Part 9

Stop at the yawning abyss of resorting to opium, or any similar drug, as a relief from care. As the alcoholic habit has been likened to an enchantress, a circean witch, so the opium habit is a dream-woman, the sorceress of a phantom realm, elysian at first, but changing at last into a horror-haunted sphere that appals the spirit while it tortures and consumes the frame.

Stop before applying yourself to excessive gymnastics as a relaxation, if a horse-car conductor or a letter-carrier. Variety is the spice of life.

Stop, if engaged in wholly intellectual pursuits, before reading dry and statistical books, such as Patent Reports, as a pleasing and hilarious change.

Stop before joining a club with whose objects you are unfamiliar. To find yourself unawares, for instance, in the bosom of a hoodlum coterie when in search of Christian refinement, or unexpectedly affiliated with a Bible society when thirsting for roaring and convivial companionship, would be alike uncongenial.

Stop before seeking recreation in travel, if without money. True, commercial drummers and tramps have attained some success in this field, but neither the talents of the one class nor the methods of the other are to be cordially recommended.

Stop before indulging in the rougher athletic sports for which you are physically unqualified. Study your capacities well--take in the entire athletic range, from jackstraws to Indian clubs, from the bean-bag to foot-ball--and discriminate for all you are worth.

Stop before instituting any home-amusement that shall bind you to the house of evenings forever thereafter. You might really want to go out and “see a man,” but the excuse would avail you little with the charming home-game awaiting your patronage.

Stop before frequenting any lounging place, be it beer-saloon or cigar-shop, so much as to become a figure-head of the premises. Not to loaf at all is an excellent general rule.

Stop before attempting recreation “on the road” in an ultra-economical way. A livery-stable plug, hobbling ambitiously before a battered sleigh or antediluvian buggy, in the midst of swell turn-outs and speeding teams, would doubtless cause something of a sensation, but would it be of the most enviable kind?

Stop short of seeking mental repose by attending “excursions” in which bibulous feats and glee-club improvisations bid fair to make up the chief fund of amusement.

Stop short of practical jokes as a relief for the work-oppressed brain. As between joker and jokee, the entertainment is mostly altogether with the former, and one-sided or top-heavy diversions are both selfish and untimely.

Stop, and be sure that you have a work-oppressed brain, before rushing wildly into any recreation whatever. The former is often imaginary, or a hypocritical excuse for demanding a pastime, which is then, as a consequence, apt to prove much harder work than play.

In The Domestic Relations.

Stop short of thinking that marriage and settlement in life can acquit you of the tenderness and reverence due your parents, even if they are well-to-do. It is a moral obligation which, contracted at your birth, should cease not even with their death, but live on and on, an evergreen of the memory, an amaranth of the heart.

Stop before reserving for the bosom of your own family the fits of ill-temper that you would be ashamed of if public. This is putting your own household on a level with a private bear-garden, whose limited spectators cannot be over-grateful for the privilege accorded.

Stop short of supposing that your wife is anything less than an equal partner in the hymeneal firm. Even if she came to you penniless, the idea that she is thenceforth indebted to you for home, position or freedom from care, is a barbarism fortunately obsolete in this country.

Stop, likewise, short of the imported notion, also obsolete, that she belongs to you other than by the free heart-gift that inspired her marriage vows, or that she is in any sense your property. The cherishing of such a sentiment is degrading alike to husband and wife.

Stop before denying to your wife the right to have little secrets of her own, if you claim the same privilege for yourself. A loving and trusted wife will have no important secrets apart from her husband.

Stop short of altogether distrusting her in money matters. Even if she have but little common sense in such things, her wifehood is a responsibility for which you are responsible, and which cannot be wholly nullified without humiliating her.

Stop short of denying her the possession of some pocket-money of her own, if but very little. “During my married life,” said a prominent lecturer on woman’s rights, “I never had a cent of pocket-money that I was not forced to steal from my husband.” And this statement will evoke more reflection than censure in the thoughtful mind.

Stop before grumblingly supplying the household demands. This practice of growling over a domestic expenditure, which is but a tithe of what your next “good time with the boys” will cost you, is more prevalent than sensible.

Stop before placing any one over your wife’s head in her own house. Be it mother-in-law, sister-in-law, or any one else, the course is alike risky and unwise.

Stop before cultivating a dislike or niggardliness for your wife’s passion for dress, if it is accompanied by a refined taste and an earnest desire to be within what you can afford. Fine feathers may not always make fine birds, but a naturally attractive woman is undeniably more lovable and attractive when tastefully attired than otherwise.

Stop long before relinquishing, after marriage, the delicate little attentions and sacrifices that were so acceptable during your courtship. A lover-husband will make a sweetheart-wife, and for such the honey-moon need have no wane.

Stop, however, dead short of uxoriousness to a degree that shall excite a smile or comment. The former is apt to be exasperating, and the latter of a nature the reverse of soothing to your amour propre.

Stop before developing a womanish desire to interfere with domestic arrangements outside of your province. In other words, never be what your wife might call a “cock-biddy,” and your cook “an intermiddling mon.”

Stop before developing a fault-finding disposition with the cooking or other accommodations, or first be sure that you are not more responsible for the faults than your wife.

Stop short of concealing the fact from your wife, if she is falling unconsciously into slovenly and unkempt personal habits when only in your presence. Let her but comprehend that this is a wifely neglect that has driven many a husband into neater but unscrupulous feminine society, and speedy amendment must follow.