lies not always on the side of the husband. Quite as often
is a devoted, patient, good-tempered man harassed and hunted and baited
by the inconsiderate fault-finding of a wife whose principal talent
seems to lie in the ability at first glance to discover and make
manifest the weak point in everything.

We have seen the most generous, the most warm-hearted and obliging of
mortals, under this sort of training, made the most morose and
disobliging of husbands. Sure to be found fault with, whatever they do,
they have at last ceased doing. The disappointment of not pleasing they
have abated by not trying to please.

We once knew a man who married a spoiled beauty, whose murmurs,
exactions, and caprices were infinite. He had at last, as a refuge to
his wearied nerves, settled down into a habit of utter disregard and
neglect; he treated her wishes and her complaints with equal
indifference, and went on with his life as nearly as possible as if she
did not exist. He silently provided for her what he thought proper,
without troubling himself to notice her requests or listen to her
grievances. Sickness came, but the heart of her husband was cold and
gone; there was no sympathy left to warm her. Death came, and he
breathed freely as a man released. He married again,--a woman with no
beauty, but much love and goodness,--a woman who asked little, blamed
seldom, and then with all the tact and address which the utmost
thoughtfulness could devise; and the passive, negligent husband became
the attentive, devoted slave of her will. He was in her hands as clay in
the hands of the potter; the least breath or suggestion of criticism
from her lips, who criticized so little and so thoughtfully, weighed
more with him than many outspoken words. So different is the same human
being, according to the touch of the hand which plays upon him!

I have spoken hitherto of fault-finding as between husband and wife: its
consequences are even worse as respects children. The habit once
suffered to grow up between the two that constitute the head of the
family descends and runs through all the branches. Children are more
hurt by indiscriminate, thoughtless fault-finding than by any other one
thing. Often a child has all the sensitiveness and all the
susceptibility of a grown person, added to the faults of childhood.
Nothing about him is right as yet; he is immature and faulty at all
points, and everybody feels at perfect liberty to criticize him to right