OUR FRIENDS 203 
panies 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 
