But, most unfortunately, it is in the very best things of life that the true mulishness of the obstinate man most comes out.  He shows worst in his home life and in the matters of religion.  When our Obstinate was in love he was as sweet as honey and as soft as butter.  His old friends that he used so to trample upon scarcely recognised him.  They had sometimes seen men converted, but they had never seen such an immediate and such a complete conversion as this.  He actually invited correction, and reproof, and advice, and assistance, who had often struck at you with his hands and his feet when you even hinted at such a thing to him.  The best upbringing, the best books, the best preaching, the best and most obedient life, taken all together, had not done for other men what a woman’s smile and the touch of her hand had in a moment done for this once so obstinate man.  He would read anything now, and especially the best books.  He would hear and enjoy any preacher now, and especially the best and most earnest in preaching.  His old likes and dislikes, prejudices and prepossessions, self-opinionativeness and self-assertiveness all miraculously melted off him, and he became in a day an open-minded, intelligent, good-mannered, devout-minded gentleman.  He who was once such a mule to everybody was now led about by a child in a silken bridle.  All old things had passed away, and all things had become new.  For a time; for a time.  But time passes, and there passes away with it all the humility, meekness, pliability, softness, and sweetness of the obstinate man.  Till when long enough time has elapsed you find him all the obstinate and mulish man he ever was.  It is not that he has ceased to love his wife and his children.  It is not that.  But there is this in all genuine and inbred obstinacy, that after a time it often comes out worst beside those we love best.  A man will be affable, accessible, entertaining, the best of company, and the soul of it abroad, and, then, instantly he turns the latch-key in his own door he will relapse into silence, and sink back into utter boorishness and bearishness, mulishness and doggedness.  He swallows his evening meal at the foot of the table in silence, and then he sits all night at the fireside with a cloud out of nothing on his brow.  His sunshine, his smile, and his universal urbanity is all gone now; he is discourteous to nobody but to his own wife.  Nothing pleases him; he finds nothing at home to his mind.  The furniture, the hours, the habits of the house are all disposed so as to please him; but he was never yet heard to say to wife, or child, or servant that he was pleased.  He never says that a meal is to his taste or a seat set so as to shelter and repose him.  The obstinate man makes his house a very prison and treadmill to himself and to all those who are condemned to suffer with him.  And all the time it is not that he does not love and honour his household; but by an evil law of the obstinate heart its worst obstinacy and mulishness comes out among those it loves best.