The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1882-11-18
LITERARY HUSBANDS.

LITERARY HUSBANDS.
Their selnshness ana IrrltabIlity-Aa.
vice to LadIes-Trials and
Pangs Of Authorship.
There could be few more critical tasks
than to write treatise on the choice of
wives or husbands; but we need not be
over-scrupulous about warning ladies in
search of husbands to beware of men of
literary habits, and we shall be doing
kindness if we advise literary men con-
templating matrimony to select for their
wives judicious and patient nurses rather
than charming and brilliant women.
There is a comfortable doctrine held
by wives that all husbands are more or
less selfish, and we admit that there is
much to be said inzsupport of this the
DRY. Hunting husbands, shooting hus-
bands, Parliamentary husbands and BUSH
ness husbands generally seek their own
amusement as the principal end OF their
lives, while the pleasures of their wives
are regarded as desirable but secondary
objects; but none of the aforementioned
are so purely selfish as are certain lit
erary husbands. Strictly pleasure-seek-
ing husbands often study their own
amusement only, while they worship
their wives. Literary husbands also
study their own amusement only, while
they worship themselves. Moreover, in
intercourse with their fellow-crestures,
ordinary mortals usually imbibe some
fresh ideas or learn little entertaining
gossip, and are consequently more or less
agreeable companions to their wives.
But the literary man spends the day at
home in his own den, where his brain
feeds chiefly upon itself, with few
books, by way of condiment, by writer's
holding his own identical opinions; so
that he is unlikely to be very fresh or
amusing when he seeks the society of his
wife.
Like savage animal that cannot be
approached without danger, the literary
husband. as we have said, spends his
time in his study. He may be concoct-
ing jokes for comic paper or writing
freatise on Christian gentleness; but for
all that. when sitting at his writing table
he will be as ill-tempered and as snap
pish as a bull-terrier on his chain. The
judicious wife will be wary in approach
ing him on snch occasions. If the kitchen
chimney is on fire, or ii the pipes are
bursting, ''dear George must not be
disturbed on that account, or the heat of
his wrath and the explosion of his temper
are likely to exceed the worst that can
happen from those domestic calamities.
He may be writing the most calm and
unimpassioned judgment on the disputes
between the Guelfs and the Ghibelins;
but it would be unwise in his wife to
calculate on his giving an equally tenn
perate decision on a squabble between
the cook and the butler during the hours
that he spends in his chair of literary
jurisdiction. 1t is true that there are
some literary husbands who will make
attempts to be courteous when invaded
in their sanctums. They will assure
their wives that they ssare not in the least
in the way" while their nervous rest
lessness too plainly bellies their words;
they may even assume CHASTITY smile
when thorough reorganization of their
rooms is suggested. and there may be
very pretty struggle between the parental
and the literary instincts when their
youngest children are brought into their
dens; but it only requires half an eye to
see that they are in reality as much put
out as a servant disturbed ut meal,
which we take to be the extreme example
OF human acridity. Perhaps the most
remarkable expression ever assumed by
n literary husband is that which he wears
when his wife requests him to come into
the drnwing-room to help to entertain
some friends, especially when she as