The sisters of this boy—women of some presence—were already married, and mothers, when their mother found herself pregnant at forty-five. The husband was much gratified at the prospect of becoming a father at sixty, and expressed this satisfaction in frequent relations with his wife. It so happened that their pecuniary circumstances were easier than at any previous time, and the wife employed “help,” which relieved her of all the severer household duties. She was not an intellectual or cultivated woman, and the unaccustomed leisure did not prove a boon, since it left her with unspent strength to meet and respond to the demands made upon her quite up to the time of the infant’s arrival. Thus, you see, the boy had imparted to him over-active amativeness, combined with small mental activities. How should he when a man restrain his passions, when during all his ante-natal life his parents had put no restraint on theirs? He did not. He showed himself a low bully among his school-mates, and the dread of the younger girls, before he had reached his “teens.” After that, his sensual, brutal behavior actually repelled his boy-companions. When a man, he barely escaped being the inmate of a prison, as he had been already of worse places.
The man who is dominated by this one quality is very often handsome, magnetic, and attractive to women. He boasts privately, if not publicly, of his conquests, holding no reputation sacred.
Perhaps to common observation he is a gentleman, and you hear of his liasons in a whisper. Alas! for the wives of these gay cavaliers. They lead a lonely life, since he spends the best of himself—his suave manners and good nature—in fact, all of himself elsewhere.
Suddenly and all unexpectedly you hear that this attractive man, not forty-five, is sinking down with some insidious disease. It is called neuralgia in the head, or paralysis, and the doctor has the promise of a long job. It is, in fact, softening of the brain, caused by excessive passional excitement and the undue drain on his vital forces. He may live years, his digestive organs holding out better, because having drifted into idiocy there is no longer any wear and tear of the mind.
This man has been “successful” with women, and this is the finale.
[THE FATHER’S INFLUENCE THROUGH THE WIFE.]
Mr. Z., a man of thirty-five, of a refined, intellectual, but rather cold nature, married his ward, an amiable, immature girl of fifteen. Her attraction for him lay in her youthful affection and her healthy, handsome, physical characteristics. She had in her the “makings” of a thoughtful, self-reliant woman; but development in natural order was arrested by her being placed in so false a position—a wife at scarcely fifteen.
Very soon after the marriage she found herself pregnant. Meanwhile, Mr. Z. for love of her and for the sake of companionship, earnestly endeavored to awaken in her some intellectual tastes. He read to her, explaining and illustrating as he went along, many of the standard English poets and essayists. She listened, received, and grew en rapport with him.