The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-10-14

is said TO be survival of their wild con-
dition when they trampled grass and
twigs to make bed. In like manner
8he perpetual motion of the fidgety man
suggests a previous stage of existence,
before the process of evolution had
changed his ancestral weasel or Cavy
into the prevailing human likeness.
We say fidgety man advisedly, OBJ
seryation showing that men are far more
given to fidgeting than women. Merry
fidgety. while tidgety persons have been
heard to declare that they had no nerves.
Your true fidget cannot keep still save
when asleep. A novel. for instance,
may seem to capture his consciousness
completely. Presently a finger will
escape captivity. and begin to scratch
the book cover, hand will steal out of
bondage to play fantastic tricks with the
paper-knife, leg will swing itself, OF a
foot wag in its slipper.
At table the tidgety person upsets the
spoons, wreaks its restlessneSs upon the
salt, and with napkin-rings and forks
displays misdirected constructive powers.
in the parlor he disturbs the sequence of
your argument by twisting up small
curls of paper to fire at the CRATE. Or he
walks up and down the room, avoiding
certain figures of the carpet, as DR..
johnson used to avoid the cracks in the
sidewalk. Or he successfully balances
in his hand all the small movables on
bookcases or shelves. There are both
mOnotony and variety in his incessant
movement, and each is more eXasperat-
ing than the other.
We admit the existence and even the
general distribution of the fidgety wom-
an. But we maintain that she is less
perVading, less obtruSive and less fla
grant than the male of the species. Per-
haps it is because girls are taught from
infancy to conceal their feelings, perhaps
because they are more punctilious in
forms of behavior, perhaps because their
hands aSe schOoled to all sorts of grace
full uses, that they can usually I" sit
straight and keep still" as children are
told to do by way of penance.
We have no doubt that crochet-hook
and worsted-needle are powerful con-
ductors TO carry off that superfuous ele-
ment, whatever it be, which otherwise
diffuseS itself in mere senseess motion.
But any dentist or doctor will bear wit
ness that women endure pain with far
more fortitude that men, far oftener
keeping down all expression of suffering.
And the same capacity of self-cOntrOl
keeps their hands folded and their feet
quiet, when the impulse to fidget has
quite overpowered the weaker will of
man.
Nay, there is no doubt that the habit
of tidgeting exhibited by their lords and
masters is one of the SevereSt minor trials
Moral turpitude is nothing to it, To sit
by, day after day, evening after evening,
and make no sign, when the man whom
one has sworn to love, honor and obey
tumbles the smoothness of the maya
zines, dog sears the corners of the books,
stirs up strife among the various tribes
that inhabit the work-basket, spins the
scissors around his index finger fifty
times in succession, is to be martyr by
the pang without the palm. But the
man who is capable of tidgeting is in
capable of reformation, and the wise
wife refrains from useless admontion.
Things without remedy should be with
out regard.
There is, however, sort of moral
fidgetiness, and in this Offense are usually
more deeply stepped than men. Some
times, though not always, physical rest
iessneSS is the outward and visible sion
of moral business But the latter vice
always puts on the form of a virtue. 1t
may masquerade as the spirit of punctu-
atty. A Seven-o' clock breakfast being
Che midwinter rule, the mistress of the
house, candle in hand, will poke about
at six. hindering the cook, disturbing
the precious last nap of her spouse; if
not profane herself, becoming the in
citing cause of profanity that is in others,
and all that half-prepared meal may
be half served twenty minutes before it
is needed in the sacred name of prompt
ness. A witty writer used to declare
shat if he were sentenced to be hanged
at ten, his wife would rouse him at five.
with the admonition, Thomas, Thomas,
If you don't make haste, you will be too
late" And that excellent lady was but
one of a large sisterhoOd.
Sometimes the female fidget finds her
housekeeping a sufficient instrument of
torture Two or three people invited to
dinner make her life an intolerable bur-
den. If anything should 90 wrong, if
the roast should be overdone or the fish
raw. she feels that she could never look
her guests in the face again. Visitors
staying in the house are still heavier
cross, possibilities of domestic failure
being indefinitely multiplied Presently
the pleasant habit of hospitality fails
altogether (the husband thinking it not
worth the perpetual fret it COSTS, and
all the family are the losers.
Perhaps the most wearing manifesto
zion of moral fidgetiness is exhibited by
&ae fidgety mother. From the first cold
of her first baby to the last headache of
her last betrothSd son under the paternal
UOOf, she has seen the grim spectre of
death lurking in the background. She
can not bear to give her boys guns, or
litd them join q gymnasium, or allow
'thenlsboats, or even permit skating over
deep water. for fear of fatal conse-
vluences. Her girls are coddled and
housed and restricted, lest they should
oe slain by the touch of the north wind.
She is never happy when the children
are out of her sight, and as a conse-
qnence, they are seldom happy when in
IT. She fidgets about their dress, their
studies, their amusements, their COM
panionS, their lovers, their husbands and
wives, their housekeeping, their babies,
If she have not tidgeted herself into