828 
Ihe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
_ 
The other.day I had a talk with a man 
who has quite a reputation as a “mind- 
reader/’ lie has an almost uncanny way 
of outguessing other people. lie can ap¬ 
parently tell closely what they are think¬ 
ing about, and thus form quick judgments, 
which help him greatly in business or in 
handling men. lie seems to be able to 
“size up” or shape up most people be 
meets, and thus he is called a “mind- 
reader.”, I asked this man to tell me the 
secret of his power; was it any suit of 
mesmerism or some supernatural gift? 
He iaughed at the idea. The college men 
might talk about psychology, classified 
facts, hypnotism and other things, but la 1 
knew nothing about, all that. Ilis idea 
was that every person had traits or hab¬ 
its which resembled those of a certain 
animal. If you could learn to classify 
people by these resemblances to the lower 
animals., and then remember how such 
animals act under natural conditions, you 
could have a fair idea of the way your 
human specimen would operate ! 
That is a new one to me. but this man 
claimed it was the secret of his successful 
mind-residing. and he said the human face 
betrayed the accumulated motives and 
tendencies of a lifetime! For example, 
some men look just like a horse. They 
have the long, big nose, rather narrow 
eyes, long face and big month. Half shut 
you eyes and let your mind “go blank” 
as yoii look at them and you can easily 
imagine a horse looking at you. What 
are the chief mental qualities of a horse? 
In like manner you and I have seen men 
who look somewhat like sheep or cows 
or pigs, dogs, or rats! No offense is in¬ 
tended in this, but just look about and 
study the people you know and see if you 
cannot classify them in their habits by 
the animals you are acquainted with. Of 
course. I know this may not be very com¬ 
plimentary to some of us. but I am telling 
you what this successful “mind-reader” 
claims as his system. Without any pre¬ 
tense for scientific knowledge, he has men¬ 
tally classified his facts and he has out¬ 
guessed many a business man by figuring 
what a horse or a goat or an intelligent 
dog would do under certain conditions. 
Stephen Francisco, the big certified milk 
man. says he can look in a cow’s face and 
tell from that alone to within a few hun¬ 
dred pounds of her yearly milk yield. In 
a contest between Francisco and some of 
our noted experts, lie to stand in front of 
the cow and they to go all over her if 
they liked. I would be inclined to back 
him. 
* * * ❖ ❖ 
You may say what you like about this 
idea that proud man imitates the lower 
animals in many of his fixed habits. My 
friend claims that the great superiority 
of mind over material instincts is pretty 
much a matter of food, comfort and en¬ 
vironment. He thinks civilization is 
something like a shell or skin which 
grows a little thicker and surer with each 
generation of good breeding and comfort¬ 
able living. Take a shipwreck, a crowd 
deprived of food or shelter, and the best 
and highest bred people hold their “hu¬ 
manity longest.” During the war some of 
the colored soldiers were frightened nearly 
white before they went “over the top.” 
and yet by the time they reached ihe Her¬ 
mans thnv had cast off their shell of civili¬ 
zation and were, to all intents and pur¬ 
pose. back in the African jungle. T have 
seen refined and educated men under some 
sudden and fierce excitement break into 
awful profanity or go back to the mo-t 
absurd German or Irish dialect. My 
friend says that horses, pigs, monkeys, 
dogs and geese have been trained to do 
all sorts of wonderful things. If these- 
animals do not thinl >*. it is hard to tell 
where-thought begins and ends. Yet un¬ 
der excitement or what Jack London 
terms “The Hall of the Wild.” this train¬ 
ing is forgotten, except as it serves the 
animal to gain food and comfort! 
$ * =:< # 
You may do what you please with this 
theory. My observation is that we are 
all “mind readers” in a way, and that, 
many of our relations to others are regu¬ 
lated by what we think others are think¬ 
ing about us. Day after day people come 
With stories of heart-breaking troubles. 
Most of them are based on what they 
think others are going to do. They have 
tried to read the human mind—and have 
read it all wrong. I have come to think 
that most of the failures and troubles of 
life are due to this failure to read tin- 
human mind properly. I can think of 
many cases where men and women have 
gone all wrong and carried a burden 
through life because they misjudged the 
thoughts of others and did not have faith 
in human nature. I know of one young 
woman who worked with her husband on 
a farm. She went to church with the 
family several times and then refused to 
go again. When she was asked why, she 
had this story: 
“There are several women over there 
who keep looking at me. I know they are 
sneering at me and saying to themselves: 
‘There is that washerwoman from the 
farm.’ I won’t be snubbed in that way !” 
And so this young woman made herself 
unhappy through faulty mind-reading, for 
do you know what these women were 
realiy thinking? They sat there with their 
hearts filled with envy, and this is what j 
they had in mind: “Oh, if 1 could only bo 
as young and strong as that woman, what 
joy if would be ! Wlmt would I not give 
for her youth and her hope and the great 
beautiful future which she can grow 
into ?” 
The young woman could only read a 
sneer in the book of the others’ minds, 
when in reality there was longing and 
envy too full of pathos for ordinary tears. 
V ft *i* V # 
And there was that other young woman 
with the three beautiful little children. 
They were little things, and the parents 
were humble people, working hard to 
make and own their home. It was hard, 
but the man at least was happy in the 
thought that he' could care for his family 
and gradually give them a better life. 
The wife went to the city one day on 
the train, and those beautiful little chil¬ 
dren attracted attention everywhere. 
When the man came home he found his 
wife crying. She was tired and nervous 
and had been doing some wrong and fool¬ 
ish “mind-reading.” 
“Why.” she said, “on our way home the 
children were so tired. I had the baby 
in my arms and Iiilly and Jennie went 
to sleep, both leaning against me. Across 
the aisle were a gray-haired man and 
woman, who sat and stared, and I know 
they were laughing at me. The woman 
whispered to the man and he nodded his 
head and smiled. I just know they were 
making fun of me and saying it was 
wicked for poor folks to have so many 
children ! I do not. want to sro again !” 
The poor little woman sobbed with 
tears of real grief, and the man could 
not comfort her. for lie did not know how 
she had misunderstood. Could she but 
have known it. those elderly people were 
smiling and scowling in an effort to keep 
back their tears, as they thought how life 
had denied them the glorious gift of chil¬ 
dren’s love. Laughing at her! No 
woman since the world began ever en¬ 
vied another as that gray-haired woman 
envied her younger sister sitting there 
with the three beautiful sleepers pressing 
close to her. God knows she was not 
sneering or making fun when she whis¬ 
pered to her husband. 
“Would iioii uni (lire oil von hove for 
one lUlle child of our own who would 
hare that faith in us ?” 
And the strong man had smiled to 
hide tin' twitching of his mouth ! You 
see that, young woman’s life was saddened 
because she could not read the mind 
aright. 
I know a young man who was quite 
deaf. I think most afflicted people are 
pool- mind-readers, for they often imagine 
that people are trying to take advantage 
of their affliction in some way. They 
are usually all wrong in this, but unless 
the individual is cheerful and unless they 
are surrounded by people who have proved 
their loyalty the affliction of the body 
will somehow creep into the mind. For 
example. I have read some learned ar¬ 
ticles which undertake to prove (?) that 
a person who is deaf cannot feel full 
sympathy for another, because much of 
the pathos of pain and sorrow can only be 
conveyed through the human voice! I 
may have more to say about that some 
day. At any rate, this deaf young man 
followed the usual line of Nature and fell 
in (or rose to) love with a girl. Now 
several things must be obviously true be- 
for a girl will deliberately marry a deaf 
man. The man must be very rich or have 
fine prospects, or have a very fine char¬ 
acter. or the girl must be very wilful and 
foolish, very unhappy in her home, or of 
a very romantic disposition. In the case 
I speak of we may at once eliminate five 
of the six qualities here mentioned with 
the third one marked Q. R. D. And there 
were several other young fellows, of whom 
April 24, 1920 
it could be said that at least two of the 
above-mentioned qualities had been dem¬ 
onstrated. Now this young man was not 
as good a mind-reader as he has since 
come to be. and he made the mistake of 
accepting unproved suggestion as fact. 
# * * i-f * 
There was a lawn party given in the 
old town one .Tune night. This young 
man was a little slow in inviting the girl, 
and when lie did get around he found she 
had agreed to go with Dick. Say, some 
of you old-timers, take memory by the 
linger and go back to youth with me. 
.Tune is here in all her glory. The full 
moon Hoods the earth with light. Girls 
in white are flitting about. Inside the 
house a fiddle is wailing out “My Old 
Kentucky Home.” arranged for a waltz, 
and a piano is murmuring along in ac¬ 
companiment. How would you like to 
go back and find all your cares and 
troubles mere figments of the imagina¬ 
tion in the glory and romance of youth? 
And our young man wandering about the 
lawn came suddenly upon Dick and the 
girl! They were sitting on a rustic bench 
just, out of the light, talking earnestly. 
And the young man turned and walked 
off into the shadow. As lie reached it 
he glanced back and saw the girl point 
in his direction and smile, lie walked 
off down the lonely road for a while an 1 , 
like Philip in Tennyson’s Knocli Arden, 
“had his dark hour unseen.” For, you 
see. he tried to read the girl’s mind and 
as lie walked on he was saying: 
“You cannot blame her. Dick can give 
her home and what she needs at once. 
Whatever I can have in the future she 
must wait for. A deaf man must ever 
be like a man with one leg—and suppose 
1 lose my.eyes, too She’s right. What 
have I to offer her. anyway—when she 
has everything? I have no right to ask 
her to share an affliction. This must 
never go any further!” 
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