es to be sure get on the nerves of many of us. He'll
drop into your studio, dispose his long, bony body in your most comfortable
chair and ruminate for hours while you work. You are immersed in a very
significant problem. You are at the point, we will say, of discovering how
to convey the sound of bells by pure color. "May I ask," he says finally,
"what in thunder are you trying to do?" You explain at length,
enthusiastically. He hears you through, with visible effort to suspend
judgment. You pause and scan his face for a responsive glow. He rises, pats
you gently on the shoulder. "My boy, I can put you into a good job down in
the stockyards. Fine prospects, and a good salary to begin with. I ran in
to see your wife and youngsters yesterday and they're looking rather
peaked. Not much of a living for them in this sort of thing, you know. Of
course it is mighty interesting. But don't you think you could manage to do
something with it in your free time?"

It can't be denied, in the matter of the family relation my uncle is
hopelessly reactionary. In his view almost the whole duty of man is to keep
his wife well housed, well dressed, contented, and his children plump and
rosy. To abate a tittle from this requirement my uncle regards as pure
embezzlement. You try to make him see the counterclaims upon you of
science, literature, art. "Yes, yes, those things are all very fine, but
will you rob your own wife and children for them?"

I wonder whether this myopia of my uncle is due to the fact that he is a
confirmed old bachelor, and all women and children are to him pure ideals,
as much sweeter than all other ideals as they are more substantial? He
poses, to be sure, as a depreciator of woman. "Just like a woman," "women's
frivolity," "useless little feminine trinkets," are phrases always on his
lips. But watch his caressing expression as he listens to the chatter of
Cousin Thisbe, the most empty-headed little creature who ever wore glowing
cheeks and bright curls. Let anybody get into trouble with his wife or
sweetheart, and my uncle straightway takes up the cudgels for the lady. The
merits of the case don't matter: a lady is always right, or if she isn't,
it's a mighty mean man who'll insist on it.

His nephews of the blood are firmly convinced that the reason why our uncle
is such a fool about women in general is because he has never been in love
with any woman in particular. Thus do members of a family blind themselves
wit