Norwich bulletin., 1909-11-13

to get to the trough first, gobble down the biggest share of its contents, and crowd the other hogs out if he's big enough. If part of the herd ate SO berly and sensibly, with their fore feet on the floor and not in the trough, we might be in doubt which was the real hog nature. Charity might lead us to assume that the decenter beasts had the first claim. But hogs differ from each other very little in greed. And so we are compelled to assume that greediness and selfishness are their nature. Very well; if all men acted in like manner we should likewise be compelled to admit that human nature was composed of two-thirds greed three fifths selfishness, one-half mean ness and the rest something worse. But the men We all like best and look up to most do not act that way. And for one solemnly declare my inten- tion to regard the variety of nature shown by this class of men as real human nature
 There's one ruIe-or perhaps I should say. one. course of conduct which, seems to me. ought to be instinctive with every man. That is, when he as- sumes or borrows the right to use anything whatever belonging to some one else to use it as the owner would, anu ACdNt IL dS IOulu It. UT IT. lustration: My neighbor at the south has one pair of bars" which he al7 ways fastens. at night, with a couple of short loops of rope. Why he does it. I don't know: never asked. Really, it never occurred to me as being any of my business. They're his bars, leading upon his premises. in his fence. He has the right to fix them as he pleases. I have no right to even touch them. If I assume that his good na- ture will permit me that right. for my own convenience or pleasure, the least l can do is to replace them. exactly as he left them. My neighbor at the north always fastens his barny ard gate with a twisted loop of wire, in addition to the usual hook. When I use that gate I twist the wire back as I found it. None of my business why he uses it: but very emphatically my business 10 see that l leave his things as I find them. For myself. I've one bar-way the second bar of which has a notch cut in it, so as to drop into slot in the post and a peg is pushed into hole just above that bar. I've had to do this ebcause my canny old COW had discovered that by rubbing against that bar she could drop it and thus open a way into my cabbage yard. As I've fixed it neither she nor any human can lower the bar without first pulling out the peg. That is trick she isr't up to, and yet twice this season. I've had to hunt that peg in 'the grass over the fence. because somebody had pulled it out to open the bars and hadn't taken the trouble to replace it.
 I've heard lots of townspeope talk about farmers as "stingy old hunks" and make fun of their crankinesses. Yet, if the average farmer should treat the average hunter and fisherman and nutter and ''yarb- gatherer" with one half the meanness those classes often show towards him. he would-well he would be even less popular than he isl
 A dear old friend once said to me "Oh you expect too much: your idea of human nature is your ideal of hu- man nature" I've treasured that say- ing in my memory because of its fe- licity of diction, and also because the 'ideal' of human nature is just exact ly the idea" of it which I want to holland which we all of us ought to hold-for ourselves as well as for oth- CTS
 We often hear it said that people are "hard" and 'censorious." I think. on the other hand. many or us are too easy and yielding Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. but it has it's place in the order of circumstances. and that place is after repentance and reform. Forgiveness as a cloak for continuing and intentional sin is simply weakness moral mEsbiness Of course, it is always Dleasanter to have your own errors g!ossed over by others; it's all most a ways more ingratidting to ig- nore the errors of others. But, after all. poiteness. suavity, complaisance are not the only desirable virtues. Nor, indeed. do they rank quite as high as justice. fairplaY. honor. I can't speak for the city, but what country life needs is a recrudescence of the manlier virtues: an education towards the un- dersta adins of mutual rights and re- spor sibilities: a stern repression of the growing tendency towards preda- tOriness and license: a new preaching of the gospel of unselfshness. We reed aa increase in the breed of
 Men who their duties know,
 But know their rights. and knowing.
 dare maintain"
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