There is much more misery thrown into the cup of life by domestic unkindness than we might at first suppose. In thinking of the evils endured by society from malevolent passions of individuals, we are apt to enumerate only the more dreadful instances of crime: but what are the few murders which unhappily pollute the soil of this Christian land—what, we ask, is the suffering they occasion, what their demoralizing tendency—when compared with the daily effusions of ill-humour which sadden, may we not fear, many thousand homes? We believe that an incalculably greater number are hurried to the grave by habitual unkindness than by sudden violence; the slow poison of churlishness and neglect, is of all poisons the most destructive. If this is true, we want a new definition for the most flagrant of all crimes: a definition which shall leave out the element of time, and call these actions the same—equally hateful, equally diabolical, equally censured by the righteous government of Heaven—which proceed from the same motives, and lead to the same result, whether they be done in a moment, or spread out through a series of years. Habitual unkindness is demoralizing as well as cruel. Whenever it fails to break the heart, it hardens it. To take a familiar illustration: a wife who is never addressed by her husband in tones of kindness, must cease to love him if she wishes to be happy. It is her only alternative. Thanks to the nobility of our nature, she does not always take it. No; for years she battles with cruelty, and still presses with affection the hand which smites her, but it is fearfully at her own expense. Such endurance preys upon her health, and hastens her exit to the asylum of the grave. If this is to be avoided, she must learn to forget, what woman should never be tempted to forget, the vows, the self-renunciating devotedness of impassioned youth; she must learn to oppose indifference, to neglect and repel him with a heart as cold as his own. But what a tragedy lies involved in a career like this! We gaze on something infinitely more terrible than murder; we see our nature abandoned to the mercy of malignant passions, and the sacred susceptibilities which were intended to fertilize with the waters of charity the pathway of life, sending forth streams of bitterest gall. A catalogue of such cases, faithfully compiled, would eclipse, in turpitude and horror, all the calendars of crime that have ever sickened the attention of the world.
The obligations of gentleness and kindness are extensive as the claims to manliness; these three qualities must go together. There are some cases, however, in which such obligations are of special force. Perhaps a precept here will be presented most appropriately under the guise of an example. We have now before our mind's eye a couple, whose marriage tie was, a few months since, severed by death. The husband was a strong, hale, robust sort of a man, who probably never knew a day's illness in the course of his life, and whose sympathy on behalf of weakness or suffering in others it was exceedingly difficult to evoke; while his partner was the very reverse, by constitution weak and ailing, but withal a woman of whom any man might and ought to have been proud. Her elegant form, her fair transparent skin, the classical contour of her refined and expressive face, might have led a Canova to have selected her as a model of feminine beauty. But alas! she was weak; she could not work like other women; her husband could not boast among his shopmates how much she contributed to the maintenance of the family, and how largely she could afford to dispense with the fruit of his labours. Indeed, with a noble infant in her bosom, and the cares of a household resting entirely upon her, she required help herself, and at least she needed, what no wife can dispense with, but she least of all—sympathy, forbearance, and all those tranquilizing virtues which flow from a heart of kindness. She least of all could bear a harsh look; to be treated daily with cold, disapproving reserve, a petulant dissatisfaction could not but be death to her. We will not say it was—enough that she is dead. The lily bent before the storm, and at last was crushed by it. We ask but one question, in order to point the moral:—In the circumstances we have delineated, what course of treatment was most consonant with a manly spirit; that which was actually pursued, or some other which the reader can suggest?
Yes, to love is to be happy and to make happy, and to love is the very spirit of true manliness. We speak not of exaggerated passion and false sentiment; we speak not of those bewildering, indescribable feelings, which under that name, often monopolize for a time the guidance of the youthful heart; but we speak of that pure emotion which is benevolence intensified, and which, when blended with intelligence, can throw the light of joyousness around the manifold relations of life. Coarseness, rudeness, tyranny, are so many forms of brute power; so many manifestations of what it is man's peculiar glory not to be; but kindness and gentleness can never cease to be MANLY.
Count not the days that have lightly flown,
The years that were vainly spent;
Nor speak of the hours thou must blush to own,
When thy spirit stands before the Throne,
To account for the talents lent.
But number the hours redeemed from sin,
The moments employed for Heaven;—
Oh few and evil thy days have been,
Thy life, a toilsome but worthless scene,
For a nobler purpose given.
Will the shade go back on the dial plate?
Will thy sun stand still on his way?
Both hasten on; and thy spirit's fate
Rests on the point of life's little date:—
Then live while 'tis called to-day.
Life's waning hours, like the Sibyl's page,
As they lessen, in value rise;
Oh rouse thee and live! nor deem that man's age
Stands on the length of his pilgrimage,
But in days that are truly wise.
SILENT INFLUENCE.
“HOW finely she looks!” said Margaret Winne, as a lady swept by them in the crowd; “I do not see that time wears upon her beauty at all.”
“What, Bell Walters!” exclaimed her companion. “Are you one of those who think her such a beauty?”
“I think her a very fine-looking woman, certainly,” returned Mrs. Winne; “and, what is more, I think her a very fine woman.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Hall; “I thought you were no friends?”