Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1906-11-08
THE SELFISH COUPLE.
Husbands and Wives Who Refuse to
MinuIe in Society


MingIe in Society.
Selfshness is the bane of all life 1t
cannot enter into life-individual. fam
lily or sOcial-without cursing it. There
fore if any married pair find themselves
inclined to cOnf1ne themselves to one
another's society, indisposed to go
abroad and mingle with the life around
them, disturbed and irritated by the
collection of friends in their own
dwelling or in any way moved to re-
gard their social duties as disagreeable,
let them be alarmed at once.
1t is bad symptom-an essentially
morbid symptom. They should instl-
tute means at once for removing this
feeling, and they can only remove it
by persistently going into society, per-
sistently gathering it into their own
dwelling and persistently endeavoring
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
immediate.
The heart enlarges quickly with the
practice of hospitality. The sympathies
run and take root from point to point,
each root throwing up leaves and bear
ing flowers and fruit like strawberry
vines if they are only allowed to do so.
It 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 dou-
BILE force upon your children. Children
reared in the home with few or no as
sociations will grow up either boorish
or sensitively timid.
1t is a 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 gaining
the ease and assurance which will
make them at home everywhere than
under the parental 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
Guided from social contact simply from
their sensitive consciousness of ignor-
ance 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 home where social
life was properly lived. 1t is cruel to
deny the 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 l have no space to follow
this subject further, and l leave it
with you, with the earnest wish that
you will consider it and profit by the
suggestions 1 have given you.-"Timo-
thy Titcomb's Letters" in Boston
Glnhp