for less than twenty-two. And again the same sort of writer will assert that he can quit one "boarding-house" when he pleases, whereas he must eat the cold roast beef and cranberry sauce of the other until he crosses the creek called Styx. Let me call this young man Mr. Bachelor, and reply to him in about his own style:
A FEW THOUGHTS IN GENERAL:
1. A man named Payne wrote a seemingly-ordinary song entitled "Home, Sweet Home." This piece, on account of certain sentiments conveyed, at once received the seal of nearly universal approbation. It is safe to say Mr. Bachelor and the class in which he may be placed were not among those who accorded extraordinary attention to the little song. He is and they are, therefore, at once separated from the vast mass of the people. Evidently the sentiments of the song were based on experiences largely known to the general gender and unknown to Mr. Bachelor.
2. The man Daniel McFarland was so worthless that his wife refused to live with him, and, sadly enough, fell in love with still another man. The worthless husband, discovering that Richardson was coming into property which had not always been his own, resorted to an ambuscade, and killed Richardson. To the dullest comprehension this act revealed a deep jealousy. Jealousy is founded on a solid fear of losing something. In this unhappy family, where the man believed he had nothing to care for, he suddenly awoke to find he had thrown away a pearl richer than all his tribe.
3. It seems to me as natural for a man to establish a home, with a wife, as to grow a beard on his face.
SOME CONSIDERATIONS IN PARTICULAR.
1. At twenty-seven years of age a man whom I know met the finest young woman he had ever seen. He wanted her and he got her. Five years have passed.
2. At marriage the man found himself endowed with a godlike selfishness. This he probably owed to the past struggle for existence. With this not very estimable faculty he carried to his home a young woman endowed with nearly the opposite faculties. She only acquired selfishness through association with her companion. At the start, then, they were both willin' oxen—one ox was willing to do all the pulling, and the other ox was willing he should.
3. Now the man had also a high faculty called judgment. He continually wondered why the woman did not despise him on account of his selfishness. He soon discovered that it was because the woman lacked sadly in judgment. The baby would lift up its voice in the night. That baby must be attended to. The weather might be very cold. The man despised that fact, but the woman, because it made her teeth ache and her body cake and cramp, feared the cold. But the man also despised the baby and all its appertainings—particularly the appertainings. Therefore, the man debated within himself that he was very selfish, or he would get up. Perhaps, being a "just" man, the way men go, he really got up about once in a dozen times, but, candidly, he would probably have seen that baby suffer ere he would have attended its wants any oftener. The woman took it for granted that the man would not get up, and yet she did not despise him. She did not have judgment enough to do it.
VANITY AND SELFISHNESS.