Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 June 1884 — Opposite Natures. [ARTICLE]

Opposite Natures.

There seems to be a popular belief in the law of attraction of opposites as applying in the matter of love and friendship—a law supposed to be based on induction, according to the true method of science. But is it not simply one of those formulae which is true when it is true, and no oftener? Opposite natures do attract each other, there is no doubt; a man of phlegmatic temper sometimes finds an irresistible fascination in a woman whose gay vivacity cheers and stimulates him'like sunshine and the birds’ song; or, again, it is the sanguine, buoyant-natured man who is mated happily with a wife whose serious and discreet mind is the balancewheel insuring the safe running of the household machine. Indisputably, there is an attraction, sometimes difficult to account for, between persons of contrasted natures; nevertheless, a nice observation will often show, I think, that dissimilarities between husbands and wives, or between intimate friends, are superficial, while the strength of the mutual attraction resides in an underlying likeness. A marriage which is truly such, or a serious friendship, involves a very close intercourse, which to be sustained must rest on certain deep moral affinities, the union of communion will be stronger still; but such are not necessary, as the former are. Circumstances may play their part, and an important one, in the formation of our friendships or the selection of our life-mates; but among persons of any depth of character, choice as well as chance has to do with the matter, although the choice be often rather instinctive than deliberate. — Atlantic “ Contributors ’ Club”