Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-10-16
THE WOMAN WHO RULES.
Take It All in All Her Lot Is Not a
 Happy One.
she May Rule Her Husband and Her Chil- dren, but She Has Never Learned to
 Rule Her own Spirit and Knows Not the Power of Love.

There are some among us who are not content to rule their own affairs, says Harper's Bazar, but they must have a hand in ruling the affairs of every one else-the outgoing and incoming of all within their radius, the dress, the ac- quaintance, the reading, the conversa- tion, the whole conduct of life of all others-as far as they can. These wom- en rule their houses, they rule their husbands, they rule their neighbor- hoods, but they have never learned to rule their own spirits.
 To these women 1t seems impossible that tho world should go right except on the lines of their own direction; 1t would bs Q little wonderful that they could See the starry system sweep by without suggestion, or an endeavor to arrange to their own convenience the hours of the rising and the setting of the sun, if it were not that to every tide the mandate of nature says ''thus far and no farther;" and the tide of self-will is sub ject to the laws that govern all other tides.
 Early in life these women succeed either in bringing their husbands into subjection or in alienating their affec- tions, or else they bring into the house. hold an element and atmosphere of per petual strife. They are women usually endowed with great vitality, so that they live through every thing; and al- though often fretful invalids they arrive at old age still administering power. Perhaps, indeed, old age is the happiest time of all their conquest, for then they receive, on account of their years and the probable approach of death, an obedience and deference of willing sub jects, only a shadow of which was rem dered previously, and that grudgingly and by unwilling slaves.
 It does not m alter to one of these women that her husbands experience has undoubtedly given him a superior knowledge of his own business, she di- rects there as everywhere. If it would be for the advantage of his affairs to move to another place, and she prefers to remain where she is, then the busi- ness remains with her, even to its ex- tinction; if she prefers to move, although the business be best where it is, all is uprooted and put on wheels. It does not weigh with her that her children have this, that, or the other bent for their walk in life; if it is not what she likes, they must be bent differently, and to her will. Her children marry as they choose only if they have inherited her own spirit, or if by chance her selection and theirs CO., incide; and even then she interferes, controls and restraints, or endeavors to do so; and the wife who has her for 8 mother-in-law knows that calamity is of long life. If any of her children are unmarried and remain at home, the life of the famous toad under harrow is no worse than theirs; the food they eat, the dress they wear, the book they read, the street they walk, the hours they keep, are not matters of free choice; and as such mother is apt to transmit her traits in more or less degree, that house is seething volcano, and it is well realized there that better. is dry morsel and quietness herewith than a house full of luxuries with strife. Not content with all her queening at home, she administers her charities-of which there are many, for they are part of her subjugating influences-with feudal maintenance of her right of saying how those charities shall be used. She gives the minister, too, instructions as to the conduct of his calling, and would fain tell the doctor what treatment he had best pursue at the sick-bed. Whom at last this masterful person dies, the local prints, the neighborhood, her little world in general, have a great deal to say about her marked character, her keen intellect, the strength of her per sonality, the work that she accom- plished, and the power for good that she was in the community; but no one has much to say of any love that was ex- tended to her. As soon as decency and self-respect allow after her departure, all her practices are reversed; if she de- tained the family at home, they are of to Europe; if in confusion, now there is peace; the emotions that were kept un- der now show themselves, those that were exaggerated are now depressed; company is made welcome if it was previously forbidden, is excluded if it was previously enforced; there Is ex- travagance where there was economy; there is restraint where there was pro- fusion; the whole action of the family resembles nothing so much as that of the imp in the bottle when the pressure is removed; and although usually, of course, nothing of the sort is intended, she is just as distinctly set at naught as if the fingers of derision were snapped in her face.