, 1905-01-11
THE SELFISH COUPLE.
husbands and Wives Who Refuse to
MingIe In society.

~
1t cannot enter into ~life-individual,
family or social-without cursing ii.
Therefore If any married pair find
themselves inclined to confine them
selves to II another's society, indis-
posed to go abroad and mingle with
the life around them, disturbed and If
ritated by the collection of friends in
their w dwelling or in any way mov-
ed to regard their social duties as dis
agreeable, let them be alarmed at once.
1t is a bad symptom-an essentially
morbid symptom. They should insti-
tute means at once for removing this
feeling, and they can only remove it by
persistently going into society, persist
emily gathering it into their w dwell
ing and persistently e%ndeavoring to
learn to love and feel an interest in all
with whom they meet. The process of
regeneration will not be a tedious one,
for the rewards of social life are i'm
mediate.
The heart enlarges quickly with the
practice of hospitality. The sympathies
luI uIld tdhC lOOL lIOll Dolll W DOlul,
each root throwing up leaves and bear
ing flowers and fruit like strawberry
vines if they are only allowed to do
so.
1t is only sympathies and strawber-
ries that are cultivated in hills which
do otherwise. The human face is a
thing which should be able to bring
the heart into blossom with a moments
shining, and will be such with you if
you will meet it properly.
The penalties of family isolation will
not, %unhappily, fall entirely upon your
selves. They will be visited with
double force upon your children. Chill
dren reared in the home with few or
no associations will grow up either
boorish or sensitiyely timid.
1t is Il cruel wrong to children to rear
them without bringing them into con-
tinued contact with polite social life.
The ordeal through which children
thus reared are obliged to pass In gain
ing the ease and assurance which will
make them at home elsewhere thai I'M
der the %paternal roof is one of the
severest, while those who are constant
ly accustomed to a social life from
their youth are educated in all its
forms and graces without knowing it.
Great multitudes of men and women
all over the country are now living Sc
cluded from social contact simply from
their sensitive consciousness of igno-
rance of the forms of graceful inter
course.
They feel that they cannot break
through their reserve. There is, doubt
less, much that is morbid in this feel
Ing, and yet it is mainly natural. From
all this modification and this depriva-
ton every soul might have been saved
by education in a home where social
life was properly lived. 1t is cruel to
deny to children the opportunity not
only to become accustomed from their
first consciousness to the forms of So
ciety, but to enjoy its influence upon
their developing life.
Society is food to children. Contact
with other minds is the means by
which they are educated. and the diff
ference in families of children will
show at once to the accustomed eye the
different social character Of their par
ents. But | have no space to follow
this subject further, and | leave 1t
with you, with the earnest wish that
you will consider it and profit by the
suggestions | have given you.-"Tim-
othy Titcomb's Letters in Boston
Globe.