Year: 1861

CHATTER ~.


1t seems to me, either that there is {


great deal of human nature in pig, or tina


there is great deal of pig inhuman nature


find myself always sympathizing with {
pig that wishes to go in an opposite direc


tion to that in which It's owner would drive


1t. 1t would be a sufficient reason for mi


to desire to go eastward, that man was


behind me, with an oath in his mouth and


a very heavy boot on his foot, endeavoring


to drive me westward. We are jealous o.


our freedom. We naturally rise in opposi


tion to O will that undertakes to command
our movements. This is not the result oI
education at all, it is pure human nature


Command child-who shall be only ole
enough to understand you-to refrain from
some special act, and you excite in his heart
a desire to that act and he will have, nine


times in ten, no reason for his desire to dc
it but your command that he shall not


The youngest human soul that has o will at
ALL takes first occasion TO declare its indie
pendence.


Now, believe this principle in human
nature to be, it ITSELF good. 1t is that
which declares mans right to himself
that which asserts personal liberty in
thought, will and movement. | believe it
existed in Adam and Eve and that it is
more than likely that the tree of the knowl.
edge of good and evil was despoiled because
our great-grandmother, (for whom confess
much sympathy and affection, was forbidden
to touch it. 1t is principle which should
always be carefully distinguished from per-
verseness, in all our dealings with young and
old, and in oil our estimates of human charac-
ter. When child obeys man, or when
one man obeys another, it should always
be for good and sufficient reason. Neither
child nor man should Le expected to sur
render his right to himself without the pre-
sentation to him of the proper motive.
When yielded to this motive, the soul con-
Sents to be directed or led, it becomes obedi-
ent. COmpulson may secure conformity,
but never obedience. If /, as child or
man, am to yield myself TO the direction of
any other man, that man is bound to pre-
sent to me an adequate motive for the sur
render. God throws upon me personal re-
sponsibility-gives me TO myself-and no
man, parent or otherwise can make me
truely obedieut without giving me the mo-
tive for obedience. When child or man
fails to yield TO the legitimate motives of
obedience, he is preverse, and is about per-
verseness in some OF its forms of manifesto
ton that l propose to talk in this ar.
ticle. .


AT starting | must give perversenesS a
somewhat broader meanig than that thus far
Indicated. | will say that that person is
preverSe who, from vanity, or pride of opin-
ion and will, or malice, or any mean consid.
GRAFTON, refuses TO yield his conduct and
himself to those motives and influences which
his reason and conscience recognize to he
pure and good and true. In its least ag.
gTavated form, perhaps, We find it among
lovers. Women will sometimes persistingly
ignore a passion which they know has taken
full possession of them, and gricve the heart
that loves them by coldness aud indiffer-
ence which they do not feel at all Rather
than acknowledge their affection for one
whose loss would kill them or, what would
be the same thing, kill the world for them,
they have lied, grown sick, and gone nearly
insane. This is a preVerSeness very hard
to be understood, yet it is not very uncom-
mon. Sometimes lovers have been very
tender aud devoted SO long as doubt of
ultimate mutual possession remained to
give zest to their passion, but the moment
this doubt has been removed, one or the
other has become incomprehensibly indiffer-
ent. .r .


| have noticed that very few married
pairs are matches in the manner of warmth
aud expression of passion between the par
ties. The man will be all devotion and
enderness-brimming with expression of
affection and exhibitions of fondness, and
the woman all coldneSs aud passivity, or.
(Which is much more cOmman) the woman
will be active in expression, lavishing car
Tesses and tendernesses upon man who
very possibly grows harder and colder with
every delicate demonstration that the whole
wealth of his wife's nature Is poured at his
feet, as libation upon an altar. 1t is here
that We see some of the strangest cases of
perverseness that it is possible to conceive.
] know men who are not bad men-who | |
suppose, really love their wives-and who
would deny themselves even to heroism to
give them the comforts and luxuries of life.
YET VINO uuu themselves mOVeu 10 reject
with poorly.coVered scorn, and almost to
resent, the varied expressions of affection
TO which those wives give utterance. l
know wives who long to pour their hearts
in the hearts of their husbands, and TO get
sympathetic and fitting response, but who
are never allowed to do it, They live
constrained, suppressed, unsatisfed life.
They absolutely pine for the privilege of
saying freely what they feel, in all loves
varied languages, toward men who love
them, but who grow harder with every ap-
proach of tenderness and colder with
every warm, invading breath. A shower
that puri6es the atmosphere, and refreshes
the face of heaven itself, sours cream, Just
as love sweetest expression sours these
men,


/ have known wives to walk through such
an experience as this into a condition of
abject savery-to waste their affection
without return, until they have become
poor spiritless, and mean. | have known
them to lose their will-to become the mere
dependent mistFesses of their husbands-to
be creeping cravens in dwellings where it
should be their privilege to move as radiant
queens have known them thrown back
upon themselves, until they have become