Whatever the cause, it is literally true that you cannot look blackly on the world and your own fortunes if the lines of your face are ascending instead of drooping.  This muscular state of your countenance is connected in some strange way with that mysterious thing called the mind; for you will find, if you try it, that a sort of serenity of soul comes to you, and a strong confidence that “everything will come out right in the end.”  When we Americans are older we shall pay more attention to these things.

The Japanese neglect none of these deep psychological truths in warfare.  It is said that they are taught to smile in action, and especially when they charge.  Doubtless this report is true.  It has at bottom the same reason that music in battle has.  What could be more terrifying than the approach of an enemy determined on your death, and who looks upon your execution as so pleasant and easy a thing that he smiles about it or who regards his own possible extinction as no unhappy consummation?

Also it is interesting to note how a pleasant expression begets its like.  I have observed this even in Manchuria, and other parts of China—­a smile unfailingly won a return smile from children who were watching you from the fields, whereas a frown would instantly becloud the little face with a kindred expression of disfavor.  I am spending a good deal of time upon this item of good cheer in the new home, because I think that as long as happiness surrounds the American fireside all is well with the Republic.

There is no investment which yields such dividends as the society you will find in your home.  The company, the talk, the silent sympathy of that sagacious and congenial person who is your wife yield a return in spirit, wisdom, moral tone, and pure pleasure to be found in like measure nowhere else on earth.

It is said that Charles James Fox, the most resourceful debater the British Parliament has ever seen, was so fond of his home and his wife that he would actually absent himself from Parliament for the sheer pleasure of her presence and conversation.  Lord Beaconsfield, who, we are told, married for the mere purpose of ambition, afterward fell deeply in love with his wife and spent every moment he could in her society.  She proved, too, to be his shrewdest counselor.

Bismarck’s boundless love for his princess increased with the years; yet she was chiefly, and perhaps only, a German “hausfrau”—­an ideal housewife.  The German people particularly loved the wife of Bismarck because of these exclusively domestic traits.  Perhaps that was why he adored her more and more as the years went by.  Gladstone, who was a very surly and irritable person, declared that his wife had made his life “cushiony.”

Of course it is taken for granted in this paper that the young American wife is this kind of a woman—­wise and gentle and good-natured—­above all things good-natured.  For says the Bible, “It is better to dwell in the wilderness than with a contentious and an angry woman.”  But read what is written in the Book of the right kind of a woman—­one “in whose tongue is the law of kindness,” as the Scriptures’ exquisite phraseology has it.