complaints, and so he is--in a way. The woman thinks that she has a
right to suffer because of her husband's irritable ugliness, and so she
has--in a way. But in the truest way, and the way which appeals to
every one's common sense, neither one has a right to complain of the
other, and each one by right should have first made things better and
clearer in himself and herself.

Human nature is not so bad--really in its essence it is not bad at all.
If we only give the other man a real chance. It is the pushing and
pulling and demanding of one human being toward another that smother
the best in us, and make life a fearful strain. Of course there is a
healthy demanding as well as an unhealthy demanding, but, so far as I
know, the healthy demanding can come only when we are clear of personal
resistance and can demand on the strength of a true principle and
without selfish emotion. There is a kind of gentle, motherly contempt
with which some women speak of their husbands, which must get on a
man's nerves very painfully. It is intensely and most acutely annoying.
And yet I have heard good women speak in that way over and over again.
The gentleness and motherliness are of course neither of them real in
such cases. The gentle, motherly tone is used to cover up their own
sense of superiority.

"Poor boy, poor boy," they may say; "a man is really like a child." So
he may be--so he often is childish, and sometimes childish in the
extreme. But where could you find greater and more abject childishness
than in a woman's ungoverned emotions?

A woman must respect the manliness of her husband's soul, and must
cling to her belief in its living existence behind any amount of
selfish, restless irritability, if she is going to find a friend in him
or be a friend to him. She must also know that his nervous system may
be just as sensitive as hers. Sometimes it is more sensitive, and
should be accordingly respected. Demand nothing and expect nothing, but
hold him to his best in your mind and wait.

That is a rule that would work wonderfully if every woman who is
puzzled about her husband's restlessness and lack of interest in home
affairs would apply it steadily and for long enough. It is impossible
to manufacture a happy, sympathetic married life
artificially--impossible! But as each one looks to one's self and does
one's part fully, and then is willing to wait for the other, the
happiness and the sympathy, the better power for work and t