The Perverse Rule: How Riley Catalogs Life's Backward Logic

"Natural Perversities" is structured as a list of observations, each proving the same paradox: the universe operates in reverse of what we'd expect. Riley doesn't argue this philosophically—he accumulates examples. The umbrella is lent when it rains; creditors dun when you're broke; the "trusty" gun explodes; jokes fall flat in the right company. Each stanza adds another piece of evidence that intention and outcome are systematically misaligned.

The poem's genius is its formal consistency. Every stanza follows the same pattern: state a negative ("I never missed a train / Because I didn't run for it"), then explain the perverse mechanism. This repetition isn't boring—it's cumulative proof. By the sixth stanza, we're not reading isolated anecdotes; we're reading a law of nature. Riley's speaker positions himself as a scientist of life's contradictions, which makes the domestic details (umbrellas, creditors, guns) feel like hard evidence rather than complaints.

Notice Riley uses colloquial language throughout ("cramped," "busted," "sparkling jests") rather than elevated diction. This matters: perversity isn't tragic or profound—it's just how things work. The casual tone suggests these aren't exceptions or tragedies but the baseline condition of existence. When the poem ends with "Know everything but when we don't / Know anything about it," we're not meant to feel despair. We're meant to recognize the joke: we're all trapped in this backward logic together.

Riley's Context: Hoosier Realism and the Comedy of Ordinary Life

CONTEXT James Whitcomb Riley (1849-1916) was Indiana's most popular poet—a "Hoosier poet" who built his reputation on capturing Midwestern vernacular and small-town life. "Natural Perversities" fits his larger project: finding universal truths in local, everyday experience. While his contemporaries were writing about grand themes, Riley was writing about umbrellas and creditors.

What makes this poem distinctly Riley is the refusal to moralize despite the title's promise. The opening stanza explicitly disclaims philosophy: "I am no philosopher / Of wise elucidation." This is strategic humility. By claiming he's just observing, Riley avoids sounding preachy—he's simply reporting facts. The perversities feel discovered, not invented. This technique was central to Riley's appeal: he made readers feel like they were recognizing truth themselves rather than being lectured.

The poem also reflects Riley's comic sensibility. American humor of the 1880s-90s often relied on incongruity and the deflation of expectations—exactly what perversity delivers. A "trusty gun" that explodes is funny because it violates the contract between adjective and noun. The person who "never missed a train / Because I didn't run for it" is funny because it inverts cause and effect. Riley was writing in an era when this kind of logical comedy—playing with how language makes promises reality breaks—was central to American humor.

James Whitcomb Riley

Natural Perversities

{{sc|I am}} not prone to moralize

:In scientific doubt

On certain facts that Nature tries

:To puzzle us about,—

For I am no philosopher

:Of wise elucidation,

But speak of things as they occur,

"simple observation"

Riley claims he's just reporting what he sees, not philosophizing. This frames the poem as empirical evidence of life's contradictions, not abstract theory—he's collecting data.

:From simple observation.

I notice little things—to wit:—

:I never missed a train

Because I didn't run for it;

:I never knew it rain

That my umbrella wasn't lent,—

:Or, when in my possession,

The sun but wore, to all intent,

:A jocular expression.

I never knew a creditor

:To dun me for a debt

But I was "cramped" or "busted;" or

:I never knew one yet,

When I had plenty in my purse,

:To make the least invasion,—

As I, accordingly perverse,

:Have courted no occasion.

Nor do I claim to comprehend

:What Nature has in view

In giving us the very friend

:To trust we oughtn't to.—

But so it is: The trusty gun

:Disastrously exploded

Is always sure to be the one

:We didn't think was loaded.

Our moaning is another's mirth,—

"Our moaning is another's mirth"

Introduces the social dimension: your suffering is entertainment to someone else. Perversity isn't just personal bad luck; it's structural to human interaction.

:And what is worse by half,

We say the funniest thing on earth

:And never raise a laugh:

Mid friends that love us overwell,

:And sparkling jests and liquor,

Our hearts somehow are liable

:To melt in tears the quicker.

We reach the wrong when most we seek

:The right; in like effect,

We stay the strong and not the weak—

:Do most when we neglect.—

"Neglected genius—truth be said— / As wild and quick as tinder"

Genius needs neglect to flourish; help destroys it. Riley compares it to tinder—help smothers the spark rather than feeding the flame.

Neglected genius—truth be said—

:As wild and quick as tinder,

The more we seek to help ahead

:The more we seem to hinder.

I've known the least the greatest, too—

:And, on the selfsame plan,

The biggest fool I ever knew

:Was quite a little man:

We find we ought, and then we won't—

:We prove a thing, then doubt it,—

Know everything but when we don't

"Know everything but when we don't / Know anything about it"

The final paradox collapses into a logical knot: certainty about uncertainty. We're confident precisely when we should doubt, which is the perversity itself.

:Know anything about it.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation