Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1893-09-07
BIGNESS AND SENSE.
NOT ALL INTELLECTUAL PEOPLE ARE
COMPANIONABlE.

The Art of Entertaining Should Be Studied
by Many People Who Think They Are
Treading the Higher Planes of Life.
Loving Children.
Bigness is not the same as size, at least
not always, and it is not to be estimated
by weight. The people" says gener-
GUS woman, whom l most dread as
guests are those who have no capacity
for small pleasures" l, too, have the
same trouble. John has a bulky friend
who never plays a game or romps with
| children, and l do not know what to do
with him. When we go out to play GRO
quet, he stalks up and down with his
arms crossed under his coattails and has
not the least interest in our sport. Then
John has to leave us and go off TO dis
cuss the resurrection of the body or set
tie some other high and mighty problem
that neither of them knows anything
about.
John doesn't like it, but he feels the
obligations of host-and, as for me, J
don't think any guest ought to disrupt q
family and become a distracting ele-
ment. Why can't the man get off his
horse and try to see what other folks
need and like? This is all the worse be-
cause, if we propose a walk, he sees
nothing to interest him; doesn't notice
the trees or the flowers and strikes in
with a disputatious TRADE about DR..
Briggs or the higher criticism. When
theology runs dry, he goes into politics,
and we must discuss tariff and silver or
be impolite. like hospitality. 1t makes
me miserable when l cannot be sure Of
pleasing my guest. l simply have to
wish that Edward Knox would stay
away.
Women as a rule are made up for
smaller things, and it very much pleases
me that Emerson decides genius to be
capacity for small things. But know
few women who are terrible charac-
tiers to get on with. Mrs. Jane Geary
comes in to talk over the last book by a
woman author. A pleasant topic this.
But how unutterably silly this wise
woman is when she tries to please chill
dren-for she really tries. Think of
asking 7-year-old if she knows what
the analysis" of candy is. When she
walks with me, she pokes hollyhock
and calls it geranium.
/ do not know whether the ancients
meant the sun and its rays when they
talked about Samson and his long tress-
es of hair, and do not much care. But
Samson was and is interesting for this
reason: He was physical prodigy, with
gentle capacity for very human feel
ings. He could be cajoled into frolic-
some mood and was terrible only when
he must be. David is better sample of
the great big body full of small and
pleasant ways. 81" said certain great
preacher, Learned my first love for the
childlike of my brave father, who never
despised small things, and then learned
the same lesson of Jesus. am Chris
tian because real Christianity is great
ness in small things"
One of Jules de Glouvet's novels, ''The
Woodman," saves its hero, who is a
poacher and always ready for killing
and eating and little else, by means of a
little child The child kills out the
mans furious passions, and the sight of
the little one converts him to a new sort
of life. That is the mission, is it not, of
our children to keep US from growing
old and hard in our emotions? But what
can woman do with visitors who either
frankly say they do not like children, or
who manifestly are very Indifferent to
them? 1t becomes necessity at once to
create two households, to keep the chill
dren busy somewhere while we attend
to our guests.
We are all fond of trifling discoveries.
We like our rambles in the woods and
glens to find new flowers. John gets as
excited as one of the boys when he finds
a rare flower. We talk it over, and it is
added to some ones herbarium with
pride. Indeed l cannot see that there
is any other way of making life very en-
joyable or hvable even but by the tri-
fies. The japanese Romeos make love
by calling on the object of affection,
carrying in one hand a fowerpot with
pet plant. We ought, believe, to cul
tivate these simple ways. Those who
cannot be happy without noise, display
and excitement are on the road to being
incapable of happiness at all.
DR.. Bremen says: ''Basing my asser-
ton on my private practice and at st.
Vincent's, will say that the boy who
smokes at will drink whisky 1t IA, take
to morphine at 90 or 25 and wind up with
cocaine or other narcotics at 80 or soon
after" Above all things have homely
way of living, so childlike, simple, fresh.
that you will never be blase or any of
your household lose the capacity for be-
ing pleased. have heard of dead moral
natures and of intellectual powers ar
rested in the way of development and
have seen cases of both sorts, but there
is quite as much danger of loss of faculty
for pleasure.
Invent to church yesterday and heard
clever discourse on the Christian obi
cation of loving The preacher said to
us, "Just love, only don't love yourself
that is all there is to the law of religion .
But do not believe that preacher was
doing anything more than retailing
wares he had bought in the lump and did
not know anything about, for he went
on with illustrations of all sorts to en-
phasize and explain love, but all his
examples were of a snowy sort. The
real Christian love is in trifies of the
commonest sort. The grandest exhibit
ton of bigness is in doing small favors
There is something wonderful in big
mans arms. The habit of taking mans
arm is the finest little exhibition of
honor a woman could have bestowed.
Your arm, sir, is stout and full of soul.
It is the very ideal of defense and protec-
ton. You give it to me, and if / have
confidence that your soul is as muscular
as your body l take the arm. Woman
gives the hand; man gives the arm. But
it is not all arms that are worth taking.
Mary E. Spencer in st. Louis Globe
Democrat.