Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1883-09-26
Is This Your Likeness !

One OF tho SuDtleSt forms OF SELFISH
ness is that which comes from self-ab-
sorption in work. The greater the
work, the more ready conscience is to
palliate or even TO justify altogether
this selfishness. Just now the world of
critics is bowling over Carlyle's care
less unconcern for his sensitive, some
times sick, and often suffering wife. 1t
does not relieve him from Just con-
demnation that his sin is common
one; but if none but a sinless critic
could throw the first stone, Carlyle
would not get much hurt.
When they are first married the hus-
band is everything to the wife. House
keeping cares are small, or none at all;
there is little society; the days are long
and lonely; the wife counts the hours
and even the minutes for her husbands
return; and everything is ready for his
coming, as though he were all the
world contained, as, indeed, he is to
her. But this can not continue long.
Children come and divide attention,
care and love. Society interposes its
claims. The church demands time and
thought. There are calls to return,
and meetings to attend, and dresses TO
hdhc, W ioi anu ihc
husband has to take second place.
Now, though it is never easy for an
idol TO step off from his pedestal,
or put another alongside himself,
the husband, who has moder-
ate share of common sense, will not
expect the wife and mother to give the
same exclusive thought to him that the
young bride gave. But it is no rare
experience for the wife and mother to
become so absorbed in other duties that
her husband recedes steadily from the
first place to the third, the fourth, and
finally goes out of sight altogether.
She no longer watches for his coming;
she is surprised when he appears, and
half disappointed, too, that he is home
soisoon, for this bit of household work
is not quite done, or that last stitch is
not yet taken. and she is really more
anxious to finish the seam than TO see
her husband. The little things that
make home happy are forgotten be-
cause of the supposed larger duties
due to society or the church and the
wife by her self-absorption in a busy,
bustling life outside does more to make
her husband pagan than to make pa
gans Christian, because the one she
touches very nearly and the other she
influences only afar off. We call this
life of self-absorption a subtle form of
selfshness, because social ambition
makes social care delight and social
duty pleasure; and what the good
woman imagines to be a self-denial is
really an enjoyment, if not a passion
We have known women who were never
weary of inveighing against society who
would die of ennui If they were taken
out of it.
But this subtle form of selfishness is
far oftener seen in the husband than in
the wife. He gives himself up to his
business, and gives only fringe and
fragment of thought TO the woman whom
he idolized for a month, or even, with
rare fidelity of masculine affection, for
a twelvemonth. When he comes home
ha leaves his mind in the counting-room
and only brings his body to the supper
table. He is generally abstracted, and
often positively cross. His wife has
received so many rebuffs from him that,
if she be sensitive, she learns to study
him furtively before she ventures to adj
dress him, even in the quiet of the
evening fireside; and If she be not sem
sitive she answers back, and each sharp
battle of words separates them farther
and farther from each other. The best
men are most easily subject to this un-
conscious form of subtle selfishness.
The higher the thoughts and the
larger the work, the greater the
danger and the easier the self
excuse. The minister who is devoted
to the interests of his church, whois full
of tenderness in the pulpit, and of re-
spectful consideration in society, ap-
pears not unfrequently at home unac-
commodating, thoughtless of others,
easily irritated, in word, selfish. He
may be wholly unconscious of selfish
ness. In one sense he is not selfish, for
his thoughts are not on self, but on his
sermon, his church, or his perplcxed
parishoner. But he puts his work first
and his family second; and forgets
Pauls declaration that he who fails to
provide for his own family is worse than
an infidel. And to provide for ones
own family is to provide not merely
food and clothing, but consideration and
love.
Reader! we will not say as Nathan TO
David: "Thou art the man." but we
will say interrogatively: Art thou the
man? II you want to know, ask your
mate-husband or wife-to read this
article, and then tonight tell you
whether anything of your face can be
seen in the mirror. Christian Union.