UOME-LIFB. 131 



that baneful lingering relic of an excessive asceti- 

 cism, fatlieis and niotlieis would rather try to 

 bring about occasions for a liealthy, varied, and 

 frequent intercourse between friends and neigli- 

 bors. Wliat is wanted is not merely that young 

 men and young girls should see much of one 

 another in the way of courtship and marriage — 

 tluit is a minor matter which always arranges 

 itself somehow with marvellous dexterity even in 

 the crowded jarring world of our great cities. 

 The real need is a need for seeing more of one 

 another generally, mixing more in eacli other's 

 society, letting mind rub constantly against mind, 

 promoting the free interchange of ideas, and, 

 above all, gratifying those deep-seated instincts of 

 sociability which are implanted by nature in the 

 heart of man for good and sufficient reason, and 

 which can never be neglected by any of us with 

 safety or impunity. The family, we repeat, is and 

 ought to be a great deml : but it is not and it 

 ought not to be absolutely everything. If people 

 make it everything, if they move always in its 

 narrow grooves, if they refuse to stir outside it 

 and to saturate themselves, as it were, with the 

 thoughts and feelings and interests of others, they 

 will pay the penalty in the long run by incurring 

 insanity for themselves or their children and de- 

 scendants. Wider sympathies are both right and 

 wholesome. Charity begins at home ; but it does 



