OUR FRIENDS 203 



parries and depends upon tranquillity of mind, 

 that we are apt to miss half of it in the tur- 

 moil of work-strife and social-strife that fill the 

 best years of most men and women. 



It is a pity that all overwrought people can- 

 not have a chance to relax their nerves, and to 

 learn the possibilities of happiness that are within 

 them. Most of the jars and bickerings of domes- 

 tic life, most of the mental and moral obliquities, 

 depend upon threadbare nerves, either inherited 

 or uncovered by friction incident to getting on 

 in the world. I never understood the comforts 

 that follow in the wake of a quiet, unambitious 

 life, until such a life was forced upon me. When 

 you discover these comforts for the first time, you 

 marvel that you have foregone them so long, and 

 are fain to recommend them to all the world. 



Polly and I had gotten on reasonably well up 

 to this time ; but before we became conscious of 

 any change, we found ourselves drawn closer 

 together by a multitude of small interests com- 

 mon to both. After twenty-five years of married 

 life it will compensate any man to take a little 

 time from business and worry that he may 

 become acquainted with his wife. A few for- 

 tunate men do this early in life, and they draw 

 compound interest on the investment ; but most of 

 us feel the cares of life so keenly that we take 

 them home with us to show in our faces and to 

 sit at our tables and to blight the growth of that 

 cheerful intercourse which perpetuates love and 



