are ugly to 
 them they will be ugly to you. He could not make 
 her move with the load of twenty-five hundred we 
 had put on the dray. I said to him, ' Let me take 
 the lines.' He gave them to me, and I went 
 to the horse's head, patted her, and 5poke softly 
 and kindly for a few moments to her, and then told 
 her to go on. Why, sir, she moved right off ! Then 
 we put on the dray a load of forty hundred, and I 
 just said to her, ' Go on, Kate,' and at once she 
 started, as if the load was nothing. You see, sir, a 
 horse is like a child ; he will be just what you are 
 to him. The man that owned her said, in surprise, 
 ' If she would only do as much as that for me, I 
 would never let you have her.' He did not under- 
 stand that you must be kind to an animal like her. 
 When I am harnessing her, or when I come home 
 with her, I romp with her, and she enjoys it. She 
 will do anything for me." 
 
 I let him talk on. To a man who has a good 
 horse, you can do no greater favor than to listen 
 attentively and with interest while he tells you all 
 about the qualities of the animal. You could cool 
 off an angry man, if you could only get a chance 
 to stroke the neck, and look admiringly at the flank 
 of his horse. We soon reached the wharf, and 
 
"A HORSE, SIR, IS LIKE A CHILD." 145 
 
 parted. We shall not meet again, but I shall re- 
 member one thing that he said, "You see, sir, 
 horses are like children." That remark showed in- 
 sight. 
 
 I wish that a good many parents, some that I 
 have seen, and whose words I hear in my walks, 
 could learn just a little of what my acquaintance 
 on the ferry-boat knew so well. " If you are ugly 
 to them, they will be ugly to you, sir." So he said, 
 and he was right. " He banged about that horse, 
 and spoke angrily to her, and it made her stub- 
 born." That was it. It was not wonderful. 
 
 It is so with children. Do you think that it is 
 in human nature to be otherwise ? Just remember. 
 Were you ever called at sharply and angrily? Do 
 you not remember just how the voice seemed to stir 
 up all that was determined in you, and make you, 
 almost in spite of yourself, stubborn and wilful ? 
 
 When I hear how some mothers and fathers 
 speak to their children, I am not surprised in the 
 least that they are disobedient. I think that I 
 would be so too. I could not help it. The only 
 relief I could find would be in being ugly. The 
 very tone of voice has something in it that rasps 
 you that are older, while it tears into the sensitive 
 nature of a child. 
 
146 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 " Oh, they get used to it," some one says, " and 
 do not mind it." There is what is very sad in that, 
 if it is so. It can only be because your child has 
 grown hard. The feelings must be callous, when 
 harsh words do not wound or excite anger. You 
 can make an infant lip quiver by the tone of voice. 
 You must not forget that the cords are not broken. 
 They will vibrate at your call in the aftertime. 
 
 You that have spoken roughly and often harshly 
 to your children, try the gentler ways. Soften the 
 voice. Let it have the melody of kindness and 
 affection in it. There are little faces that will look 
 up wonderingly, perhaps, at first, but the boys and 
 girls will surprise you with their smiling obedience 
 and manifested affection. 
 
XXVII. 
 
 MR. FROWNELL S BOYS. 
 
 PERHAPS it is not fair to make comparisons, 
 but I can not help noticing the difference be- 
 tween my friend Frownell's way with his children 
 and that of my brother John. My nephews and 
 nieces are profoundly respectful to their father. I 
 do not believe that any person ever overheard one 
 of them speak of " the governor " or " the old man," 
 and I never saw him enter the parlor or room where 
 they were seated without some one of them rising 
 and offering him a chair, especially if he happened 
 to be seated in a specially comfortable one. Yet 
 they seem to feel perfectly free with him — will 
 laugh and joke with him, and go to him naturally 
 as possible with everything and on every occasion, 
 just as they would to their most intimate compan- 
 ion. They never seem to imagine that he will not 
 be interested in them, and in what interests them. 
 
 (147) 
 
148 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 And he evidently is. I have sometimes half won- 
 dered at and wholly admired the calmness and the 
 smile with which he would lay aside his book or 
 pen to give some advice on the way a mainsail 
 should be cut for the boat one of his boys was 
 building, or as to whether a certain fine glass 
 " alley " should be advantageously traded off for 
 an " agate," or to take hold and help arrange the 
 sticks for a kite so that it should be well-shaped 
 and strong. 
 
 I can see that it has created a bond between 
 them — this interested intercourse — that is very en- 
 dearing and powerful. The tallest of them, now 
 almost grown to a man, never goes to bed without 
 a good-night kiss, and I saw them exchange one 
 for good-bye on the steamboat a short time since. 
 I know, too, for I have been careful to make my- 
 self certain, that the father's word is a law for them. 
 I have suspected that they even take a pride when 
 away from home to have it known that they can 
 not be induced to disobey him, or even do what 
 he would not be likely to approve. 
 
 It is different with Frownell's boys. He is a kind 
 and even indulgent father. He spends, I am sure, 
 more money on them in dress, and even in presents, 
 and certainly in pocket funds, than my brother does. 
 
MR. FROWNELL'S boys. 149 
 
 I do not believe that' as a general thing, he is 
 particularly harsh with them. But he does not 
 identify himself with them as my brother John 
 does. 
 
 I do not remember ever to have seen him out for 
 a walk with his boys, or but once or twice, and then 
 -they were walking hardly by his side, and not chat- 
 ting with him, as I have seen John's boys chat as 
 they laughingly kept close to him. I rather think 
 that they would smile if some one were to suggest 
 that they should take their father with them if they 
 wanted to have a particularly good time. 
 
 If Frownell ever shot marbles, he could not do it 
 now. I don't believe that he could tell a " com- 
 mee" from an "alley," and to show one of the 
 small boys how to hold the marble between the 
 thumb and finger, so as to shoot straight and 
 strongly, would be like writing the Iliad. I do 
 not think that he could put the string over the six 
 ends of a kite's sticks and prepare it for the paper 
 to save his life. I have been in his house often, but 
 I never heard him consulted about a bow, or the 
 feathering of an arrow, or the trading of a penknife. 
 His children do not depend on his advice for such 
 things, and I suspect that it never enters their heads 
 to seek it. If a day's fun is on hand — even if they 
 
150 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 knew that he had leisure— I do not think they would 
 count him in as one of the company. 
 
 It seems to me that he makes a mistake. He 
 comes home, I am aware, tired, and possibly with 
 the worry of the day on him, but he ought not to 
 be, as I have seen him, annoyed by the play of the 
 children, and when the little one ran up to him 
 with a broken toy, he ought not to have told him 
 to go to his brother to fix it. When I saw that, I 
 thought I could tell why his children had so little 
 to do with him. 
 
 That little fellow had not learned it fully yet. 
 One of the older ones would not have thought of 
 doing so. They were taught long ago that they 
 need expect no aid there. But the little boy, in 
 his simplicity, thought that father was just the one 
 to go to. By and by — and it will not take very 
 long — he too will not think of running to papa 
 with a broken toy or for a piece of twine, and as 
 the years go on he will not think of going to him 
 for anything. He will just live with him, respect 
 him, love him some, but will easily drift away from 
 him. 
 
 It is all a dead loss now to him and to them, and, 
 what is worse, it may, in the aftertime, be of incal- 
 culable injury to them. He is losing his hold on 
 
MR. FROWNELLS BOYS. I51 
 
 them just at the point where it ought to be the 
 strongest. He has not mingled his life with theirs. 
 Their, life has all along been a child's life, and he 
 ought to have made himself a child with them, 
 walking hand-in-hand in their child-thoughts and 
 child-cares and perplexities. They have them, but 
 I will not talk about that now. 
 
 It is bad in its indications when one's children 
 feel fretted and restrained from talk or play when 
 their father is near them. I am afraid that it is too 
 late now, at least with the older boys, but I wish 
 that Frownell would try to call up his boyhood 
 again, and, through the boy-life lived over again, 
 get closer to his children. 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 IN THE COUNTRY WITH THE BOYS. 
 
 WE have had a good time, my nephews and I. 
 They are — I mean my brother's family — 
 all together in the country. John and his wife do 
 not believe in leaving the children at home in the 
 city while they themselves go away for a vacation, 
 nor do they, when they can help it, send the chil- 
 dren off alone or scatter them around. 
 
 This year they have taken board among the hills 
 at a farm-house, and father, mother, and children 
 are all boys and girls together. I have been out to 
 see and spend a few days with them. 
 
 We had, as I said, a good time — no dressing for 
 dinner, no standing on ceremony, no effort to ap- 
 pear well before strangers — indeed, no hotel or wa- 
 tering-place life at all. We arrayed ourselves for 
 comfort. We boys, when necessary, tucked our 
 pants into the tops of our boots, regardless of the 
 (152) 
 
IN THE COUNTRY WITH THE BOYS. 153 
 
 aesthetics of dress ; we hung our coats over our 
 arms ; we donned woolen shirts and hard-looking 
 hats, and came home, after a heavy day's work, 
 over the hills and through the woods, tired and 
 soiled and torn, but jolly. We boated, we waded, 
 we lay on shady banks, we ate our lunches under 
 the trees. Those boys — what quantities of bread 
 and beef and cake they could stow away ! If you 
 want to see one that can eat, that can demolish 
 fabulous piles of bread and butter, or anything else 
 that comes handy, look at a well-grown and grow- 
 ing boy. It will do you good — it does me — to look 
 and wonder where it all goes to. But it does go, 
 and goes to the right spot for muscle and bone and 
 brain. Save me from the boys and girls that eat 
 little! Give me the girls and boys that devour 
 much ! Mountain air and long walks did not make 
 the appetite smaller, and the fat, brown faces and 
 sturdy limbs showed how good were their results. 
 
 The boys and girls kept their father and me going 
 all the time. They said it was no fun to go with- 
 out us. If I sat down to a book at night there was 
 no rest the first part of the evening — it did not 
 take a late hour to send the young folks to bed — 
 till we had made up our plans for the next day. 
 
 " Uncle William," would be the word, " we're off 
 
154 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 to-morrow for a long tramp. Sam will take his gun, 
 and Will and I our rods. You can take your gun or 
 rod, as you please, and father his. Now you need 
 not say, ' No, we will tire you ! ' you need not say 
 that ; you know well enough that father and you 
 can outwalk us all. You're ' lazy ' ! Well, we'll 
 stir you up. You must go. We always have a good 
 time when you are along." 
 
 So you see there was never any resisting the 
 young rascals, and we always had to promise them. 
 
 Then there was perpetually other work to do, and 
 help, and opinions to be given. 
 
 " Uncle, what sized shot shall we take? Don't 
 you think squirrel-shot about the thing? What do 
 you think about these hooks ? Will this line be 
 strong enough? " 
 
 The girls, too, would be on hand. 
 
 " Uncle William, look at these arrows ; do they 
 want new tips? See this target ! Haven't we used 
 up this canvas covering pretty well ? The straw 
 back is good enough, however. There's where Jo- 
 sie made her best shot. That is my best. You see 
 that the bows and arrows which you gave us have 
 done good service. We will soon have to show 
 you, as the boys do, the muscles on our arms." 
 
 So they kept us busy, and I have not often been 
 
IN THE COUNTRY WITH THE BOYS. 1 55 
 
 happier. It makes my heart grow full — and indeed 
 my eyes, too, sometimes — to see how these children 
 take me and their father into their plays. They do 
 not seem to think that I am so very much older 
 than they.~ They have always been so. They talk 
 about their small affairs with me, they consult me 
 about their games, ask me to help them about their 
 kites, to set up croquet arches and targets, to show 
 them how to clean their guns, and generally they 
 seem to think me not only posted on all these 
 things, but entirely ready to help them at any time. 
 So I am. 
 
 Sometimes they do break in upon me when I 
 would rather be let alone ; but, after all, I do not 
 know but even that is a proof of their entire con- 
 fidence and faith in me. They are so sure that I 
 sympathize with them that they are not afraid to 
 trouble me. 
 
 It is just so with their father. I notice that they 
 are never happier than when he says that he can go 
 out with them, or can give them a day, as he and I 
 just now have. Wheji I am on hand he refers them 
 to me ; when I am not he is the general and trusted 
 oracle about balls and bats and kites and marbles — 
 though he and I are rather rusty on marbles, the 
 boys have so many new games nowadays. He and 
 
156 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 I knew all about these things when we were boys, 
 and we have never forgotten them, and his children 
 do not seem ever to think that we have ceased to 
 remember, but expect us to go right in with them. 
 I can see the power of all this on the children. It 
 makes men and women of them. I am certain the 
 person does not exist that could persuade one of 
 them deliberately to do what they knew that their 
 father would not approve. 
 
 And he is sure of them. I am accustomed to it, 
 but I can not but be struck at times with the entire 
 certainty with which he rests on their obedience 
 when they are away from him. The idea of diso- 
 bedience seems never to suggest itself to him or 
 them. John has an admirable way with his boys. 
 
XXIX. 
 
 ON POLITENESS TO THE BOYS. 
 
 I HAVE just been reading a newspaper article 
 by an Englishman on the manners of some 
 American children that he unfortunately encoun- 
 tered in his travels. They greatly disturbed his 
 equanimity by their rudeness. They pushed past 
 him, jostling him as they went by ; rushed, in their 
 play, between him and the gentleman with whom 
 he was conversing. They talked foudly, and did a 
 variety of improper things, all of which I condemn. 
 I agree with him in his displeasure, and in his com- 
 ments on the family training that these things 
 seemed to evince. I confess that he was all right, 
 and I have not one word of apology to offer for the 
 cubbish behavior of the boys. I say " cubbish," 
 because that is just the word that I want. It is 
 very descriptive of a good many boys that I wot 
 
 (157) 
 
158 A BACHELOR'S TALKS. 
 
 of. Somehow, whenever I see them, I naturally 
 have the word "cub" present itself. But I have 
 been thinking of late that there may be at least a 
 partial procuring cause of these disagreeable man- 
 ners in the way in which boys are often treated. 
 
 How few people are absolutely polite to boys. 
 Take an incident at the last concert that I attended 
 as an example. A well-dressed boy was sitting in 
 an eligible seat in front of me. He had come early, 
 and secured it by being on hand some time before 
 the music began, and was evidently comfortable in 
 his place. By and by a gentleman — so he appeared 
 by his dress — accompanied by a couple of ladies — - 
 so they seemed, judged by the same token — came 
 in and up to the row of seats where my young 
 friend was sitting. Scarcely looking in the face of 
 the boy, the man motioned him to move down. 
 As the boy did not move at once, I heard him say, 
 " Move along, boy ! " The little fellow hesitated a 
 moment, but seeing the ladies, and evidently under- 
 standing that the odds were too many for resist- 
 ance, did as he was bidden, and pushed himself 
 along. The gentleman — so I call him still — de- 
 liberately took his place, the ladies planted them- 
 selves by his side, but neither the one nor the other 
 gave a look or a word of acknowledgment or thanks 
 
ON POLITENESS TO THE BOYS. 1 59 
 
 to the boy whom they so unceremoniously had 
 thrust aside. 
 
 I looked at the transaction, and in my bluntness 
 I had almost spoken out my indignation. I did 
 not speak, however, what I thought. I tliought 
 this : Just suppose, for an instant, that that thing 
 had been done to me ! What would I have done ? 
 What woyld I have said ? Would that man have 
 thought of doing so to another man ? What sort 
 of reply would he probably have received ? How 
 safe would he have felt himself to be ? But, as it 
 was only a boy, he considered himself entirely right 
 and perfectly secure. He insulted him, and was 
 outrageously rude in his insult, and all without a 
 thought that he was either rude or insulting. It 
 was only a boy ! 
 
 You and I have seen things like that very often. 
 They are not at all uncommon. Do you imagine 
 that they are calculated to promote excessive cour- 
 tesy in the boys ? Do you think that my young 
 unknown friend of the concert-room had his sense 
 of politeness remarkably built up and strengthened 
 by that incident ? 
 
 I came in, at evening, with my acquaintance 
 Busquin, to take tea with him. We bachelors can 
 rove around easily. One of his boys was sitting in 
 
i6o A bachelor's talks. 
 
 an arm-chair, from which he did not rise. His, 
 father did not notice him, but introduced me to 
 his wife. As he came to where the boy was sitting, 
 he gave him a slight push and said, " Get up." 
 The boy did so, and moved off into the other 
 room. 
 
 My brother John would have done that thing 
 differently. I had the contrast in my -mind in a 
 moment. He would have presented the stranger 
 to his wife, of course, but would just as carefully 
 have brought forward the boy and as formally in- 
 troduced him. John's boy would not have kept 
 his seat, but on the moment of the stranger's en- 
 trance would have risen, expecting to be made 
 acquainted with him. The difference in the man- 
 ners of the boys was exactly the difference in the 
 manners of the fathers. I am quite sure that had 
 Busquin been accustomed to treat his boy politely, 
 the boy would have acted politely to his friend. If 
 it had been a man sitting there, he would probably 
 have felt that he insulted him by ignoring his pres- 
 ence, and especially by unceremoniously ousting 
 him from his seat. But as it was only a boy it did 
 not matter ! 
 
 My brother John is a polite man, and I notice it 
 nowhere more clearly than in his own family. His 
 
ON POLITENESS TO THE BOYS. l6l 
 
 boys never seem to think of not offering him the 
 most comfortable seat, should one of them happen 
 to be in it, and he never takes it without an ac- 
 knowledgment in either word or look. When he 
 asks them to wait on him — he often does it, says 
 that he does it with a purpose, because they ought 
 to be in the habit of attending to his wants and 
 wishes — it is always with a pleasant tone and with 
 a gentle " Thank you," as the service is rendered. 
 
 It is my opinion that if grown people would be 
 more deferential and polrte to the boys, the boys 
 would be more polite and deferential to the grown 
 people. But things are done and said to them, 
 which, if said or done to men, would receive a 
 fierce word and perhaps a fierce blow in return. 
 
 When next you are about to speak rudely or do 
 some impolite thing to a boy, bethink yourself. Do 
 not train him in that way. Act toward him as a 
 gentleman should. You will find more gentlemen 
 among the boys than you think. 
 
XXX. 
 
 " IF WE HAD ONLY KNOWN." 
 
 /^UR friend Tillson has had a great sorrow 
 ^^ come upon him, in the death of their oldest 
 daughter. She completed her school -days last 
 June, graduating with the highest honors of her 
 class. She was a hard student, not especially bril- 
 liant, indeed, I sometimes' thought, being not above 
 mediocrity. But she had one crowning faculty — 
 the faculty of perseverance and hard work ; and so 
 made up for some possible deficiency in power by 
 the care and the labor which she resolutely put 
 forth. 
 
 I have noticed that these are just the kind of 
 students who are the most apt to break down by 
 hard study. They are engines of small power 
 pushed beyond their capacity. The naturally 
 
 quick and active reach results of study by short 
 (162) 
 
"IF WE HAD ONLY KNOWN." 1 63 
 
 and comparatively easy stages ; others have to toil 
 weariedly to reach the same point. They have put 
 forth perhaps twice the mental strain and have 
 suffered twice the mental exhaustion that their 
 more favored sisters or brothers have used and 
 endured. 
 
 Parents and teachers both very often commit a 
 fatal blunder just at this point. They look at the 
 attainments of the pupil, see that they are not 
 especially excellent, perhaps only ordinary in their 
 character. There are no evidences, at least no 
 result of especial power, and, without thought, they 
 take for granted that there has been only moderate 
 power put forth. Yet the actual fact may be that 
 both the mind and body have been taxed to their 
 utmost capacity and often up to the point of irrep- 
 arable injury. 
 
 It frequently happens that these mediocre stu- 
 dents stand at the head of their classes ; they have, 
 by the mere force of dogged perseverance, actual 
 hard work, and by a multitude of hours devoted to 
 study, pushed themselves to the front and in ad- 
 vance of others whose natural abilities are far above 
 theirs. 
 
 But the aftertime makes a revealment. If they 
 have not broken down midway in the course, the 
 
164 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 honors of commencement-day are the only honors 
 that they ever enjoy. They sink back to their 
 natural level, because the unnatural exertions can 
 not be forever kept up, and the broader field of 
 life does not present the same opportunity for 
 routine work to tell. But what more frequently 
 happens, they are compelled to suspend their stud- 
 ies before they are half completed, and they never 
 resume them. Or if they have been fortunate 
 enough to be able to endare to the end, the vaca- 
 tion that succeeds the final term often becomes a 
 vacation that lasts the rest of their lives. The 
 stimulus and excitement of school or college over, 
 the occasion of mental strain past, there comes a 
 sudden collapse. The country jaunt, the travel of 
 summer days do not seem to recuperate or build up 
 as friends were sure they would. If it is a young 
 man, he is thin and haggard, and has a head whose 
 chief function seems to be to ache. The doctors 
 say that books must be laid aside. Indeed he needs 
 no such prescription, for the fierce pains that fol- 
 low mental exertion and the weary lassitude that 
 abides with him compel him to avoid them. If it 
 is a girl, the spine sensitive through its whole ex- 
 tent, wrists that are so weak that she does not care 
 to lift a book, head that throbs with agony if only 
 
"IF WE HAD ONLY KNOWN." 165 
 
 a moderate effort be made or a mild excitement 
 be endured, digestion that lacks ail power of assim- 
 ilation, all combine to place her in the invalid's 
 chair if they do not prostrate her on an invalid's bed. 
 
 More than this has come to Mr. Tillson's daugh- 
 ter. She was not well as the term drew to its end, 
 and under other circumstances would perhaps have 
 rested from study. But the examinations were at 
 hand, and her teachers were naturally proud of her 
 attainments and anxious that she should appear to 
 the best advantage and take the position which in- 
 deed belonged to her. So she worked on, though 
 it was more difficult than ever before to work and 
 demanded more hours of study. She took them 
 from recreation and from sleep — hardly took them 
 from sleep, for sleep was not easy — and toiled, 
 counting the days and the hours when the dreadful 
 necessity should be over. 
 
 On commencement -day she appeared exceed- 
 ingly well. She was not emaciated, her complexion 
 was fair and her cheeks ruddy, and both her appear- 
 ance and her acquirements called out expressions 
 of delight from her friends. 
 
 Her father and mother, beaming with delight, 
 were congratulated, and they took her smiling to 
 her home. 
 
1 66 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 A few days after the excitement of the journey 
 and the welcome of sisters and brothers were over, 
 the inevitable reaction set in. The flush of com- 
 mencement-day had left her face and a weary look 
 had taken its place. She complained of being 
 tired, " so tired all the time." A week only had 
 gone, when a slight fever set in, and she kept her 
 room and waited the physician's coming. 
 
 When he came out of her chamber his face wore 
 a grave look, and to the anxious inquiries of father 
 and mother, which would not be put aside, he said 
 simply that he feared Laura had symptoms of 
 typhoid fever and would need the best care that 
 could be given. And then came days and nights 
 of watching and tearful anxiety on the part of 
 friends, of restlessness and decline on the part of 
 Laura. 
 
 It was not long before the end was at hand. 
 The disease without a pause passed rapidly and 
 inexorably through its stages until the sufferer 
 went away from earth. 
 
 I do not know, certainly I would not say that any 
 one is to be blamed for this result. If with what 
 they know now the whole course of this dear girl's 
 education were to be arranged for, undoubtedly a 
 different result would be reached. An extra year 
 
"IF WE HAD ONLY KNOWN." 167 
 
 of time would have carried her safely through her 
 course of study. Her family had had no experience 
 to guide them, and knew nothing of the fatal process 
 that was going on. Perhaps, however, it may warn 
 some other household. The hope that it may is 
 the occasion of my talking about it. 
 
XXXI. 
 
 ON SAYING " NO " TO CHILDREN. 
 
 DID you ever think how much children have to 
 suffer in having their wills crossed, and in be- 
 ing compelled all the time either to give up some- 
 thing or to do something that they do not wish 
 to do? 
 
 The most of people are so in the habit of consid- 
 ering that the only proper thing that a little boy or 
 girl has to do is to " give up" to those who are older, 
 that they never think of what it costs the child. I 
 wonder if you ever did ? 
 
 Because one is compelled to yield at every point 
 his wishes and to do it all the time, does not alter 
 his opinion materially or his feeling about it. On 
 the contrary, if his spirit is not all broken, it is all 
 the harder to bear because it is so continuous. 
 
 Just suppose that you had some one — no, per- 
 haps three or four persons — over you all day long, 
 (i68) 
 
ON SAYING "no" TO CHILDREN. 169 
 
 to whom you were compelled to go, and whose per- 
 mission you must ask in respect to pretty much all 
 you wish to do. Suppose that you were as likely — • 
 indeed, a little more likely than not — to be refused, 
 or told to wait, or required to do something else. 
 Suppose that these two or three or more people, 
 who, after all, you did not think knew very much 
 more than you, should be meeting you at every 
 turn and telling you to stop, or be still, or to lay 
 aside your work or book, and, on the instant, do 
 what they wanted you to do, and which, as likely 
 as not, you felt no interest in. Suppose that they 
 were to speak rudely to you or harshly or impo- 
 litely, as if you had no feelings or did not care in 
 what way you were addressed. Suppose that this 
 should go on all day, from the time you got up in 
 the morning till you went to bed at night. Would 
 you not consider the day rather long — would you 
 not at times grow restive and nervous and possibly 
 get out of patience? 
 
 Yet just consider it. That is exactly what some 
 boys and girls have to go through all the time. I 
 do npt say that it so in your home, but you know 
 a good many homes where such is the history of 
 the day as far as the children are concerned. You 
 will not be offended, I hope, if I should seem to 
 
I/O A bachelor's talks. 
 
 imply that I have noticed somewhat this state of 
 things in your house when I have been with you. 
 
 You tell me that it is right and good for children 
 to yield their wishes to the wishes of those who are 
 older. I grant it in general. I believe in implicit 
 and unquestioning obedience of children to parents. 
 But because a thing to be done may in general be 
 right and proper, does that make it all entirely easy 
 and agreeable? Do you find it so? 
 
 You say that father and mother and aunts and 
 older brothers and sisters all know more than 
 smaller folks. But these smaller people do not 
 think so. They indeed often feel as if they knew 
 about things a great deal better. They certainly 
 know what they want and what they do not want 
 to do. They may be mistaken, just as you often 
 are, but they think so and feel so, and it is Just as 
 hard to be crossed in their desires as it is for you, 
 and it costs them just as much, often a great deal 
 more of suffering. 
 
 Tommy comes running in from school, all out of 
 breath in his eagerness and excitement, and calls 
 out : 
 
 " Mother, can't I take my sled and go to the hill 
 and coast ? " 
 
 You look up and say: 
 
ON SAYING "no" TO CHILDREN. 171 
 
 " Why didn't you shake the snow off from your 
 shoes before you came in ? There, you have wet 
 all the carpet ! " 
 
 " Oh, excuse me, I didn't think. Mother, can't 
 I go?" 
 
 " Why, Tommy, I want you to go to the store 
 and get me some muslin." 
 
 Now you do not want it to-day, possibly you 
 may to-morrow afternoon. The boy suspects it, 
 and, with a disappointed look, says : 
 
 " But, mother, won't it do when I come from 
 school to-morrow ? " 
 
 " My child " — you say it with a solemn air — " I 
 want you to go when I wish you to go, and not 
 when you think best." 
 
 " But, mother, the boys are all going to the hill 
 this afternoon and they want me to go with them. 
 There they go now ! " 
 
 " You can go almost any day to the hill. I want 
 you to obey me now." 
 
 You say it with a sort of sacred air and a feeling 
 that you have done an excellent parental duty. 
 But you have not. You think that the look which 
 your boy has on his face betokens a bad spirit ; you 
 sigh because he is not a better boy. He goes away 
 half tearful, half sullen, and all unhappy. You 
 
172 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 think it exceedingly bad in him to feel and act so, 
 but you give not a thought to what you have done 
 and all the unnecessary pain you have inflicted. I 
 do not know how important that errand was. I be- 
 lieve that another time would have done exactly as 
 well, but I do know that you ought to have hesi- 
 tated long or had a very powerful reason for giving 
 him a disappointment so great. You thought that 
 he looked undutiful and you felt grieved. I think 
 that his look should have touched you and made 
 you feel remorseful and guilty. You gave your boy 
 sorrow that a mother should have carefully spared 
 him. 
 
 Your little daughter (Mary, I will call her), as you 
 sat at your work a day or two ago, came to you in 
 her bright, eager way and said : 
 
 " Oh, mamma, won't you get my tea-set for me?" 
 
 You were very busy, and, without looking up, you 
 said : 
 
 " Not now ; go and play with your doll." 
 
 " But, mamma, Susie and I want to play tea now ; 
 won't you ? " 
 
 "My child," you said emphatically, "you can 
 play tea some other time. Get your dolls now." 
 
 You did not speak harshly. You had an idea 
 that you did a wise and motherly thing in insisting 
 
ON SAYING "NO" TO CHILDREN. 1/3 
 
 on being obeyed. The little maid's eyes filled and 
 she went sorrowfully away. You causelessly added 
 one sad afternoon to your child's life. You should 
 not have done it. 
 
 Now, these are only two small examples of what 
 are occurring all the while in almost every house- 
 hold. Perhaps you have not thought much of it 
 before, but I want you to stop when you have read 
 this and think over the matter. 
 
 Try to reckon up the number of occasions during 
 almost any day that your little ones have been 
 crossed and thwarted and denied. I do not mean 
 in things really important, but in matters where it 
 could not have made any material difference to have 
 permitted them to have had their wishes. The 
 number is greater than you would have supposed. 
 
 To bring the matter home, just imagine that your 
 husband, or some one else with less right, had said 
 " No " to you a dozen times to-day, and a dozen 
 times you had been compelled to give up and not 
 have your way — in what state of mind would you 
 have been to-night? I imagine that your looks 
 would not be all sunny. When I think how many, 
 many times, day by day, these little ones are denied 
 needlessly — how many times they are forced to sur- 
 render their wishes, I pity them. When I see how 
 
174 
 
 A BACHELOR S TALKS. 
 
 parents who love their children will yet wantonly 
 and thoughtlessly inflict pain and make sorrow by 
 refusals that are all unnecessary, I grow indignant. 
 Surely some fathers and mothers are cruel, while 
 they consider themselves all kindness and love. 
 
XXXII. 
 
 children's "blues." 
 
 " "IX 7 HAT! children have the 'blues'!" cries 
 ^ ' out some one as his eye falls upon my 
 talk ; " children are never low-spirited, they are 
 always buoyant and happy ; they do not have any 
 cares and anxieties." 
 
 But all my young friends know the exact oppo- 
 site of that. When my little nephew came into the 
 house with his face swollen with weeping and with 
 great sobs (which he could not prevent) moving his 
 whole frame, I saw only, what I knew well before, 
 how great a child's sorrow is. 
 
 It was over a favorite ball which he had lost. 
 His father had that morning had the shoemaker 
 put the cover in perfect order, and the favorite ball 
 was better than when new. But, alas ! a few mo- 
 ments before I saw him, an unfortunate stroke of 
 the bat had sent it he knew not where. The ball 
 
 (175) 
 
176 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 was gone, he was sure forever, and his grief was pro- 
 found and touching. 
 
 I put my arm around him and got him to wash 
 his eyes and his face. Then I said : 
 
 " We will go out and see if we can't find that 
 ball." 
 
 So we did. We went to the spot. He told me 
 where he stood when he struck the ball, which way 
 it went, and how it rolled. I examined the little 
 hill down which it went, and, after a careful calcu- 
 lation, I told him to put his hand under the pile of 
 lumber in a little hollow behind a log and feel if it 
 were not there. He lay down on the ground, 
 reached in, and then, with a sudden cry of joy, he 
 started up, both hands clasped over the ball. As I 
 looked at his face and heard his exclamations of 
 gladness the tears started to my eyes. It was out 
 of the depths of sorrow into a paradise of delight. 
 It was a crushed heart suddenly made glad. Some 
 people would not have understood it. The boys 
 and girls and Uncle William knew all about it. 
 
 But sometimes children feel sorrowful when they 
 do not know why they are so. Sometimes my lit- 
 tle nephew — he of the ball — comes to his mother 
 and lays his head on her shoulder. 
 
 " What is the matter, Frankie ? " she asks. 
 
BLUES. 177 
 
 "I do not know," he replies, "but I feel so sad." 
 
 When I have heard of that I pity Frankie, while 
 I understand precisely how it is with him. He has 
 the " blues." I do not know what causes it, but I 
 know what it is. I felt just so at times when I was 
 a little boy, and I have never forgotten the sadness. 
 Perhaps it is nervousness. Children have nerves 
 as well as grown people, and they can be set all in 
 a quiver just as well as those of older people. Older 
 folks know what it is at times to have a sort of 
 shadow creeping over their spirits they hardly know 
 why, and children come occasionally into the same 
 shadows. 
 
 Frankie's mother understands him. It is a very 
 happy thing for him that she does. She knows just 
 what is the matter, and so she soothes and turns his 
 attention away from himself to some book or play, 
 or she sits down by him with his hand in hers, while, 
 with her low voice in his ear, he falls asleep. 
 
 Some mothers would not or could not be so wise. 
 They have nerves that .are never unstrung, and that 
 never quiver at all under the touch of some almost 
 unrecognized influence. They do not know any- 
 thing about these shadows of which I speak, and so 
 they could never have the faintest idea of what 
 Frankie was feeling or suflering. They would pos- 
 12 
 
178 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 sibly scold him, laugh at him for being so foolish, 
 turn him off by himself to get over the feeling as 
 well as he could, and the child would be compelled 
 to carry the burden alone, with the bitter conscious- 
 ness added to it that no one understood him. One 
 feels very lonely when he knows that he is not un- 
 derstood. 
 
 It is wonderful what finely and even exquisitely 
 strung children come from very coarsely-made par- 
 ents. The law of like coming from like does not 
 seem to hold in their case. The children seem to 
 have originated in a wholly different sphere. The 
 one has sensibilities that are moved by the slightest 
 touch, like aeolian strings played upon by an evening 
 breeze, while the other are granite rocks over which 
 a hurricane may sweep and leave no trace behind it. 
 Such children are deeply to be pitied, for they must 
 inevitably live more or less a lonely life. Brothers 
 and sisters may be around them, father and mother 
 may be near them, but the world they live in, the 
 sights and the sounds, the thoughts and the feel- 
 ings are so different, that they are largely in soli- 
 tude though with them all. 
 
 To such a child it would be an immeasurable 
 boon if some one with sympathies quick enough to 
 understand and tact enough to help were near. A 
 
CHILDREN S " BLUES. 1 79 
 
 burden would be lifted off the little heart and a 
 shadowed life be made bright. If, however — and 
 sadly enough this very often happens — no such friend 
 is at hand, the little one carries the burden alone, 
 and by and by retires within himself to brood and 
 be silent if not fretful. He grows up moody and 
 reticent, and, too frequently, with energies that are 
 repressed and a life weakened and unsuccessful be- 
 cause it has had so little sunshine in it. 
 
XXXIII. 
 
 THE SPIRIT S TOUCH. 
 
 1WAS speaking about children being low-spir- 
 ited, melancholy, without being able to give any 
 reason for it, except that they sometimes feel sad ; 
 they do not know why. Grown people are not 
 able very often to analyze their feelings or explain 
 their different states of mind, and it is not at all 
 wonderful that children can not. Sometimes, how- 
 ever, a new experience will explain an old one, and 
 if one can only use his after-knowledge of himself 
 to make clear what was not plain in a former time, 
 he has done himself an excellent service, and, 
 especially, he will be able to help some one else in 
 similar circumstances. I feel so about these child- 
 experiences of which I have been talking. 
 
 When I was a little boy about six years old, I re- 
 member to have had these melancholy feelings. I 
 did not understand them then, but I think that now 
 
 (i8o) 
 
THE SPIRITS TOUCH. l8l 
 
 I know what they were. The time and the place 
 and the circumstances are as vivid as if they were 
 of yesterday. I had been to church and had come 
 home. What I had heard in church I do not know, 
 I probably could not have told had I been asked, 
 but I came home with my little heart troubled and 
 sad. I remember taking my sister's hand and cling- 
 ing to it as we walked through the hall, and how I 
 wished that she would say something to help me. 
 I could not have told her what I wished, and I 
 doubt now whether she understood at all what I 
 needed, but I think that I see and know now. 
 God's Holy Spirit was moving upon my heart, 
 holding it awake and drawing it to Him. An un- 
 explained but real consciousness of sinfulness and 
 need was troubling me. 
 
 Then was the time to have told me of Jesus and 
 His love ; how He came to save the sinful ; how 
 He took little children in His arms ; how He smiled 
 upon and how He loved them ; how He now looks 
 tenderly and lovingly down upon them, and is ready 
 to take them in His arms. Perhaps then I would 
 have learned what I learned some eight years after- 
 ward of His forgiving love. 
 
 Oftener than we think, the Holy Spirit is mov- 
 ing upon the hearts of the children who sit and 
 
1 82 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 who walk by our side. These clouds that seem to 
 come over their spirits, which we suppose, if we 
 notice them at all, are only vapors, perhaps simply 
 some bodily derangement, and need to be dispelled 
 by pictures or play, are perhaps the troubled feel- 
 ings that come out of a consciousness, unexplained 
 and not understood by themselves, of unforgive- 
 ness and a need of God's manifested love. 
 
 If we were only in sympathy deep and true enough 
 with the movements of God's Spirit, we would rec- 
 ognize more often than we do the occasion, some- 
 times a supreme one in the child's life, and by a 
 timely exhibition of the Saviour's love, bring the 
 little one a knowledge of Him that should be ever- 
 lasting life. 
 
 If we only knew how often are these opportuni- 
 ties which have all promise in them, we perhaps 
 would be astonished at their frequency. Per- 
 haps many a mother who prays and longs and 
 weeps for the conversion of her son, whom she sees 
 rising into manhood with no hope in Christ, had 
 she but understood the feelings and the experiences 
 of that boy when he was accustomed to come and 
 lean upon her shoulder or lay his head in her lap 
 with a look of sadness on his little face, she might 
 have carried him into Christ's arms and made all 
 
THE spirit's touch. 1 83 
 
 the years from then till now full to. him of Jesus' 
 love, But perhaps she herself was not then as 
 spiritually awake as now ; perhaps she herself was 
 so far out of sympathy with the movements of the 
 Holy Spirit that she could not see the meaning of 
 the troubled brow, or know anything about the feel- 
 ings of this little one over whom the Saviour was 
 so lovingly bending. So she did not see, and so 
 she lost a golden moment which had she improved 
 would have saved her heart many an ache, and her 
 boy many a sin and sorrow. 
 
 We have every reason to believe that the Spirit 
 of God is peculiarly near to childhood, and draws 
 the little ones to Him. The sadness is, that, in their 
 earthliness, parents understand this so seldom. 
 
 Perhaps this talk of mine will fall under the eye 
 of some mother or father who has a child with 
 some such experiences as I have tried to indicate. 
 Such children will be found in many a home. 
 Watch for the supreme time— a sweet and blessed 
 and hopeful time ! You may never see another 
 like it. Watch with a loving eye your little 
 ones, and be ready to help them to Christ, the 
 Lord who waits for them and is very near. You 
 will need an illumined eye to see the touch of His 
 hand on your child's heart. If you are worldly and 
 
1 84 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 spiritually indifferent you will be sure to make a 
 mistake. Perhaps you need to draw near to God 
 yourself, that your own heart may be softened to 
 feel, that your own eye may be opened to see. 
 When once they are touched and enlightened they 
 may have all blessedness in them for the boy or 
 girl over whom you yearn and pray. 
 
XXXIV. 
 
 children's joining the church. 
 
 MY nephew Tommy has been talking to me 
 about " joining," so he expresses it, " the 
 church." 
 
 He is about ten years of age, and some people 
 look upon that as, by far, too early to make a pub- 
 lic " profession of religion." 
 
 But it does not seem so to me. I do not believe 
 that the little lambs of the flock ought to be kept 
 out of the fold until they have grown to be sheep, 
 great and strong, and only then taken in and to be 
 cared for. I do not believe that they can be taken 
 care of outside the fold any better than older peo- 
 ple can. The church was made for little ones. It 
 is a family, and I think that a family is only one in 
 name where there are no children. The Lord made 
 His visible church a household, a family, and it is 
 
 (185) 
 
1 86 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 not a beautiful family if the little ones are not there 
 to mingle and share its joys and its work. The 
 members of the family of God are there to help 
 each other and make each other strong to do work 
 for Him. I can not see why these little ones ought 
 not to have all the benefits that the church can pos- 
 sibly give them for strength and for work. They 
 certainly need all the teaching and all the aid that 
 the church can give them, whether in her word or 
 her ordinances, and it is depriving these little ones 
 of an immense benefit when they are kept away 
 from the Lord's table, and taught to think of them- 
 selves as having no right there. 
 
 My little nephew, several years ago, seemed en- 
 tirely unable to understand why he could not par- 
 take of the sacrament with the rest. He sat always 
 on the communion seasons beside his mother, and 
 would ask for a piece of the bread which she took, 
 and he would have drunk of the cup, too, if he 
 could have had it. " I love the Saviour," he would 
 say to, his mother. " I want to serve Him and do 
 what He wants me to do. Why can't I have the 
 bread and wine if they are to show that we love 
 Him?" 
 
 The answer which his mother made was unsatis- 
 factory, and so, to satisfy him, she was accustomed 
 
children's joining the church. 187 
 
 to break off a piece of the bread which she had 
 taken and give it to him. It seemed to me like 
 feeding the children with the crumbs from the Mas- 
 ter's table. I ask why should this boy, that gives 
 every evidence of being one of Christ's little ones, 
 not be permitted to sit at the table itself ? 
 
 I suppose that it all depends on just that — the 
 evidence of the child's being one of Christ's little 
 ones. I am sure that just as soon — and I care not 
 how early that may be — as a child gives evidence 
 of being a child of God, no one on earth has a right 
 to keep him from the Lord's table. I should grow 
 indignant were I to hear any one say that the sim- 
 ple age, fewness of years, was a good reason for 
 excluding a child from the benefits of the table of 
 the Saviour. I should as soon think of keeping the 
 child from the household board, because he has not 
 yet become a bearded man. 
 
 The difficulty, however, lies in the evidence which 
 is sought for. And just here I think a great mis- 
 take is made and a great wrong is committed. A 
 good many people, a good many parents, are far 
 more exacting and scrupulous about the evidences 
 of their children's piety than they are about the 
 evidences of their own religion. 
 
 They themselves can be hasty in temper and say 
 
1 88 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 and do ugly things, they can be even neglectful of 
 religious duties at times, and they do not doubt 
 their own piety, but they are very much in doubt 
 of the piety of their little children if they happen 
 sometimes to get angry and show petulance, or if 
 they speak improperly, though they may, in fact, 
 be a good deal more prayerful than the parents 
 themselves. 
 
 Now, it seems to me that we ought not to ask 
 any more from these children than we ask from 
 ourselves ; and we should not use a rule for them 
 that we are not willing to have applied to us. 
 
 A child can be, and ought to be, only a child- 
 Christian. I, at least, do not want him, even if he 
 could be, an old-man Christian. It is to me a very 
 unnatural and even repulsive sight — a little old 
 man or a little old woman in the garb of childhood, 
 even though the child gives the best evidence of 
 being a Christian. If the child's religion has made 
 the boy less a boy than he was before, then it is not 
 a good kind of religion. If it keeps him from play- 
 ing marbles, or flying kites, or using the shinny- 
 stick, it needs changing. If it keeps him from 
 whistling or shouting on occasion, if it makes him 
 dull and solemn, and all the while talking preach- 
 ing talk, there is something out of order in it. 
 
children's joining the church. 189 
 
 As it seems to me, a boy's religion ought to make 
 him a more obedient boy, ought to keep him from 
 cheating at his marbles, keep him from quarrelling 
 with his companions, make him kind and forgiving, 
 even if he does get angry at times, but it ought not 
 to take all the boy out of him. 
 
 I am glad to see that it has been so with my 
 nephew Tom. He is conscientious to the last de- 
 gree. I have noticed that no argument seems to 
 have at all tha weight with him to keep him from 
 doing a thing, as to be told, " It is not right." He 
 has said to me again and again, when he has been 
 asking me about something he wanted to do, " If it 
 isn't right I won't do it." He is prayerful. His 
 mother tells me that his prayers, as he kneels at her 
 knee, are very touching at times in their simplicity 
 and child-like confidence. All his tastes are toward 
 religious things. 
 
 Yet he is a regular boy. He will get " mad," as 
 he says, " a fellow can't help it," though he is sorry 
 for it and glad to " make up " again ; he delights in 
 balls and kites, and he is very hard on caps and the 
 knees of his pants ; but when he sits in my lap and 
 we talk about the Bible and the Saviour, I am sure 
 that my boy-nephew is a child of God, and I am 
 
190 
 
 A BACHELOR S TALKS. 
 
 very glad that he is just the whole boy that he is. 
 I should feel very badly if he were not. 
 
 So I am sure that he ought to be taken into the 
 communion of the church. And after he is in it, 
 no one must ask him to be anything but a boy. 
 
XXXV. 
 
 THE FIRST " NO ! " IS THE THING. 
 
 1% yi Y nephew Tom is a boy now about twelve 
 ^ ' -^ years of age, and he has improved his water- 
 privileges when he has been in the country, so that 
 he is a very beautiful swimmer. I take a little 
 pride in his swimming, for I taught him how to do 
 it. I am delighted as I see his long, graceful stroke, 
 now with arms and body and legs in a straight line 
 darting forward, now with broad sweep of arms and 
 swing of legs that seem to move themselves beneath 
 the surface. When teaching him I told him to 
 v/atch the frogs and swim as nearly like them as 
 possible. If any one wishes to see swimming that 
 would be perfection in a human being, let him ob- 
 serve a frog as he makes his dive into the water 
 and then note his stroke as he glides away. Tom 
 has caught the motion, and he is the most froglike 
 swimmer that I ever saw. 
 
 Tom's father and mother were anxious that he 
 
 (191) 
 
192 A BACHELORS TALKS. 
 
 should know how to swim. His mother herself, I 
 must say, does not like the water, and swimming 
 would be out of the question for her if it could not 
 be acquired on dry land ; but, like a sensible woman, 
 she has done what she could to have her boys and 
 girls learn the art. As soon as they have become 
 old enough to learn she has offered them rewards 
 to make them at home in the water. 
 
 The family is in the country now beside a beauti- 
 ful lake. The inducements for the boys to be in 
 the water are very many. And what fun is there 
 to a boy, like the fun of a good swim on a sum- 
 mer's day ! The danger is that the boys will do too 
 much of it. So it is that Tom has had restrictions 
 placed upon him in the matter. In the very hot 
 days, when the water is warm, I believe the rule for 
 him is only once a day ; when the weather is cooler 
 he must not go into the water so often. 
 
 My grown-up readers may think this all a simple 
 thing — to " go in swimming only once a day, when 
 a fellow's hot and the day is hot "; but Tom knows, 
 and all my boy readers know that the limitation is 
 one that demands all a boy's courage and constancy 
 to abide by. I am happy to say that my nephew 
 Tom has been faithful to the restriction, though 
 sorely tempted at times. 
 
THE FIRST " NO ! " IS THE THING. I93 
 
 He was telling me yesterday his experience in 
 the matter. He said that, in the first of the season, 
 the boys were very persistent in their persuasions 
 for him to swim with them oftener than he was per- 
 mitted to go. " Come, Tom," they would say, " we 
 are all going in." 
 
 " No," Tom would answer, " I can not ; father 
 does not wish me to go in more than once a day." 
 
 " But he won't know anything about it ; come 
 along." 
 
 "That don't make any difference. I'm not go- 
 ing." And he would turn away. That sort of con- 
 versation occurred several times. " But," said Tom 
 to me, " they do not ask me any more now, for they 
 know it is of no use, and they let me alone." 
 
 I commended Tom, of course, on his obedience 
 and resolution, but I took it as an opportunity to 
 impress on him a great lesson of life, one that he 
 was learning in this very experience of his —that 
 the first step of resistance to temptation is the one 
 that costs the most and which once taken makes 
 all the rest easy. If Tom's companions had seen 
 the slightest hesitation on his part they would have 
 plied him with double earnestness and with prob- 
 able success. If Tom had complied once with their 
 solicitations, they would have made easy work at 
 13 
 
194 A BACHELORS TALKS. 
 
 any other time, and Tom would have found it al- 
 most impossible to resist. But having tried it two 
 or three times and found him immovable, they 
 rested upon the fact that the thing could not be 
 done, and ceased attempting it. They soon took 
 it as a settled thing, and as a matter of course, that 
 Tom would not disobey his father in this thing of 
 frequent swimming, and now they do not think 
 even to urge the invitation. 
 
 Every boy or girl is subject to temptations of 
 one sort or another from companions. Some one 
 may tell me that boys and girls ought not to have 
 playmates or friends who will tempt them. Well, 
 then, you must take them out of the world. I 
 think, and Tom's father and mother think, that it 
 is better for a boy or girl to be fortified with good 
 principles than to be made weak by a vain attempt 
 to shield them wholly from the enticements of evil. 
 The great thing is for a boy to meet a temptation 
 boldly, frankly, and at once with a " No ! " which 
 has a meaning in it. Some boys will say " No," 
 but it is in such a half-hearted way that the tempter 
 knows that it means a half " Yes." This simply 
 gives an invitation for a repetition of the solicita- 
 tion and makes almost certain, too, the yielding. 
 But a " No ! " that is enforced by tone and look 
 
THE FIRST " NO ! " IS THE THING. 
 
 195 
 
 that tell that the word has its own true meaning, 
 settles largely the matter ; or if it does not settle 
 it, makes it certain that if the temptation comes 
 again it will be weaker and he will be stronger. 
 The first " No ! " is the great thing. 
 
XXXVI. 
 
 BOSSING IT. 
 
 THINGS do not always go on with perfect 
 smoothness in my brother John's house. It 
 is a pretty well regulated family, and the brothers 
 and sisters, for the most part, agree beautifully 
 with one another, but now and then there comes 
 a jar. 
 
 I happened to see such a one a few days ago. 
 It was on Sabbath afternoon. I usually try to 
 spend the latter part of the afternoon on Sabbath- 
 days with John's family. I enjoy most profoundly 
 the quiet cheerfulness of the house. There is noth- 
 ing sombre about it ; the children do not seem, as I 
 have seen in other homes, worn out with ennui and 
 fretful because they have been restfained all the 
 day long. They have been to church, all, down 
 almost to the baby ; the most of them have been 
 to the Sabbath-school ; and in the afternoon they 
 
 evidently enjoy being together with Sabbath-school 
 (196) 
 
BOSSING IT. 197 
 
 books and papers, little Frank on the floor with the 
 Christian Weekly of the Tract Society spread out 
 before him, calling aloud on any one that will listen 
 for explanations of the pictures, the singing of the 
 Sabbath-school hymns, and the Bible stories, and 
 " Pilgrim's 'Progress," and the cheerful talk of the 
 hour. I like to be among them and enjoy it with 
 them. 
 
 I was just coming in at the door when I saw little 
 Frank sobbing and in a passion of tears. " Why," 
 I cried out, "what is the matter with this little 
 boy ? " Between anger and grief he could hardly 
 speak, but he managed among the sobs to tell me 
 that a moment or two before Tom had taken him 
 by the arm and had dragged him into the house. 
 " I only wanted to go down to the corner and meet 
 mamma and papa ! I told him so ! and he would 
 not let go I and then he pinched my arm and hurt 
 me, and pulled me in the house ! " was his sum- 
 ming up. 
 
 Now I am careful what I say to the boys ; but 
 they know me so well that I can talk very freely 
 with them. They take it for granted that I have 
 a right to do it. So Tom did not take it amiss 
 as I turned and said, " How is this, Tom ? that is a 
 hard story little Frank tells about you." 
 
198 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 Tom looked a little ashamed, but frankly replied, 
 " Mother don't let him go out on the street on Sun- 
 day, and he hadn't his hat on, and he wouldn't 
 come in when I told him to. So I only took hold 
 of his arm to make him come in." 
 
 I did not pursue the investigation, as it was not 
 my business to regulate matters in the household. 
 I took Frank in my lap and got him to tell me 
 what they had been doing in the infant-class. Hp 
 soon was deeply engaged in telling me how the 
 boy next to him pushed his missionary penny in a 
 crack in the seat and couldn't get it out again. He 
 would once in a while give a long breath and a sob, 
 that was like the memory of a great grief ; but he 
 soon was smiling again. 
 
 After supper Tom and I walked out together, 
 and we talked the affair of the afternoon over. I, 
 of course, had said nothing about it to any one. I 
 said something like this to Tom : 
 
 " I suppose that you thought that you were do- 
 ing right to drag Frank in the house, but I want 
 you to put yourself in the same place. You feel 
 strong and able pretty well to take care of yourself. 
 But suppose that you had been standing on the 
 stoop and a large, tall, and strong man, as much 
 bigger than you, as you are than Frank, had said 
 
BOSSING IT. 199 
 
 to you, in about the same tone and way in which 
 you spoke to him, ' Come in right away ! ' and 
 when you did not feel indined to do it, all the less 
 because you did not think he had any right to com- 
 mand, and you did not move, he had come to you, 
 seized your arm, pinched it tightly, and had given 
 you a great jerk into the hall which sent you reel- 
 ing and almost on your back, how would you have 
 felt ? Would not the insult, the injury, have seemed 
 almost too great to be borne? Would you not 
 have been almost beside yourself with anger and 
 the bitter sense of wrong ? 
 
 " Yet that was just what you did to Frankie. 
 You are so much bigger and stronger than he, that 
 he. could not resist you ; but I think that you can 
 imagine how he felt. You need not wonder that I 
 found him in such a passion of tears. You would 
 have cried too with unutterable indignation if you 
 had been in his place. 
 
 " Now, my boy," I added, " I want you to think 
 of this when you are about to do something of that 
 sort again. Remember that one of the last insults 
 that a man can give another is to lay his hand in 
 anger on him. There is something in the touch 
 that is like fire in the soul. A little child feels it 
 so. You are strong, you feel yourself to be so, but 
 
200 A bachelor's TALKS. 
 
 you must hereafter be too manly to show it on 
 your little brothers and sisters. I know that you 
 did not hurt him. When he said that you did, 
 although he did not understand it, he meant that 
 the hurt was a great deal more in his feelings than 
 on his arm. That was very much harder to bear, 
 and he could not bear it. 
 
 " I am very sure that if you had thought it all 
 over you would not have done it." 
 
 Tom is a boy of noble impulses, and he would 
 be the very first to defend his little brother if he 
 saw any one oppressing him. If he had seen 
 another person doing just what he did to Frank 
 he would have in a moment stepped in to protect 
 him ; but like many other big brothers and sisters, 
 he did not see it in exactly the same light in his 
 own case. There was a fair opportunity, and with 
 a show of right, to " boss it" over this little one, 
 and he improved it. The result was not beautiful. 
 
XXXVII. 
 
 QUESTIONABLE BOOKS. 
 
 MY brother John's eldest boy, grown now 
 almost a young man, has a very cultivated 
 taste in literary matters, and likes to dip into almost 
 all sorts of books. The other day I saw in his hands 
 a volume, one of a number by the same author, 
 written by a woman — I am glad to say not an 
 American woman — -under a nom de plume, and 
 grown familiar to a certain circle of readers. I will 
 not give the curious title which the authoress has 
 assumed, for I do not care to aid in the circulation 
 of her wares. I have no familiarity with her books, 
 but I have sufficient knowledge of them to say that 
 they picture scenes and exhibit persons that the 
 pure-minded would not care to know. They are 
 read, and, by what peculiarity of taste I know not, 
 admired by numerous readers, some of them among 
 our cultivated people. 
 
 (201) 
 
202 A bachelor's TALKS. 
 
 My nephew Sam had been reading the book, and 
 as we sat alone we had a little talk over the matter, 
 somewhat after this fashion : 
 
 " Sam," I said, " have you read more than one of 
 these books by ? " 
 
 "Yes," he replied, "I have read several of 
 them." 
 
 " Well, what do you think of them ? Do you 
 admire them ? " 
 
 " I do not know that I would like to say that I 
 admire them, but they have a good deal of interest, 
 and have some curious developments of character 
 in them. Everybody talks about them." 
 
 " What do you think of the style of morality 
 which they picture ? Is it of the most beautiful 
 character ? " 
 
 " No," he replied, smiling curiously, " I should 
 not commend her books precisely for their moral 
 teachings. They would not make good pulpit 
 readings." 
 
 " Are these books — and you know them a great 
 deal better than I do, for you have read them, and 
 I have not — not positively immoral ? Do they not 
 delineate characters and detail incidents which are 
 positively wicked ? Would you like your sister or 
 mother to associate with such people as even the 
 
QUESTIONABLE BOOKS. 203 
 
 heroes and heroines of the book you have in your 
 hand ? " 
 
 " No, I can not say that I would. But there are 
 a good many people who are pictured in fiction that 
 we would not like to have in our families." 
 
 " That is very true. There are, as you say, such 
 characters here, but how are they delineated and 
 exhibited ? Are they made to seem repulsive ? or 
 is there a sort of halo thrown round them, so that 
 in spite of your better convictions you half admire 
 them ? " 
 
 " Yes, I suppose that you are more than half right 
 in that ; one does somehow feel a personal interest, 
 if not admiration for them, as he follows their for- 
 tunes ; but I do not see any particular harm in that." 
 
 " There is the same harm and danger of harm in 
 it, as there would be in a personal acquaintance and 
 intimate contact with just such people in actual 
 life. Indeed, you come, in some respects, in closer 
 contact with them in the book than you would in 
 real life. You are let into their secret thoughts 
 and purposes, and ho'd a sort of communion with 
 them that you would not be likely to have were 
 they real flesh and blood. Just in proportion as 
 they are powerfully delineated, just in that propor- 
 tion are they brought in immediate contact with 
 
204 A BACHELOR S TALKS. 
 
 you. Now, can that be anything but harmful, 
 when they are bad as you know them to be ? 
 With such people you would be ashamed to be 
 found, least of all to be thought to have them as' 
 confident companions." 
 
 " I had not thought of it in that light," he re- 
 plied. 
 
 " Yet," I added, " it is a true light in which to 
 view the matter. I do not say at all that you have 
 
 been injured by the reading of 's books, for I 
 
 know well how firm your principles are, and how 
 you loathe anything that is base or immoral ; yet, 
 taking the matter on its general principles, you and 
 I would say that such reading is not safe ; certainly 
 it is not conducive to strength and beauty and pur- 
 ity of character. If the delineation of immorality is 
 such as to compel us to despise and revolt from it, so 
 far the picture is, or maybe, useful ; but whenever it 
 makes us smile, have a half admiration, or induces 
 us to invent or follow plausible excuses for sin, then 
 it can be only evil. Let me ask you just one ques- 
 tion, Sam. Do you think that a perfectly pure 
 woman wrote those books, I mean pure as you 
 know your mother and sister to be ? " 
 
 " I doubt it, uncle," he answered. 
 
 " Then," I replied, " I have no mo.re to say on 
 
QUESTIONABLE BOOKS. 205 
 
 that point, for I can leave it to your good sense. 
 But there is one thing more, and perhaps more im- 
 portant about this matter that I wanted to speak 
 of. Did you see Lucy, and, after her, Harry, look- 
 ing over this book ? I am glad that you had occa- 
 sion to take it out of their hands, as you said, to 
 take it back to the library." 
 
 " I was going to take it back, but I confess that 
 I partly made that an excuse to get it away from 
 them." 
 
 " Why did you want to get it away ? " 
 
 " Because I did not think it was just the book 
 for them to read. They are young, you know." 
 
 " That was right and thoughtful, but would it 
 not have been better had they never seen or known 
 of the book at all ? How do you know that they 
 did not happen to light, in the glances they took 
 of the volume, on just the most objectionable part 
 of the story, and that the few paragraphs that they 
 read did not awaken a desire to read the whole ? " 
 
 " It may have been so," he said, " although I 
 should be sorry if it were." 
 
 " But," I replied, " there is danger in the mere 
 presence of such books. Although many so-called 
 literary people read them, yet you and I know that 
 they are bad, and not fit for our homes. I confess 
 
2o6 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 rthat the principal reason I had for having this con- 
 versation with you was this : Such books ought not 
 to be brought into the house where young people 
 are. Even if they do you no harm, have you any 
 right to endanger the purity of thought and feeling 
 of your brothers and sisters ? Your father and 
 mother, as you well know, labor and pray that their 
 sons and daughters may grow up pure and good. 
 Is it right for you to run even the risk of hindering 
 or making fruitless their labor and their prayers ? 
 Yet the entrance, through you, into the house of 
 one such book, may do an injury that years of care 
 and parental watchfulness have vainly tried to pre- 
 vent, and which nothing can undo. I am sure that 
 your heart recoils from any such work." 
 
 " I thank you, uncle, for speaking to me about it. 
 It was thoughtless in me. I do not think that I 
 will ever offend in this v/ay again." . 
 
 I know Sam's nobility and good sense so well, 
 that I am sure he will not ever give me occasion to 
 have a similar talk with him. 
 
XXXVIII. 
 
 THE YOUNGEST BOY. , 
 
 MY little nephew Fred has, I think, rather a 
 hard time, on account of his being the 
 youngest boy in the family. In my brother John's 
 family there was a hiatus of a few years in the ap- 
 pearance of the children. After three or four girls 
 and boys had been born in not very remote succes- 
 sion, there was an interval oT some six or eight 
 years, during which no baby blessed the household. 
 Then Fred appeared, a wide-awake, restless baby, 
 and, as time has gone on, a nervous and noisy boy. 
 When he was a baby he cured, I am afraid, for 
 the time, the love of the children for babies. The 
 girls wished that he had been a nice little girl, and 
 the boys, all but one of them, wished so too. And 
 then the baby had to be attended to in the odd 
 intervals when mother or nurse was busy, and it 
 
 was not always exactly agreeable to leave book or 
 
 (207) 
 
208 A BACHELOR'S TALKS. 
 
 play and wait upon the little fellow, whose demands 
 were inexorable. So it came to pass that while the 
 baby was the life of the household, the most im- 
 portant thing in it, yet he was a care to the chil- 
 dren, and they were unanimous in their conclusion 
 that babies were nice and well enough at times, but 
 this one was enough for the present. 
 
 However, babyhood passed very quickly, and 
 almost before any one thought of it, there was a 
 boy in the place of the baby. And he was a boy 
 that was always needing something to be done for 
 him, or, what was perhaps far more frequent, he 
 was always doing something that the older ones 
 thought he ought not to be doing. 
 
 He would get into difficulties with other boys in 
 the street, and the assistance of his " big brother " 
 Ned was frequently called for. Now, no one must 
 think that Ned complained of that. I am sure 
 that, on the whole, he rather enjoyed going out 
 and fighting his little brother's battles. I do not 
 know that I ever saw him obey his mother with 
 more enthusiastic alacrity than when, one day, his 
 mother told him to " go and see about it," on 
 Freddy's coming in and complaining that a big 
 boy had taken his marbles away. He rushed out, 
 and, acting under the unusual sanction (so he seemed 
 
THE YOUNGEST BOY. 209 
 
 to regard it) of his mother, evidently took great 
 delight in seizing the offender by the collar and 
 running him down the street, with sundry admin- 
 istrations rearward. But while all this is so, and 
 while everyone in the house would take little Fred's 
 part in difficulty, the way is not very smooth for 
 him. 
 
 The older children are perpetually discovering 
 that he does not do things just right. He does 
 not take care of his clothes as he should ; he is 
 noisy and rude ; he does not behave at the table in 
 the most exemplary way ; does impolite things, 
 and, when company is by, sometimes comes out 
 unexpectedly with a remark of awful character, 
 such as a " terrible infant " will occasionally give 
 forth. In short, the older boys and girls think that 
 Fred is indulged entirely too much, and that his 
 father and mother are not half as strict with him 
 as they were with them. They more than hinted 
 that to me the other day. 
 
 " Uncle William, don't you think that father, 
 especially, allows Fred to do what he never would 
 have suffered us to do?" 
 
 " Well," I replied, " possibly it may be so. I 
 have noticed that affectionate and careful and, I 
 think, wise parents, do soften down a little perhaps 
 14 
 
2IO A bachelor's TALKS. 
 
 as they get older, but you must remember that 
 Fred has a harder time than you had." 
 
 " How so, uncle ? " they asked. 
 
 " Why," I said gravely, " you know that he has 
 a good many more to watch over and help bring 
 him up than you had in your day." 
 
 " We do not understand you," they said. 
 
 " It is not hard, however, to see it," I replied. 
 " You know that when you were of Fred's age you 
 were all little folks together, and no one felt much 
 older or bigger than the rest, and no one felt any 
 responsibility for the behavior of the others. It is 
 very different with Fred. He has his father, moth- 
 er, two sisters, and two brothers to take care that 
 he goes straight ; six instead of two." 
 
 They smiled, as if a new idea had struck them, 
 and I went on : 
 
 " It's a good deal harder to please six people 
 than to please two, and six people can see, if they 
 are on the watch, more things to be corrected than 
 two people can, especially if four of them are young 
 and sometimes nervously exacting." 
 
 " We had not thought of it in just that light be- 
 fore." 
 
 " I am sure of that ; and what is rather amusing 
 to me, I notice that you do not enjoy seeing the 
 
THE YOUNGEST BOY. 211 
 
 little fellow punished. If I am not mistaken, you 
 have been half angry when it has been done ; but 
 yet you are somewhat of the opinion that your 
 father and mother do not quite come up to the full 
 measure of correct and judicious training for the 
 boy. It is just as well, however, to give them credit 
 for some experience. See how successful they have 
 been in your cases — and remember, too, the particu- 
 larly tough time that Fred has with so many to 
 train him." 
 
 A laugh that had, I thought, some thoughtful- 
 ness in it closed our conversation. 
 
XXXIX. 
 
 TEASING. 
 
 MY nephew Harry is a boy brimful of fun and 
 life. He keeps things lively in the house, 
 and there is usually some laughing to be done when 
 he is around, but he has one trait which I wish was 
 not quite so prominent. 
 
 He likes to tease, and he contrives to do it in some 
 way almost all the time. Sometimes it is his elder 
 brother, whom he annoys so much, that his pres- 
 ence becomes a nuisance. Sometimes it is his elder 
 sister, whose good nature he imposes on till she 
 half cries with vexation, but most commonly it is 
 his younger brother. Fred is a fine little fellow, 
 bright, but exceedingly sensitive, and so is pecul- 
 iarly liable to be excited by anything that annoys 
 or perplexes him. 
 
 The other day when I was at brother John's 
 house, I found Freddy standing by his mother's 
 knee, with traces of tears on his face, and a look of 
 
 (212) 
 
- TEASING. 213 
 
 trouble that touched me. When he went out his 
 mother told me that it was the old story — Harry- 
 had been teasing the child till he was worried and 
 nervous and had come crying to her for comfort. 
 One thing which he had said and which she re- 
 peated made a deep impression on me. 
 
 I have brought it to bear on Harry. I hope for 
 his good. 
 
 " Mother," said Freddy, " I have lately been try- 
 ing hard to control my temper." 
 
 It was said so earnestly and sorrowfully that it 
 brought tears to her eyes. It was a revelation of 
 a battle that the little fellow was waging within his 
 bosom. 
 
 A day or two after I had a talk with Harry, and 
 it was somewhat after this fashion : 
 
 " Harry," said I, " I wish that you had seen and 
 felt what I did a little while ago." 
 
 " What was it, uncle ? " 
 
 " It was a bright little fellow, whom you love, 
 standing beside his mother with tears in his eyes 
 and a sad look on his face, and telling her of a 
 trouble that he had and a fight that he was fight- 
 ing." 
 
 " Who was it ? — Freddy ? What had he been 
 fighting about? What was the trouble?" 
 
214 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 " Yes, it was Freddy, and I guess that you had 
 a good deal to do with his trouble and his fight." 
 
 " How, uncle, could that be? I am sure that I 
 wouldn't make him unhappy or spoil his fun." 
 
 "Well, perhaps you didn't intend it, but I am 
 afraid you did both those things. Don't you re- 
 member, day before yesterday, when you were teas- 
 ing him about his boat, making all sorts of fun of 
 it, how angry he got, and finally went off crying to 
 his mother? " 
 
 " Yes," said Harry, smiling, " I remember that, 
 but I didn't intend to make him cry." 
 
 " But he did cry, and felt badly enough to put 
 his head on his mother's shoulder and sob. But 
 there was one thing which he said that I wish you 
 had heard. It was this, ' Mother, I am trying to 
 control my temper.' Can you imagine, Harry, why 
 he said that just then ? " 
 
 Harry looked a little embarrassed, but replied : 
 
 " I suppose he meant that I had been trying his 
 temper." 
 
 " Yes, that was undoubtedly his meaning. But 
 you say that you had been trying it. Was it try- 
 ing to make it better? " 
 
 " Not much," said Harry, laughing. 
 
 " But don't you think it was a fine and brave 
 
TEASING. 215 
 
 thing for little Freddy to do when he tried to get 
 the better of his temper? And don't you think 
 that it was a little — just a little mean and unkind 
 in his big brother not to help him, but even to 
 make it harder for him to do it ? " 
 
 " I suppose it was. But I didn't think of that." 
 
 " I know that, and it is just the reason why I am 
 talking to you about it. If you saw Freddy in 
 trouble and oppressed by bigger boys on the 
 street, you should be the first to turn in and help 
 him. But any difficulty he might have there will 
 not compare with what he has in his own bosom 
 and in trying to make himself better. You ought 
 to help, not hinder him there too." 
 
 " I only teased him for fun. I didn't think of 
 hurting him." 
 
 "Just think a moment. Didn't the fun begin 
 when he began to get angry, and didn't it become 
 complete when he got so enraged that he kicked at 
 you, and finally ran off crying to his mother?" 
 
 " Yes," said Harry, laughing, " I suppose so." 
 
 " And it was then, after his crying was over and 
 under his mother's kiss and caress he had got calm 
 again, that he said, ' I am trying to control my 
 temper.' 
 
 " Now, Harry, you have been doing an ungener- 
 
2i6 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 ous and even cruel thing. Here is a little fellow 
 that wants to be a good boy — to be the Saviour's 
 child, to get the better of the evil within — who 
 prays in his childish way for it, and you, his 
 brother who loves him, find your pleasure in push- 
 ing him back and down. Is that not sad and some- 
 thing to be ashamed of ? " 
 
 Harry's eyes filled with tears, and I did not press 
 for any answer. I only added : 
 
 " Harry, my boy, you are too good and noble to 
 do willingly a mean thing. I am sure that you 
 want to do all you can for your brother, and I 
 know that you will hereafter help him. You will 
 not try to get your pleasure out of his heart-strug- 
 gles and out of his sorrow and tears." 
 
XL. 
 
 SABBATH THE WORICINGMAN'S DAY. 
 
 ON my way to my office the other day I over- 
 took a friend. I say " overtook," because usu- 
 ally no one overtakes me. I was brought up in New 
 York, where people — at least, people that lived there 
 when my home was in the city- — learned to walk 
 fast. It is said that you can always tell a New- 
 Yorker by his gait, especially by the diagonal way 
 in which he crosses the street. Many have been 
 the walking-matches I have had with strangers up 
 Broadway, and I can almost say as Cromwell said 
 about his Ironsides, " They were never beaten at 
 all." So it comes that I usually pass and am not 
 passed. As I began to say, I overtook an old ac- 
 quaintance of mine. He has been known to me as 
 a hard-working, industrious mechanic, whose honest 
 work, in these degenerate days, is a comfort. We 
 fell at once into familiar conversation. 
 
 (217) 
 
21 8 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 There had been lately in our town a good deal 
 of discussion about the observance of the Sabbath. 
 Some of our excellent German friends have been 
 advocating the opening of saloons and places of 
 amusement. What has made the matter just now 
 a little more prominent has been the presence of a 
 strolling band of musicians — a company of consid- 
 erable reputation — who came to our place and ad- 
 vertised a "Sacred Concert." They not only ad- 
 vertised, but, I am sorry to say, held it. As is 
 usual with these honest and truthful people, they 
 had, I understand, one selection from an Oratorio 
 or something of the sort, and gave the music of an 
 ordinary concert as a filling of the rest of the pro- 
 gramme. 
 
 It was impudent as well as wicked to thrust them- 
 selves on a Sabbath-keeping community, outrage 
 the sense of propriety of all good people, and, hav- 
 ing put money in their pockets, to go on their way. 
 But, unfortunately, they were permitted to do it — 
 at least, were not interfered with. 
 
 My friend said to me : 
 
 " Do you not think that we are too strict in our 
 usual ideas about the Sabbath? It seems tome 
 that the workingman needs some recreation on 
 Sunday. If you make it all a sacred day — shut up 
 
SABBATH THE WORKINGMAN'S DAY. 219 
 
 every shop and store, close every place of amuse- 
 ment, and stop the railroads from running their 
 usual trains — what chance has a workingman, such 
 as I am, to get any recreation ? " 
 
 " At first glance," I replied, " your question seems 
 to give its own answer. You would expect me to 
 say, of course, that there should be no such restric- 
 tions ; that, to give you the full benefit of the Sab- 
 bath, they ought to be all withdrawn. But are you 
 sure that you have thought the matter all around ? " 
 
 " I have," he said, " thought about it a good 
 deal, and it seems to me you church folks and rich 
 folks do not consider our case in the right light," 
 
 " Did you ever think," I answered, " how long 
 you would have any Sunday if it were not made a 
 sacred day arvd kept so by law ? " 
 
 " I do not know that I have," he replied ; " but 
 I do not see the use of making it so sacred a day as 
 it is made. Why not let those who wish to keep it 
 keep it, and those who want to have some freedom 
 on it have the freedom?" 
 
 "I might remind you," I said, "that there would 
 be no equal rights in that — that your freedom would 
 take all ours away, but I will not. I only wish you 
 to think of this : Suppose that the sacredness of the 
 Sabbath were given up, the idea that God had com- 
 
220 A bachelor's TALKS. 
 
 manded to keep it holy were abandoned, and it 
 were left a merely optional thing whether it were 
 to be observed or not, how long before you would 
 be called upon to finish the job that you had been 
 at work on all the week ? You might demur, say 
 that you wanted and needed the rest of Sunday; 
 that you wished to be with your family at home. 
 Do you think that it would make much impression 
 
 on Mr. (I did not mention his name, but was 
 
 quite well understood), or that he would give up the 
 point?" 
 
 " No, I think he would say in his hard way, 
 ' Well, if you do not choose to do my work as I 
 want it and when I want it, I will get some one 
 else.' As it is, he wanted me to do Sunday work a 
 while ago, but I declined and told him that it was 
 against the law to work on that day." 
 
 " Ah, so you called in the law of the Sabbath to 
 protect you and secure your company for your fam- 
 ily ! Now, suppose that under the call of the sa- 
 loon-keepers and the concert people and the rail- 
 roads, that the day had been secularized and made 
 like any other day, you could not have done that. 
 You would have had to go to work. There would 
 be many to take your place and your work if you 
 had refused. Capital, you know, always in the end 
 
SABBATH THE WORKINGMAN'S DAY. 221 
 
 rules labor. And capital qften has no conscience 
 and cares for neither God nor man. Your wishes 
 or comfort would be of no account if gain seemed 
 to be in advance. Your holiday would be gone. 
 
 " The Sabbath is the workingman's holiday, and 
 secured to him by the divine law. If any man 
 should stand for it and keep it as a sacred day, it 
 is the man that toils in the workshop. Let the bar- 
 riers once be taken down, let it gradually be in- 
 fringed upon by opened stores and theatres and 
 concert-rooms till its sacredness is lost, the tyranny 
 of capital would soon settle all the rest — the day as 
 a day of repose and recreation would be gone. 
 When the workingman joins hands with those 
 who lower its sanctions, he strikes at his own 
 home-life." 
 
 " I never thought about it in that light," he said 
 as we parted. 
 
XLI. 
 
 FAMILY BIRTHDAYS. 
 
 I LIKE anniversaries. It is sentimental. Of 
 course it is, but as my brother John said the 
 other day, " Our life is largely made up of senti- 
 ment.' We were talking about living so far sepa- 
 rated that we could see but little of each other. I 
 had said that after all, a good deal of the feeling 
 that made us shrink from it was sentimental. 
 
 John was right. Our happiness depends much 
 on these merely sentimental things. Take that 
 matter of being near your friends. I was, a while 
 ago, going away to remain a long time far from the 
 old associations. As I took leave of a friend he 
 said to me, " I am sorry to have you go. It is true 
 that we have not seen much of each other, but then 
 I knew that you were here." There was much in 
 that. There across the city is a friend whom you 
 
 value, but you are very busy and he is very busy ; 
 (222) 
 
FAMILY BIRTHDAYS. 223 
 
 you would like to see each other, but in the sad 
 rush of things, the days and the months slip away, 
 and you scarcely meet. Yet it is a comfort to know 
 that you can get together, that he is there and not 
 far away. 
 
 Some one will ask, " What good does it do either 
 of you to be near if you do not meet each other? 
 It is only a sentiment." A great deal of good, I 
 answer. If it be only a sentiment, it is full of satis- 
 faction ; I would be uneasy and unhappy without it. 
 Home-sickness is a sentiment, but men die of home- 
 sickness ; and if they do not die, its woe is unut- 
 terable. 
 
 So I cherish sentimental things, and make the 
 most of them. If any marked event has occurred 
 in my history, I keep its date, and with its annual 
 recurrence try to call up the past scene. 
 
 I especially value anniversaries in the household. 
 They always keep them at brother John's house. 
 The sorrowful ones are not ignored or forgotten, 
 but they are not kept in any open way. They are 
 alluded to when they come. The other day, at the 
 table, John said, quietly and with a cloud of sadness 
 throwing its shadow over his face, " To-day six- 
 teen years ago Bessie died. She would have been 
 eighteen years old now." Nothing more was said, 
 
224 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 but I knew well that the day had brought its 
 mournful memories to him aad his wife, and that 
 he chose not to have it pass without a recognition 
 by the family, although the most of them were 
 born after Bessie had gone away to heaven. 
 
 They make much of birthdays. Not one of them, 
 even the baby's, is allowed to go by unnoticed. He 
 himself does not, perhaps, take any especial interest 
 in the occasion. This need not be greatly wondered 
 at, seeing he has seen but one of them. But the 
 rest of the children would not be at all satisfied, if, 
 when his birthday had come, some memorial of it 
 was not put in his hand, although it might be a 
 small china-doll, which he at once thrusts into his 
 mouth like a cannibal about to eat a baby up. 
 
 The calendar in the home is watched carefully. 
 The red days are the birthdays, and everybody 
 knows when they arrive. As each approaches in 
 its order, adequate preparation for it is made. The 
 money is saved carefully. It has grown to be a 
 sort of instinct with the children, that if the pres- 
 ents made to each other or to father or mother do 
 not come out of " one's own money" or are not the 
 product of one's own skill, then they are of com- 
 paratively small account. I am sure that any of 
 them would repudiate the idea of taking ,money 
 
FAMILY BIRTHDAYS. 225 
 
 directly from father or even from mother to buy a 
 present with it. I have known Harry to spend 
 almost nothing on himself for weeks and then give 
 all his savings for some present to be given on the 
 birthday of one of his sisters. 
 
 Sometimes they all club together when they wish 
 to present some gift more valuable than the means 
 of any one alone can attain unto ; but when the 
 birthday comes, the happy one whose it is, finds 
 that not one has forgotten it. I have known Tom 
 or Fanny, who I am sorry to say are liable to put 
 off attending to business, to be in a state of woful 
 trouble on the morning of a birthday, because they 
 had nothing prepared for the occasion. But by 
 dint of borrowing or begging they have contrived 
 before the day has gone to bring their offering of 
 love. 
 
 The children lay themselves out on the coming 
 of their father's or mother's birthday, and the 
 parlor and sitting-room have a great many pretty 
 things which have commemorated these days. In- 
 deed, all over the house there are these memorials. 
 
 I do not know many houses where there are 
 more tasteful and pretty things in almost every 
 room. They -are books, brackets, pictures, figures, 
 mats, cushions, and many other things, none of 
 
226 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 them very expensive, but all of them redolent of 
 sweet memories and of love fixed in material form. 
 I think that the birthdays so carefully kept in 
 John's house do much to bind the family together. 
 I do not believe that either time or distance will 
 wholly make these observances to cease ; and I am 
 sure that neither will obliterate the fond affection 
 which made them so precious. Perhaps when 
 father and mother are gone, and brothers and 
 sisters are scattered far from each other, the un- 
 forgotten birthdays will hold them still together 
 in spirit. 
 

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 XLII. 
 
 THE AGED IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 I HAVE just come from the funeral of old Mr. 
 Farwell. He has gone, full of years and in- 
 firmities, to a region where infirmities and years 
 are alike unknown. He has passed out of loneli- 
 ness and sombre retrospections into companion- 
 ships, reunions, and conscious possessions. What 
 a wonderful experience must that first awakening 
 into a new life be to the very aged ! Suddenly to 
 feel that the thin limbs totter no more, the eyes 
 are clouded no more, the head is bewildered no 
 more, but that the lightness and spring of the far 
 back time have come again, and the soul moves 
 freely, unfettered by weariness or pain. 
 
 The old man looked wonderfully placid as he lay 
 in his coffin. The family did wisely to array him 
 at the last in that white woollen robe. It shrouded 
 
 him, but it did not seem like a shroud, for there 
 
 (227) 
 
228 A bachelor's TALKS. 
 
 was no glare about its whiteness to reflect and 
 make vivid the pallor of the dead ; it rather ab- 
 sorbed the hue of death and made it seem no more 
 deathlike. It seemed warmer, too, as if the form 
 had not yet been given hopelessly over to the cold 
 domain of death. 
 
 It was with this old man, as I have often noticed 
 before. I never saw him look so young. The 
 wrinkles seemed fewer and more smoothed out, 
 the usual care-worn look Was gone, and a gentle, 
 shadowy smile was lingering over the face as if he 
 were sleeping quietly, with a dream of childhood 
 making the rest very sweet. 
 
 " The still aspect where no trace of care 
 Now lingered, all so shadowless and fair. 
 And the deep silence, and the dreamless ease, 
 The quiet of an unimagined peace. 
 The holy calm, without or pulse or breath. 
 Revealed the presence of benignest death, 
 God's great white angel of the tranquil mien. 
 That brooded there with shadowy wing serene.'' 
 
 I could not but think that the lingering light 
 upon the old face was the far-off reflection of the 
 radiance into which he had gone. 
 
 I saw him not long ago in his daughter's house. 
 His home has been there ever since his wife died, 
 which was years since. It must be, now that he 
 
THE AGED IN THE HOUSE. 229 
 
 has passed away, a very deep satisfaction to her 
 and to her husband that they made the last days 
 of the old man's hfe so comfortable. I will not say 
 they made it happy, for that was impossible. You 
 can smooth the pathway of age, you can lighten 
 its burdens, but you can not wholly take off the 
 one, nor make the other anything but weary. Be- 
 sides, my old friend's native disposition was such 
 that the shadows of age would be deeper than in 
 the case of another differently constituted. When 
 young, he was one of those who while not gloomy 
 or sad, yet are naturally inclined to look on the 
 dark side of things ; and so when old age, with its 
 forgetfulness of the present and its remembrances 
 of the past, was upon him, he was oftener sad than 
 happy. He had long ago passed into second 
 childhood ; and it was not a cheerful one. He 
 had in it much of the fretfulness of a weary and 
 sick child. 
 
 To those who watched over him he brought all, 
 and much more than, the care of the most exacting 
 of infants. He was a very young child^ frequently 
 with the wilfulness of unreasoning babyhood, but 
 still an old man and father too. To meet and to 
 cover such a case, demand a wise head and a loving 
 heart. My friend's daughter and her husband did 
 
230 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 meet and cover it well. I rejoice with them that 
 they did, now that it is all over. 
 
 We stood together by the side of the coffin and 
 spoke of the old man their father and my friend, 
 and 1 partook of the deep satisfaction with which 
 they said to me, " We tried to make his last days 
 as peaceful as we could. You know that the after- 
 noon of his life was cloudy and troubled, but it is 
 a comfort now to feel that we spared nothing to 
 make it light." 
 
 "And your father," I replied, " appreciated it all, 
 I remember the moisture in his eye and the trem- 
 ble in his voice as he said to me a while since, 'Ah, 
 sir, they are very kind to the old man. Old age 
 is lonely, and I know that I am troubjesome, but my 
 daughter loves me, and they make this evening of 
 my life happy. Her husband is a true son to me.' " 
 
 We had some more interchange of thought and 
 feeling beside the still form of the old man. I went 
 away thinking how different have been the feelings 
 of many a son and daughter as they have gazed on 
 the still face of father or mother and have wished 
 that by-gone years could be recalled, that neglects 
 and unkindnesses in the returnless past might be 
 atoned for or forgotten. 
 
XLIII. 
 
 HOW MR. FARWELL'S DAUGHTER FELT. 
 
 T WAS speaking of our conversation as we stood 
 -■- in the room where old Mr. Farwell was lying in 
 his last sleep. His daughter and her husband, in 
 whose house had been his home, were with me. 
 They showed no sign of deep grief, but a quiet tear 
 at times falling from her eye told that a daughter's 
 heart was full of fond memories as she looked on 
 the face of the dead. If she had shown any vio- 
 lent emotions of grief it would have been simply 
 repulsive to me. Perhaps I am wrong, but it al- 
 ways seems to me, when I see great outbursts of 
 grief over the aged dead, that the emotion is either 
 affected or thoughtless — assumed be'cause it is 
 deemed appropriate and necessary to the occasion, 
 or else the result of very superficial thinking. 
 
 The aged dead ! why should we greatly mourn 
 
 for them ? We shall miss the revered form, we 
 
 (231) 
 
232 A bachelor's TALKS. 
 
 shall miss the care which we loved to give them — ■ 
 but why mourn them ? For them it is far better. 
 The weariness, the decrepitude, the loneliness and 
 sorrow of old age have passed forever away ; and, 
 if dead in Christ, they will ere long be clothed with 
 perennial youth and beauty. For them life had 
 nothing more, or but little more, than endurance. 
 All that is really good for them is in the past. " I 
 live now in the past," said one, old but loved, to 
 me, a while ago. And that past is more mournful 
 than joyous. The shadows are more than the sun- 
 shine that rest upon it. How could it be other- 
 wise ? However bright and beautiful the bygone 
 scene, the words " Gone away " will call up the 
 mist to cover it as you gaze. And, to the aged, all 
 has gone away. 
 
 For yourself, death has made and can make but 
 little change in your feelings toward them. Your 
 heart, if it be true, clings to them, but all your best 
 thoughts and fondest emotions have their origin in 
 far back and long past times and scenes. Memory 
 makes you love. Your love lives on its memories, 
 and death has only completed all. While the aged 
 were with you, the present was evermore asserting 
 itself ; now they have gone, memory reigns alone. 
 There is nothing to overcome in your mind. The 
 
HOW MR. FARWELL S DAUGHTER FELT. 233 
 
 sadness and the weakness have passed away, and 
 the strength and the gladness of the olden time, 
 when father and mother were young and you 
 looked up all confidently to them, are back again. 
 It is better now with them and with you. You 
 both are done with age, and have gone back to bet- 
 ter and stronger and happier hours. You may, then, 
 stand by the aged dead solemnly, but with a quiet, 
 peaceful satisfaction softening and transforming 
 your grief. 
 
 So we stood. I knew that daughter and son had 
 been true and faithful to the dead, and so I knew 
 that not a reproachful thought disturbed the hour. 
 The last months of the old man's life had been 
 comfortless to him and full of care to them. He 
 was not happy, as some old persons are, but sadly 
 querulous. So complete was the second childhood, 
 that he would be amused with a toy ; but at the 
 same time exhibit all the perversity of a wilful and 
 spoiled child. He needed to be watched perpetu- 
 ally, dressed and cared for like a child, yet without 
 the winning ways and attractive beauty of child- 
 hood. Only high-toned love and recognized and 
 welcomed duty could have made daughter or son 
 equal to it. My friends had been, as I well knew. 
 They had their reward. 
 
234- A BACHELOR'S TALKS. 
 
 Now, as memory summoned the long past and 
 the daughter saw herself sitting on her father's 
 knee and thought that it was strong enough for 
 her and mother and brothers as many as 
 could get upon it, or on his shoulder shouting at 
 the height and the safety ; or, as she saw herself in 
 her crib and he bending over her with that earnest 
 and smiling look ; as she saw herself walking in 
 ' later years proudly holding his arm, sometimes 
 thinking how strong it felt under her touch ; as 
 she saw these and a hundred other scenes pass be- 
 fore her, all the care and the toil seemed but little, 
 even as the infirmities and the tottering weakness 
 seemed dreamy. Love — the unthinking love of 
 childhood, the deeper and more conscious love of 
 riper years, love now all-hallowed by self-denying 
 service — swelled in flood-tide within. I understood 
 it all as she gently and half-dreamily spoke of it : 
 
 " It seems but yesterday that I was a little girl 
 in his arms or on his lap ; only just now that I 
 walked by his side. I remember when he first 
 gave me his arm on the street. It was as if he had 
 suddenly lifted me into womanhood. How gentle, 
 how thoughtful he was ! Well do I remember how 
 I contrasted him with other fathers." 
 
 So she spoke, and I tearfully but smilingly list- 
 
HOW MR. FARWELL'S DAUGHTER FELT. 235 
 
 ened. When she bent over and imprinted one long 
 kiss on the wrinkled brow and turned with us away, 
 I do not know which was speaking clearest in her 
 face— joy or sorrow, love or grief ; I only know that 
 both were there, and I followed her out, thinking: — 
 " Happy daughter, no neglect or unkindness re- 
 proaches you now ; all your toil and care are re- 
 paid. You have rounded up the love and duty of 
 maiden life, which you gave freely to him when he 
 was your strength and pride, with the unfaltering 
 care and self-sacrifice which you as freely gave him 
 in your riper years when he looked to you for sol- 
 ace and protection. Happy are you above many 
 at such an hour! You have richly and rightly 
 earned similar devotion, equal care, and blessed 
 memory." 
 
XLIV. 
 
 THE SIN RETURNED. 
 
 T T TE buried the old man to-day. I knew him 
 ' » well, and for many years ; and, when the 
 earth closed over his grave, I turned away with a 
 solemn satisfaction. There are some deaths which 
 make sighs of relief. This was one of them. It 
 was a sad life closed, and friends could not but be 
 glad that it was over. 
 
 There were other things that made it sad, but 
 the saddest of all, and what threw the deepest 
 shadows over it, was the conduct of one of his 
 own children. He not only neglected him, but 
 was unkind to him. In his difficulties — for misfor- 
 tunes had stripped him of his property — the son 
 took none of his burdens, left him in his old age to 
 carry them alone, made him to feel with grinding 
 force the bitterness of his dependence for the shel- 
 ter which he gave him. When the old man grew 
 (236) 
 
THE SIN RETURNED. 237 
 
 sick and helpless, he was cruel in his cold heartless- 
 ness, and was scarcely willing to look upon his face 
 when he was dying. The father passed away with 
 a lonely sense that he was forsaken of his son whose 
 love ought to have held him in its embrace forever. 
 I knew the mournful history, and I grew indig- 
 nant as I thought it over. But there came with 
 the reflections a sense of awe. I saw in it all, as if 
 in a mirror, a long-passed time, a vivid scene, of 
 which this was only a reproduction. We saw that 
 this was just the way in which he treated his own 
 father. There was something tragic, with its im- 
 pressiveness, in the exactness with which his con- 
 duct had been reproduced after the lapse of half a 
 century. The parent whom he cruelly neglected 
 had been sleeping in the grave for fifty years, and 
 the scenes of sorrow, the tears of disappointment 
 that he shed in his old age had passed out of the 
 memory of all but two or three of us ; but we had 
 been awe-struck as we saw them reappearing in the 
 person of this old man, who, fifty years before, was 
 in his early manhood. He had lived long enough 
 to see it all come back to his own life, to feel the 
 shafts of ingratitude enter his own bosom, to heave 
 the same bitter sighs, and to shed the same scald- 
 ing tears. I do not know that he ever recalled what 
 
238 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 he did to his father; possibly it may have gone 
 from his recollection. It had not, I am sure, from 
 the memory of God. 
 
 I sdiY possibly it may have passed out of h.is mind, 
 but it is not probable. Those things do not die out 
 of memory. They may pass into silence and hide 
 themselves for a while in the darkness of the past, 
 but there comes a time when they calmly awake, 
 walk forward with piercing eye and menacing fin- 
 ger, and stand beside a man and will not away. 
 This old man could not but have recognized the 
 startling resemblance in what his son was doing to 
 that which he did in the bygone time ; the repro- 
 duction was too fearfully accurate. What were the 
 bitter regrets, what the unavailing remorse, I know 
 not ; but I would not have had them for a world. 
 
 But there is nothing new or strange in this story. 
 It is the old story — old as the history of families 
 and of the race. I expected it all before it came. 
 Long, long before that son grew up, in the times 
 when a little boy, this father was lavishing love 
 and care upon him, I looked forward to the time 
 when he would repay the dreadful past and smite 
 as his father had smitten. I had read the Bible 
 too well, and I had too clear a conception of what 
 the filial relation demanded, and too full a view of 
 
THE SIN RETURNED. 239 
 
 the retribution which treads fast upon fih'al crime, 
 not to be sure that sooner or later the doom would 
 come. I was not surprised when I saw it. I would 
 have been amazed if it had not appeared. If there 
 is anything certain in human life, it is this : a child 
 will reap the exact harvest which he caused his par- 
 ent to gather. If he made tears and heart-breaks, 
 his eye shall weep and his heart shall break, and 
 from the same cause. I know of nothing where 
 the retribution is so strangely similar to the thing 
 which it avenges. It seems sometimes to me as if 
 while God may forgive the sin on repentance, that 
 He will not stop the inexorable step of pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 I hope that no reader of this has ever been guilty 
 of systematic or continued neglect or unkindness 
 to father or mother. If you have, I pray for you 
 that they may have not yet gone beyond the reach 
 of your repentance or your prayer for forgiveness. 
 If they have, then I fear for your future. May God 
 save you from some bitter things in it. The love 
 that you give to the child in your arms to-day will 
 hardly guard you from the return of woe that he 
 shall give you by and by. 
 
 If ever, boys and girls, you are tempted to a sin- 
 
240 
 
 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 gle act of ingratitude, to speak a harsh word, to do 
 even a small act of unkindness to your father or 
 mother, remember that the future has nothing so 
 sure as retribution for it. You may escape some 
 other things, but you shall hardly escape this. 
 
XLV. 
 
 GRANDPARENTS.- 
 
 /^NE of my older friends is Mr. Southlean. He 
 ^^-^ and his wife have passed beyond middle life, 
 and the children who once made the home beauti- 
 ful have gone away and are making other homes, 
 all except the only daughter. She is married, and 
 lives at home with her husband and little boy. 
 
 It was a serious question with the daughter and 
 her husband whether it were wise for them to make 
 their home in her father's house ; but the old home 
 seemed desolate, with every child gone, and the 
 wishes of father and mother were so strong, that 
 on their marriage they took their abode with them, 
 and it has been full of comfort ever since to both 
 of the little families. 
 
 I am often with them, for I most carefully guard 
 these friendships of the olden time — they slip away 
 so rapidly and the circle narrows so fast — and am 
 
 16 
 
 (240 
 
242 A bachelor's TALKS. 
 
 greatly interested at the phases of family life which 
 I see there. We old bachelors can be obsen-ant 
 and philosophical, seeing no one can return our 
 observations upon ourselves with an uncomfortable, 
 " Physician, heal thyself." 
 
 It is delightful to notice the intense pleasure 
 that these grandparents take in that little boy, now 
 some four years old. To me it is a picture of rare 
 beauty when I see the little fellow who has climbed 
 on the grandfather's lap and now is kneeling in 
 front of him, with two dimpled hands in the iron- 
 gray whiskers, and now and then a kiss suddenly 
 dashed in on forehead or lips. I do not wonder 
 that the eye of the grandfather follows the little 
 fellow fondly, or that he listens to his prattle some-- 
 times and does not hear what I am saying. 
 
 "Ah," said he to me as he saw my interest and 
 heard me express my pleasure, " that little fellow 
 opens another volume of family life to me and Mrs. 
 Southlean. We are father and mother again with 
 a little boy, our own child, as dear as the children 
 whose remembered forms and voices hallow and 
 make sweet the long-gone years. We love him as 
 if he were our own. And what is pleasant to think 
 of, we have all the delight and comfort without any 
 of the cares of those other days. Then and with 
 
GRANDPARENTS. 243 
 
 our own children we had pleasure that was intense, 
 but it was mingled with a perpetually-present re- 
 sponsibility, a responsibility that was never inter- 
 mitted night or day, responsibility for mental train- 
 ing, responsibility for moral training, responsibility 
 for physical training. We rose in the morning with 
 it, we lay down at night with it. So the care was 
 interwoven with the pleasure. Now we have the 
 pleasure only. These young parents have the care 
 and the responsibility ; we have the joy. We lie 
 down at night, but we do not expect to be wakened 
 at the turning of the child in his crib ; if he is 
 wakeful, we do not think of soothing him. We 
 will be ready to see him in the morning, but father 
 and mother must take care of the night. And 
 then, too," he added, with a merry laugh, " when 
 the child is troublesome we need not fret over it ; 
 we only need go into another room and leave 
 mother or father to settle the matter. I do not 
 know but we enjoy this boy more than we did his 
 uncles when they were, like him, little fellows." 
 
 I have not a doubt that my friend is correct. 
 They may not, indeed, actually love this child 
 more than their own, but I am quite sure they take 
 a more solid and comfortable pleasure in him. It 
 would hardly convey the idea exactly to say that 
 
244 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 the little fellow is a beautiful and profoundly in- 
 teresting plaything, but that will at least shadow 
 my meaning. I am glad that he is. It is a reward 
 of faithful and loving service in the past. I do not 
 know that a son or daughter could better reward 
 a father's and mother's love and care than by pre- 
 senting them with an armful of love and care, all 
 embodied in a little child who nestles his face 
 against their cheek and says, " Grandma ! grandpa ! 
 I love you ! " Happy the grandparents and happy 
 the parents who have such an experience. 
 
 I have been impressed almost as forcibly by the 
 conduct and evident feeling of the young parents 
 as by those of the older people. The characters of 
 the grandfather and grandmother are, indeed, such 
 as to claim respect and affection, but clearly these 
 are cultivated with the greatest care in the grand- 
 child. Of course, it is a source of pleasure to the 
 young parents to see that their child is taken so 
 entirely into the love of the grandparents, but I 
 have been interested to see how this love is guard- 
 ed. Clearly that little fellow has been taught that, 
 except, possibly, father and mother, there are no 
 persons in all the world quite so much to be rever- 
 enced and loved as grandpa and grandma. And 
 how sedulously the quiet and comfort of the older 
 
GRANDPARENTS. 245 
 
 folks is protected. I have seen the little fellow, 
 when, perhaps, after supper he began to grow up- 
 roarious or fretful, disappear with his mother from 
 the room, and so quietly that one hardly knew just 
 when he left it, and would not have noticed it ex- 
 cept by the sudden quiet that had come over the 
 place. For that little boy to be impudent or dis- 
 respectful to the old folks, would, I am sure, be im- 
 possible. 
 
 Another grandfather once said, with deep feeling, 
 speaking of his daughter's children, " They always 
 treat me with respect and affection." It had in it 
 a volume of deep meaning, and the daughter, of 
 whose children it was said, and who reported it to 
 me, wears it as a jewel on her heart, now that the 
 whitened head is in the grave. 
 
 I can see that the reverence and affection which 
 this little fellow shows to these grandparents has a 
 profound and tender , meaning to them — it speaks 
 of a twofold love. It is bright, beautiful, and 
 precious in itself ; it whispers in the infantile prat- 
 tle with immeasurable sweetness ; but it is also an 
 ever-present memorial of an older and fonder love 
 out of which it is born. If son and daughter had 
 not taught that love it could not have been there. 
 So it is — the hug of those little arms, the kisses of 
 
246 
 
 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 those little lips are the embodied remembrances of 
 another far-away childhood, of love that has gone 
 on and been deepening all the years, and now, in 
 the afternoon of life, comes forward to imprint 
 kisses and speak words of love again. 
 
XLVI. 
 
 GRANDPARENTS. — II. 
 
 ¥ DO not want any one to think of my friends 
 -* Mr. and Mrs. Southlean as old people simply 
 because they are grandparents. I have found that 
 it does not take many years for a father and mother 
 to reach that dignity. Indeed, it seems but last 
 year that I saw them standing side by side and re- 
 ceiving congratulations as groom and bride. Their 
 children, often as I have seen them, have been a 
 perpetual surprise to me. A little while ago — so 
 it seems — their eldest daughter was a fair-haired 
 girl that sat upon my knee, and heard with parted 
 lips a fairy story. Last night I saw her leading her 
 little son to her father to get the good-night kiss, 
 and I heard him call her "mother" as he skipped by 
 her side toward the door. Yet, after all, it was not 
 so long ago that she was small as he, not long ago 
 since my old friends saw their bridal evening. 
 
 (247) 
 
248 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 The Southleans have reached that middle time 
 of Hfe when the children have grown, are gone from 
 home, and are making other homes, and they are 
 left not with any evidence of age upon them, but 
 still with the impression, not to be put away, that 
 noon has passed and afternoon has come. The 
 gray curls, brown in other days, that hang behind 
 the wife's ears, and the grizzled beard of the hus- 
 band, tell the story. They are old enough to have, 
 and young enough to enjoy to the full, a grand- 
 child, and they do enjoy him. 
 
 But after all, pleasant as it is for them to have 
 the grandchild near them and with them, when- 
 ever they wish him, it is not without its difficulties 
 and embarrassments for the young parents, and 
 not only for them, but also for the little one. 
 
 Somebody must have the responsibility for the 
 training of that boy. Somebody does have it. I 
 do not think that my friends, the Southleans, 
 have any doubt at all upon whom it rests, but I 
 have my doubts whether they act with strict accu- 
 racy upon their convictions. If I were to ask them 
 about this responsibility, I have no question that 
 they would reply at once, " Why, his parents, of 
 course ; they only can do it, and they only have the 
 charge." 
 
GRANDPARENTS. 249 
 
 Yet I have noticed that they sometimes speak 
 about the little boy, and to him, as if there were 
 after all a latent idea with them that the care and 
 the work were theirs. I sat at their table the other 
 day. The little fellow, generally a nicely-behaved 
 child, was doing something, I do not remember and 
 indeed did not see what, which called for reproof 
 from his mother. Evidently, without thought, the 
 grandmother said, " That will not do any hurt, let 
 him do it." A shadow passed over the young 
 mother's face, but she made no reply. A few mo- 
 ments after, however, she quietly excused herself, 
 and the little boy left the table with her. When 
 she had gone the grandmother said, " You see, 
 Uncle William, that Nellie has rather strict notions 
 about her boy. I really think that she is too hard 
 upon the child." 
 
 I am a privileged man in that, as in my brother's 
 household, and I felt at liberty to reply, "And is 
 there no danger that you would be too easy with 
 him ? It strikes me that the error, if there be one, 
 is quite as likely to lie by your side as by your 
 daughter's." 
 
 " Oh," said she, " we never interfere with Nellie's 
 training of the boy ; we let his father and mother 
 do just as they think best." 
 
250 A BACHELORS TALKS. 
 
 "Ah, but it seems to me," I said, "that just now 
 there was a little interference when you answered 
 Nellie's reproof with your ' Let him do it.' " She 
 smiled, and I led the conversation in another direc- 
 tion, for I did not care to discuss the matter before 
 the young father, who was present and who was 
 keeping an entire silence. 
 
 After supper, Nellie's husband and I took an 
 evening walk, at the very commencement of which, 
 r.;ferring to the little incident at the table, he said 
 to me, " Let me thank you for what you said to- 
 night to my mother-in-law." 
 
 " But," said I, " I was half sorry that I spoke. I 
 would not like to seem to meddle in the family 
 affairs of even so familiar a home as yours. I 
 could not help, however, making a reply to the 
 observation which Mrs. Southlean addressed to 
 me." 
 
 " I feel," said he, " that I can talk all my heart 
 to you who are so near to us. It was a very little 
 and insignificant thing that occurred to-night, but 
 it is the suggestion, at least, of a really grave diffi- 
 culty, which I fear may grow serious in time to 
 come. These grandparents are, as you know, very 
 dear to us. I honor and love them both as I honor 
 and love my own father and mother. Nellie, as 
 
GRANDPARENTS. 2$ I 
 
 well she may, idolizes them. We wish our little 
 boy to feel toward them exactly as we do and to 
 repay the love which they lavish upon him. But 
 they are constantly, yet I am sure without any de- 
 sign, interfering with his mother and myself in our 
 management of the boy. I know that we may be 
 incompetent, but after all we are they who have the 
 responsibility and upon whom all the care at last 
 comes. They, in the goodness of their heart, shield 
 and excuse him when we think that he should be 
 reproved. It would not complicate matters so 
 much if they were careful always to express their 
 opinions with us alone ; they unthinkingly speak 
 in the presence of the child, and we are thus re- 
 duced to the alternative of permitting our boy to 
 have his own way or of seeming to oppose and dis- 
 regard the wishes of our own father and mother. 
 We can not do the first, we can not permit our 
 little son to be disobedient or form habits which 
 our judgment condemns, and we do not wish to 
 seem to ignore the wishes of his grandparents. 
 We would not for a moment lower in his mind the 
 reverential love which we have and which we wish 
 him to grow into for them. What shall we do ? I 
 feel the diflSculty to be so great that I have some- 
 times almost determined that we must leave the old 
 
252 A BACHELOR S TALKS. 
 
 home, pleasant as it is, and gain a separate one of 
 our own where we can have the management of 
 our boy alone." 
 
 " But," I said, " the over-indulgence may not do 
 any great harm, and will it not correct itself in 
 time ? " 
 
 " I fear not," said he, " for it is not all over-in- 
 dulgence. I can see that, by and by, there will 
 be an opposite difficulty. Sometimes now, when 
 grandma and grandpa are nervous, the noise of the 
 boy troubles them, or he does something that an- 
 noys them, and they have said to his mother, ' If 
 he were my child, I would not permit that.' While 
 it is said smilingly, we know that it has more than 
 half a meaning. 
 
 " We fear that hereafter when Willie becomes 
 more of a boy — and you know what that is— that 
 he will receive commands from them, and possibly 
 they may be such as we would not have given, and 
 in the conflict of authority damage may come to 
 all of us." 
 
 " Well," I replied, " I do not know what to say. 
 I think you are right in your fears. If your father- 
 in-law and your mother-in-law show the good sense 
 that I am sure they have, and of which your little 
 wife is so beautiful a result, all will come out well. 
 
GRANBPARENTS. 
 
 253 
 
 Be patient ; but be firm in doing your work of 
 child-training for your boy under your own sense 
 of responsibility, even if you should have to make 
 another home. But this you will not do, for you 
 will find that the grandparents will see all, and will 
 help and not hinder you." 
 
XLVII. 
 
 GRANDPARENTS ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. 
 
 THE little incident at the table of my friends 
 the Southleans, like a great many other lit- 
 tle things in human history, has evidently reached 
 far in its influence ; and while not pleasant at the 
 moment, will have a happy bearing on that family's 
 life. 
 
 Last night Mr. Southlean again brought the sub- 
 ject up of the relation of grandparents to their chil- 
 dren. I am not surprised that the matter should 
 dwell upon his mind. He made, as I happen to 
 know, the training of his own children no merely 
 haphazard business. He looked upon it as some- 
 thing to be conducted in accordance with some 
 fixed and well-defined principles ; and, naturally, 
 when he thinks that he sees an underlying fact in* 
 the new relation of grandparent in which he finds 
 himself, he adopts it with enthusiasm. 
 (254) 
 
GRANDPARENTS ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. 255 
 
 " Did you ever think," he said to me, " why it is 
 that the youngest child of a family is very often 
 the most indulged person in it ? " 
 
 " No," I answered, " I do not remember ever to 
 have sought for the reason. You seem to accept it 
 as a fact that they are so indulged, and I suppose 
 that the opinion would not have so general preva- 
 lence were there not some truth in it." 
 
 " In most cases," he said, " I take it, they are ; 
 though possibly not always to their injury. It fol- 
 lows, if I mistake not, from natural causes. You 
 have heard me speak of the decay of will-power as 
 life advances. As the youngest comes into the 
 family circle latest, he is apt to get the advantage 
 or the disadvantage, as the case may be, of this de- 
 cay. I imagine that, at least in many cases, the 
 indulgence which is so often harmful is not a mat- 
 ter of deliberate intention, but rather the unno- 
 ticed result of multiplied years of the parent. 
 The conflicts which arise in the family training 
 are avoided or suffered to pass into defeats for the 
 present." 
 
 " You seem," I said, " by the style of your re- 
 marks, to make the family a sort of battle-ground, 
 where fights go on and where victories or defeats 
 are met." 
 
256 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 " Yes," Mr. Southlean replied, "you hit the thing 
 squarely. Sweet and blessed a place as the family 
 is, it is a battle-field where great issues are fought 
 out. And these issues are grander than have often 
 been made upon battle-fields where thousands have 
 bled and died — issues on which character, and, with 
 that, immortal destinies in long succession have 
 been decided. The mothers are usually the heroes 
 in these all-comprehending contests. 
 
 " The point in a child's history where his will 
 comes in conflict with parental law and where the 
 question is determined which shall be supreme, if 
 we only could understand it,, is one over which an- 
 gels might well poise their wings while they watch 
 it with profoundest interest. 
 
 " And such a contest taxes all the moral power 
 of a thoughtful parent. Many a father or mother 
 has seen it approach with deepest solicitude and 
 solemn dread, and has come out from it trembling 
 and exhausted, to hasten to some quiet place where, 
 in a paroxysm of weeping, the nerves, all unstrung 
 with the effort, could be relieved." 
 
 " I see now," I said, " what you mean when you 
 say that only the comparatively young are really 
 fitted for such scenes." 
 
 " That is it," he replied ; " parents as they grow 
 
GRANDPARENTS ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. 2$/ 
 
 older shrink from them. So it may easily happen 
 that the youngest child may not have the very dis- 
 cipline that he needs, because the parent has not 
 the energy and strength of purpose that would 
 have met the case at an earlier time. And what 
 may be true of the youngest child, becomes almost 
 certain when a grandparent is in the place of com- 
 manding influence. 
 
 " These considerations have convinced me of the 
 danger into which we grandparents run, when we 
 lightly interfere with the prerogative which belongs 
 only to the father or mother of the child." 
 
 "I wish," was my answer, "that all grandparents 
 were able to take as rational a view of this matter 
 as yourself." 
 
 " The difficulty with the most of us," he said, 
 " is that we do not like to believe that we are not 
 just as able as ever to command. So we often ob- 
 trude our advice, if not our actual interference. It 
 were better for us quickly to accept the fact that 
 time has kindly relieved us of a responsibility for 
 which it has made us unfit." 
 
 I left Mr. Southlean with a higher opinion of his 
 wisdom and nobility of character than even that 
 which I cherished before this conversation. I im- 
 17 
 
258 
 
 A BACHELOR S TALKS. 
 
 agine that the young folks will only be aided and 
 encouraged, and not annoyed or hindered in their 
 child-training, because grandfather and grand- 
 mother are so near. There will be only sympathy 
 and prayer and help at the right point from them. 
 
XLVIII. 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY PUT ON THE INEXPERIENCED. 
 
 O INCE my walk with Mr. Southlean's son-in- 
 ^^ law, and our conversation on the matter of 
 the Interference of the grandparents with their 
 management of their little boy, I have been reflect- 
 ing on the curious fact that the education of the 
 race at a very critical period is committed, in the 
 course of nature, which is the providence of God, 
 to inexperienced people. 
 
 The whole life of a child depends largely upon 
 its first three or four years. As a rule, these years 
 are in the care of those who are entirely without 
 any previous experience. Children are born to the 
 young, and before middle life is reached the time 
 of maternity has gone. The child comes under the 
 charge of those who were themselves but children 
 a very few years before, and who by the very nat- 
 ure of the case would seem unfitted for the task. 
 
 (259) 
 
26o A bachelor's talks. 
 
 If merely human wisdom had ordered it, it would 
 probably have been arranged differently. Perhaps 
 philosophy and science would have reversed the 
 order and made it so that only when middle life 
 had been reached, and when ripened experience 
 would promise the best results, then the time for 
 parentage should come. But just the reverse is 
 true. Children are given to the young — the old 
 have lost the privilege. There are easily discerned 
 physical reasons for it, but probably there are moral 
 reasons also that explain it. 
 
 Soon after the occasion when I saw the conflict 
 of authority between the grandmother and the 
 daughter, Mr. Southlean and myself fell into a 
 conversation on the subject of family government. 
 I made the same observation that I have made 
 above — that it was exceedingly strange, at first 
 sight at least, that inexperienced persons should 
 have charge of the child at perhaps its most im- 
 portant period of life. 
 
 Mr. Southlean said, " Since that evening when 
 you suggested, in your significant way, a doubt 
 whether we were not unwarrantably interfering 
 with the training of our little grandchild, I have 
 been reflecting on the matter, and have had some 
 thoughts which are, to me at least, somewhat new. 
 
RESPONSIBILITY PUT ON THE INEXPERIENCED. 261 
 
 It is true, as you have intimated, that the earliest 
 years make the most important part of a child's 
 life, and it is just as true that these years fall under 
 the charge of those who were but recently children 
 themselves. There must be some reason for this 
 in the nature of things." 
 
 " Have you," I asked, " discovered anything in 
 your own case that will give any explanation of 
 the seeming incongruity?" 
 
 " I am not sure," he replied, " but I think that I 
 have found at least a partial solution of the matter. 
 Advancing years may give wider observation and a 
 larger experience of affairs, but they do not neces- 
 sarily bring with them the power to make use of 
 these acquisitions. They may enable us to see 
 more, but they do not usually help us to do more. 
 Indeed, as the years go on, there is almost univer- 
 sally more or less of a decay of what I may call — 
 for want of a better term — will-power. By this I 
 mean the faculty of command — that which leads 
 one easily to accept responsibilities and meet ex- 
 igencies. As we grow older, we grow more cau- 
 tious, and we instinctively shrink from making is- 
 sues and fighting them through. You may call it 
 indolence if you choose, but I am of the opinion 
 that it belongs to the advance of life." 
 
262 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 " But how does this bear on the matter before 
 us?" 
 
 " In this way. The family where children are 
 is a place of perpetually recurring responsibilities 
 which must be met, and issues which are to be set- 
 tled. They demand a power of body and an elas- 
 ticity of mind adequate to meet them. I think 
 that I see in myself a tendency quietly to avoid 
 such issues, and I suspect that were they now to 
 confront me, I should either not meet them or 
 would take them up with reluctance. It was not 
 so when my children were young around me. It 
 was natural and easy to face them then. I see 
 the thing repeated in these young parents. My 
 daughter — young as she is, and with all her inex- 
 perience — is vastly better fitted to train that boy, 
 to subdue his wayward will and firmly guide his 
 life, than my wife would be. As you know how 
 high an estimate I have of my wife's wisdom, and 
 as you have seen with what sweet skill she reared 
 her children, you can understand the force of my 
 remark. I recognize the fitness of things in the 
 fact that parents when young, and because they are 
 young, have given to them the care and the train- 
 ing for which they would seem so entirely unpre- 
 pared." 
 
RESPONSIBILITY PUT ON THE INEXPERIENCED. 263 
 
 " So," I said, " I take it, you intend, somewhat 
 gracefully, to hand over hereafter the bringing up 
 of your grandchildren to their parents? " 
 
 " Yes," he laughingly said, " I and my wife are 
 going to try to do it. We shall probably have some 
 advice to give when it is asked for, but we propose 
 to enjoy the little ones as they appear, all grateful 
 for the love they give us — the reproduced love of 
 twenty years ago. It is child-love reproduced. 
 And how it is enlarged I It has all the mother's 
 affection that has held us so fondly for a score of 
 years, and it embodies and makes living her love 
 in bygone years." 
 
XLIX. 
 
 LITTLE COURTESIES. 
 
 IN the village where I have been of late we have 
 a young lady for our acting postmistress. I 
 have been interested in one little thing which she 
 invariably does. I go to the wicket — so I may call 
 the window with the numbered boxes round it — 
 and I ask for my mail. She smiles, and in a mo- 
 ment or two lays my letters before me with their 
 addresses downward and out of sight. If I had 
 noticed it but once or twice I should have supposed 
 that the placing of them in that position was acci- 
 dental, but it is always done in just that way, and 
 so I know that she has a design in it. 
 
 It is, I take it, a delicate way — perhaps all-uncon- 
 scious on her part — of showing that she does not 
 care to know, and does not know anything about 
 my letters, except the bare fact that they are mine. 
 
 It may be that she does not wish other people to 
 (264) 
 
LITTLE COURTESIES. 265 
 
 read the address upon them, but as the thing is in- 
 variable, I am sure I am right in my supposition — 
 the innate and unconscious delicacy of our fair 
 postmistress makes her do it. She does it because 
 she is a lady. 
 
 It reminds me of what I once saw — and although 
 it was years ago I have never forgotten it — on a 
 metropolitan street. A lady walking in front of 
 me on the crowded street dropped a letter on the 
 sidewalk ; it fell with its address upward. A gen- 
 tleman immediately behind her took it up, and 
 without looking at it, turned it over, and stepping 
 to her side handed it to her, as he bowed, still with 
 its address out of sight. The thing was done in 
 an instant, but it was sufficient to declare that 
 there was a true gentleman, an instinctive gentle- 
 man. The turning the letter over, without a glance 
 at its address, made an emphatic declaration of the 
 fact. 
 
 I received a letter a while ago on a matter that 
 concerned my correspondent and not myself; it 
 had a post-stamp enclosed. That did not arrest 
 my attention — its enclosure was the merest courtesy 
 or even decency — but it was attached to the letter 
 by a small pin thrust through it. Here, too, it 
 seemed to me, was exhibited the instinctive deli- 
 
266 A bachklor's talks. 
 
 cacy of a gentlemanly man. He would not seem 
 to have touched to his lips the stamp which he 
 sent me. 
 
 I have a friend— he is " a gentleman of the old 
 school " — who in sending a letter to a lady always 
 seals it with wax and with his seal. He says, in an 
 apologetic way, that he does not like to send any- 
 thing to a lady that he has spit upon. He puts it 
 rather strongly, but I apprehend that it is the out- 
 come of the same sort of feeling that makes him 
 invariably stand with his hat in hand when he talks 
 to a lady on the street. 
 
 This latter habit of his, he tells me, he has been 
 often tempted to abandon because the fair ones do 
 not seem to be well bred enough to understand it, 
 or to be well informed enough to know that they 
 ought to request him to put it on his head. I am 
 afraid that, in the most of cases, he is not far 
 from right in his belief. It is more than probable 
 that some of them half wonder why he does it. 
 
 But I hope that he will not give up these and 
 some other peculiarities of his. It is refresh- 
 ing to see, in these times of hurry, a quiet and 
 refined gentleman to whom the little and delicate 
 courtesies have become a habit. There is nothing 
 which for a moment would suggest the want of 
 
LITTLE COURTESIES. 267 
 
 manly powers. No one ever thinks of that in con- 
 nection with him. There is a calm self-poise and 
 dignity blending themselves with his courtesy that 
 command respect and deference from those who 
 come even casually in contact with him. 
 
 Mr. Wholbred, that is my friend's name, remark- 
 ing on the brusqueness of manner, coming from 
 carelessness or something worse, which he sees, 
 says that the times evidently are against the gentle 
 amenities of life, that men are in too great a hurry 
 in these times to pay any attention to them. I 
 have heard him talk after this fashion : " These 
 things are not vitally important, they are not neces- 
 sary to the existence of society, but they are 
 effects of real civilization." He says playfully, 
 " Our American, indeed our modern hurry tends to 
 barbarism. A little more leisure might perhaps 
 make more gentlemen and fewer savages. These 
 small (so some would call them) amenities of life 
 which a true gentleman exhibits smooth the rough 
 edges of life, and they make smiles in a world where 
 smiles are greatly needed. There has been a decay 
 of manners of late years, so that what once would 
 not be tolerated is now hardly noticed, if noticed 
 is excused." 
 
 " There," I have heard him say, " is the use of 
 
268 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 tobacco. Few decent men chew the weed, but how 
 carelessly some who are deemed gentlemen smoke 
 it ! I do not denounce a cigar in its place, but I 
 grow indignant when I smell its fumes out of their 
 place. That out of place is where ladies are, or 
 anybody else who does not use it — for clearly men 
 have rights as well as women. This indulgence in 
 public places is simply a brutal practice, of which 
 no real gentleman would be guilty. It exhibits the 
 innate coarseness of the man's fibre." 
 
 Mr. Wholbred has some extreme — so some would 
 consider them — ideas on this subject of courtesy in 
 life. He says that our haste and so our decay in 
 manners betrays itself in the flippant way in which 
 some people acknowledge a favor. " Listen," I 
 have heard him explain, " to that young fellow, as 
 he says, ' No, thanks 1 ' or hear that Miss, simper 
 ' Yes, thanks.' I do not know where that came 
 from — perhaps some snob, over the water, said it 
 first, and these people think that it is ' so nice,' but 
 it is after all the result of a want of true gentle- 
 manly or ladylike instinct. If you feel any thanks, 
 take time to say, ' I thank you, sir,' but never be 
 guilty of cutting your expression of it off with a 
 monoysllable." I think that my friend is not far 
 from right. 
 
L. 
 
 THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 
 
 /^NE does not have an opportunity of attending 
 ^^ a golden wedding very often ; but I would go 
 farther and be at greater pains to be present where 
 a husband and wife commemorate fifty years of 
 wedded life, than where two young people are 
 publicly plighting their faith and love. The one 
 has the poetry of inexperience and of hopefulness, 
 the other of fulfilment and retrospection. 
 
 Old Dr. Jasper and Mrs. Jasper sat together, 
 after the first greetings were over, and quietly re- 
 ceived the pleasant words which were spoken as the 
 cheerful groups gathered round or passed before 
 them. The calmness was in keeping with the 
 hour, appropriately different from the time fifty 
 years ago — mirth and jollity then, chastened 
 thoughtfulness now. 
 
 The grandchildren waited on them ; the sons and 
 
 (269) 
 
270 A bachelor's talks. 
 
 daughters— men and women in their maturity — 
 tenderly came to them and busily attended to 
 their gathered guests ; but the father and mother 
 sat silently and half dreamily. The past was pass- 
 ing before them. The little boy and girl that went 
 away from earth forty years ago now seemed trip- 
 ping by, and the far-away patter of their little feet 
 on the stairs could be heard. Those two little ones 
 were the only children left ; all the rest were now 
 bearded men and matronly women — these two 
 alone were little still. The childish forms, the 
 dimpled cheeks, the chubby hands were there ; 
 and even amid the cheerful din of the hour, father 
 and mother could hear the tone of child-voices as 
 from under the trees without — trees that have 
 grown massive and far-spreading since that time 
 when the little ones built ovens under them and 
 shook the slender trunks to get the apples down. 
 
 They talked more about those little children than 
 of all the rest. They told me that they were not 
 chiefly and only sorrowful that they were gone. 
 These parents had learned while fifty years were 
 passing by that there are sorrows more grievous in 
 life than the death of a little child, especially when 
 they know that these two had been safely housed 
 with God for these more than forty years. 
 
THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 27 1 
 
 It did not seem incongruous that we should be 
 talking there, with the merry hum of the guests 
 around us, and the noise of the dishes as the 
 waiters set them down while the feast went on, 
 over these memories of the dead — recalling the 
 forms of the long-departed amid the laughter and 
 the jests. It was all in keeping — a wedding that 
 was looking backward and not forward ; memories, 
 not hopes ; treasures gained or lost, not expected 
 or to be won ! Why should not the shadowy forms 
 of the long-gone come up ? Why should not the 
 little voices be sounding like far-off music in the 
 ear? 
 
 These parents could talk without tears. I have 
 noticed that the aged do not weep easily over past 
 sorrows. I do not know why, but they can talk 
 with you very calmly and with unmoistened eyes 
 over what, in the earlier time, they could only have 
 told you with choked voices and flowing tears. So 
 this father and mother talked, and it seemed all- 
 fitting. 
 
 I gave place to others and stood apart or walked 
 away from the crowded company, thinking easily 
 such thoughts as these : What a record these fifty 
 years have made of wisely-directed love ! what a 
 treasure of patience and forbearance ! what an 
 
2/2 A BACHELOR S TAI,KS. 
 
 arcana of forgetfulness and oblivion into which 
 things have been thrown, purposely to be overlaid 
 and forgotten ! We must not suppose that to pre- 
 serve and to hold make' up all the blessedness of 
 such a time as a golden wedding makes. There are 
 cherished and valued memories, and there are for- 
 getfulnesses as cherished and as valued. Words 
 spoken hastily thirty — forty years ago, neglects 
 and thoughtlessnesses, perhaps unmeant unkind- 
 nesses done in the long past, errors committed, 
 days of estrangement when kisses were formal or 
 passed by — these are carefully locked up and hid- 
 den in the darkness and forgotten in the dust-cov- 
 ered past. I was not certain whether or not the 
 joy of this hour were most because of remembrance 
 or forgetfulness. 
 
 Not every couple who have passed fifty years of 
 married life can well celebrate a golden wedding. 
 To some it would be a leaden one — a memorial 
 rather of gloomy disappointments than gleaming 
 fulfilments. The glow of early love faded out long 
 ago ; the sweet and glad confidences of those far- 
 back days of newly-married life gave place many 
 years since to silences and retirements each within 
 the recesses of separated hearts. The husband and 
 wife have been living together, but their lives have 
 
THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 2/3 
 
 been largely apart — each walking their own path. 
 No one knows it, but a golden wedding would be 
 no true commemoration, and would symbolize no 
 reality. Long since, husband and wife determined 
 — it seemed the wisest thing to do — to submit to 
 the inevitable. They could hardly tell why : but 
 they were asunder, their hands were not clasped, 
 their lips did not meet as in the younger days. 
 It was hard to have it so, but they grew used to it, 
 and now they walk silently side by side — not wholly 
 indifferent, but very calmly. So they have walked 
 long — so they will walk perhaps to the end. A 
 golden wedding, if fifty years should pass, would 
 seem a strange memorial to them. 
 
 I would not think that it was so in this golden 
 wedding of Dr. Jasper and his wife. As I looked 
 on their placid faces I would fain believe that it 
 was all good and true — that the backward looks of 
 the hour, the recalled scenes, the retired voices were 
 all harmonious with the wedding greetings and the 
 wedding smiles. 
 
FOR HUSBANDS, WIVES, SONS, AND DABGHTERS. 
 
 LIFE AT HOME; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE FAMILY AND ITS MEMBERS. 
 
 Including Husbands and Wives, Parents, Children, Brothers, Sisters, 
 Employers and Employed, the Altar in the House, etc. By Rev. 
 William Aikman, D.D. i vol. i2mo. Nearly 300 pp., tinted 
 paper, fancy muslin. Price $1.50; extra gilt $2.00. 
 
 This book was written with the purpose of putting in the hands of 
 the different members of the family, just such earnest, wise, and 
 affectionate words as a father or mother would like to say to a son 
 or daughter when they leave the old home. No more appro- 
 priate or useful gift could be made to a newly married pair, or to 
 a young household. There need be no fear that it will not be 
 read. Once begun it will not be laid aside till its last page is finish- 
 ed through the tears that will almost certainly dim the words. 
 
 It is seldom a book is published which receives such universal com- 
 mendation from the press — religious and secular — and from all 
 denominations, as this. The following brief extracts will indicate 
 the spirit of the 
 
 NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 An admirable book. We would have a copy 
 in every house. — New York Observer. 
 
 This is a book full of hearty good sense. 
 Every husband who reads it will be a better 
 husband, and every wife will draw from it 
 strength to make home more pleasant, and 
 domestic life a still higher enjoyment. — Prai- 
 rie Farmer, 
 
 A beautiful spirit of Christian love and ten- 
 derness pervades the whole work, and none, 
 we think, can read it without being better 
 for the perusal. — JVevj York Times, 
 
 The views of Dr. Aikman are sound and 
 true, clearly stated, and eloquently enforced. 
 — Philadeip/iia Age. 
 
 The subject of family life is handled with 
 sound sense and good feeling, and the result 
 is a book attractive in manner as well as in 
 matter.— /J^^rtj, N. Y. 
 
 The views are sensible, though not com- 
 monplace, and at times the language rises to 
 a genuine t\o(\\ie:r\cQ.— Rochester Democrat. 
 
 Dr. Aikman's book is full of sensible sug- 
 gestions, the general adoption of which would 
 add immensely to tlie happiness of society 
 and the promotion of all that is noble and 
 good among men. — Phila. S. S. Times. 
 
 " Life at Home " is an eminently sensible 
 and practicable talk about the fimily and its 
 relations, and hew to keep them pure and 
 pleasant. A sensible and useful book, and 
 one which, we trust, will find many to read, to 
 ponder, and to give heed to its suggestions. 
 ^Brooklyn Union. 
 
 It contains many golden thoughts, and well 
 uttered. It will do good. — Presbyterian. 
 
 Every chapter is full of most excellent ad- 
 vice. We believe that no one can read the 
 book without great profit. — New yerusalem 
 Messenger. 
 
 A very thoughtful and excellent practical 
 work. — The Inaependent. 
 
 It i<5 well written, and worthy of a wide cir- 
 culation.— jV^ra^rf and Presbyter. 
 
 A most welcome addition to our Home 
 works. Is full of matter calculated to improve, 
 instruct, and entertain. — Buffalo Post. 
 
 The book can not fail to prove beneficial 
 wherever read, and we readily commend it to 
 our readers. — Chronicle and Sentinel^ A it- 
 gusta^ Ga. 
 
 Every way the book deserves a place in 
 every family, and its reading would do good. 
 — Christian Instructor. 
 
 resent suited to 
 ent post-paid on 
 
 Handsomely published, it is at once a worthy 
 the center-table and most inviting to the reader. 
 receipt of price, by 
 
 FOWLER & WELLS, Publishers, 753 Broadway, New York 
 
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 TO THE 
 
 PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL. 
 
 This publication is widely known in America and Etrrope, having been before the read-- 
 ing world forty years, and occupying a place in literature exclusively its own, viz ; the study 
 of Human Nature in all its phases, including Phrenology, Physiognomy, Ethnology, Physi- 
 ology, etc., together with the " Scieuco of Health," and no expense will be spared tomake 
 it .the best publication for general circulation, tendiiig always to make men better physically, 
 mentally, and morally. Parents should read the Journal that they may bettor know how to 
 govern and train their children. To each .subscnb-ir is given 
 
 THK PHRENOLOGICAL BUST. 
 
 This bust is made of Plaster of Paris, and so lettered as to show the exact location of 
 each of the Phrenological Organs, The head is nearly life-size, and very ornamental, de- 
 serving a place on the center- table or mantel, in parlor, office, or study, and until recently 
 has SDld for $2.00. This, With the illustrated key which accompanies each Bust, and the 
 articles published in the Journal on "Practical Phrenology," will enable the reader to 
 become a successful student of Human Nature. One of these heads should be in the handft 
 of all who would know " How to Read Character." 
 
 Te^T'xra.S.— The Journal is now published at ^2.00 a year (having been reduced 
 from $3.00), single numbers 20 cents. When the Premiums are sent, 25 cents extra must 
 be received with each subscription to pay postage on the Journal and the expense of boxing 
 and packing the Bust, which will be sent by express, or No. 2, a smaller size, will be sent by 
 mail, post-paid. To those who have the Bust, or prefer it, we will send the Book Premium. 
 
 Send amount in P. O. Orders, Drafts on New York, or in Registered Letters. Postage- 
 stamps will be received. Agents Wanted. Send 10 cents for specimen Number, Premium 
 List, etc. 
 
 Address FOWLER & WELLS, Publishers, 
 
 755 Broadway, New Tork. 
 
WORKS PUBLISHED BY 
 
 rOWLER & WELLS, 753 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 
 
 PHRENOLOGY AND PHYSIOGNOMY. 
 
 American Phrenological Journal and 
 Science of Health. — Devoted to Eth- 
 nology, Physiology, Phrenology, Physiog- 
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 Monthly, $2 a year ; zo cents a number. 
 
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 OF Phrenology ; Containing an Essay 
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 with Notes and Illustrations, by Nelson 
 SiZER. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 This work gives ill and definite directions 
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 Combe (George).— A System of 
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 Constitution of Man ; Consider- 
 ed in Relation to external objects. The 
 only authorized American edition ; wit'i 
 twenty engravings, and a portrait of the 
 author. $1.50. 
 The "Constitution of Man " is a work with 
 
 which every teacher and every pupil should be 
 
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 These are the lectures delivered by George 
 
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 This volume consists of valuable Essays 
 
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 These two works are not published in this 
 
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 This IS the latest and best work published. 
 It constitutes a complete text-book of Phrenol- 
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WORKS ON PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 Fowler (O. S.) — Memory and In- 
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 Maternity ; or, the Bearing a^d 
 
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 Forty Years in Phrenology ; em 
 
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PHRENOLOGY AND PHYSIOGNOMY. 
 
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 Harmony of Phrenology and the 
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 LOGICAL Map. On fine tinted paper, loc. 
 
 Phrenology, its History and Impor- 
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 •^7;7-oi^irs 01^ 
 
 There la an Increasing interest in the facts relating to Magnetism, etc. 
 below a list of 'Works on this subject. 
 
 and we present 
 
 The Library of Mesmerism and 
 Psychology. — Comprising the Philoso- 
 phy of Mesmerism, Clairvoyance, Mental 
 Electricity. — Fascination, or the Power of 
 Charming. Illustrating the Principles 
 of Life in connection with Spirit and 
 Matter. — The Macrocosm, or the Universe 
 Without : being an unfolding of the plan 
 of Creation, and the Correspondence of 
 Truths.— The Philosophy of Electrical 
 Psychology ; the Doctrine of Impressions ; 
 including the connection between Mind 
 and Matter ; also, the Treatment of Dis- 
 eases. — Psychology ; or, the Science of the 
 Soul, considered Physiologically and Philo- 
 sophically ; with an Appendix containing 
 Notes of Mesmeric and Psychical experi- 
 ence, and illustrations of the Biain and 
 Nervous System, i vol. $3.50. 
 
 Bow to Magnetize ; or, Magnetism 
 AND Clairvoyance. — A Practical Treat- 
 Se on the Choice, Manageftieni. and 
 Capabilities of Subjects, with Instructions 
 on the Method of Procedure. By James 
 Victor Wilson. i8mo, paper, 25 cts. 
 
 The Key to Ghostism. By Rev. 
 Thomas Mitchel. $1.30. 
 
 Sent by Mail, post-paid. Fowler & Wells, Publishers, 753 Broadway, New York. 
 
 Practical Instructions in Animal 
 Magnetism. By J. P. F. Deleuze. Trans- 
 lated by Thomas C. '^lartshorn. New and 
 Revised edition, with an appendix of notes 
 by the Translator, and Letters from Emi- 
 nent Physicians, and others. $2.00. 
 
 History of Salem Witchcraft. — A 
 
 review of Charles W. Upham's great 
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 Notes ; by Samuel R. Wells, contain- 
 ing, also, The Planchette Mystery, Spirit- 
 ualism, by Mrs. HARRIET Beecher 
 Stowe, and Dr. Doddridge's Dream. $1. 
 
 Fascination ; or, the Philosophy of 
 Charming. Illustrating the Principles 
 of Life in connection with Spirit and Mat- 
 ter. By J. B. Newman, M.D. $1.00. 
 
 Six Lectures on the Philosophy of 
 
 Mesmerism, delivered in Marlboro' Chap- 
 el, Boston. By Dr. JOHN BoVEE DODS. ' 
 Paper, 50 cents. 
 
 The Philosophy of Electrical Psy- 
 CHOLOGY, in a course of Twelve Lectures. 
 By the same author. i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 
 
HEALTH BOOKS. 
 
 This List comprises- the Best Works on Hygiene, Health, Etc. 
 
 Combe (Andrew, M.D.) — Principles 
 
 applied to the Preservation of Health and 
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 $i.So. 
 
 Management of Infancy, Physi- 
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 Chastity. — Lectures to Young 
 
 Hen. Intended also for the Serious Con- 
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 For Girls ; A Special Physiologry, or 
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 This is the most important work ever publish- 
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 The' Science of a New Life. By 
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 Philosophy of the Water-Cure. By 
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 Chronic Diseases. — Especially the 
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 Consumption, its Prevention and 
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 Notes on Beauty, Vigor, and Devel- 
 
 OPMENT ; or, How to Acquire Plumpness 
 of i"orm, Strength of Limb, and Beauty 
 ot Complexion, 
 
 Tobacco : its Physical, Intellectual, 
 
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 The Mother's Hygienic Hand-Book 
 
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 Popular Physiology. — A Familiar 
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 The Alcoholic Controversy.— A Re- 
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