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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Household Organization, by Florence Caddy
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Household Organization
+
+Author: Florence Caddy
+
+Release Date: October 18, 2010 [EBook #34097]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD ORGANIZATION ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Julia Miller and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD ORGANIZATION.
+
+
+BY
+
+MRS. CADDY.
+
+
+"From my tutor I learnt endurance of labour, and to want little, and to
+work with my own hands."--EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS.
+
+
+LONDON:
+CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
+1877.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+One fine August bank-holiday many thoughts, more or less connected with
+the day, prompted me to write this essay, so forcibly did it appear
+that people required help to make their lives easier and happier.
+
+Since then there have been several bank-holidays; and though trade is
+depressed throughout the country, though financial panic has ruined
+thousands, yet the demand for beer, spirits, and tobacco is as great as
+ever; the hollow gaieties of life are as noisy as ever--perhaps the
+more so for being more hollow; still our most precious friends kill
+themselves with overwork--mental pulverization. If they eased their
+minds by employing their hands they might yet live, even though many
+could not, last autumn, afford to buy the breath of sea or mountain air
+which would have strengthened them for the burdens of the new year.
+Those who were wise and who had capital invested it in health, that
+being likely to bring them in the best return.
+
+We have had seven years of the highest national prosperity. Although
+fictitious, it gave us pleasure while it lasted, and we were able to
+enjoy all that life has to offer in its perfection. We may be going to
+pass through seven years of dearth, so we must husband our resources of
+health and wealth, instead of drawing upon them in the reckless way we
+have lately accustomed ourselves to do. Some years of scarcity may be a
+blessing to us all, if they lead us back from the habits of excess and
+idleness we have fallen into, and particularly the craving for
+excitement, whether in the form of literature, or by means of
+stimulants and cordials (absinthe).
+
+A plain but short statement of our national losses will show the
+necessity of economizing the goods we still possess, financial as well
+as physical.
+
+Independent of the stagnation of trade which paralyzes every branch of
+our commerce, we have lately had losses through foreign loans more
+severe than any we have experienced during the present century.
+
+Since the announcement by Turkey in October, 1875, that the interest on
+the Turkish debt would be reduced, there has been a great fall in
+foreign stocks. The debt of Turkey--roughly speaking, L200,000,000--has
+fallen, say, L125,000,000 in value. Egyptian securities, not including
+the floating debt, approximately estimated at L60,000,000, have fallen
+some L20,000,000 in value. In smaller stocks the fall has probably been
+some L20,000,000; and since the breaking out of the Eastern Question,
+Russian stocks, at an aggregate of about L165,000,000, have fallen 12
+per cent., or a sum equal to more than L20,000,000 sterling.
+
+Besides these calamities there have been in England, as shown by a
+recent return, 1,797 commercial failures, representing liabilities of
+L30,000,000 sterling, and it has been calculated that of the firms and
+persons occupied in business, 3 per cent. have been unable to meet
+their engagements.
+
+These losses will account for less familiar faces being seen in the
+Park in the season, for the numerous houses unlet in fashionable
+quarters, for grouse-moors going almost begging; and, among many other
+significant facts, Tattersall, who generally has 150 applications for
+coachmen on his books, has now 150 coachmen applying to him for
+situations.
+
+In our present abundance of money, through dearth of safe investments,
+many persons have purchased art treasures; which would be wise, but for
+the pain it always causes to part with things that have once adorned
+our homes, which makes this not a happy speculation.
+
+It would be the part of a screech-owl to cry Woe! woe! and hoot
+triumphantly over the distresses of our country; but there seems so
+much of hope and promise in the fact of our meeting reverses of fortune
+with courage, that we cannot feel that a real disaster has overtaken
+us. We have in the case of France an example of how a great nation can
+rise renewed in strength out of overwhelming troubles, and our trial is
+less severe than that of France.
+
+It is not good for any people to sit down to eat and drink and rise up
+to play, any more than it is good for children to feed upon delicacies
+in lieu of simple fare. Persons suddenly reduced from affluence to
+comparative poverty may be glad of a few hints to show them how
+happiness and refinement are by no means incompatible with a smaller
+condition of fortune, with a shorter purse; for, after all, the purse
+is not the pleasure, it only helps us to procure it; our own taste and
+feeling must teach us what true pleasure is.
+
+It may be demurred that some of the household improvements suggested in
+this book would be expensive to carry out--such, for instance, as the
+arrangement of the kitchen; and this is true: but looked at as an
+investment, they would yield large interest, and it might be prudent to
+invest under one's own eye, in one's own house, some of the capital we
+cannot afford to sink. If used in economizing wages, it will give us a
+profitable return.
+
+We do not hesitate to lay out money in improvements on our farms. Why,
+then, need we fear to arrange our dwellings in accordance with
+principles of true economy, so that the ladies of our families may be
+able to co-operate with us in advancing the benefit of all? Every
+family might be its own Economical Housekeeping Company (Limited),
+comprising in itself its shareholders and board of directors, realizing
+cent. per cent. for its money, because L200 a year would go as far as
+L400.
+
+If we save the money we now spend upon keeping servants to do our work
+for us, we shall have more to spend on our holidays, and so shall feel
+all the more refreshed by our respite from work.
+
+Much is said in this book about superfluities, but although some
+passages may seem to give colour to such an idea, it is by no means
+wished to convey the recommendation that our homes and lives are to be
+bare of beauty. On the contrary, I hanker after profusion and love
+plenty, but wish them to be placed where they will not give more labour
+than pleasure, where they will not hamper our every movement at every
+moment, making us ever wear a sort of moral tight kid-gloves, be the
+weather hot or cold.
+
+The rock which theories split upon is that they generally presuppose
+that we can make our lives, and are in independent position and good
+circumstances, whereas this is seldom the case. The majority of us are
+neither in good circumstances nor independent: often we have had no
+control over the purchase of our very furniture; so we must make the
+best of what we have, only, when we have the opportunity of making a
+change, let it be a reform as well as a change. My main object in
+writing this essay has been to show how frequently, and in how short a
+time, the saving effected by a reform covers the cost of carrying it
+out.
+
+In the case of young couples about to marry, and beginning to plan
+their lives, any work will be good which aids them to lay down their
+plans according to rules of economy and common sense.
+
+_January, 1877._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                 PAGE
+
+THE DIFFICULTY.
+
+Impossibility of getting good servants--Over-civilization--Labour has
+been made hideous--Sleeping partnership--Wealth exempt from this
+difficulty--Refinement of the professional class--Credit--Phase of
+insecurity and scarcity--Sweet are the uses of adversity--English
+people do not fear work--Servants too readily changed--Wilfulness of
+servants--Upper servants are easily obtained--Servants feel the
+pressure of the times--Ornamental servants costly luxuries--Two
+questions--Work must be efficiently done--Woman's work--Misuse of
+time--We keep servants to wait upon each other--Idleness--Pleasure
+made a toil                                                         1
+
+THE REMEDY.
+
+Bad habits to be reformed--Late hours--Value of the long winter
+evenings--Simplicity of manners--Over-carefulness--Instruction to
+be gained from foreign nations--Our manners should be natural--
+_Impedimenta_ in our households--Comparison of former times with our
+own--Children trained to habits of consideration--Young men and boys
+over-indulged--Reduction of establishments--Lady-helps--What is menial
+work?--Picturesque occupation--What is lady-like--Amateur millinery--
+Two subjects for an artist--Taste--Plan of the book--Eugenie de
+Guerin                                                             20
+
+THE ENTRANCE-HALL.
+
+The evil of side doors--Difficulties with cooks--Who is to answer the
+door?--Four classes of applicants--Arrangements for tradespeople--
+Visitors--Furniture of the hall--Warming the passages--Dirt and
+door-mats--The door-step--Charwomen                                40
+
+BREAKFAST.
+
+Lighting gas-fire--Difficulty of rousing servants--Family breakfast--
+Cooking omelet--Hours of work and enjoyment--Duties of mothers and
+householders--What is included in six hours' daily work--Clearing
+away the breakfast--Bowl for washing the _vaisselle_--Ornamented
+tea-cloths--Muslin cap worn while dusting--Use of feather-brush--
+Cleaning windows--Advantages of gas-fire                           54
+
+THE KITCHEN.
+
+Parisian markets--No refuse food brought into a house--Catering in
+London--Cooking-stoves--Pretty kitchen--Underground kitchens
+objectionable--Kitchen level with the street door--Larder and
+store-room--The dresser--Kitchen in the Swiss style--Herbs in the
+window--Hygienic value of aromatic plants--Polished sink--Earthenware
+scrap-dish--Nothing but ashes in dust-bin--Soap-dish--Plate-rack--
+Kitchen cloths--Few cleaning materials necessary--Hand work better
+than machine work--Washing at home--Knife-cleaning--Fuel-box--No work
+in the kitchen unfit for a lady to do                              68
+
+THE LADY-HELP.
+
+True position of a lady-help--Division of work in a family--The mother
+the best teacher--Marketing--Young lady-helps--Luncheon--Early dinners
+for children--Recreation--Preparing the late dinner--Evening tea--The
+lady-help a gentlewoman--Her assistance at breakfast--Her spare time--
+Tact                                                               88
+
+THE DINING-ROOM.
+
+Carpets and curtains--Picture hanging and frames--Distemper colouring
+for cornices--Oval dining-table--Sideboard for breakfast service--
+Beauty of English porcelain--A London dining-room--Giulio Romano's
+banquet--Growing plants--The large sideboard--Dinner-service--Styles
+of dinner--Food in due season--Gracefulness of flowers and fruits--
+Fresh fruit better than preserves--Communication between kitchen and
+dining-room--Remarks on plate--Table decorations                  103
+
+THE DRAWING-ROOM.
+
+Social pressure--Agreeable evening parties--Troubles of party-giving--
+Musical parties--Flowers on a balcony--Window-gardening--Crowded
+drawing-rooms--The library or study--Gas, candles, and candlesticks--
+Original outlay on furniture--Different styles of furniture--Raffaelesque
+decorations--Carpets, curtains, and chair coverings--Portieres--Window
+blinds--Rugs--Care required in buying furniture--Ornaments--Dusting--
+Chiffoniers useless--Portfolio stand--Mirrors                     127
+
+BED AND DRESSING ROOMS.
+
+Ventilation--Window curtains and blinds--Bedsteads--Spring mattresses
+--Towels--Danger of fire at the toilet--Mantelpiece--Pictures and
+frames--Superfluous necessaries--Taine's criticisms--Aids to reading in
+bed--Service of the bath--Improvements in washstands--Arranging the
+rooms--Attics made beautiful--Sick-rooms--Neatness--Disinfectants--
+Chlorine gas--Condy's solution--Filters--Invalid chairs--Generous
+efforts of the medical profession to improve the national health  155
+
+THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
+
+To what age should boys' and girls' education be alike?--Accomplishments
+fruitlessly taught--Nursery and school-room government--Helplessness
+--Introduction to society--The convent system--Unhappy results--
+Scientific education--Geometrical illustration--Religion--Professional
+life for women--Home training--Varied knowledge--Companionship of a
+mother--Experience--Kindness--Truth                               182
+
+SUNDAY.
+
+Children's Sundays made wearisome--Sunday precious to workers--Moral
+workers--Moral vices--Our gifts--Misuse of them--Necessary work on
+Sunday--Diminished by management--Sunday prevents us living too
+fast--The rest must be earned--Sunday repairs the human machine   202
+
+
+
+
+HOUSEHOLD ORGANIZATION.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIFFICULTY.
+
+Impossibility of getting good servants--Over-civilization--Labour has
+been made hideous--Sleeping partnership--Wealth exempt from this
+difficulty--Refinement of the professional class--Credit--Phase of
+insecurity and scarcity--Sweet are the uses of adversity--English
+people do not fear work--Servants too readily changed--Wilfulness of
+servants--Upper servants are easily obtained--Servants feel the
+pressure of the times--Ornamental servants costly luxuries--Two
+questions--Work must be efficiently done--Woman's work--Misuse of
+time--We keep servants to wait upon each other--Idleness--Pleasure
+made a toil.
+
+
+For a long time past we, the middle-classes of England, have felt a
+great household perplexity, one which has been a daily burden to us
+all. This is the difficulty, almost impossibility, of getting good
+servants.
+
+Machinery, though it has lightened other branches of labour and
+cheapened production, has not helped us much here. Social science has
+been deeply studied, but nothing practical has yet been brought to bear
+upon this vexed question. The theories are good, the projected reforms
+better; but so far there is nothing that people of average intellect,
+and moderate income, can take hold of and apply to their own case.
+During the late plethora of wealth throughout the nation, we have so
+multiplied our wants, and so refined upon the ruder social ideas of the
+early part of the century, that our servants have not been able to keep
+pace with our requirements; and notwithstanding that the lower orders
+have much more careful education than they had formerly, it seems to be
+of a sort which makes them discontented with their work, rather than
+instructing them how to do it better.
+
+In fact, we have degraded labour by making it hideous, by pushing it
+into holes and corners, by shrinking from it ourselves, and casting it
+entirely into the hands of the lower orders; until we English are
+virtually divided into a contemplative and a working class. This would
+be all very well if it were true that our class could afford to pay
+liberally for work done well; but, in effect, the majority of those who
+wish to be relieved from work cannot pay liberally for hired labour,
+neither can the bulk of the labouring class perform their part of the
+bargain in a manner deserving liberal payment.
+
+We have tried to keep ourselves as sleeping partners in the domestic
+concern; we have derived profit from our money invested in service, and
+we find that this is no longer a profitable investment. There is a
+large wealthy order exempt from these difficulties. By having ample
+means of recompense, it has the flower of service at its command, and
+the domestic economy of the mansions of England is perfect. Under
+steward and housekeeper, this may be compared to the beautiful system
+seen on board a large ship of war, for discipline, routine, and
+celerity of service. In both instances the reverse of the shield shows
+the injurious effects on the lower ranks of a large proportion of
+unoccupied time, spent in merely waiting for their hours of duty.
+
+The suggestions I have to offer are not required by this wealthy
+class--the upper ten thousand, as they are popularly called, whose
+incomes range among the four and five figures; but help seems to be
+much needed by the upper twice ten hundred thousand who have incomes
+described by three figures, and who yet, by good birth, breeding, and
+education, form the backbone of England; whose boys, though only
+home-boarders at Eton, Harrow, and Rugby, fill all the other large
+schools of Great Britain, and whose daughters are the flowers of our
+land.
+
+Of late years England has been passing through a period of unexampled
+prosperity, so much so as to make the customs of wealth a familiar
+habit with even those who only possess a competence. To them the
+domestic difficulty is very great, since they exact from inferior
+servants the quality of service that can only be obtained from the best
+trained of their order. This occasions disappointment and irritation.
+The people whose means are inadequate to the gratification of their
+tastes belong mainly to the professional classes, whose brain-work most
+demands repose at home; yet these are, beyond all others, perplexed by
+the increasing toils and troubles of home life. They find that a
+struggle which should be peace, and so the whole machinery of their
+lives is thrown out of gear.
+
+This upper working-class is so occupied by endeavours to make the
+fortune, or, if not fortune, at any rate to make both ends meet--which
+has been denied them by birth or accident--that they have no time nor
+energy left to think these things out for themselves. So they go on
+bearing the yearly increasing load piled upon them by the tyranny of
+fashion, of custom, or by their wish to keep up their credit in the
+eyes of the world; for their credit is in many cases their fortune, and
+it must be upheld at any sacrifice. A question occurs to many: Is this
+credit best maintained by outward appearances, or is it more firmly
+secured by seeming strong enough to dispense with artificial support?
+And, again, Is our money credit the best we can have?
+
+A man of known wealth may go about in a shabby coat, a countess may
+wear a cheap bonnet, a Sidonia may dine off bread and cheese. If
+Gladstone fells trees, he is still Gladstone; if Ruskin grubs up a
+wood, he is still a great poet.
+
+Without becoming mere _dilettanti_, may we not enjoy a reputation
+for taste, and so allow ourselves to be heedless of a few of the
+conventional proprieties of life; as a tree rises above the level of
+the grass? May we not strive, by the culture of our manners and
+discourse, to make our simpler social entertainments as highly prized
+as the feasts of our richer neighbours? The years of prosperity have
+passed away, and we seem to have entered upon a phase of society when
+scarcity and insecurity overwhelm or threaten us all; when the wealth
+of yesterday has crumbled into dust, the paper money shrivelled as if
+it had been burnt. We still have the same high culture, the tastes and
+feelings of yesterday; and unfortunately, the same habits of Idleness,
+Helplessness, Waste, and Luxury.
+
+These are hard charges to bring against the cream of a nation which for
+centuries has held its own by its energy, abundance of resource,
+strength of character, and scorn of effeminacy; but it is impossible to
+deny that these characteristics of the British race have been much less
+strongly marked of late years. Still, these things are in our nature,
+and we must not weakly let ourselves decline from our former high
+standard.
+
+Let us, at the outset of our adversity, meet our altered circumstances
+with the strength of mind and wisdom befitting English people. Although
+wealth may be taken from us, we have our education and energy left,
+which, if properly used, will not allow us to sink into a lower
+condition than we have hitherto enjoyed; and while we hold our ground
+we shall strengthen our health, develop our ability, and increase our
+happiness.
+
+Let us, the women of England, encourage and support the men in an
+endeavour to return to simplicity of life, to a more manly condition;
+call it Spartan, Roman, republican, what you will, it is, in fact, the
+training of soul and body. We have had a long holiday; let us return to
+school with renewed vigour. We women have been much to blame for the
+degeneracy which has been felt of late. If men trifle away their time
+and health upon tobacco, women are foolishly helpless, and they permit
+their dependents to be wantonly wasteful. Both men and women pass the
+best hours of daylight in their beds, and make their meals the
+important event of their days.
+
+Englishmen abroad do not mind work--indeed, they may be said to love
+it--and never since the days of Drake have they felt it to be a
+degradation. He said "he would like to see the gentleman that would not
+set his hand to a rope and hale and draw with the mariners;" and herein
+the English differ from continental nations. But in England they let
+their love of bodily exertion have its scope almost exclusively in
+their games. Nor do Englishwomen in the Colonies shrink from work, and
+they are never in the least ashamed of it. You hear them talk quite
+freely of how Colonel So-and-so called in the morning while they were
+"stuffing the veal," to ask for the two first dances at the ball at
+Government House in the evening.
+
+It seems to be only in England that we dread to be seen doing anything
+useful. And unless we soon cast off this fear we shall be condemned to
+the deadly-liveliness of Hotel Companies (Limited), with their
+uninteresting routine; for the supply of servants not being forthcoming
+at our price, we must of necessity be reduced to this levelling
+American system, which will flatten all individuality out of us.
+
+One cause of the ever-increasing difficulty of holding a staff of
+servants well in hand is that our connection with them is too easily
+changed or dissolved at pleasure. We should bear ourselves very
+differently towards each other if we knew we were compelled to live
+together during even one year certain. As the case now is, we do not
+get to know each other, and a small trial of temper on either side is
+the prelude to a change. The old patriarchal feeling of considering the
+servants as members of the family has quite died out, and so their
+relation to us has become confused. At times we rate them with the
+tradespeople who come periodically to polish our bright stoves, clean
+our chandeliers, and wind our clocks, and so we only care whether they
+do their specified work well or ill, taking no further trouble about
+them; sometimes we treat them as the horses which draw our carriage,
+and see that they are well fed accordingly; and sometimes we look upon
+them as machines merely.
+
+We hear it said, servants do not take the interest in their places that
+they used to do; they are ready to leave you on the smallest
+provocation; they will not be told how to do any particular thing; they
+have their way, and if you do not like it, well, they think your place
+will not suit them. Indeed, one of the most docile and obliging among
+the servants I have known, on differing with his employer about some
+work in which he was engaged, said, "Well, I'll do it a little bit your
+way, and a little bit my way; and that will be fair, won't it, mum?"
+
+It is easy enough to get servants of the superior
+grades--ladies'-maids, parlour-maids, and even house-maids, where two
+footmen are kept; but is there such a being as a really good plain
+cook, or has a servant-of-all-work been heard of lately? Although it is
+truly said that servants themselves are beginning to feel the pressure
+of the times, this is not from their actual losses by money-market
+panics, but from the fact that many domestics are out of place on
+account of those families who have met with losses dispensing with
+unnecessary assistance. But that does not ease our case, for we are
+none the less helpless and dependent. Although many upper servants are
+out of place, this does not make them seek our situations; and if they
+did so, they would do us a positive injury by bringing into our houses
+the habits of wealthier families. The reduction of wages, and lack of
+suitable situations in England, will cause these unemployed servants to
+seek in emigration the high wages they are still secure of in the
+Colonies, or in America. There they will be a godsend, and they may
+reasonably look forward to establishing themselves permanently and
+happily.
+
+Independently of the collapse of foreign securities and the general
+depression of trade, the increased cost of all necessaries makes it
+impossible to many of us to allow ourselves luxuries, of which the most
+costly are ornamental servants; and the difficulty of obtaining any
+others makes it incumbent on us to put our own shoulders to the wheel,
+and try by diligent self-help to solve some of the problems which so
+miserably defy us to find a practical answer.
+
+In this consideration of the subject of domestic work in middle-class
+households, I hope to show in what way the mistress may be rendered
+more self-reliant, and how the master's purse may be spared the
+perpetual drain the present system entails upon it at both ends, and
+from every mesh.
+
+This is but a fraction of a vast subject, yet it is in itself so large,
+and stretches out into such a variety of kindred topics, that it is
+difficult to compress it into a form small enough to be easily handled,
+and still more difficult to make suggestions of reform generally
+palatable, since many vanities must be hurt by a proposal to reduce
+establishments, and sensitive feelings wounded by the bluntness of two
+direct practical questions--
+
+1st. Must the great majority of our young ladies be elegant
+superfluities?
+
+2nd. Must we keep many servants to wait upon each other?
+
+These questions I hope to answer usefully in the following pages.
+
+We must begin with the understanding that in every house there is work
+to be done, and that somebody must do it. Our aim will be to reduce its
+compass, and to do what remains in the cheapest and pleasantest way.
+But it must be efficiently done, which is seldom the case when young
+ladies play at housekeeping, which too often means giving out the
+pepper, and such like. We have long shrunk from allowing our women to
+work at all. Husbands and fathers have taken a pride in keeping the
+ladies of their households in that state of ease that no call need be
+made on them to lift a finger in the way of useful work; so that if
+reverses befal them, their condition is deplorable indeed.
+
+Now we are turning round and insisting upon every woman being able to
+support herself by her own exertions. Though a great part of woman's
+natural work has been taken out of her hands by machinery, this, which
+is mainly the preparation of clothing, was the occupation of her
+uncultivated leisure, and did no more than fill up the time which we
+now devote to culture. By retreating from our active household duties
+we now divide our time between culture and idleness, or the union of
+both in novel-reading.
+
+For many years conscientious teachers tried to drive us to household
+work by calling it our duty: a dull name, sternly forbidding us to find
+pleasure or interest therein. It was a moral dose of physic, salutary
+but disagreeable. In the same way we were taught to make shirts and
+mend stockings, but an evening dress was held to be frivolity. Taste
+was discouraged, and beauty driven out of our work; no wonder, then,
+that the young and careless shunned it altogether, and threw as much of
+it as they could into the hands of hirelings. Is there no way of
+teaching duty without making it repulsive by its dreariness and
+ugliness?
+
+Now that we pride ourselves upon being no longer weak-minded and silly,
+let us exert ourselves to act upon Lord Bacon's maxim, "Choose the life
+that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable." We
+need not fear that the routine of daily handiwork--which will become
+interesting to us as we try to make it agreeable--will interfere with
+our further intellectual culture. And even should it do so, are not our
+leaders of thought beginning to perceive that manual labour is more
+commercially valuable than mental labour; that the demand for the
+former is greater as the supply becomes perceptibly less? The deadness
+of machine work causes us to prize the spirited and varied touch that
+can only be imparted by the hand. Every woman, among her acquaintance,
+knows some one who is a skilful, energetic manager of her house, and
+yet whose reading and accomplishments are above the average. Indeed, as
+I heard one of my friends of this stamp say, when asked how she found
+time for so much sketching from nature, "One always finds time for what
+one likes to do."
+
+We see what priceless possessions we lose by our misuse of time, or
+waste of it in inanities, when we look at the embroideries and other
+work of our ancestresses, and compare these with the poor results of
+our months and years. We see splendid embroideries of the time of
+Titian, with the needlework still strong enough to outlast all our
+nonsense in "leviathan stitch" and "railroad stitch;" and old lace, by
+the side of which our work of mingling woven braids and crochet in such
+a manner as to get most show for the least cost of taste, labour, and
+invention, is worth nothing at all.
+
+With regard to my second question--Must we keep many servants to wait
+upon each other?--I will here make one observation.
+
+The heaviest part of the work of a cook and kitchen-maid consists in
+preparing the kitchen meals. Six servants require as many potatoes
+peeled, and as many plates, knives, forks, etc., cleaned, as six ladies
+and gentlemen. Multiply their five meals a day by six, and you will
+find that there are thirty plates, knives, forks spoons, cups or
+glasses, and many other things, to be laid on the table, used, washed,
+and put away again, at a computation of only one plate to each meal.
+
+Think of the time alone consumed in this, and the breakage; and this
+merely in the meals.
+
+I am not considering the houses which require a complement of ten
+servants to keep their machinery in motion, as these do not form part
+of my subject; but this slight calculation will enable us to form some
+estimate of the cost of maintaining a large retinue.
+
+We may well ask why we have drifted into this enormous expenditure, and
+for what purpose we have gradually let our houses be filled up by a
+greedy and destructive class, who, notwithstanding many bright
+exceptions, seem to combine the vices of dirt, disorder, extravagance,
+disobedience, and insolence. Why, indeed? For this simple reason, that
+we are idle. Gloss it over as we may, by calling it a desire to secure
+time for higher ends, the truth remains the same; we have neglected our
+duty in order that we may live in idleness and devote ourselves to
+pleasure. But if our lives are to be spent in pleasure, we shall
+ourselves degenerate; for pleasure wears out the body more than work,
+and excitement more than both. Let us take our appointed burden of
+steady work, and bear it onwards cheerfully and patiently. By so doing
+we shall feel it grow gradually lighter. It is not such slavery as the
+oar to which we chain ourselves. The artificial strain on our lives
+must be kept up by stimulants, and idleness must be roused by
+excitement. But our routine of gaiety is no idleness; and as for its
+name--gaiety--there never was a term more false. The gaiety is a hollow
+mockery, masking fatigue, untruth, and disappointment.
+
+Sidney Smith says, "One of the greatest pleasures of our lives is
+conversation." If we will simply allow ourselves to talk upon subjects
+of common interest, we shall find social gatherings less wearisome than
+when we have to manufacture small-talk for civility's sake alone. If we
+meet together for enjoyment instead of for display, we shall replace
+dissipation--mere dissipation of time (what an endeavour for mortals,
+whose time is their life!)--by gaiety of heart, which is the best
+restorative to wearied spirits.
+
+Let us Englishwomen make a strong effort to rescue ourselves from this
+bondage, this constant drain on our resources; and, leaving to men the
+duty to the state, let us seek our work in what is our duty--the rule
+and guidance of the house, securing, as Ruskin says, "its order,
+comfort, and loveliness."
+
+But especially must we insist upon its loveliness, which is the point
+most neglected in all that portion of our lives which does not lie
+immediately upon the surface.
+
+
+
+
+THE REMEDY.
+
+Bad habits to be reformed--Late hours--Value of the long winter
+evenings--Simplicity of manners--Over-carefulness--Instruction to be
+gained from foreign nations--Our manners should be natural--_Impedimenta_
+in our households--Comparison of former times with our own--Children
+trained to habits of consideration--Young men and boys over-indulged
+--Reduction of establishments--Lady helps--What is menial work?--
+Picturesque occupation--What is lady-like--Amateur millinery--Two
+subjects for an artist--Taste--Plan of the book--Eugenie de Guerin.
+
+
+Before speaking of work which has to be done in order to make our homes
+comfortable and beautiful, it is necessary to point out what ought not
+to be done.
+
+We have fallen into one form of self-indulgence which goes far towards
+unfitting us for work, except under the stimulus of excitement. This is
+our national habit of keeping late hours.
+
+This is an important matter, and one wherein every member of every
+family may, if he pleases, aid reform. This, unless we are printers,
+bakers, or policemen, is entirely in our own hands.
+
+Later hours are kept in England than in any other part of the world,
+and they grow later and later. We read in the life of the Prince
+Consort how painfully he felt this difference between England and
+Germany; yet the latitude and climate of the two countries differ but
+little, and we are of the same race. It is merely a matter of custom.
+
+Many persons pride themselves on breakfasting at ten o'clock, and nine
+is thought quite an early hour in comfortable houses. It is deemed
+aristocratic to breakfast late, as well as to dine late; and as the day
+begun at ten o'clock would be too short for people to have a probable
+chance of sleep at ten at night, they are obliged to sit up till after
+midnight. Thus the best hours of the day are wasted, and the health of
+many injured by remaining an unnecessary length of time in a gas or
+paraffin laden atmosphere.
+
+This shows an astonishing contrariety of disposition on the part of
+persons of refined sensations, so completely does it reverse the order
+of nature, which gives us the early sunshine for our enjoyment. Sunrise
+is the only beautiful natural spectacle that we modern English do not
+care about, except once or twice in our lives, when we get a shivering
+glimpse of it from an altitude of many thousand feet above the level of
+the sea.
+
+From six to six is the natural day throughout by far the largest half
+of the globe, and the nearer we bring our practice to this measure the
+better; taking our day of sixteen hours (two-thirds of the twenty-four)
+from six o'clock in the morning instead of from nine. Old folks in the
+country ask their young people what is the good of sitting up burning
+out fire and candle. We never ask ourselves this question in London.
+Many persons take a nap after their heavy dinner, and only begin to
+feel lively as the clock strikes ten. To these the midnight oil is
+invigorating.
+
+We have a valuable provision of nature in our long winter evenings,
+reckoning them at from five till ten. This gives us time for study,
+which we need more than do southern nations, to learn to contend
+against our climate. The northern peoples are famed for their mental
+culture: Scotland and Iceland bear witness to this. This is the season,
+too, for work in wool, to provide warm garments which are not required
+in the south. The wise woman does not fear the cold when her household
+is clothed in scarlet. This is the time when we may gather round the
+lamp or the fireside, and draw closer the family links under the
+influence of social warmth and progress.
+
+Simplicity in our meals and dress is another point in which we may
+unite economy of money, time, and trouble, with comfort to ourselves
+and a regard for the beautiful. We need not drift into the carelessness
+of the picnic style of living, which is but the parody of simplicity.
+The real picnic is only suited to a few exceptional days in the year,
+and these our holidays. We may have simple meals indoors which should
+have all the freedom of picnic without its inconveniences.
+
+Do we not all remember Swiss breakfasts with pleasure: the
+thyme-flavoured honey, and the Alpine strawberries? Or, better still,
+those at Athens, where the honey of Hymettus is nectar, and the freshly
+made butter ambrosia; and our enjoyment of both was enhanced by the
+scent of the orange blossoms coming in at the open windows, and the
+sight of sunrise glowing on the purple hills? Or luncheons in Italy,
+under a pergola of vines, where a melon, macaroni, a basket of grapes,
+and a tricolour salad constituted the feast?[1]
+
+      [1] The tricolour salad imitates the Italian banner--red, white,
+      and green. Green salad, beetroot, and cream, or white of egg
+      whipped to snow.
+
+These things dwell longer in our memories than does the aldermanic
+banquet.
+
+Although every faculty need not be swamped in the gratification of the
+palate, our meals ought to give us pleasure. It is only when they are
+made of supreme importance that the satisfaction of a healthy appetite
+degenerates into mere greed, and what we call housekeeping means merely
+thinking of dinner.
+
+Simplicity allows play (not work) to our higher faculties, which cannot
+be refreshed while we are overwhelmed with domestic cares.
+
+"Martha was cumbered about," not with serving, but with too much
+serving. Doubtless, in the fulness of her hospitality, she tried to do
+too much, and so she showed irritability. Our Lord's teaching is always
+that there are good things prepared for us, which we cannot attain if
+we are over-careful and troubled about provision for the body.
+
+There are roses in life for those who look for roses, if they will but
+give themselves time to gather them.
+
+We may study with instruction and profit to ourselves the daily habits
+of foreign nations, and see where they fail, and also wherein they
+excel us.
+
+M. Taine has put into words an observation which must have occurred to
+all of us who have travelled, how that "from England to France, and
+from France to Italy, wants and preparations go on diminishing. Life is
+more simple, and, if I may say so, more naked, more given up to chance,
+less encumbered with incommodious commodities."
+
+From Italy we may go on to Arabia, and there see how little is used to
+keep the body in health. A woollen garment, warm enough to sleep in the
+open air (we cannot say out of doors where there are no doors), and
+thick enough to keep off the scorching rays of the sun by day, and a
+thin shawl for the head, is all their clothing; and the simplest meal
+once a day seems to be enough to keep them strong and active. Arabs
+have walked or run by my horse during whole days in the heat of the
+sun, and lived upon air until sundown, when they seemed to eat nothing
+but a little parched corn before stretching themselves down to sleep.
+It is not customary, even among the upper classes in Southern Europe
+and in the East, to eat more than two meals a day.
+
+Liebig tells us of the nutrition of plants from the atmosphere: we may
+go further, and proclaim the nutrition of man from the atmosphere. On
+the moorland, on the mountain side, at sea, and in the desert, I have
+over and over again felt its feeding properties; and we know that
+although we are, in such circumstances, hungry for our meals, we are
+not at all exhausted, nor do we want to feed frequently.
+
+As the leaves of a plant absorb the carbon in the air and give back the
+oxygen, so do we feed upon the oxygen and return the nitrogen. But we
+must have the oxygen. By our own present system of frequent heavy meals
+we throw all the hard work done by our bodies entirely upon the
+digestive organs, and when these are exhausted with their efforts, we
+feel faint, and mistakenly ply them with stimulants and concentrated
+nourishment, until at last they break down under their load.
+
+But leaving the Arabs, who are types of a high race in a natural
+(uneducated) condition, may we not learn much from more civilized
+nations?
+
+Besides taking example by the early hours of the Germans, we may
+imitate their industry, and, in our studies, their thoroughness and
+diligence of research.
+
+From the bright, elastic French people we may (we women especially)
+copy their cheerfulness, frugality, and their keen, clear-headed habits
+of business. See how diligent they are at accounts, how quick at
+estimates, in ways and means; how they sharpen their wit, until it
+shines and makes their society sought as we in England seek a clever
+book. The Frenchwoman works the machinery of her own house, goes into
+the market and fixes the market-price of what she decides upon as
+suitable to her purposes (she always has a purpose, this Frenchwoman);
+she dresses herself and her children with taste, and she glitters in
+society.
+
+From the Spaniards we may learn, by the warning of a proud race, what
+it is to sink into the scorn of other countries through smoking and
+debt.
+
+From the Dutch we may learn cleanliness, from the Swiss simplicity, and
+from the Italians to foster our patriotism. Our American cousins are
+part of our own family; they only differ from us in having carried our
+virtues and some of our follies into the superlative.
+
+We should endeavour to be natural in all our doings: to be ourselves,
+and not always acting a part, and that generally the part of a person
+of rank, or a millionaire. Let whatever we do be openly done, though
+not obtrusively nor boastfully; and this whether it is ornamental or
+only useful. To be truly ornamental it must combine utility. Is not the
+flower as useful as the leaf?
+
+As an example of what I mean, I will give two opposite instances. A
+young lady was making the bodice of a dress when a visitor called; she
+quickly pushed the work under a sofa pillow, and caught up a
+gold-braided smoking-cap, half worked at the shop, which had lasted a
+long time as a piece of show-needlework.
+
+The other case is that of a lady who set up for an example to her sex,
+and always displayed, as a manifestation of superiority, a basket full
+of gentlemen's stockings, which she seemed to be ever mending. Both of
+these ladies were acting a part.
+
+Good taste has no false shame; so we need not add the vexations of
+concealment to the accumulation of cares we have heaped upon our
+houses, till they are so encumbered with _impedimenta_ of all kinds
+that our whole strength is taken to keep them in order, and the
+household machine has to move through such a mass of difficulties that
+it is like a loaded carriage lumbering through a Turkish road. Why
+should we add these things to life?
+
+We are daily bringing mechanism to greater perfection, and it is our
+own fault that we do not make it perform for our houses what Manchester
+has made it do for our looms, and render ourselves mistresses in
+reality, instead of merely in name, of our own households.
+
+If we had to go back to the old flint-and-tinderbox days, when it was
+an hour's hard work in the dark to strike a light, when gas was
+unknown, when water was not laid on, when all bread must be made at
+home, all stockings knitted; when there was no such thing as a ready
+made shirt, much less gowns and polonaises; no perambulators, nor
+washing machines;--we should not heap upon ourselves superfluous work
+in the thoughtless way we do at present, and then leave all to the
+attention of the most careless and irresponsible members of the
+community.
+
+In a small family there is less work to be done; in a large one there
+are more hands to do the work, and many hands make light labour.
+
+We would have no mistress of a family a household drudge, while her
+daughters lounge over fancy-work or a novel; but we would ease her
+hands, and uphold her in her true position of administratrix,
+mainspring, guiding star of the home.
+
+Modern educational pressure causes too many of us to indulge our
+children, and release them from every personal duty. They must have
+time and quiet for their studies, and so they are allowed to become
+selfish, and to think that everything must give way to their mental
+improvement. Whereas we should train them to give as little trouble as
+possible; and by good management, or by sacrifices, such as getting up
+earlier, to do at least the extra work appertaining to their individual
+enjoyment. Why should they, for instance, require hot water brought to
+their rooms several times a day? Their grandparents used cold, and it
+was better for them. Why must girls have their hair brushed and braided
+for them? Why must their lost gloves be found for them, and their
+wardrobes tidily arranged for them to throw into confusion in their
+hurry?
+
+Boys, especially, are so seldom trained to habits of consideration,
+that a young man in a house gives at least twice the trouble that his
+father does. Boys ring bells with intense heedlessness of its being
+some one's journey--oftener four journeys--to answer them. They make
+their boots unnecessarily dirty, and their other clothes also; while
+the extra baths on football days, and the cleansing of the white
+garments, make many mothers wish the noble game were not so popular;
+and to sweep up the dirt the boys bring into a house often constitutes
+the chief work of a housemaid. We do not expect boys to mend their
+clothes, but they should be made to put them away, and to keep their
+books, papers, and toys in their proper places, and to take care of
+their own pets.
+
+We excuse young men from doing these things, instead of smoking or
+novel-reading through the whole of their spare time, on the plea that
+they work at money-making, forgetting that they do so for themselves,
+and not, like their father, for the family benefit. We might reform
+these things materially, and remove much of the self-indulgence which
+causes what has been truly called "the shame of mixed luxury and misery
+over our native land." If we all habitually gave less trouble, we
+should require fewer servants to wait upon us.
+
+There is a scarcity of good working servants, while the governess
+market is largely over-stocked. How many thousand of the poorest
+subjects of our Queen are now sinking, sick with hope deferred, into
+despondence, hating the present, dreading the future.
+
+And yet on all hands we hear our lady friends say, "We must all wait
+upon ourselves now." The impossibility of finding the average of three
+servants for every house in London being now recognized. Why need there
+be three servants to every house, when servants are the greatest drain
+to the fortune of a family, worse even than the dress and society of
+its lady members, or than the tobacco of the men?
+
+With study, and application of modern inventions, the three servants
+might be reduced to two; the two-servant-power establishments might
+dispense with one; and in many families where only one servant is kept,
+a lady-help would be found more useful, as well as more ornamental,
+than the "dolly-mop."
+
+Trade is bad, and many young women, such as lace-makers, seek service.
+But being of the lower orders does not necessarily make them efficient
+servants, not more so than young ladies who have never learnt household
+work.
+
+The existing puzzle is how to utilize the lady-help, for we must always
+bear in mind that she is a lady. She must not be merely ornamental,
+nor may we expect her to do anything menial. And here we must
+distinguish--this indeed is the great point for distinction--what is
+menial and what is not, and then see if we can reduce the number of
+works considered menial.
+
+When we read of Marie Antoinette's delightful playing at work at the
+Trianon, and think of her in her bewitching costume, her work, the
+work she supposed herself to be doing, is placed in the region of
+picturesque poetry; as Tennyson's gardener's daughter, training her
+wreaths over the porch, is as poetical a personage as his pensive
+Adeline or stately Eleonoere.
+
+We hear that the daughters of Queen Victoria take pride in, and give
+personal attention to, their dairies, and love to work among their
+gardens and model farms. And the Prince Consort designed model cottages
+for the poor in which it would be bliss to dwell, only it is
+impracticable to make the poor endure novelties in domestic life. Why,
+then, should we alone think it improper, unlady-like, and what not, to
+study these every-day utilities, and plan improvements in sinks and
+boilers?
+
+But things are not so bad as they were thirty and forty years ago, as
+regards what is lady-like and what is not. We are emancipated from the
+thraldom of its being considered genteel to be idle, and interesting to
+be helpless, unable to dress ourselves, or tie our own bonnet-strings
+without the assistance of our maid. In my young days we always had to
+wait for a maid to come and hook our dresses; we should not endure this
+now.
+
+The favourite story of the Queen always putting away her own bonnet,
+and folding up the strings(!) helped much in sweeping away this
+fanciful gentility. Since the introduction of the sewing-machine, made
+as a piece of furniture fit for a lady's sitting-room, ladies have been
+less ashamed to be seen making their own dresses; and every girl now,
+of any pretension to taste, twists up her silk, tulle, and ribbons,
+mingling them in hats and bonnets with flowers or feathers, the most
+graceful objects in creation, until her skill produces a thing of
+beauty which is a joy throughout the summer.
+
+What artist would desire a more charming subject for his picture than a
+pretty girl before her glass, trying in which position these delicate
+gauds best become the face they will adorn. It is holding nature up to
+the mirror. Yet some years ago girls were ashamed of a home-made
+bonnet, because their careful elders taught them it was more virtuous
+to make shirts than to cultivate their taste. The consequence was they
+were obliged to pay some guineas for a bonnet, as amateur millinery was
+a tissue of horrors.
+
+The cooking-schools are helping us in another useful branch of
+housewifery. Here again woman's work is being raised out of the dulness
+of the "Berlin repository" into an atmosphere in which all the senses
+may revel. Smell and taste are here perfectly satisfied, and here we
+offer another picture for our imaginary artist--or perhaps the beholder
+may be a lover.
+
+What more captivating sight than the girl of his heart deftly moving
+about among bright pots and kettles, and delicious bits of blue and
+other ware, gleaming among the copper stewpans? Dutch tiles all round
+the stove, and everything as picturesque as in a Friesland kitchen
+(which we admire enough to go a long way to see), and the young
+housewife in a fresh and prettily worked dress of Holland or cambric,
+made short, showing her red morocco shoes, her sleeves short to the
+elbow, with a dainty bib and apron to keep her dress from soil: she
+rolling out pastry at a marble table, having by her side a graceful
+ewer of water, or fanciful milk-pot, and, in neat arrangement, quaint
+jars for jams, and pails and tubs of the carved wood which is so
+artistically made by the Norwegian peasants. But I must fill up my
+outlines further on, as I enter into detail of each department of the
+house, and show how the first steps may be made easy in the direction
+of pleasant employment which shall be both useful and economical.
+
+Do not look upon the taste and beauty of details as unimportant. They
+make up the harmony of our lives. Taste exercises a larger influence
+than we give it credit for. What makes Paris flourish? Why do we all
+enjoy it? Not for its Louvre galleries, nor for its intellectual life
+and culture most, but for its tasty shops!
+
+We will speak of the house in the following order. First, the hall by
+which we enter it from the street; then we will bring our housewife
+into the kitchen, not necessarily, nor even advisably, downstairs, but
+near the entrance-door, so that the goods brought into the house need
+not have far to travel and be lifted (which would entail fatigue)
+before they reach the scene of their transmutation; the dining-room
+will come naturally next to the kitchen, as it should be nearest in a
+topographical sense.
+
+Then we can adjourn to the withdrawing-room, and refresh ourselves with
+_jardiniere_ or conservatory before undertaking the arrangement of the
+bed-rooms and nurseries, where we pass so large a portion of our lives;
+and lastly, we will speak of the inhabitants, more particularly of the
+children. In considering the latter, we shall find the greatest benefit
+of anything I have recommended in this book, namely, that in place of
+the low-minded words and sentiments and vulgar habits of those who come
+nearest to ourselves in the society of our children, we may have a
+higher and purer association, so that the good of their future
+education will not have already been neutralized by corrupted early
+principles.
+
+By interesting occupation our young ladies will have less time for
+sentimental troubles and fancied ill-health, which is nervousness.
+Eugenie de Guerin hit the mark when she wrote, "Yes; work, work! Keep
+busy the body, which does mischief to the soul! I have been so little
+occupied to-day, and that is bad for one, and it gives a certain
+_ennui_ which I have in me time to ferment." On another occasion
+she speaks of having been writing and thinking, and then going back to
+her spinning-wheel or a book, or taking a saucepan, or playing with her
+dogs; and then she adds, "Such a life as this I call heaven upon
+earth."
+
+
+
+
+THE ENTRANCE-HALL.
+
+The evil of side doors--Difficulties with cooks--Who is to answer the
+door?--Four classes of applicants--Arrangements for trades-people
+--Visitors--Furniture of the hall--Warming the passages--Dirt and
+door-mats--The door-step--Charwomen.
+
+
+Many of the most respectable old houses in London and other large
+cities have only one street door and no area gate; and this is a great
+advantage, for of all inventions for the demoralization of households,
+the side or servant's door is the one which does its work most surely.
+There is no oversight of it; and neither master nor mistress can tell
+what is going on below-stairs, or at the back of the house, when the
+shutters are closed and the family are at dinner, or in the
+drawing-room in the evening.
+
+The side door had its origin in a pride, or false shame, which could
+not bear to see a vestige of the working of the machinery of the house,
+and in that tendency to separate the ornamental from the necessary part
+of the household economy which has worked so disastrously for us all,
+making us, first, unwilling to take a practical share in the management
+of our houses, so widening the class division between mistress and
+servant; and secondly, has thrown us into such a state of dependence
+upon our subordinates that the boldest of us dare not venture into the
+kitchen except at stated hours; and then, having received the programme
+of the proposed arrangements for the day from the cook, we are expected
+to go away and be no further hindrance to the eleven o'clock luncheon,
+which is one of the five solid meals daily required to sustain life in
+the hardships of service. Most ladies know what it is to wince under
+the sharp tongues of their cooks, who "don't like to have missuses come
+messing about in their kitchens," and their sarcasms upon "ladies who
+are not ladies," etc., etc., until many weak-minded victims retire
+before the enemy, and, giving up the vain pretence of ordering the
+dinner and examining the kitchen daily, send for the cook after
+breakfast, and get the interview over as soon as may be. It requires a
+very strong sense of duty to make one go where one is so palpably
+unwelcome, where one's most innocent looks are construed into a mean
+peeping and prying, and the least remonstrance is met by insolence.
+
+I have, as a rule, been fortunate with my servants, and of late years I
+have successfully employed foreigners, who are generally more tractable
+than English servants.
+
+I carried my point, when living in a villa near London, and locked the
+side door, retaining the key. I found great advantage in so doing on
+comparing notes with my neighbours, who told me their servants had
+threatened to leave directly there was a question of closing the side
+doors.
+
+But this is only a recommendation where servants are kept. A
+responsible supervision of young servants is quite consistent with
+allowing them due liberty. This should always be granted them, as a
+dull imprisonment is misery to the young, and then they would not
+endeavour to take it in a clandestine manner, and surreptitious
+dealings with dishonest characters outside would be avoided.
+
+To our present argument it matters little whether there be a side door
+or not, except that it affords greater facility to burglars; so we will
+treat of the principal door as the only one, because this is most
+frequently the case in town-houses where there is no area gate, and the
+use of that does not enter into our plan of proceeding at all.
+
+One of the first difficulties that presents itself to the lady wishing
+to maintain a small household staff is the opening of the front door.
+The question meets us on the threshold, who is to answer the door? Who
+will be the slave of the ring?
+
+A lady-help does not like to undertake this office, and to the mistress
+it appears still more unsuitable. But let us analyze the subject.
+
+There are four classes of people who knock at our door: the family,
+tradespeople, visitors, and casuals. The first division of the
+difficulty may be easily disposed of. The master and mistress, for
+these titles must be strictly maintained, have each a latch key; the
+rest of the family may habitually use a particular knock agreed upon
+between them, and then the person who happens to be nearest to the door
+will open it.
+
+Schoolboys and girls return at stated hours, and one is prepared for
+their appeal. For several years past my family has used four single
+knocks, which is a sign sufficiently unlike other knocks to be
+recognized immediately.
+
+The postman's knock is well known, and in families where there is no
+great eagerness to get the letters, they fall naturally into the
+letter-box, which should be made deep, and the slit large enough to
+admit the _Times_ newspaper easily.
+
+In Italy it is usual to write the word _fuori_ on a card, and stick it
+in the door when one is not at home; and in this case visiting-cards
+would also be left in the letter-box. We might adopt this method, or
+even the Temple fashion of saying when we are likely to be home again.
+
+The tradesmen are the most difficult to arrange for, and here invention
+must be called into play. Tradespeople first call for orders, and then
+with supplies.
+
+Suppose we had our doors fitted with a kind of turnstile door,
+something like the birdcage gates which used to be at the Zoological
+Gardens, only with the outside made of wood, closely fitting, so as to
+admit no draught. This, by a push, would allow the goods to be
+deposited within the door, on the table upon which the cage turns
+round. The opening should be of a size to admit a leg of mutton easily.
+The goods, once deposited, could not be removed from the outside, as
+the door only works one way.
+
+Through this opening the lady-housekeeper might give her own orders
+without their interpretation by an underling, and without being exposed
+to the public gaze, as she would be if the front door were fully
+opened, while the leg-of-mutton aperture would be sufficient for both
+parties to see to whom they were speaking. In the case of a single
+door, instead of the very general folding doors, it would be necessary
+to have the cage made to fold back, and the table to let down with
+hinges, to allow of the door being opened back against the wall; the
+table might be lowered after midday. This arrangement would also
+dispose of most of the casuals--the beggars, pedlars, and others who
+haunt our door-steps--to the entire prevention of hall robberies.
+
+And now we come to the last and most considerable division of the
+subject--our visitors; comprising relatives, friends, and strangers. If
+we lived in Arcadia, or in the Colonies, we should most likely be so
+glad to see our friends that we should joyfully run to welcome them. Or
+if we were very great people indeed, we should not mind doing as Queen
+Victoria does, going to receive them at the moment of their arrival.
+But as we are middling people, and neither shepherdesses nor queens, we
+dread being natural for fear of being thought poor.
+
+For people are very much more afraid of being thought poor than of
+being poor, seeing how often they let themselves be dragged into
+poverty by idleness and extravagance. The best remedy I know for the
+fancied difficulty of opening our door to our visitors, is to have no
+friends but those whom we are glad to see, and to begin every new
+acquaintance by putting it at once on a footing of actual fact, letting
+people understand that we try to make the best of our means, and live
+within them. Then, if they will not take us upon our own terms, we need
+not regret that they do not wish for our friendship.
+
+We shall find, in actual practice, that it makes very little difference
+to their opinion of us, if when we are at home we have the courage to
+tell them so ourselves; or if a dirty maid-servant, after an interval
+of waiting, receives their cards in the corner of her apron because her
+hands are black, and says she will go and see if "missis" is at home,
+or even if a neat parlour-maid fulfils the same office, and ushers
+visitors into a brown holland-encased room, leaving them to remark the
+time the lady of the house takes arranging her dress and her smiles
+previous to appearing.
+
+In whatsoever way the ceremonial may be performed is of importance to
+none but ourselves. The visitor forgets it immediately, only retaining
+a general impression, cheery or dismal, as the case may seem; and if we
+are nice people and our visitors nice people, according to our
+respective ideas on that subject, we shall cultivate each other's
+acquaintance all the same.
+
+It is immensely hard work to make five hundred a year look like a
+thousand. The effort to do so is seen through in an instant by a
+keen-sighted observer, and then it is ten chances to one if you get
+credit for what you really possess. It is never worth while to pinch
+and pare our everyday life for the sake of a few occasions of display.
+
+Let us now go on to consider the best fittings and furniture for the
+entrance-hall.
+
+Encaustic tiles make very good flooring for a hall, and are very easily
+cleansed with a mop or a damp cloth wrapped round a broom. A good thick
+door-mat is a great temptation to people to rub their boots well. This
+is really better than one of those delightful indoor scrapers all set
+round with brushes, which are seldom used after the first few weeks of
+their introduction. Mine is as good as new, and as highly polished, and
+I have had it for years. A couple of good door-mats are much more
+useful.
+
+It is necessary to have a stand with a large drip-dish in a corner of
+the hall, to hang up cloaks and mackintoshes, and hat-pegs of course,
+but particularly a good-sized cupboard for boots, shoes, and goloshes,
+so that the family may change them in the hall on entrance. A carved
+_bahut_, or Italian linen coffer, is very useful in a hall for children
+to keep their school and garden hats and bonnets in, the lid serving
+for a bench; but many halls, which are often merely narrow passages,
+would be inconveniently crowded by one of these rather ponderous pieces
+of furniture; besides which, they are costly.
+
+A deep bowl of Oriental china is as nice as anything for a card-dish,
+and the hall is a more appropriate place for it than the drawing-room.
+
+Where it is thought necessary to warm the house, hot-water pipes laid
+from the kitchen are as cheap as anything. If the pipes are heated by a
+separate gas-stove in the hall, they will supply hot water to the
+bed-rooms also; but it is not a healthy practice to heat the passages
+of a house: it causes the cold to be so much more felt on going out.
+Where the influence of the stove is felt in the bed-rooms it often
+prevents sleep.
+
+In many houses which are kept too close and warm the families are
+subject to constant headache, and in others to a perpetual succession
+of colds; according to their temperament requiring more oxygen, or
+their susceptibility to the sudden change from the heated to the
+outdoor air.
+
+Unpolished oak is the most usual and the best material for hall
+furniture; it is cleaned by rubbing with a little oil, which shows the
+grain and enriches its colour.
+
+One rule which in practice saves more dirt in the house than any other,
+is that no member of the family be allowed to go upstairs in
+walking-boots. I have carried out this law for some years, after having
+long been troubled by my schoolboys rushing up and down stairs with
+their dirty boots on; and the saving to my stair carpet is very
+considerable. Boys and girls do not run up and down so often, if
+compelled to exercise a little attention beforehand.
+
+But little boot blacking or brushing need be done in the house.
+Gentlemen can easily have their boots cleaned out of doors, and ladies,
+by the use of goloshes, may reduce this work for themselves to a
+minimum, many kinds of boots being much better cleaned when sponged
+over lightly than when they are brushed or blacked. Every member of the
+family may not unreasonably be expected to take care of his or her own
+boots.
+
+The door-step, or flight of steps, which is such an affliction to
+householders and such a joy to servants, may be kept sufficiently clean
+by being washed by the charwoman who comes one morning a week to do the
+scrubbing and scouring; which would be too menial--in other words, too
+public and too laborious--for any lady-help to endure.
+
+Hearthstoning the step seems a very useless practice; the grey stone
+itself is a nicer colour, and only requires a mop or a broom to keep it
+free from dirt, according to the weather. Much white dust is brought
+into the house by the daily use of hearthstone, and precious time is
+wasted in the operation.
+
+It may be well to understand, at the outset of our description of the
+work of a house, what parts of it cannot usefully or practicably be
+undertaken by women who have been gently nurtured, before discussing
+the portions which their knowledge and skill are best calculated to
+perform. For although we may by forethought reduce within a small
+compass the toilsome part of the duties, there will always remain some
+functions which it would uselessly tax a lady's valuable time and
+strength to perform. For, after all, the office of the mistress is to
+raise housekeeping to the level of the fine arts, "where the head, the
+hand, and the heart work together."
+
+Incidental mention has already been made of the charwoman; she may be
+employed for the harder work in the following manner:--
+
+The charwoman should not have her meals in the house, but she should be
+paid by the piece for certain work done; say, door-step, 1_d._ or
+2_d._, according to size and number of steps; kitchen floor, 4_d._;
+passages, according to size and requirements. Many charwomen would
+gladly undertake work on this plan, and many poor women or strong girls
+would rejoice to do a morning's work and get home early to their family
+with what would pay for their dinner.
+
+It is impossible to lay down fixed prices for piece-work, as this must
+necessarily vary with the size of houses and the habits of the owners.
+
+The charwoman can shake the heavy door-mats, and sweep out the kitchen
+flue, if the species of stove used require sweeping--and most of them
+do. She may also break the large lumps of coal into knobs of the size
+necessary for the patent ranges needing fuel of a certain size, and she
+might place the week's supply of coal in the fuel-box.
+
+It would be better in many cases to employ for this hard work a strong
+boy with a Saturday half-holiday. He could do it all quite as well as a
+woman, and much more easily; but as we find we shall be taxed for a
+man-servant if we employ any arms but a woman's, we must make the best
+use we can of the worse means, consoling ourselves with the idea that
+the woman will use the money paid better than the boy might do.
+
+
+
+
+BREAKFAST.
+
+Lighting gas-fire--Difficulty of rousing servants--Family breakfast
+--Cooking omelet--Hours of work and enjoyment--Duties of mothers and
+householders--What is included in six hours' daily work--Clearing away
+the breakfast--Bowl for washing the _vaisselles_--Ornamented tea-cloths
+--Muslin cap worn while dusting--Use of feather-brush--Cleaning
+windows--Advantages of gas-fire.
+
+
+The gas-fire is the key-note of my system of domestic economy. The
+thing most impossible for a lady to contemplate doing, unless compelled
+thereto by duty, is to get up early, and before the shutters are open
+or the household stirring, to lay and light a fire, or light one
+already laid. The thought of going to a coal-cellar, shovel in hand, to
+bring in a scuttle of coals on a winter's morning is enough to make the
+bravest shudder. It is work only suited to those who have strength and
+hard nurture.
+
+But can the most delicate woman think it a hardship to light the
+gas-stove, or tripod, in the dining-room, whereon stands an
+enamel-lined kettle ready filled overnight, or else a coffee-pot
+already full, and only waiting for the match to be struck to make it
+hot?
+
+This is less trouble than to rouse one's self at seven o'clock to ring
+the bed-room bell, which often fails to summon a sleepy maid: and few
+English servants are early risers. Those who keep foreign servants have
+greatly the advantage in this respect.
+
+Very many of us require our servants to rise and be downstairs before
+seven, as most gentlemen have to be in the city, or at their offices or
+chambers, by nine, and all schoolboys and girls at school. In the great
+majority of families breakfast must be ready punctually at eight.
+
+While the family is assembling and prayers are being read, the kettle
+is boiling, and the tripod is soon ready for eggs to be boiled upon it,
+and bacon or kidneys fried.
+
+My experience of another plan for a very comfortable every-day
+breakfast is, where a spirit lamp (methylated spirit, not petroleum)
+stands on the breakfast-table at the mistress's right hand, and from a
+plate containing eggs, butter, and some rashers of bacon, she cooks a
+savoury omelet, and fries the rashers in a small china fryingpan over
+the lamp, passing to each person the hot slices as they are done, and
+serving the omelet fizzling from the pan to all.
+
+This process of cooking only takes five minutes, and the food is ready
+to be eaten as soon as the tea is made or the coffee poured out; and it
+is a pretty and cheerful occupation while letters are being read and
+talked of, or the _Saturday Review_ cut.
+
+A few savoury herbs, such as parsley or chives, are a great addition to
+the omelet; and it is easy to chop overnight the teaspoonful that is
+sufficient for the purpose, and put it on the plate with the other
+preparations. A few slices of cold potato are easily fried when the
+bacon is taken out of the pan; the bacon fat fries them deliciously.
+The china frying pans may be bought at many shops, particularly at No.
+9, Oxford Street, London.
+
+Toast is not easily managed; but with hot rolls from the baker's,
+marmalade, honey, and potted meat or ham, on the table, a very
+substantial breakfast may be had with little trouble, and no delay in
+its preparation.
+
+We will suppose the gentlemen of the family have left the house for the
+business of the day, and the boys gone to school, and we will now,
+before continuing our description of the house and its furniture, give
+an outline sketch of the proceedings of the ladies during their
+absence.
+
+For England expects every woman to do her duty, as well as every man,
+and to prove herself a help-meet for man before pretending to rivalry.
+The division of our time given in the old lines seems to be a very
+rational one--
+
+    "Six hours to work,
+    To soothing slumber seven,
+    Ten to the world allot,
+    And all to heaven."
+
+This allows ample time for rest and enjoyment, and sets apart an hour
+for daily service in the church for all who wish to attend it.
+
+In Utopia, Sir Thomas More allots six hours a day for work to all men
+and women, and no longer; as he holds it to be important that we should
+have more time available for enjoying the living we work for, than for
+working to sustain it.
+
+We give ourselves so little enjoyment in our play, that a great man
+once said, "Life would be very tolerable if it were not for its
+pleasures." We have come to treat our play as if it were our work--and
+no wonder, since we have made it so very troublesome--and having thrown
+our appointed work upon the shoulders of other people, we now complain
+how badly they do it.
+
+We mothers have a certain work given us to do, not by man, but by our
+Maker, whose servants we are. This is to take care of our children.
+Instead of doing this, we leave them almost entirely in the hands of
+strangers, and during great part of the day we know nothing of their
+doings, nor of what they are learning or thinking.
+
+What should we say to a nurse or a governess who neglected them as we
+do, and how shall we answer for our lack of care?
+
+We householders have laid upon us the care of our houses. Yet it has
+come to be a recognized thing that we are to touch nothing in them with
+our own hands--at the utmost, we are to give our orders; and the
+wealthy among us do not even do that, but are waited upon with every
+luxury, and then sent ready-dressed into society.
+
+We are not our own, and we have little to do with the making of our
+position in life. We must accept the _status quo_ and make the best of
+it; so we may as well acquiesce cheerfully in our circumstances, doing
+as much as we can, and see if regular occupation will not make our
+hearts lighter, and help to bring back the days of Merry England again.
+
+But we have no time for preaching now, and I would not willingly give a
+sermon in any case. I only threw out that suggestion of six hours' work
+for fear you might think I meant you to be busily employed all day, and
+then you would drop the book in disgust. But go on a little longer, and
+you will find that I am less hard than the Ladies' Art-Needlework
+Society, which insists upon eight hours of close application, and far
+less hard than the Cambridge Board of Examiners, which drives you on
+night and day, leaving no time for household duties; much less for
+dancing, or picking flowers in country lanes.
+
+No; my six hours' work will include your music-practising, and your
+attentive reading for purposes of study. For unless yours be the only
+pair of feminine hands in the family, you will not find more than three
+hours occupied with household work, and part of that time will comprise
+a daily walk, a constitutional with an object, and the remaining part
+will not be disagreeable; at least, I hope not, but it will be work and
+not play.
+
+After this explanation let us return to our subject. We will take it
+for granted that there are at least two ladies at home. One, the
+lady-help or eldest daughter, for example, will dust and set in order
+the drawing-room, whilst the mistress of the house proceeds to clear
+away the breakfast somewhat after the following manner.
+
+When the coffee-pot was taken from the gas tripod to be placed on the
+breakfast-table, the kettle was refilled from a tap fixed on one side
+of the dining-room fire-place, and the water will be by this time hot
+enough to wash the cups and plates in.
+
+Immediately under the tap stands a large bowl of Delft, or other ware
+sufficiently strong for daily use, and yet ornamental or picturesque
+enough to remain always in the dining-room. Terra-cotta is a good
+material for this purpose, as the colour is always decorative to a
+room. One might have a bowl of very elegant design made at the Watcombe
+terra-cotta works. Better still, in the case of its being required to
+be movable, would be a wooden bowl of the Norwegian carved work
+manufactured by peasant artists of Thelemarken, under the direction
+of M. de Coninck, of Christiania. Some one of Minton's vases or
+_jardinieres_ would answer the purpose very well; but unless it had a
+plug and a pipe for letting off the water, like many washstands have,
+it would be heavy to lift with water in it. But a bowl with these
+fittings, placed on a fixed stand near the fire-place, would be well
+worth while taking some trouble to procure for the dining-room. It
+would be quite as ornamental, and no more expensive, than the china
+flower-pots on unsteady pedestals which are so universally popular;
+indeed, it might balance one of these on the window-side of the
+fire-place, if it were thought proper. A piece of oilcloth might be
+spread under the pedestal, if it does not stand on the varnished floor.
+
+From the sideboard-drawer will be taken a neatly folded tea-cloth,
+ornamented most probably with open work at each end, or adorned with
+colour in the style of the Russian household linen in the collection of
+the Duchess of Edinburgh, and the lady will proceed to rinse and wipe
+the breakfast cups and saucers, together with the teaspoons, milk-jug,
+and the cleaner plates, and will then lay the plates that have grease
+upon them to soak in the hot water, to which some additional hot water
+has been added.
+
+Before taking out the plates, the china which has been used at
+breakfast should be neatly arranged on, or in, the sideboard. This
+saves the trouble of carrying about trays of crockery, and the
+consequent breakage. I will describe the china cabinet as I go more
+particularly into the details of the dining-room.
+
+The remaining plates may now be wiped, and the _etceteras_ replaced,
+the cloth brushed, neatly folded, and laid in a drawer with the table
+napkins, and the fryingpan cleansed by relighting the spirit-lamp for a
+minute while some hot water bubbles in it to clean it; the towel itself
+taken away to dry, and the tea-leaves, and a small basin of eggshells
+and scraps carried into the kitchen; the raw eggshells to be used to
+wash decanters and glass, and the tea-leaves reserved for dusting
+purposes.
+
+The windows are opened and the gas fire turned out, and this important
+ceremonial of the day is at an end.
+
+By this time the drawing-room will have been dusted by the second lady,
+the week's duster being kept in a convenient drawer. The feather-brush
+is wielded as a wand by the graceful mistress of the instrument, whom I
+should recommend to wear a muslin cap to keep the dust from falling on
+her hair.
+
+These caps, when made of Swiss muslin and trimmed with a frill border
+edged with Valenciennes lace, are most becoming. They are best and
+prettiest when made in the shape of a large hair-net. A pretty bride
+used to come down to breakfast at Interlaken wearing this kind of cap,
+and other ladies at once adopted the style for wearing at their morning
+work or sketching. This was some years ago, but a good shape is always
+good.
+
+To any one unused to the mysteries of dusting, it is surprising to find
+how easily the ornaments of a drawing-room may be kept in order, and
+how well the gilt frames of pictures preserved, by a light play of the
+feather-brush every morning. The French use the _plumeau_ in nearly all
+cases where we rub with a hard duster, and with great advantage,
+especially in the case of gilding.
+
+A man or woman hired once a month will keep the windows bright; they
+are all the brighter if cleaned with newspaper dipped in cold
+water--some mordant in the printer's ink has the property of rendering
+them so--and they are the more easily wiped, having less fluff about
+them than if cloths are used.
+
+A light rub with a leather makes bright stove bars more brilliant, and
+in summer the fire-place will give very little trouble; though for
+ladies managing their own work, andirons and a wood fire will be found
+easier to keep in order, as well as being more picturesque.
+
+A gas fire, built with pumice and asbestos, lasts without needing a
+touch for three years, and though less delightful than wood or coal, is
+infinitely cleaner, and gives no trouble at all. A gas apparatus with
+four jets can be laid in any ordinary fire-place, and fitted with
+pumice and asbestos complete for seven and twenty shillings, perhaps
+for less; but that is what I have paid. And when one considers the
+saving of labour in carrying upstairs heavy scuttles of coal, besides
+the original cost of the scuttles, with the ludicrous inappropriateness
+of the ornamental varieties, the total abolition of fire-irons,
+including that absurdity seen in many houses, the supplementary or
+deputy poker, besides requiring no chimneysweep in the drawing-room at
+all, it may be thought well worth while to have a gas fire laid at
+first. The superior cleanliness and security against smoke are great
+arguments for its general use, besides the ease with which it can be
+lighted, or turned out when not wanted for use. Being in the
+fire-place, the gas finds vent in the chimney, so there is no feeling
+of closeness in the room. The disadvantage of a gas fire, in some
+people's opinion, is that it may not be poked or touched; but this is
+soon forgotten. Its appearance is like a clear fire of cinders, except
+when the sun is shining, and then it burns with a greenish tint not at
+all pretty.
+
+Breakfast cleared away, and the drawing-room neatly arranged, the beds
+have next to be made. This is done with little exertion, as modern beds
+have spring mattresses, and French wool mattresses above these which
+require no shaking; so that bed-making gives only a little exercise
+with a minimum of fatigue. Two people can make a bed with great ease,
+but as a rule I should advocate every person making his or her own bed.
+
+I must not here go into the detail of setting the bed-rooms in order,
+as this will come more properly into the description of the upper part
+of the house. So I will only suggest that if one room be cleaned each
+day, and the staircase on one day, the housework is not so heavy a task
+as it appears.
+
+
+
+
+THE KITCHEN.
+
+Parisian markets--No refuse food brought into a house--Catering in
+London--Cooking-stoves--Pretty kitchen--Underground kitchens
+objectionable--Kitchen level with the street door--Larder and
+store-room--The dresser--Kitchen in the Swiss style--Herbs in the
+window--Hygienic value of aromatic plants--Polished sink--Earthenware
+scrap-dish--Nothing but ashes in dust-bin--Soap-dish--Plate-rack--
+Kitchen cloths--Few cleaning materials necessary--Hand work better
+than machine work--Washing at home--Knife-cleaning--Fuel-box--No work
+in the kitchen unfit for a lady to do.
+
+
+Time works many changes; but will it ever bring into our English
+markets the various and neatly arranged vegetables, the bouquets of
+salad, pleasant to the eye as to the taste, the neat little joints and
+divisions of meat, the temptingly prepared poultry and game, and the
+many kinds of appetizing comestibles, which are to be found in the
+markets of Paris? There a housekeeper may amuse herself by varying her
+dinners for every day, having an embarrassment of choice between
+countless delicacies. There the fillet of beef (the undercut of the
+sirloin) is already larded for the roast; the pigeons are boned and
+prepared for the _compote_; the veal is cut in shape and beaten for the
+cutlets; the pigs'-feet are boned, stuffed, and truffled; slices of
+galantine are ready to be laid on a dish for luncheon; crayfish woo the
+_mayonnaise_; parsley and butter are waiting to be poured over potatoes
+_a la maitre-d'hotel_. There the spinach may be bought ready boiled and
+finely chopped, only needing to be warmed with its poached eggs; the
+sorrel is already picked over and cooked; the carrots are cleanly
+grown, and evenly selected, and sold with just the quantity of
+feathered green tops useful for a garnish. In fact, all is so contrived
+that the least possible refuse matter shall be brought into any house,
+so saving the labour that this entails.
+
+Nor does this trimming and spoke-shaving add to the price of the
+articles, as the surplus vegetable remains go into the ground at once,
+but little of what is uneatable being taken to the market at all; thus
+saving the cost of carriage, and paying for the little time expended in
+its removal; while in the case of meat, the purchaser finds it more
+profitable to cook only such parts as are entirely eatable, without
+letting time and fire be consumed in preparing what is always wasted.
+
+This is not a cookery-book, though when I think of how much we have to
+learn before we can make good use of our fine provisions, I feel
+tempted to branch off on this line; but the lady amateur will learn
+more by giving careful attention at the cooking-school than by reading
+many books.
+
+In London we can buy peas ready shelled, fowls ready trussed, fish
+prepared for the pot or pan, and sometimes our beans ready slit; but
+carrots must be scraped, greens washed, and turnips peeled, and apples
+also, though potatoes need not; tongues and hams may be bought boiled,
+and cakes ready baked. Still, with us much more food has to be prepared
+at home than in France, though we have this convenience--that the
+provisions are brought by the tradesmen to our doors, which is seldom
+the practice there.
+
+For general cooking, the gas tripod like that used at breakfast will
+not serve our turn, except on cold-collation days in the heat of
+summer, when cold lamb or salmon, salads and fruit, are more grateful
+than anything else.
+
+Many people dislike to have their cooking done by gas, and it is
+objectionable for roasting or broiling; still, there are such numerous
+inventions in cooking-stoves, each simpler, cleaner, and more perfect
+than the rest, that only the embarrassment of selection can cause
+hesitation in making a choice.
+
+Near a nice bright stove, placed in a recess glittering with Dutch
+tiles or Minton's artistic _plaques_, surrounded by burnished pans
+and pots of well-lined copper or brass and neat enamelled saucepans,
+the genius of the hearth presides over the mysteries of Hestia.
+
+The window, made with diamond panes mingled with a few lozenges of
+bright colour, is mostly open in summer, and wreathed with climbing
+plants--as vines, and ornamental gourds, with their curious black or
+scarlet fruit, the rich foliage intercepting the sunshine--or closed if
+it be winter, and draped in pleasant muslin. I would take great pains
+to make my kitchen the most picturesque and cheerful room in the house,
+as it is one of the most important.
+
+On no account would I use the great black beetle-trap cellar downstairs
+and underground, which strikes with dismay the greater number of young
+girls who have rushed from school into marriage, and who instantly
+become the prey of the tyrant imprisoned in that dungeon, which is too
+often also a den of iniquity.
+
+No; if obliged to have a house with one of these dismal caverns, I
+would invent some useful purpose for it; but I would not willingly
+select such a dwelling. These underground kitchens must eventually die
+out, and our children will wonder why we used such airless, lightless
+places.
+
+In a house arranged on my plan we aim upwards, not downwards. We might,
+perhaps, on wet days, let the children go to these basement rooms to
+skip or romp, as there they could not shake down the ceiling beneath
+them, as sometimes happens in upstairs play-rooms; only the rooms must
+be kept carefully whitewashed, and, as far as possible, well aired.
+
+Or the old kitchen might be fitted up with racks for guns and
+fishing-rods, and used as a smoking-room, when cosily papered, and
+carpeted with matting; and the back kitchen converted into a
+carpenter's shop with lathe and tool-chest.
+
+But our kitchen, the pride of our house, will be level with the
+dining-room and front door. It is a foolish practice to have all
+vegetables, meat, coal, etc., taken downstairs for the purpose of
+bringing them all up again.
+
+When it is impossible to spare two rooms on the ground floor for
+household use, let both kitchen and dining-room be upstairs, while the
+drawing-room might be on the ground floor. This would give no more work
+than does our present custom. But where it is possible, it is better,
+for obvious reasons, that the kitchen should be on a level with the
+street door.
+
+When the room used as kitchen is large and has two windows, one side of
+it may be partitioned off for a larder, or store closet; or if there is
+a small third room near, it may be used for these purposes. But much
+depends upon the aspect of the room and its means of ventilation. A
+town larder need not be large, as the butcher, fishmonger, etc., can
+keep the provisions far better than we can do in the best of larders. A
+pantry and scullery will be quite unnecessary in a house arranged in
+this way. Wine will be kept in the usual wine-cellar, but beer, in
+bottles or in a small cask, may be kept in the cupboard under the
+stairs which is so universal in town houses.
+
+The kitchen floor should not be carpeted; but one or two undyed
+sheepskins make comfortable mats, and are easily cleaned.
+
+The kitchen dresser may be made of the usual shape, though the cornice
+seems superfluous, as it is too high for anything but dust to rest upon
+it.
+
+Where it is thought better to do so, the old kitchen dresser may be
+brought bodily upstairs. If it is varnished and its back painted red,
+and the edges of its shelves very dark brown, with bright brass hooks
+in them, it may have bright brass handles put on its drawers, and it
+will do very well; and white or blue-and-white ware will look extremely
+well upon it.
+
+A kitchen may be very prettily fitted up in the Swiss style, with
+unpainted deal employed decoratively whenever there is a fit occasion
+for it. The back of the dresser may be made of narrow boards, each lath
+cut out uniformly in a pattern at the top, forming a band of ornament.
+The shelves will look very nice with a border of fretwork, in sycamore,
+placed either above or below their edges. They are more easily cleaned
+if the ornamental border is fastened on like barge-boarding, but this
+plan is not so well adapted for hooks.
+
+Mottoes in old English character, which is similar to the German Gothic
+type used in Switzerland, form an appropriate decoration to the cornice
+of the room.
+
+The tables and chairs must be of unpainted wood, plain, but of good
+form. All hooks and bars, or whatever cannot conveniently be made of
+wood, should be of wrought iron. This gives a good opportunity for
+having window-bars and fastenings, or even a balcony, made in
+ornamental iron work. The window-curtains will be of Swiss muslin.
+
+Oval wooden pails, with a board on one side left tall and cut out for a
+handle, made in various sizes for water, milk, etc., are as useful as
+they are suitable to the style adopted; and baskets may be made like
+those carried by the Swiss mountaineers at their backs. A cuckoo clock
+and a few hooks of chamois horn carry out the effect. Characteristic
+ornaments, such as paintings of Swiss scenery, and flowers in wooden
+frames, wood carvings on brackets, wooden bears as matchboxes, wooden
+screw nutcrackers, should be collected during visits to Switzerland;
+and a Swiss costume will be found as practically useful as any dress
+the young cook can wear, and will add a great charm and liveliness to
+the scene.
+
+But be the style adopted what it may, and it is well to exercise
+individual tastes, it need not be made expensive, or not more so than
+an ugly kitchen. Thought and care should combine to make it cheerful
+and attractive, in order that the real work to be done in it may not
+have a depressing influence: that the lady, or her assistant, may not
+pine for the greater excitement of the Row or the rink. The kitchen
+window should be well furnished with scented plants; and in case of
+having no garden, pots of parsley, mint, and thyme may be grown
+successfully on a balcony. Every house might possess its sweet basil
+plant, and every Isabella might rear it in as elegant a pot as that in
+Holman Hunt's picture. Plentiful use should be made of it in cookery;
+it is one of the best of herbs. Indeed, we too much neglect all these
+aromatic plants, the hygienic value of their fragrance alone being very
+great. Some girls might save the small fortune they now spend in
+opopanax and patchouly, by cultivating lavender and thyme for their
+wardrobes; while balm and bergamot are sweet enough to make the kitchen
+smell like Araby the Blest.
+
+China ginger-jars will be found good for preserving dried herbs for
+winter use.
+
+The sink is a very important part of the kitchen furniture. This, in
+our model kitchen, should be a shallow bath of Marezzo marble, which is
+a strong, durable composition, finely coloured. We should select it of
+a colour harmonizing with the general style of the kitchen. The sink
+must rest upon two columns, or short shafts, of the Marezzo marble,
+hollowed down the centre, to allow of the water running freely away at
+both ends of the sink, each tube being stopped by a bell-trap. It must
+stand on one side of the kitchen fire-place, so that a pipe and tap may
+readily communicate with the self-supplying boiler. There must also be
+the usual pipe to conduct cold water from the cistern.
+
+The best possible sink would be of real marble, highly polished; but
+the cost of this would preclude its use in our economical household.
+Enamelled slate would be cheaper and very good, and it would retain its
+polish better than the Marezzo marble, or japanned metal might answer
+the purpose pretty well. But doubtless a demand for such articles would
+cause Messrs. Minton's factory to produce a sink in strong glazed
+earthenware which should be finely coloured as well as elegant in form,
+making, indeed, an object as beautiful as a Roman porphyry bath. Many
+of the public washing fountains in Italy, or the south of France, would
+serve as models for this purpose. One of the most important points to
+be attended to is that it should be highly polished, as grease would be
+more easily removed from it, and it would be cleaner.
+
+Beneath the sink is the pot for scraps and refuse, of which a small
+quantity is inevitable, unless there is a garden, or poultry are kept;
+in which cases all rubbish may be turned to account, the only exception
+being fish-bones and scraps, which, under all circumstances, must be
+burned.
+
+The refuse dish should be of earthenware to match the sink, or of
+terra-cotta, glazed inside. It must be made in two compartments, one
+for usable scraps and one for waste. Each division should have a cover
+with a small air-hole in it, both covers made sufficiently heavy not to
+be upset or opened by the cat; and there must be a handle to lift it
+out once a week, or oftener, when its contents are disposed of, either
+as gift, or to some person calling for it regularly. In all economical
+families the dripping is consumed either for frying, or else clarified
+for cakes, etc. Cinders, of course, are to be sifted in the covered
+cinder-sieve, and the ashes only allowed in the dust-bin. By care on
+this point, seven-tenths of all fevers might be prevented.
+
+By the side of the sink should stand a neat towel-horse for drying the
+damp cloths; and a pretty dish made in two divisions, with a strainer
+for soap and soda, should be hung in a convenient place. This dish
+would be best made in earthenware, but it might be of carved wood in a
+kitchen fitted up in the Swiss style.
+
+A plate-rack must be above the sink, and here is great scope for
+tasteful decoration without interfering with its lightness or strength.
+A rack like those in general use would, however, be perfectly
+inoffensive, and so would our ordinary buckets and dish-tubs; but
+souvenirs of travel, such as the quaint wooden pails seen at Antwerp,
+or the brass fryingpan-shaped candlesticks at Ghent, should be eagerly
+sought, as they add much to the picturesqueness and piquant liveliness
+which are so desirable.
+
+A round towel, on a roller with nicely carved brackets, is
+indispensable. This should be of finer holland than it is generally
+made of, being for ladies' use; or it might preferably be of soft
+Turkish towelling, with coloured stripes and a fringed end, and so be
+pleasanter to the eye and touch than the ordinary jack-towel.
+
+The dresser-drawers must have their piles of kitchen cloths neatly
+folded, and separated for their different services. These should be
+the pride of the young housewife's heart, all of them having their
+ends tastefully ornamented, either ravelled out or knotted into fringe
+for the commonest, or open worked, or edged with Greek lace and
+_guipure-d'art_, according to their quality; the dusters only being
+plain, and these of two sorts, one stout for furniture, and the other
+kind of soft muslin for ornaments. Housemaid's gloves, wash-leather,
+and any favourite cleaning materials, should be kept in a drawer by
+themselves; but in my experience I have found very few of these things
+necessary. As is the case with all the arts, the more complete the
+paraphernalia, the less is the work done. It takes so long to set in
+order one's apparatus, and to play with it a little, that as soon as
+something is begun to be done, it is time to put all away again. How
+often we see this with amateur painters; they set out too heavily
+equipped.
+
+The black-lead and brush, and broken saucer full of something pulpy,
+the powder that is always falling out of its packet or bit of
+newspaper, and the other odds and ends which crowd our house-maids'
+dirty buckets, and the scrubbing brushes and hearthstone which encumber
+our sinks, are only barbarisms trying to conceal the slovenliness they
+pretend to correct. A house regularly and neatly attended to needs few
+or none of these things, while sandpaper, rotten-stone, and whiting may
+be almost entirely dispensed with. The homely old proverb should be
+remembered, when tempted by advertisements of these things,
+"Elbow-grease is the best furniture polish."
+
+Mincing-machines, apple-paring-machines, and toys of this kind, are all
+very well when ladies use them themselves; but they represent so much
+idleness, waste, and destruction in the hands of careless cooks, who
+like to sit over their letter writing, or their weekly paper, while the
+kitchen-maid does the work. And when a fragile machine breaks or gets
+out of order under her heavy hand, she only "drats the nasty thing" and
+throws away the broken part, pushing the rest aside to become a portion
+of the dreadful accumulation of lumber to be seen in every house.
+
+My own practice as a wood-carver teaches me to prefer using that
+perfect tool, the hand, in its ever adaptable way, to using it
+servilely to grind out sausages. By the time one has prepared the meat
+to feed the machine, set it in working order, and taken it to pieces
+again to clean it, one might as soon have used a sharp knife, and the
+meat would have tasted better than it does when its juice is squeezed
+out and its fibre torn to rags, so that the insipid _rissoles_ made
+from it need half a bottle of Harvey's sauce to make them eatable. It
+may be a matter of taste, but the difference seems to me as great as
+between music played on a piano and noise ground out of a barrel-organ.
+
+Washing-machines, I have found to my cost, are a failure also, at least
+in hired hands. I bought one of the best, but as I had also a
+washing-tray, the machine, warranted to do everything, was neglected,
+and its lid employed as a table; as we too often see with our pianos,
+telling thereby a tale of forgetfulness. The mangling part of the
+machine, which was sometimes used by semi-compulsion, always had its
+screw left turned on at full pressure, so that the spring would have
+been powerless in a week, had I not loosened it myself. Washing at home
+had better not be attempted in the case of ladies doing their own work.
+We want to lighten the labour of the house; since, if we endeavour to
+do too much, we shall either become household drudges, or else decline
+the work altogether.
+
+But supposing a family has time and opportunity to do the laundry work
+at home, a tablespoonful of liquid ammonia and a dessertspoonful of
+turpentine used in the washing water, where a quarter of a pound of
+soap has been finely sliced, will be found to remove dirt from the
+clothes without rubbing, saving labour, much soap, and the wear and
+tear of the things.
+
+In the case of large families, besides the greater economy of washing
+at home, which is, however, doubtful when extra labour is hired, the
+immunity from infectious diseases being brought home in the linen is a
+powerful motive for undertaking the work, and doubly so where there is
+a garden, as it is so much better for our health to wear linen dried in
+the fresh air, rather than in the small courts of the neighbourhood
+where our laundresses usually dwell, or in the close passages of their
+houses.
+
+Kent's patent knife-cleaner is as much used, and as useful, as any of
+these domestic machines, though I prefer the leather-covered board.
+Pyro-silver knives seem to save labour, as they are cleaned like any
+spoon; wiped first, as all greasy knives should be, with paper, then
+washed in warm water and wiped with a cloth. My own pyro-silver knives
+keep very well and remain bright, but as they have valuable handles of
+elaborate Burmese ivory-carving they are carefully used. I have heard
+people say that the pyro-silver does not wear well, being easily
+scratched and otherwise injured.
+
+Balancing the sink on one side of the stove is the fuel-box, containing
+a quarter of ton of coal. This, in most of the new stoves, will last
+several weeks, and it may be bought in this small quantity at a time,
+or replenished from the usual coal-cellar. This consideration would be
+determined by the season, by whether the other stoves in the house burn
+gas or coal, and by the number of rooms requiring daily fires.
+
+The fuel-box should have a lid, forming a table for any temporary uses,
+or any of the less cleanly sorts of work--I will not say dirtier work,
+because in this system there should be no dirty work, nothing but what
+a lady may do without loss of dignity, and without injury to hands
+which in the afternoon will handle delicate needlework, and in the
+evening recreate themselves over the piano.
+
+And this leads us to speak of the systematic employment of lady-helps,
+in such cases as they may be a real comfort and assistance in a family,
+and not where they are expected to be perfect servants, who for small
+wages will relieve idle ladies from the difficulty of first obtaining
+and then enduring a few ignorant domestics.
+
+
+
+
+THE LADY-HELP.
+
+True position of a lady-help--Division of work in a family--The mother
+the best teacher--Marketing--Young lady-helps--Luncheon--Early dinners
+for children--Recreation--Preparing the late dinner--Evening tea--The
+lady-help a gentlewoman--Her assistance at breakfast--Her spare time
+--Tact.
+
+
+I use this title, not because I think it is the best, but because it is
+already in general use; though, as yet, very few people have any clear
+idea of what the true position of a lady-help should be. Some persons
+suppose they must treat her as a visitor, in which case she would be
+worse than useless, and such a situation could not possibly be
+permanent. Others think she must be employed precisely like an upper
+servant, and only look upon her as a means of escape from the penalties
+of their own position.
+
+In houses where there are grown-up daughters it is not necessary, nor
+even advisable, to employ any labour outside of the family beyond that
+of the charwoman, as previously described.
+
+The work may be so divided as to press too heavily on none, always
+bearing in mind, however, that, as "Life is real, life is earnest,"
+there is real work to be done in every household, the aim being to
+lighten it by contrivance, and by utilizing modern inventions; in fact,
+making of science and social economy two valuable servants, instead of
+exalting them to be our masters, as we have all been doing lately. For,
+notwithstanding all our brilliant inventions, we have so multiplied our
+wants that life is neither easier nor cheaper than it was in the days
+when we knitted our own stockings, spun our own flax, and used strong
+handloom sheetings, and woollen cloths which were not made of shoddy.
+
+Let us take as a typical family a mother and three daughters, two of
+them grown up and one still a child--a by no means uncommon instance.
+The men and boys may be many or few, it makes little difference to our
+example.
+
+Probably the mother is not so strong as the grown-up daughters. She
+might make choice of the needlework department, or the teaching,
+supposing her own education to have been good; in which case she would
+add the benefit of her experience to every lesson given, rendering it
+far more valuable than instruction from a young teacher; as in all
+branches of study she would distinguish what is good and lasting from
+what is merely ephemeral, and we should have fewer flimsy pieces of
+music learnt to the exclusion of great masters, and fewer meretricious
+drawings on tinted paper, as we grow out of our admiration for these
+things at an early period, and home education would have a more solid
+groundwork. Young teachers are too apt to think they know everything,
+and only aim at their own standard of education, finished as they
+believe it to be.
+
+Perhaps the mother might prefer to reserve a general oversight, with
+only such lighter work as the breakfast-table as already described. The
+daughters could share the remaining work in the following manner.
+
+While the breakfast is being cleared away, one daughter, accompanied by
+her youngest sister, will arrange the bed-rooms, and dust the
+drawing-room and such parts of the dining-room as have not been
+included in the work of setting in order after breakfast. The little
+girl would rejoice in helping in this way--all children do; and when
+they have no real work of this kind, they imitate it with dolls'
+houses. Housekeeping is one of a girl's natural instincts; it is only
+quenched by accomplishments being put in its stead.
+
+While the manager of the needlework sees what requires her attention in
+that department, and plans it for unoccupied hours--keeping, perhaps,
+some fancy portion of it for pleasant work in the evening, while music
+or reading is going on--the daughter who is housekeeper for the week
+attends to the culinary arrangements, and considers what marketing will
+be required. She will, either alone or accompanied by one of her
+sisters, proceed to give her orders at the various shops, or go to the
+market and make her own selection. She will bring home some of the
+purchases herself--any parcel, for instance, that is no heavier than a
+little dog--but mostly the things will be sent to the house.
+
+Co-operative stores may or may not be an advantage to their
+customers--it is a disputed point; but two good things they have done
+for us: first, making us pay ready money for what we buy; secondly,
+doing away with the ridiculous fear we formerly had of being seen
+carrying a parcel.
+
+This expedition will have given our young heroine the necessary morning
+air and exercise, and it need not be so long as to prevent her
+enjoyment of a more ornamental walk in the afternoon--visits, or a
+cruise in the rink.
+
+In the case of there being only one grown-up daughter, a young
+lady-help may be thought an agreeable addition to the family. She would
+be a pleasant companion to the daughter, and they might share the work
+in the same manner as two sisters would do. If she were more
+accomplished, or better read, than the daughter of the house, this
+would be a source of improvement to the latter; or if the superiority
+were on the other side, the benefit resulting to the companion would be
+such as to make her endeavour, by increased usefulness, to show her
+sense of the advantages whereby she would be enabled to add to her
+acquirements.
+
+Much ease in daily life is obtained by dining early; but as this is
+seldom possible where fathers and husbands are out all day at their
+employments, the necessarily late dinner involves a sacrifice of our
+time and pleasure, which we must try to render as small a hardship as
+may be, and take as a duty what is such in reality.
+
+Luncheon for ladies is easily provided where there are no ravenous
+schoolboys and girls to cater for, because, as they will dine late, the
+luncheon need not be a hot spread meal. A tray with slices of cold
+meat, bread, butter, cheese, or perhaps some cold potatoes fried, or
+any easily warmed little dish remaining from yesterday's dinner, will
+make an ample luncheon, with a glass of beer or some claret. But if
+there are schoolboys and girls who come home to an early dinner, it is
+indispensable that it should be a real dinner, and no make-believe. The
+experience of schools and large families shows us that the cheapest and
+most wholesome fare for children is a joint of meat, with potatoes and
+another vegetable, a daily pudding, varied according to circumstances,
+bread, and beer. No adjuncts; neither pickles nor condiments, cheese
+nor dessert. All these _etceteras_ are superfluous and unwholesome,
+and entail extra plates and additional trouble to everybody.
+
+The joints of meat, with potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, are as well
+cooked at the baker's as at home, and with much saving of heavy work.
+
+The following is a good working-plan for a large family: a joint of
+meat roasted the first day, the next day cold, which is better for the
+children than having the joint cut in two and both parts eaten
+hot--cold meat is very good for them. The remainder may be stewed, or
+otherwise warmed up on the third day; and so forth, varied with boiled
+meat occasionally and fish once a week--on Friday in preference, as
+there is a better choice of it on that day, it being purveyed for the
+Roman Catholics and others who eat it on principle. Monday is the worst
+day for fish.
+
+The daily pudding should be simple, without sauce, and with very little
+spice. Spices become valuable medicines when not habitually taken with
+the food.
+
+It is a mistake to feed children entirely on meat and potatoes; this
+diet does not afford sufficient variety. Fruit and milk puddings are
+very wholesome and nourishing for children, and so is simple pastry,
+when made without baking powder, the frequent use of which is very
+lowering, as is the case with all alkalies.
+
+Luncheon over, the hours from two till half-past four are free for
+everybody. Now is the time for music-practice, walks, visits, and
+general recreation.
+
+Visitors drop in about this time, and may be encouraged to stay by the
+sight of the afternoon tea-table standing ready arranged in a corner of
+the drawing-room. The descent for five minutes of one of the ladies
+will be sufficient time to make the tea and produce a plate of
+biscuits, or the cake-basket. The gas may be lighted under the kettle
+at the time the door is opened to visitors.
+
+At half-past four the fire must be made up in the kitchen, and all
+things put in readiness to prepare the late dinner. This, in the
+interest of the health of all, and especially of those who return home
+tired and hungry, should not be later than six o'clock, where it is
+possible.
+
+The dinner and dessert occupy little more than an hour, and half an
+hour is sufficient to clear all away, and set the things ready for the
+next morning's breakfast. The cloth may be left spread on the table,
+only brushed and neatly laid.
+
+We have then a pleasant social evening left us; two hours and a half
+before ten o'clock, which may or may not be broken by an evening cup of
+tea, according to taste.
+
+Luxurious people, whose days hang heavily on their hands, are the
+fortune of the doctors. Among them we may include servants in large
+houses, who are, perhaps, more self-indulgent than any. And it is the
+habitual five meals a day required to fill up time in an opulent house,
+that contribute most to fill the pockets of the physician.
+
+It is pleasant, certainly, for an occasional change, to stay in a house
+where at nine o'clock the butler and two footmen stalk in with the
+tea-tray and its appurtenances; but the main, though unacknowledged,
+cause of the ceremonial is, that it may be seen that the men-servants
+are at home in the evening, and not at the public-house.
+
+As a daily habit, however, the continual breaking up of time caused by
+the ever-recurring meals is very tiresome to those whose occupations
+are so unnecessarily hindered.
+
+It has been shown that the daily housework for a small family is not
+too arduous to be undertaken by the members of that family, in any case
+where the grown-up ladies in the house are two or more. But in the
+circumstance of a young wife and mother, it were better that she should
+not attempt to cope with the greater part of the household work,
+especially if she be alone in the house all day, or with young children
+only. The sense of solitude is too depressing, and all unshared labour
+is much heavier.
+
+In case of her having no sister, or female friend or relation, to whom
+she might be glad to offer a home, she should seek a cheerful
+lady-help, who would be pleased to feel she is putting her time to
+profit. And if strong, healthy, and a skilful manager, the lady-help
+will find how far more interesting this varied work may be made, than
+the drudgery of sitting in a dreary school-room as governess to a tribe
+of tiresome children, where her only recreation is the monotonous daily
+walk; or the more independent, but far more laborious, occupation of a
+fine-art needleworker, to whom eight hours' continuous daily toil are
+obligatory.
+
+As far as I can see and judge by letters written to the _Queen_ and
+other papers, and the jokes in _Punch_, the difficulty, almost
+impossibility, of getting gentlewomen as helps is the drawback to
+their being put forward as a solution of the domestic difficulty. The
+engagement of half-educated or pretentious daughters of small
+tradespeople is by no means desirable, either for themselves or for us.
+We do not wish them to be our companions, yet they must be treated with
+a greater degree of familiarity than ordinary servants; and if they are
+allowed to be on a nominal footing of equality, it can only tend to
+lower the tone of the whole household. But the lady-help, in an
+establishment suited to the feelings of such an one, may easily be a
+gentlewoman by birth and education, and not a lady in name merely.
+
+As regards the invasion of domestic privacy, which has ever been found
+such a disadvantage where a companion, or a governess, is always the
+sharer of our meals and conversation, it is by no means necessary,
+hardly even possible, that this should be the case with a lady-help;
+except at breakfast, when it is surely no hardship, but the
+contrary--indeed, it must be a pleasure--to have at our children's most
+important meal the assistance of a lady whose care of their wants
+prevents our own breakfast being uncomfortably hurried.
+
+For breakfast is unlike dinner-time in this, that as husband and wives
+have already had plenty of time for all they wish to say to each other,
+the presence of a third person is not inconvenient, while at their
+reunion about dinner-time, when each has the day's adventures to relate
+and comment upon, a stranger is sometimes in the way.
+
+Indeed, it is one of the greatest difficulties in the lady-help system,
+that of necessity she cannot sit at table while serving the dinner.
+
+The greater number of ladies will be as well pleased to have their
+spare time for their own pursuits, as to be obliged to sit in the
+drawing-room all the evening, trying to seem amused with doing nothing.
+A lady offering herself for work of this kind will generally be of an
+energetic temperament, and able to employ her leisure profitably in
+reading, drawing, or needlework, or perhaps she may have her own piano
+in her room.
+
+It would frequently conduce to the comfort of all parties if she had an
+invitation, which she might accept or refuse, to join the drawing-room
+circle; and this should be given on occasions when it is likely to be
+agreeable to her, at such times as her necessary duties will cause no
+awkwardness to herself, the mistress, or the guests. Exercise of tact
+will be frequently called for, no doubt, in this avowedly the weak part
+of the scheme; but with wit, invention, and a hearty endeavour to make
+a subordinate position as little painful as possible, many difficulties
+will be tided over, and when once the novelty of the method is worn
+off, many little complications, by being less thought of, will be less
+felt.
+
+Where a governess is kept as well as a lady-help, the two ladies could
+enjoy life together quite independently of the general company; and it
+might be found perfectly compatible with their avocations to give them
+permission to invite their personal friends to spend their evenings
+occasionally with them.
+
+In the case of the daughters of the house taking its duties upon
+themselves (and no one can consider it an ungraceful service to wait
+upon a father), the way would be smoothed by common endeavour of all
+the members of the family, and much kindly courtesy would be aroused,
+and earnest effort to give the least possible trouble; all of which
+should be done in the case of the lady-help.
+
+When we go more deeply into the detail of the dinner, which is the
+_piece de resistance_ of the day's programme, we will endeavour to
+show how, by careful fitting and steady guidance, the wheels of the
+domestic machine may run smoothly and noiselessly in their grooves,
+especially if the oil of good humour be plentifully supplied. And
+several suggestions will be offered, which, however, must be looked on
+merely as suggestions, and not as essential parts of the system; for in
+every household there will be modifications, according to the infinite
+variety of tempers, tastes, and habits of the family.
+
+
+
+
+THE DINING-ROOM.
+
+Carpets and curtains--Picture hanging and frames--Distemper colouring
+for cornices--Oval dining-table--Sideboard for breakfast service--
+Beauty of English porcelain--A London dining-room--Giulio Romano's
+banquet--Growing plants--The large sideboard--Dinner-service--Styles of
+dinner--Food in due season--Gracefulness of flowers and fruits--Fresh
+fruit better than preserves--Communication between kitchen and dining-room
+--Remarks on plate--Table decorations.
+
+
+Having given a sketch of the kitchen, I must now fill up that of the
+dining-room, which we left after the breakfast was cleared away.
+
+As the gas-tripod, the spirit-lamp, and the large bowl for washing the
+china and other crockery have been already described, we may proceed to
+consider what more immediately relates to the dinner-table; since the
+rest of the furniture need not materially differ from what is at
+present in use.
+
+In selecting a carpet for the dining-room, let us remember that a
+Brussels carpet is more easily brushed and kept clean, than are Turkey
+or Indian carpets.
+
+If it be made with a border, and the floor stained and varnished all
+round at a width of from one to two feet from the wainscot, beside
+being cheaper to begin with than a fitted carpet, it is more artistic
+in appearance, and more readily taken up periodically to be beaten;
+while a long brush easily dusts the varnished margin, and a damp cloth
+tied over a harder broom will wash it in case of necessity. Bordered
+square carpets are the more durable, as they are able to be turned
+round as one part becomes unduly worn.
+
+The best kind of curtains for a dining-room are of some rich-looking
+woollen stuff, thick enough not to require lining. Rep is very
+serviceable, but there are many more curious foreign fabrics which may
+sometimes be met with at no very great cost.
+
+Curtains ought to run easily on a pole, either of wood or metal. If of
+metal, it should not be very large, as the size of a hollow rod does
+not add to its strength. Curtain rings can be sewn on at home, and so
+can any cord that may be thought desirable at the edge, though this
+does not often improve curtains from an artistic point of view. There
+is no need of the upholsterer's intervention, which mostly doubles the
+price of the curtains.
+
+The height from the floor to the top of the window should be measured,
+and the requisite number of yards of material bought, allowing a margin
+for curves in the folds of the drapery. The rods should be sufficiently
+long to allow the curtains to hang entirely upon the wall, not
+overhanging the window in the least. This preserves the drapery, and
+keeps it from fading, while it does not exclude the light.
+
+The curtains should be ample enough to cover the window completely when
+the shutters are shut, without leaving a streak of opening. They should
+likewise extend to the ends of the pole, so as comfortably to keep out
+the draught.
+
+If muslin curtains are used, they may conveniently be tacked inside the
+woollen ones about half-way; this will keep the latter from some dust.
+A few additional rings can be slipped on the pole, to which the
+remaining central parts of the muslin will be gathered.
+
+Curtains should touch the floor, or nearly so, but they need never be
+allowed to lie in heaps on the ground, as was formerly the fashion; and
+the voluminous folds sustained by brackets have been advantageously
+exchanged for a simple band to hold back the curtain.
+
+Our mothers and grandmothers were certainly victims to their
+upholstery; we have improved in this respect. It does not take many
+minutes to unhook our curtains, shake them free from dust, and hang
+them up again; we have no complicated pulleys to get out of order
+perpetually, nor ponderous cornices with heavy valances, and wonderful
+gimp and fringe. Those were fine times for the upholsterers!
+
+Do not hang your dining-room pictures very high; few of us tower above
+six feet, and it is easier for those who do so to stoop, than for the
+rest of us to stand on tip-toe; we must consider the convenience of the
+majority.
+
+Money is well expended on picture-frames, as when they are handsome and
+chosen with taste, they enhance our enjoyment of the pictures. But a
+costly frame is not always a good one, and when gilt composition runs
+riot in ferns and fantastic flames, as we frequently see it do around
+mirrors, its effect is barbaric, rather than elegant.
+
+Broad flats in gilt plaster are less excellent than gold laid on the
+wood itself.
+
+For prints, where economy has to be much considered, few frames are
+better than those of flat oak with a bevelled edge, and on the flat a
+slight design of graceful lines made with the parting-tool, and only
+the lines gilt.
+
+Pictures, if small and numerous, should not be dotted about the walls,
+but grouped. One sometimes see walls as spotted as a currant-dumpling.
+A band of wood, called a grazing line, behind the chair-backs protects
+the wall, and is an aid to picture hanging, by giving a line from which
+we may measure their bases.
+
+If there are many large pictures, they should be hung from a rod placed
+near the ceiling, or a foot lower, if an ornamental band of paper is
+carried round the top of the room below the cornice. If the cornice is
+not already "picked out," as the decorators term it, in colour--that
+is, delicately tinted in distemper--it should be done, as it is a great
+improvement.
+
+It is not difficult to do this for one's self. The necessary materials
+are a pennyworth of whitening, a pennyworth of size, and of the
+required tints a pennyworth. Break up some whitening into saucers, mix
+it with water until it is of the consistence of thick cream, add a
+tablespoonful of melted size to each saucer, shake in about a
+teaspoonful of powdered colour to each, and apply with a badger or
+hog-hair paintbrush.
+
+Strong colours become pale tints when mixed with the whitening, and the
+mixture dries paler than it is applied. To paint the ground on which
+the plaster design is embossed gives a cameo effect and is elegant, but
+sometimes it is better to colour the raised ornaments. Taste must be
+the guide here. This quantity of material is sufficient to tint every
+cornice in the house. Splashes of the colour are easily wiped off while
+the mixture is wet.
+
+Where the family is small, an oval table, like we generally see in
+France, is the most convenient form; as the master and mistress sit
+facing each other at the narrowest part of the oval, where they can
+communicate freely with each other, and more easily dispense the
+general hospitality. A table of this shape is lengthened by leaves
+inserted in the central division; when quite closed it is a round
+table.
+
+A dumb-waiter placed at the right hand of the mistress enables much
+personal waiting to be dispensed with.
+
+If the dining-room be large, it is desirable to have two sideboards,
+one larger than the other. The breakfast things should adorn (for that
+is what they really ought to do) the smaller sideboard.
+
+With all the beauty and comparative cheapness of our Worcester and
+other pottery, we ought, in every family, to possess such a collection
+of beautiful objects for daily use as should for ever prevent our
+sighing after the palmy days of Greek art. I was at Sevres not long
+ago, and while going over the porcelain factory there, I mentioned that
+I had been over that at Worcester. "Ah, then, madame," said the
+official, "we can show you no more; you have indeed seen all."
+
+And had we no careless and ever-changing servants to shatter our
+elegant treasures, we might have in daily use objects which would
+enrich a museum, and train our eyes to a higher perception of beauty;
+and we should learn to value our porcelain, not for its rarity, but for
+its intrinsic merit.
+
+Look at our picturesque coffee and tea pots, our elegant cups, and
+well-painted bowls. Why should they always be concealed in china
+closets, or consigned to kitchen-dressers, while our dining-room walls
+are too often bare and cheerless?--a few dismal prints, hung too high
+to be seen or easily dusted, being frequently the only adornments of a
+darkened room, like a waiting-room at a railway station for emptiness
+of anything to occupy the mind, yet which ought to be one of the
+pleasantest and brightest in the house. Instead of which cheerful
+appearance, here is a sketch of a regulation dining-room in one of
+London's broadest brown streets: a room always dark in winter, but in
+summer exposed to glaring sun and a plague of flies.
+
+As soon as a window is opened to cool the stifling air, a simoom of
+dust rushes in from the road, and from the dust carts heavily moving to
+the slow music of the "Trovatore's" _Miserere_, adding a bass to the
+noise of cabs whirling by to the waltz tunes of "Daughter Angot" and
+"La belle Helene."
+
+Tables, chairs, and sideboard are remarkable for nothing but
+representing so many tons of mahogany embellished with the grinning
+heads of griffins. Curtains powerfully scented with dust, a large
+chimney-glass made over to the flies, a heavy bronze machine with
+ponderous weights and pulleys, all smelling very strongly of gas,
+chiefly useful for casting deep shadows upon the dining-table. The
+bean-green carpet, monotonizing with the pea-green walls, whereon hang
+divers prints of subjects undiscoverable, because they are skied as
+high as the ceiling will allow, and two "old masters," as two oil
+paintings are called; one a bitumen-brown Wouvermans, or somebody else,
+with the hind leg of a gray horse in the foreground, and in the sky a
+patch of cloud caught in a tree. The other "gem" had been bought at a
+sale under the impression that its subject was "Angels adoring the
+Infant Saviour," but which on closer investigation turned out to be two
+wicked old drunkards playing at cards, purporting to be by a Dutch
+master.
+
+Could even Giulio Romano's artistic festival have been enjoyed in such
+a room as this, which is only a fair specimen of the modern British
+banquet hall? Hear a short extract from Benvenuto Cellini's description
+of it. After speaking of the rich dress of all the guests and the
+beauty of the ladies, he continues: "When they had taken their seats,
+every man produced a sonnet on some subject or other"--for they were a
+company of poets and artists--"and Michelagnolo read them aloud in a
+manner which infinitely increased the effect of their excellence. The
+company fell into discourse, and many fine things were said, and dinner
+was served up. Behind our backs there were rows of flower-pots, filled
+with beautiful jessamines, which seemed to heighten the charms of the
+young ladies beyond expression. Thus we all, with great cheerfulness,
+began to regale ourselves at that elegant dinner. After our repast was
+over we were entertained with a concert of music, both vocal and
+instrumental, and an _improvisatore_ recited some admirable verses
+in praise of the ladies."
+
+We could only on very rare occasions have rows of pots of jasmine
+placed behind our chairs, but we might easily grow an elder plant to
+keep off the flies. The Swiss scarlet-berried elder (_Sambucus rufus_)
+is graceful in growth, and will endure some hard usage.
+
+Flower-pots may also be allowed to remain on the table, unless the
+plants are cherished pets, and then they will be placed where they can
+receive the sun and air.
+
+Plants growing outside the windows, especially climbers wreathing the
+window-frames, give an appearance of size to rooms by bringing air into
+the perspective. The picturesque effect of the forms of foliage
+relieved against the paler sky is very pleasing, and it breaks the
+stiff straight lines of the window better than any drapery.
+
+The glory of the dining-room is its large sideboard. This, where there
+is a second sideboard, may be either in the same style or in complete
+contrast to it. Here the larger pieces of earthenware and porcelain
+should be displayed to advantage. These are such things as salad bowls
+and outside pie-dishes, which may always remain in the dining-room, and
+the whole of the dessert-service, with the ornaments and table
+decorations.
+
+The glasses and decanters should always be elegant, and although in my
+opinion the Venetian glass is by far the most beautiful kind, still our
+own crystal and engraved glass is often exquisitely lovely, and the
+sunshine playing through the prismatic decanter knobs, and other cut
+glass ornaments, gives an unrivalled lustre to the summer dinner-table.
+Breakages under careful, delicate handling would be less frequent than
+they are now, so that the expense of procuring glass and porcelain the
+best of their kind would not be felt to be the extravagance it is now.
+
+It will be said that for all this display of glass and china an
+enormous sideboard will be required, at as enormous a cost. And the
+first objection I concede, without, however, admitting it to be a
+fault.
+
+Why should not the sideboard be, if necessary, as large as the side of
+the room? But the cost may be less than that of an ordinary
+dinner-waggon. It might be constructed as a series of shelves, ranged
+as high as can be conveniently reached, broken by cellarettes and other
+cupboards or cabinets, hung with worked curtains, the shelves merely
+backed by paper made like embossed leather. There is an infinite
+variety of styles and forms in which the sideboard may be made; from
+the gorgeous mass of carved oak and velvet, set with golden shields,
+and cups, and services of gold plate, such as I have admired on the
+dining-room walls of a palace built on the ruins of an abbey, down to
+the stained deal dresser-shaped sideboard of a house of fifty pounds a
+year, where it would only be decked with graceful, yet unpretending,
+china and terra-cotta, where its curtains would be of brown holland
+worked in crewels, and its intrinsic ornaments the burnished brass
+locks, hinges, and handles. Yet as fine taste might be visible in one
+as in the other.
+
+The table-cloth, table-napkins, and spoons and forks should be laid in
+drawers, as such seems their befitting place; and salt-cellars, and
+other diminutive articles containing condiments, may be put away behind
+small curtains, or veils, of decorative needlework, to shelter them
+from the dust, as well as to give an opportunity for the display of
+rich and elegant furniture embroidery, adapted in style to the
+carvings, plaques, inlaid work, or other adornments of the sideboard.
+
+The piles of plates--as many of them must almost of necessity be in
+piles--will be also concealed and protected by curtains, or behind
+doors turning on pivots, which, where they are available, are far
+better than hinges.
+
+The quantity of plates wanted for the daily use of the family must be
+kept in the kitchen, as they will be washed there, and need to be
+warmed in readiness for dinner; but dinner and dessert plates that are
+not used for greasy comestibles will be rinsed in the dining-room, and
+rearranged at once.
+
+I know some old Bristol china butter boats of such simple but elegant
+form, that the curves of the nautilus shell are hardly more graceful.
+Yet these things had been banished to a kitchen dresser until I
+implored their release; and now, in the present Bristol china mania,
+they are promoted to a drawing-room table, a place quite as unsuitable
+as was the kitchen dresser.
+
+Among useful decorations for the sideboard, some of the prettiest I
+have seen are the Venetian curved bottles for holding oil and vinegar.
+They are fixed in a glass stand, and as the curved necks of the
+flask-shaped bottles bend over across each other, by taking up the
+stand either oil or vinegar may be poured out without spilling the
+other condiment, and the flasks require no stoppers, as their curve is
+sufficient to keep out the dust, though occasionally a glass dolphin is
+stuck in the mouth of each bottle. This simple yet ingenious
+contrivance is far prettier than our somewhat vulgar cruet-stand.
+Moorish brass salvers add colour and brightness to the sideboard, in
+families where silver salvers and presentation plate are not matters of
+course.
+
+A simple style of dinner is more elegant, as well as more healthful,
+than one more elaborate. Let it vary with each day rather than with
+every course: the dinner will thus preserve a character of its own,
+better than where this is frittered away among so many dishes that you
+cannot remember off what you have dined.
+
+There is a medium between this fidgety _menu_ and the monster joints we
+sometimes burden ourselves with. It requires judgment to take the right
+line. We need not attempt, in our everyday dinner, to realize
+Disraeli's ideal of dining: "eating ortolans to the sound of soft
+music." But we may try to make our dinner an enjoyment as well as a
+refreshment; and although our set banquets may be rare, taste and
+attention will impart to every meal something of the character of a
+feast.
+
+Stress must be laid on the importance of having every article of food
+in its due season.
+
+Independently of the hygienic value of the change of diet so supplied,
+which is in itself a substitute for many tonic and alternative
+medicines, attention to this point will give us luxuries when we may
+reasonably afford them.
+
+Salmon is as nice when it is a shilling a pound as when it is four
+times that price, and venison is by no means an expensive viand if the
+market be watched. If we only think of ribs of beef and legs of mutton,
+we shall only get beef and mutton. But if we take Nature for our guide,
+we need not deny ourselves the most gratifying and healthful variety.
+It is essential that we should eat the fresh fruits as they are ripe,
+and this rule is equally necessary as regards vegetables.
+
+Indeed, in summer we should accustom ourselves to think more of the
+vegetable food than of meat; to arrange our dinner in this department
+primarily, considering what dainty dishes we may concoct of flour and
+vegetables fried, boiled, and baked, dressed with oil or milk, herbs or
+spices, incidentally adding the meat--in fact, reversing our usual
+order of proceedings, where we construct our dinner plan of solid meat,
+only throwing in vegetables or fruit by way of garnish. But what I wish
+to dwell on now is not so much the quantity of vegetable produce we
+ought to consume, as the necessity of its seasonableness.
+
+When our cooks, be they noble, gentle, or simple, have come to study
+the medicinal properties of plants--how they act upon the different
+organs of the body, and so on--they will see how beautifully they are
+adapted by the great Provider to our bodily requirements, according to
+the weather and other circumstances, and how often what grows best in
+any situation or soil is the aliment best suited to our own growth in
+that situation.
+
+If we attended more to this point, our digestions would have
+sufficiently varied exercise to keep them in healthy working order, and
+we should hear less about what does or does not agree with people. It
+is of more consequence that our digestions should be permitted to work
+at regular hours, than that they should have an over-easy diet. This,
+indeed, is absolutely injurious to them.
+
+Persons sometimes feel ill, and whatever they may happen to have fed
+upon is loaded with the responsibility, and that article of diet is cut
+off for ever from their list, and its hygienic benefit lost to the
+constitution. The blame is never laid on irregularity, want of air,
+exercise, or occupation, excitement or perhaps temper, or upon
+circumstances generally. Either the weather or the food, irrespective
+of the quantity taken, is charged with every ill.
+
+If we took care to make pictures of our dishes of fruit, they would
+afford us two delightful sensations instead of one. To do this it is
+not needful to have heaps of fruits, or pyramids of pines. A plum on a
+leaf, an orange on a china tile, with a branch of flowers laid across
+it, make exquisite pictures.
+
+See how we appreciate the form and grace of a single flower in a
+specimen glass, so that we cannot now endure to see the mass of crushed
+flowers we used to call a nosegay; the very word, so descriptive of the
+bundle, being done away with the thing itself. The old nosegay gave us
+the scent and gay colours of the flowers, but their tender grace had
+fled. Now they are delightful to their very stems.
+
+Provident housekeepers have so impressed upon our minds the necessity
+of caring for the future, that we have been taught to make jam of our
+most delicious fruits, denying ourselves their fresh beauty and
+fragrance at our tables, while we roast ourselves over preserving pans
+in the hottest days of July. This, besides being martyrdom, is a work
+of supererogation, as the fruit is nicer fresh, and to buy it for the
+sake of keeping it is absurd, as it can but be eaten once. It is a very
+reasonable practice in the case of persons possessing large
+fruit-gardens, as much might otherwise be spoiled; but in our town
+households it is trouble taken in vain.
+
+We all know the difference it makes to our dinners whether they are
+served up hot, or only lukewarm; and this alone gives a sufficient
+reason why we should insist upon the kitchen being close to the
+dining-room. Where there is no possibility of making a door of
+immediate communication, we should try our utmost to get a slide-window
+between the two rooms, so that the dishes, and indeed the whole
+paraphernalia that necessarily moves from kitchen to dining-room, may
+be placed on a slab at the said window on one side, and taken in at the
+other side.
+
+If two persons are engaged in performing this work, one dishing up and
+placing on the window slab, and the other putting the things on the
+dining-table, it will be very expeditious, but it may be quite easily
+managed by one person. The slide-window, either a sash or a
+sliding-door, saves much running to and fro.
+
+I will conclude my remarks upon dining-room furniture with a few words
+about plate.
+
+The bulk of the plate in daily use in the houses of the upper
+middle-class is electro-silver, and it is very admissible, being
+strong, durable, and agreeable to use; and when made in the ordinary
+fiddle or threaded patterns is useful without being pretentious. But
+when it expands into Albert patterns, king's patterns, and the
+like--when, in short, it claims intrinsic value, and pretends to be
+silver--it becomes vulgar immediately, because it represents a snobbish
+feeling which is bent on making a show with a sham. We cannot all
+afford silver plate, though doubtless we should all like it, but all of
+us wish to have the most agreeable medium with which to eat our food,
+and for this purpose electro is as good as silver.
+
+It is better, in purchasing, to buy the best quality, as it is so much
+more durable, and it always looks better.
+
+For dessert knives and forks, those with mother-of-pearl handles are
+the best; the colour is so pleasant, and they are very easily cleaned.
+
+Should you happen to be the fortunate possessor of old plate, let
+nothing induce you to do as many weak persons are talked into doing:
+exchange it for modern patterns.
+
+Modern plate is seldom of even moderately good design. The object of
+the manufacturer seems to be to crowd upon it as lumpy an embossed
+ornament as possible, to make it massive, and remind us of so much per
+ounce. This was not the motive of the old silversmiths, who more
+frequently engraved than embossed their ornaments. Most of the old
+engraved silver is delightful, and it is very light.
+
+The Queen-Anne plate, now so keenly sought, is of admirable workmanship
+and good design, though the edges are rather thin and sharp for comfort
+in use.
+
+It is worth while having nice electro dish-covers, as the ugly tin ones
+sometimes seem to have such a very miserable appearance. It will not be
+necessary to possess many, and they will come to no harm in our elegant
+kitchen. They may be either hung up or stood on the dresser; the former
+way is preferable, and rings to suspend them by are easily attached.
+Dish-covers should be warmed before they are put on, as a cold metal
+cavern chills a leg of mutton almost to the marrow.
+
+Real silver ornaments for the dinner-table are very precious, but
+failing these, we may make our tables very elegant with Parian, glass,
+or even wicker ornaments; and the most interesting of any adornments
+are vases and dishes painted on porcelain by members of the family. I
+am sorry to see so many small vulgarities introduced in the shops in
+the way of _menu_ holders, and other so-called ornaments.
+
+Grotesque is all very well, but it should show a light, delicate play
+of fancy; and things comic are very amusing when they are not vulgar.
+But the degenerate caricatures we see about now, mark a tendency to
+flatter the lowest order of taste, which, if followed, will inevitably
+drag our conversation down with it. These silly table-decorations began
+with caricatures of the men who carry the sandwich placards up and down
+the streets, and daily I see them acquiring all the bad style of common
+burlesques, or of the cheap valentines.
+
+
+
+
+THE DRAWING-ROOM.
+
+Social pressure--Agreeable evening parties--Troubles of party-giving
+--Musical parties--Flowers on a balcony--Window-gardening--Crowded
+drawing-rooms--The library or study--Gas, candles, and candlesticks
+--Original outlay on furniture--Different styles of furniture--
+Raffaelesque decorations--Carpets, curtains, and chair coverings--
+Portieres--Window blinds--Rugs--Care required in buying furniture--
+Ornaments--Dusting--Chiffoniers useless--Portfolio stand--Mirrors.
+
+
+This section of our subject involves our relations with society; and
+here not even our vanity can make us believe that modern customs are
+really improvements.
+
+What chance has any lady of our time of emulating the graceful manner
+in which Madame Recamier held her salon, although she may have as much
+learning as Madame de Stael?
+
+We are too heavily weighted, our social intercourse is too complicated,
+too much clogged with ceremony, to move easily; and where our highest
+faculties should be allowed full play, we find so much hard work and
+consequent fatigue, that we look upon every dinner and evening party in
+the light of an uphill road with a difficult team to drive.
+
+We all know and applaud the French manner of visiting. Receiving
+friends on a stated day of the week, simply enjoying their society, and
+exerting the intellectual faculties instead of merely opening the purse
+for their entertainment.
+
+Why have we so seldom the courage to follow this example?
+
+It is because we fear to show less well to the eyes of our acquaintance
+if our own habits seem less expensive than theirs. A low purse-pride is
+at the bottom of it all. Our dress must be costly and perpetually
+changing, our servants and establishment must be displayed, if we are
+ourselves smothered beneath their weight.
+
+So we give up our precious daylight to morning calls, as we
+ridiculously call those visits of ceremony which are paid in the
+afternoon. These afford us no pleasure, while they are an infliction to
+the people called upon. Do not most of us know the feeling of relief
+that we have after paying a round of visits, when, on finding, as the
+day was fine, the greater number of our friends from home, we return
+with an empty card-case, and say, with the complacency of
+self-satisfied persons who have done their duty, "There, that is done
+and need not be done again for a month." Whereas we are sorry when even
+our slight acquaintances "regret they cannot accept" our invitations to
+an evening party, when we might enjoy their company, and they the
+society of each other, at the same time, and at a reasonable hour for
+enjoyment.
+
+Our "at homes" are on a radically wrong principle. We crowd our rooms,
+we insist on late hours and fullest dress, and our pleasure in
+consequence becomes a toil.
+
+But how agreeable is the easy evening gathering in a cheerful and early
+lighted drawing-room, where few or many welcome guests drop in, knowing
+it to be our "at home" day. Where we talk and sip tea, play and sing,
+or amuse ourselves, if clever, with paper games--capital promoters of
+laughter and whetstones to the wits--and go away as early as we please.
+All to be over by half-past ten, at any rate, in order not to interfere
+with early rising next morning. I have found nothing, not even guinea
+lessons from eminent masters, more conducive to family improvement in
+music than this way of enjoying society, since one is obliged to have a
+few new things always at one's fingers' ends ready to perform; and in
+homely little parties like these, young girls "not yet out" may pass
+many pleasant evenings under their mother's wing, with real advantage
+to themselves.
+
+The simpler the dress worn by the ladies who are "at home," the better
+the taste shown. Here again we may learn much from the French, who
+perfectly understand the art of _demi-toilette_.
+
+Our theatres and concert-rooms are filled night after night by people
+who pay to be entertained. They never take food in their pockets, and
+the passing to and fro of sellers of refreshment is felt to be a
+nuisance. Why should people who have dined late be supposed to want
+supper, unless they have been dancing, or are sitting up later than is
+good for them? And the proof that they do not want it is in the very
+little they take of it, except some stout elderly ladies who prepared
+for it before they came, and who consequently have felt too low all the
+evening to be moderately cheerful.
+
+People who dine early always make a solid tea about six o'clock. It is
+only the _bourgeois_ class who love their hot suppers, and the taste
+stamps them.
+
+How can we use hospitality one towards another without grudging, when,
+instead of being able to rejoice that a friend is sharing our daily
+pursuits and repasts, we must spend a fortune in jellies, pastry, and
+unwholesome sweets, whenever we invite our friends inside our doors;
+when we are compelled to import from the confectioner piles of plates,
+dishes, and hired cutlery, turn our houses into scenes of confusion
+for a week, and feed our children upon what have been aptly called
+"brass knockers," the remains of the feast? No wonder most of us
+dread giving a party! No; I would have special banquets on special
+occasions--Christmas, comings of age, marriages, silver, and above all
+golden, weddings, welcomes from abroad, and other joyful days. But our
+enjoyment of society need not be limited to such observances as these,
+but rather the crop of friendship increased by attentive cultivation.
+
+"Has friendship increased?" asks wise Sir Arthur Helps. "Anxious as I
+am to show the uniformity of human life, I should say that this, one of
+the greatest soothers of human misery, has decreased."
+
+Lady Morgan, an experienced leader of society, used to tell me, "My
+dear, give them plenty of wax-candles and people will enjoy
+themselves;" to which I add, manage the music well, and teach your
+daughters to help you, and cultivate musical young men, keeping,
+however, the law in your own hands.
+
+Almost the only art we have not spoiled by machinery is music--for we
+do not consider the barrel-organ in the light of music.
+
+Perhaps it is because in this art we had scope for invention, not
+finding a good thing ready made to our hands by the Greeks, which we
+might imitate mechanically, and become slaves of its tradition.
+Possibly it is a blessing in disguise that the music of the ancients is
+lost to us, for having no models we have no fetters.
+
+There is, however, in music, less liberty for the performer than for
+the master-inventor; and this is as it should be: we interpret his
+greater mind. Wilful music is seldom pleasing.
+
+What Ruskin says about truth of line in drawing applies equally to
+music: In the rapid passages of a _presto_ by Beethoven, the audience
+at St. James's Hall would know if Halle played one single note out,
+even if he slightly touched the corner of a wrong black key; for our
+ears have been wonderfully trained. And the time must be as accurate as
+the tone, and the proper degree of light and shade must be expressed,
+or you are no master. What must it be to be the creator of the music
+which it is so difficult even to copy!
+
+Yet in our drawing-rooms we permit people to talk all the time music is
+being played, showing respect neither to the composition nor to the
+performer. This should not be, and abroad this ill-bred custom has not
+obtained.
+
+There is, however, something to be said on the other side. The music we
+hear in society is frequently either flimsy and not worth studying; or
+it is too difficult for the capacity of the performer, perhaps having
+been learnt in too idle a manner, in which case conversation shields
+the composer.
+
+But the chief cause of the distressing rudeness complained of, is that
+there is too much music at a party, and it is not well arranged. Glees
+are got up and fail deplorably; harps and flutes are not in tune with
+other instruments; people accompany songs they have never seen before;
+and much time and talk are consumed in wishing for absent tenor or bass
+voices. A little good music would have been delightful; the noise of so
+many imperfect efforts is only a bore.
+
+In our parties we carelessly lose Nature's purest delights: those which
+appeal most strongly to our finest perceptions. Is it not true
+enjoyment to sit among the roses on a balcony listening to a sweet
+voice within singing an air of Schubert or Mozart? And if the charm be
+enhanced by moonlight, it is a pleasure for the gods!
+
+It is true that roses will not flourish on London balconies, the
+coal-smoke being so injurious to them; but pinks, and many other
+fragrant flowers, grow well and easily, without the cost of frequent
+renewal required for roses. The general use of window gardens, and the
+due encouragement of greenery over our houses, would tend much to
+improve our vitiated atmosphere, and we may have the gratification of
+feeling that we are doing good to our neighbours while we cultivate
+plants for our own benefit. Perhaps, by-and-by, a tax may be charged
+upon every empty window-sill.
+
+The front and back of every house would make a good-sized bit of
+garden, only it will be perpendicular instead of horizontal. We ought
+all to grow our own pears trained against the walls, as these ripen as
+well in town as in the country; and most of us might dwell under our
+own vines and fig-trees.
+
+A balcony, however small it may be, is an extra room, and frequently it
+is a good play-room for children if kept clean and well syringed. No
+training is better for children than the culture of flowers--it unites
+work and play with every advantage of both. It is an education in
+itself. Mr. Gladstone calls the love of flowers a peculiarly English
+taste. He seems to have forgotten the special fondness for plants shown
+by the French and Belgians; though the Dutch tulip mania reminds one
+somewhat of a commercial speculation. His remarks on the children's
+flower-show held at Grosvenor House merit particular attention. He
+observes that owing to the increased value of land, large masses of the
+population are removed from contact with nature, and at this period it
+is important that every family should learn that they possess a
+resource in the cultivation of flowers both in their cottages and
+windows, and at every point where contact with the open air may be
+obtained. He hopes that with the needful improvements in the dwellings
+of the poor, some means may be devised for fostering cottage
+horticulture and cottage floriculture.
+
+Wind and scorching sunshine are the great adversaries to window
+gardening, but both of these evils may be obviated by simple
+contrivances in the way of screens.
+
+Very few plants can be cultivated in our sitting-rooms with advantage
+either to themselves or to our furniture. They are greatly injured by
+gas, as well as by the dry heat of our fires, while they cause a
+dampness in the atmosphere which speedily produces mildew and other ill
+effects of moisture.
+
+We should bear in mind, in furnishing a drawing-room, that the guests
+are the principal part of the furniture, and leave sufficient space for
+the number we wish our room to hold. A drawing-room as empty as one of
+Orchardson's pictures may be overcrowded by twenty people.
+
+The walls may be adorned to profusion with objects of taste, without
+their inconveniently occupying space; but tiny tables and flower-pot
+stands are often in jeopardy.
+
+In a room crowded with furniture the guests cannot circulate--one
+because there is not space enough to pass between a lady's dress and
+the small table with a vase upon it that is so likely to be upset;
+another because an ottoman just before her keeps her a prisoner on the
+sofa where she was planted on entering the room--until ladies are
+thankful to do a little something inaudible at the piano as a pretext
+for moving, and gentlemen are only too glad to be required to force a
+passage in the service of a lady. And this not merely in the absurd and
+terrible crush at an "at home" in the London season, but at a simple
+evening party anywhere.
+
+It is often agreeable to have several afternoon tea-tables in the
+drawing-room, as the ladies can pair off at each, and become pleasantly
+acquainted while serving each other. But in the case of large musical
+"at homes," it is better to have refreshments served in the
+dining-room, as the clatter of spoons and the bustle of waiting
+disturbs the music; besides injury being often done by ice plates left
+about, tea spilt, and crumbs trodden into the carpet.
+
+We will now leave the subject of parties and study the drawing-room in
+its ordinary appearance as the sitting-room of the family out of
+working hours. A drawing-room should be used, and look as if it were
+used, and if used properly it need never be dirty nor in disorder. A
+library, or study, greatly aids the drawing-room by preventing its too
+indiscriminate use. Indeed, where boys and girls have school-work to
+prepare, this is almost a matter of necessity, as there is neither rest
+nor comfort for their elders while lessons are going on; and if other
+members of the family occupy themselves much in writing or painting, it
+is a great hindrance to have to remove their paraphernalia every time
+the table is required for some other purpose.
+
+The room may be called a study, morning-room, or library, according to
+its purpose, bearing in mind that although the name is more high
+sounding, a library with few books is only ridiculous. And when there
+are many and good books, the room must be held in great respect, and
+those who use it trained to extreme neatness and order. I find it a
+good plan to instal my eldest son as responsible librarian at a small
+salary; he sees that the younger children put away their books after
+them.
+
+A gas-standard lights a study better than anything else for general
+use, though "the Queen's reading lamp" is good for weak eyes.
+
+The standard must be firm on its base, so as not easily to upset; it is
+less in the way if it stands on the floor rather than on the table, and
+it should be capable of being raised to the height of six feet, or
+lowered to any point. It ought to be easily movable in any direction,
+and the tube long enough to admit of its being placed in any part of
+the room. The only kind of tubing that really prevents a disagreeable
+smell escaping from the gas is the snake tubing. I had at first a kind
+that was dearer than the ordinary india-rubber tubing, but, although
+assured by the gasfitter that it would be inodorous, I was obliged to
+change it for the snake, for which I paid twelve shillings, and have
+had no trouble since.
+
+We all know that wax candles are the nicest and most becoming light for
+a drawing-room; but they are dear, and candlesticks, however elegant,
+require frequent cleaning. The commoner kind of candles are greasy, and
+grease is very troublesome when it drops about, though wax and sperm
+are readily removed by warming the spots. There is a kind of candle
+called the dropless candle which answers very well to its name.
+
+Paraffin, and almost all patent candles, fill the air with burnt smoke,
+and this, to many people, is insufferable.
+
+Sperm candles are preferable to any others for general use at the piano
+and for bed-rooms. And candles need not be an expensive item when a
+house is well fitted with gas, as much music practising may be done by
+daylight and gaslight; while in bed-rooms we ought not to require much
+length of candlelight.
+
+There is no need of more than one candle to be carried about, and that
+is for the person who turns off the gas to go upstairs with.
+
+An Italian _lucerna_ is a picturesque object for this purpose; oil is
+burnt in it--colza will do, though they burn olive oil in Italy, and it
+gives double the light of colza. On no account use petroleum, or any of
+the mineral oils. Besides their horrible smell and associations, all
+the kinds are more or less explosive, and for the little use for which
+we should require lamps, the difference in cost is trifling.
+
+One occasionally sees curious and quaint old iron or bronze
+candlesticks, and it is well to seize the opportunity of purchasing
+such treasures; but if not fortunate enough to get a better thing, it
+is easy to procure one of those funny little brass candlesticks, in the
+shape of a frying-pan, so commonly used in the Belgian hotels.
+
+As there are no servants in our model establishment, tallow candles
+need never be bought, and no candlebox will be required, nor any
+kitchen candlesticks, to be stuck periodically in a row in the fender
+to melt their grease and solder, and lose their extinguishers and
+snuffers.
+
+So we see, even in this small instance, how a young couple beginning to
+furnish will want few of these superfluities, and, not being compelled
+to buy common things for servants, may afford things of choice quality
+for themselves, and to these they may add others as time goes on.
+
+Take, for another example, the breakfast-cups; they may at first buy
+two very pretty cups and saucers for their own use, and a third equally
+pretty for their lady friend, or help, as they may like to call her;
+and either title is honourable, only one seems kinder than the other.
+
+And so they need not purchase what is called a whole set, or, more
+shopmanly, a "suite," comprising a dozen of almost everything, whose
+chief merit is in its completeness, of which we tire; and this merit is
+destroyed when on breaking one of the two bread-and-butter plates we
+find it is a last year's pattern, and cannot be matched at the shop
+without its being specially made for us.
+
+How much more we should be attached to a pretty thing if we could say
+of it: "Don't you remember we bought that cup when So-and-So came to
+stay with us?" Such associations endow everyday objects with life.
+
+The original outlay throughout the house may proceed in like manner,
+and spare rooms may be furnished after the other rooms.
+
+This would enable more young people to marry, and they need not go to a
+shop whose advertisements recommend them to furnish on the three years'
+system, by the end of which time they will have paid double the value
+of their furniture, and most of it will probably be discarded, or
+broken in pieces.
+
+Perhaps a day may come when nobody will heed an advertisement, and only
+look at a circular when they write memoranda on its clean side. Then
+our postmen will be spared the bulk of their work, which makes it a
+perpetual Valentine's-day for them.
+
+It is too visionary to hope that our eyes may cease to be distressed by
+posters blazing everywhere, or that nearly half of every book or
+newspaper we buy may not be made up of advertisements.
+
+But no more on this irritating topic, as I would only counsel those
+about to furnish not to be too much tempted with novelties, especially
+patent novelties.
+
+Some of us are beginning to tire of the mediaevalism which was the
+natural reaction from the preposterous designs of the wall-papers,
+curtains, and other furniture which disguised our rooms--the ridiculous
+carpets with such patterns as orange-blossoms tied with white satin
+favours ("So sweet for a bride"), and rugs with huge blue roses.
+
+But we have now gone too far the other way, and made all our houses
+like "High" churches, not permitting even the simplest unconventional
+design to interfere with the severity of our Gothic taste. This is a
+mistake; for as our houses ought not to be turned into Greek temples,
+as they were in the time of the first French Empire, as little should
+they be decorated like Gothic churches.
+
+Many styles, and many beautiful yet diverse objects, may be made to
+harmonize by tasteful arrangement; and this freer latitude is well
+adapted to our varied moods and our many-sided lives. Few people of
+moderate means can carry out one style in its entirety.
+
+I have seen a very handsome drawing-room fitted up perfectly in the
+Louis Quatorze style, and spoiled by some German bead-mats on the
+table; and some of the most beautiful upholstery I ever saw, of
+Neo-Greek designs painted on straw-coloured satin, covering chairs of
+purely Greek form, looked droll on a Brussels carpet with fuchsias upon
+it.
+
+Twenty years ago, people of taste and pretension to archaeological
+knowledge furnished their houses in the Elizabethan style, with the
+result of uncomfortable furniture abounding in anachronisms.
+
+The Queen Anne style, so fashionable at present, is far better suited
+to modern requirements than is the Elizabethan, which is of necessity
+kept exclusively English. The Jacobean style too is less rigid, as we
+may with propriety consider that much French and Italian elegance had
+been imported into the court of Scotland by the two French queens and
+Mary Stuart. The possession of a portrait by Vandyke would be of itself
+enough to make one wish to furnish a house in the stately and elegant
+style of his time.
+
+Although it may not be so pure in taste, the style of the Renaissance
+is eminently adapted for comfortable household service. The delicate
+arabesques and grotesques followed from Raffaelle's adornments of the
+Vatican are not too precious for use in household decoration--where
+painting cannot be expected to last as long as pictures framed and out
+of reach of daily handling--and yet they are graceful enough to refresh
+without exciting a tired mind.
+
+Any one possessing artistic taste and some training can work out these
+fanciful decorations for home gratification, and being cherished, they
+will last three or four times as long as the graining of the
+house-painter. Besides, and this is a great consideration in cities,
+all the majolica ornaments and tiles, which are so suitable to this
+style of decoration, will wash, and be bright and clear for ever. Do
+not despise the Renaissance, for there is much delight in it, though
+not of the highest kind. We may keep the higher things for higher uses.
+
+A Brussels carpet of Persian pattern is very nice for a drawing-room,
+as it is unobtrusive, and yet it is cheerful, and suits most styles of
+furniture. This, like the dining-room carpet, had better be made with a
+border, and so as to allow of a margin of the floor round it being
+varnished. If edged with fringe its appearance is enriched; and I do
+not in practice find the fringe inconveniently displaced by ladies'
+dresses, nor in dusting, as I feared it might be when I added it to a
+carpet which required enlarging.
+
+The remarks on dining-room curtains and rods apply equally here, as it
+is of great consequence that the room should be easily cleaned.
+
+For a young couple beginning to furnish, it may be well to have some of
+the pretty _cretonnes_ for curtains and chair-coverings, which would
+last clean and bright while better were being worked on simple
+materials from patterns, either original or borrowed from the Art
+Needlework Society. Then the _cretonne_ curtains might be hung in the
+newly furnished spare bed-room. The chair-coverings would be replaced
+one by one as others were worked or nice materials met with.
+
+In doing fancy-work, it is better to make one good thing large enough
+to take a pride in, than countless little elegances, such as mats,
+antimacassars, table banner-screens, etc., which seldom last long, and
+are terribly in the way. The time consumed in making pincushions,
+pocket-tidies, and tiny knick-knacks, would serve to tapestry a room,
+let alone making curtains for it.
+
+Where there are fine views from the windows, they are better framed as
+pictures than curtained. Draperies, if they are very beautiful, are
+more favourably displayed when facing the light (as in the case of
+_portieres_) than at the windows, where they are liable to fade, and
+the light shining through them hides their beauty. Draught more often
+enters from doorways than by the windows; and in summer doors are often
+unhung for the sake of coolness and additional space, and the
+_portieres_ are comfortable to use on chilly days.
+
+Venetian blinds are the best of any interior blinds, though window
+awnings are much pleasanter in summer. Red tammy enriches the colour of
+the room, but it is not agreeable to sit long in a room filled with the
+flame-coloured light, though this softens as the blinds fade, which
+they soon do. Yellow blinds are very disagreeable, and tryingly sunny
+in summer. Blue are as unpleasantly cold, and make people look like
+ghosts. White holland gives as soft a light as any, and if carefully
+used the blinds will not go awry. Green tammy is good, but it soon
+fades.
+
+With a gas fire there is no occasion for a hearth-rug, though fur and
+other large rugs look very comfortable spread before the windows in
+winter, and Indian mats look cool in summer, and preserve the carpet
+from fading.
+
+In buying furniture it is safer to move cautiously. Seize, by all
+means, anything that strikes you as being "just the very thing," the
+moment you see it, or it may escape you for ever; but do not be
+beguiled into buying a whole "suite" of everything at once, because you
+think you may as well finish the work while you are about it, but let
+your taste, as well as wisdom, have time to grow. We all know the
+feeling of vexation we endure when we have committed ourselves to any
+particular thing, and find subsequently something which would have
+suited us very much better.
+
+Whatever you buy or make, do not let it be rubbish. Things ill
+considered get dreadfully in our way, and by-and-by we cannot endure
+their discordance; that is, if they last long enough for us to weary of
+them. When you purchase anything, remember that it has to be taken care
+of and dusted every day, and the smaller the trifle the more
+troublesome it is to keep clean. Think, before you buy it, whether or
+not you will like it when it is tarnished, and if you can value it
+sufficiently to devote thought and a minute of time to it every day for
+years.
+
+We squander our money on frippery--not in dress merely, but in hideous
+ornaments for our fire-places, in antimacassars of disagreeably
+suggestive name, in toys and trinkets and imitation rubbish of all
+kinds, which encumber our table-surfaces, and are dust-traps occupying
+the minds and mornings of our parlour-maids to keep them clean. We
+spend in this taste-destroying trash the change of the twenty pounds
+which would have bought one ornament of real beauty, which would only
+take the same time to dust as one of the fifty frivolities costing from
+half-a-crown to seven-and-sixpence each.
+
+This is mostly so much waste, or worse, because it helps the habit of
+foolish, ill-considered spending; and while we thus bedizen our
+drawing-rooms, we render them so uninhabitable that they fall out of
+use for our own comfort, and become merely show places for visitors.
+
+A long article might be written on dusting. We can hardly have too
+little of the carpet-broom (which all housemaids love to use every week
+to the detriment of our carpets), and hardly too much of the
+feather-brush for lightly touching curtains, walls, and pictures, or of
+the duster for rubbing furniture. If a little is done daily, furniture
+will never need polishing, but will always look bright, as dust will
+not have entered the crevices.
+
+It is easier, and also better for the durability of carpets, to take
+them up occasionally to be beaten, and have the dusty floor beneath
+them cleaned, than to have everything smothered weekly in the dust
+raised by the carpet-broom. A pair of steps is necessary in a house
+where cleanliness is attended to, to unhang curtains and pictures and
+replace them after dusting. The walls need to be whisked over weekly
+with the feather-brush.
+
+The elegant china and glass gaseliers which are now so general are
+easily cleaned with a damp sponge; those of Venetian glass are still
+more beautiful, and not much more expensive: these also can be washed
+with little trouble. Adopting the plan of cleaning one room each day,
+it will not take a great deal of time, or cause much fatigue; while the
+light daily dusting required is a mere nothing to any one doing it
+dexterously.
+
+I have a great dislike of chiffoniers; the very name presupposes them
+receptacles of _chiffons_ and lumber. I cannot see any use for them in
+a drawing-room. Music-books should be in the music-stand, a lady's work
+in her work-table, and books either in use or put away in the
+book-case.
+
+A portfolio-stand is of great service in preserving and displaying
+drawings and prints which require careful and practised handling. Sir
+Felix Slade, the eminent print-collector, used to complain that many
+persons, especially young ladies, made a bent mark with their thumbs in
+the margin of an engraving; he always insisted on having his prints
+taken up by what he called their north-west corner, and carefully laid
+on the print-stand. A portfolio-stand should have a piece of stuff laid
+over the books and cases, wrapped inside the woodwork of the stand.
+This is easily removed when the stand is in use; as it is left hanging
+down on one side, it keeps much dust from the pictures, and if of some
+nice silk or other stuff is ornamental in itself.
+
+A sofa with a rack-end to let down at pleasure at any angle is a great
+convenience, but such couches are not often made, unless especially
+ordered.
+
+Numerous mirrors injure the repose of a room, causing bewilderment; but
+one or two are pleasing, as they have the effect of water in a
+landscape, repeating the lines and echoing the forms of objects. They
+also tend to give space, though not to the same extent as pictures do,
+which are the most decorative of all ornaments; and when they are very
+good they rank with our most precious possessions.
+
+Brackets may be appropriately used for ornaments, such as terra-cotta
+and others; a few fine bronzes, besides being handsome in themselves,
+give value to the colouring of a room.
+
+
+
+
+BED AND DRESSING ROOMS.
+
+Ventilation--Window curtains and blinds--Bedsteads--Spring mattresses
+--Towels--Danger of fire at the toilet--Mantelpiece--Pictures and
+frames--Superfluous necessaries--Taine's criticisms--Aids to reading
+in bed--Service of the bath--Improvements in washstands--Arranging the
+rooms--Attics made beautiful--Sick-rooms--Neatness--Disinfectants--
+Chlorine gas--Condy's solution--Filters--Invalid chairs--Generous
+efforts of the medical profession to improve the national health.
+
+
+We pass a third of our time in our bed-rooms when we are in health, and
+the whole of it when we are ill; therefore their ventilation and
+general arrangement demand our most earnest consideration.
+
+Some bed-rooms are draughty, occasioning cold and neuralgia, but the
+more common fault is that they are not airy enough; for with our
+extreme attention to what is called "English comfort," we too
+frequently make our bed-rooms almost air-tight.
+
+This causes restlessness by night and headache by day. It were far
+better to accustom ourselves to sleep with our windows open, as the
+night air is not at all injurious in dry weather, unless an east wind
+is blowing. We must be guided by the weather, and trim to the wind; our
+feeling will tell us whether we may, or may not, safely leave our
+windows open much more surely than the almanac. The time when windows
+should be shut throughout the house is when the dew is rising and
+falling; then the damp enters and saturates everything.
+
+People seldom attend to this point, but keep their windows open too
+late in the afternoon, which in Italy is recognized as the dangerous
+time. We have but little malaria in England, but what little there is
+is at work just before and after sunset. Many persons, too, who like
+myself have immense faith in fresh air, throw open their windows on
+leaving their rooms in the morning, regardless of whether the air be
+dry and warm, or whether a fog or bitter east wind will penetrate the
+whole house to damp or chill it. It is more prudent, in case of bleak
+or raw weather, to wait for an hour or two before opening the windows,
+ventilation from the door being sufficient for the room while it is
+empty.
+
+It is useless to lay down laws as to the windows in our variable
+climate. We must work by our natural thermometer, and let our skin
+perform one of its most useful functions and tell us whether it is cold
+or hot; but if our feelings are uncertain, give judgment in favour of
+fresh air.
+
+If your rooms have the old-fashioned long and narrow windows which are
+always found in houses built in the reigns of the early Georges, the
+Japanese paper curtains, being very cheap, are as good as any, the
+intention being to drape a skeleton window, which curtainless is a
+dismal object.
+
+But more modern windows should not, or at least need not, have long
+hanging curtains, but only just sufficient to cover the window without
+leaving a streak of light. The drapery may hang from one side or from
+both, according to taste; but unless you are very particular to admit
+no light in your bed-room, a mere valance, or some ornament at the top
+of the window, is enough. For instance, some pretty design in fretwork,
+as the tracery of an Arabian arch, made of deal an inch thick, cut out
+with a steam saw and stained or enamelled black, would be effective
+when lined with rose colour, or any drapery suited to your room; and
+you might furnish an appropriate design for the fretwork. This would be
+easily dusted, and is not expensive.
+
+White blinds are clean and pleasant for bed-rooms, but dark-green ones
+are better for persons with weak sight; either these or Venetian blinds
+are very useful where there are no shutters.
+
+Brass and iron bedsteads have almost entirely superseded wooden ones,
+and they are generally made without fittings for curtains. Indeed, in
+our well-built modern houses there are so few draughts to be guarded
+against that curtains are seldom necessary.
+
+In bed-rooms of the present time valances to the beds are quite
+superfluous, as the bed-round is completely out of fashion. This was
+the name of the breadth of carpet which went round three sides of the
+bed, leaving the remainder of the floor bare. The fashion was healthy
+and economical, certainly, but it was tryingly ugly and cheerless.
+
+For a bed-room, nothing is so good as the square carpet, with a broad
+margin of the floor stained and varnished, as this is very easily taken
+up for the floor and carpet to be cleaned. The carpet must be laid down
+the first time by a man from the carpet-warehouse, so that it may be
+evenly stretched, which is seldom done by a carpenter; but after that
+it is easily spread, as it remains in shape, and needs very few nails
+to keep it in position.
+
+Bed-room carpets need not have brown paper laid under them, though this
+is an advantage in other rooms, as it keeps dust and draught from
+coming through the cracks of the floor, besides saving the carpet from
+being cut by the edges of the boards. Kidderminster carpets are now
+made in very nice patterns, and are quite suitable for bed-rooms where
+Brussels carpets may be thought too expensive.
+
+A hearth-rug is more useful in a bed-room than elsewhere, as a bed-room
+fire should be of coal or wood, and not of gas, as this is injurious in
+a bed-room.
+
+Take care never to let the head of the bed be placed before the
+fire-place. This is sometimes foolishly done, and unsuspecting sleepers
+get neuralgia from it. In summer a pretty pattern, cut out in
+tissue-paper so as to resemble lace, tacked on a slight frame covered
+with black tarletane, and fitted into the fire-place, allows
+ventilation and keeps out the dust from the chimney. Little girls love
+to cut these fire-papers, and one of them, with care, lasts two
+summers, and often three.
+
+When there are no bed-curtains, it is sometimes advisable to line the
+ironwork at the head of the bed, so that the sleeper may not be exposed
+to draught. Spring mattresses, with soft woollen mattresses upon them,
+are the most comfortable beds of any; and Heal's folding spring
+mattresses, though expensive, cannot be too strongly recommended. These
+spring beds are so easily made up, that this is a matter of very
+trifling consideration in any house where there are two pairs of hands,
+children's or grown-up people's. It is necessary to turn back the
+bed-clothes completely over the foot of the bed, and leave it to air
+for an hour, at least, after the window has been opened. There is a
+great fancy now for having trimmed pillow-covers, and pieces of
+ornamental needlework to spread over the bed after it is turned down;
+the fashion is pretty, but superfluous, as a nicely worked counterpane
+looks equally well, and need not be folded up at bedtime.
+
+Towels may, and should be, ornamented, but not so much as to make them
+inconvenient for use. The collection of linen exhibited by the Duchess
+of Edinburgh gave many of us an interesting lesson in things of this
+kind. One of the silliest pieces of finery seen in a bed or dressing
+room is the trimmed towel-horse cover. Towels cannot possibly dry if
+the evaporation is stopped, and even when the cover is made of thin
+muslin, it is only a troublesome frivolity.
+
+Every lady has her own particular taste about her toilet-table, so that
+I only give a caution to let it be safe, and not liable to take fire.
+We frequently want candles on our dressing-tables; therefore it stands
+to reason that the veil often placed over the looking-glass is highly
+dangerous. This drapery is intended to keep the sun from scorching the
+back of the glass, but it is safer to stand the glass elsewhere than in
+the window when the room is exposed to the midday sun, although it will
+not be so pleasant for use.
+
+The rose-lined white muslin petticoat which was once such a popular way
+of concealing a deal dressing-table is highly dangerous. Indeed, it is
+difficult to conceive any combination more inflammable than the veiled
+glass set in the midst of cotton window-curtains, and two candles
+standing on a cotton toilet-cover, with a frilled muslin pincushion
+between them, and full muslin drapery below.
+
+The most convenient table allows the large square-seated stool, so
+comfortable to sit on while dressing the hair, to be pushed under it
+when not in use. When light ornaments are placed on a bed-room
+mantelpiece and exposed to a current of air, it is advisable to have
+two upright pieces of board, painted, cut out, or otherwise made
+ornamental, placed one on each side of the shelf to protect the
+knick-knacks from being blown down; and if these are numerous, one or
+two shelves may be put above the mantelpiece, forming a pretty little
+museum of curiosities which may be too small, or too trifling, to be
+placed with advantage in the drawing-room; and houses of the class I am
+describing seldom have a boudoir. If the mantelpiece is covered with
+cloth or velvet, the shelves and back might be covered with the same,
+and this would be very becoming to the ornaments. Tunisian or point
+lace forms a very good edging to a mantelboard, and when a foot deep,
+or nearly so, it is extremely handsome. Water-colour sketches should
+abound in a bed-room, souvenirs of places we have visited, or of
+friends who have made the drawings, being doubly enjoyed when we are
+recovering from illness, or when we are awake early in the summer
+morning. Sketches are as pleasant as books, without the trouble of
+holding them up to our eyes. They should be carefully arranged so as
+not to look spotty; and they must be hung flat against the wall by
+having the rings placed high in the frames, as, although it is becoming
+to the pictures, the effect of them hanging much forward makes many
+people giddy, and in an invalid will sometimes produce a feeling akin
+to sea-sickness.
+
+Neatly made frames of the cheap German gilding (which will wash) answer
+very well for sketches hung in the less prominent situations in a
+bedroom, and bring a luxury within the reach of many who would not
+otherwise afford it.
+
+Now I am come to the difficult part of my subject--the tug of war, in
+fact--for I want men to do something for themselves, and women to do
+without something dear to their hearts. I think I will speak of the
+latter clause first.
+
+In bed-rooms especially is seen that truly English love of superfluous
+comforts which we mistake for civilization: it meets us everywhere, in
+and out of the house, but it abounds in our bed and dressing rooms.
+
+The amount of toilet so-called necessaries is incredible, and the
+number of patent objects overwhelming. When we consider that seven
+things only are necessary to our personal neatness and cleanliness--soap,
+sponge, towel, and tooth-brush for washing, and brush and comb and
+nail-scissors for the rest of the toilet--and then count the other
+paraphernalia seen in our dressing-rooms, we shall discover how many
+frivolous trades our superfluities maintain, to say nothing of
+ingenuity misplaced in making advertisements of dressing-cases and
+hair-restorers conspicuously attractive.
+
+The toilet-table is not alone to blame: the fault pervades the whole
+house and overwhelms the bed-rooms.
+
+M. Taine, in his "Notes on England," amusingly describing an English
+house, says, "In my bedroom is a table of rosewood, standing on an
+oilcloth mat on the carpet; upon this table is a slab of marble, on the
+marble a round straw mat--all this to bear an ornamented water-bottle
+covered with a tumbler. One does not simply place one's book on a
+table: upon the table is a small stand for holding it. One does not
+have a plain candlestick: the candle is enclosed in a glass cylinder,
+and is furnished with a self-acting extinguisher. All this apparatus
+hampers; it involves too much trouble for the sake of comfort."
+
+This was only a bachelor's room; what would the French critic have
+thought of the aids to reading in bed in an ordinarily well-appointed
+bed-room where the master indulges in that practice?
+
+By the Englishman's bedside is also a small table standing on a mat,
+and on this table another mat supporting a patent stand which screws up
+and down, and on this another mat with a candlestick with a nozzle and
+a patent protector of the candle from the draught, a glass shield set
+in an ormolu frame which has an elaborate screw; and by the side of the
+candlestick-stand another mat, on which is a patent screw for shading
+the light from the aforesaid candle. Then, besides the extinguisher,
+also on a stand and a mat, and patent matches in a patent box, he is
+supplied with a book-rest which will turn in every possible way, with a
+patent leaf-turner and leaf-holder, and a variety of other little
+conveniences. He only lacks an electric communication between the
+fire-escape outside and the patent night-bolt on his door, to prevent
+him being burnt in his bed, to make the thing complete.
+
+We feel how difficult we have made life by having to put all these
+indispensables to their intended use. We have multiplied these patent
+gimcracks until we cannot move without being crushed by our comforts;
+and the keeping of all this in order obliges us to have under us a
+parlour-maid, an upper housemaid, and an under housemaid, to wait upon
+these inventions. Helps, in one of his essays, says, "I have always
+maintained that half the work of the world is useless, if subjected to
+severe scrutiny. My idea of organization would be to diminish much of
+this useless work." The same remark applies to our luggage when we
+travel. We take things fancying. We may want them, forgetting that it
+is easier to do without an article once, than to have the trouble of
+packing it and looking after it every day; so we bury our pleasure
+under a heap of care.
+
+I must give another extract from Taine's description of his bed-room
+before I proceed to my second great battle-field, where I fear a harder
+contest.
+
+After describing his dressing-table, Taine goes on to say of his
+washstand: "It is furnished with one large jug, one small one, a medium
+one for hot water, two porcelain basins, a dish for toothbrushes, two
+soap-dishes, a water-bottle with its tumbler, a finger-glass with its
+glass. Underneath is a very low table, a sponge, another basin, a large
+shallow zinc bath for morning bathing. In a cupboard is a towel-horse
+with four towels of different kinds, one of them thick and rough.
+Napkins are under all the vessels and utensils; to provide for such a
+service, when the house is occupied, it is necessary that washing
+should be always going on. The servant comes four times a day into the
+rooms: in the morning to draw the blinds and the curtains, open the
+inner blinds, carry off the boots and clothes, and bring a large can of
+hot water with a fluffy towel on which to place the feet; at midday and
+at seven in the evening to bring water and the rest, in order that the
+visitor may wash before luncheon and dinner; at night to shut the
+window, arrange the bed, get the bath ready, renew the linen;--all this
+with silence, gravity, and respect. Pardon these trifling details, but
+they must be handled in order to figure to one's self the wants of an
+Englishman in the direction of his luxury: what he expends in being
+waited upon and comfort is enormous, and one may laughingly say that he
+spends the fifth of his life in his tub."
+
+Men will do much for glory and for vainglory, even to using cold
+shower-baths in winter, and boast of breaking the ice in them; but I
+never yet heard of a man who would take the trouble to empty his bath
+after using it. Now I maintain that every man who has not a valet ought
+to do this. Few men consider the hard work it is to a woman to carry
+upstairs heavy cans of water; but that is trifling, compared with the
+difficulty to a woman of turning the water out of a large flat bath
+into a pail. A man would find little difficulty in doing this; his arms
+are longer, his back stronger, and his dress does not come in the way.
+
+When a man likes to have his bath regularly--and who does not?--he
+should think of the labour that half a dozen or more baths entail, and
+in the evening prepare his can of water for to-morrow's use, place his
+own bath on his piece of oil-cloth, enjoy his tub to his heart's
+content, pour away the water, put up his tub, and say nothing about it.
+
+This disagreeable lecture over, we will go on and see how easy the
+general dressing-room arrangements might be made.
+
+If, instead of our ordinary washstands with their jugs and basins, we
+had fixed basins with plugs in them and taps above, much of the
+water-bearing difficulty would be obviated. These washstands should be
+placed back to back, as it were, in every two rooms, having only the
+partition-wall between them, so that the same pipe would supply two
+taps.
+
+I have three sorts of basins in use in my house: one kind has the
+ordinary tap and plug, another kind has handles for supply and waste,
+the water being sucked away on turning the waste handle. This is safe
+for careless people who let rings or any other articles drop in the
+basin, and nothing but water can go down to choke the pipe. But the
+basin I find easiest and most pleasant to use, tilts out the water by
+lifting a handle, or rather finger-niche, in front of the basin; and
+when this is let fall it strikes on an india-rubber pad beneath the
+tap, so that the basin cannot be cracked. All these different basins
+are fitted into marble washstands with dishes for soap and tooth-brushes
+hollowed in the marble, with holes for drainage connected with the
+waste-pipe below. These conveniences, with a housemaid's-closet with
+sink and tap on the same floor, save all carrying up and down of pails
+and cans of water, and, in fact, the heaviest part of a housemaid's
+work.
+
+Where the hall is warmed by hot-water pipes, water from the same source
+will supply the bedrooms. It will be warm if the first quart is allowed
+to flow away. Or the pipes may be connected with the kitchen boiler,
+which, in the case of our kitchen on the ground floor, will not be so
+expensive as where the pipes have to communicate with the basement.
+
+Supplying the taps is perfectly easy when only cold water is required,
+and children and delicate persons may be indulged with jugs of warm
+water, which, however, every boy using should fetch for himself. We
+should thus be able to dispense with ewers and toilet-cans, which would
+at once pay for the fitting of the pipe and tap to each room.
+
+It is better and nicer to use filtered water for the toilet-decanter,
+and not water drawn directly from the cistern, unless it has been
+tested and found pure. In such a case, which is rare, no decanter will
+be needed, unless we like to have a Venetian glass one for the sake of
+its beauty.
+
+Let all persons, in dressing, replace the things they have used, and
+spread their towels on the horse to dry; then the rooms will be set in
+order for the day, only needing the daily dusting, which will be done
+after the beds are made. Boys and girls who go to school should make
+their beds before they go, so they must open them to air immediately
+they get up.
+
+"These seem little things: and so they are unless you neglect them"
+(_Sir A. Helps_).
+
+Everybody should have his or her own wardrobe, and keep it in order.
+Men and boys and little children will have everything neatly made and
+mended for them, and laid in its proper place; so all they have to do
+is to leave the drawers as tidy as they found them, taking heed not to
+lose their gloves and neckties; the larger things take care of
+themselves. The secret of keeping one's clothes tidy is not to have too
+many.
+
+Of course, where there are no servants to provide for, the house has
+fewer rooms than a family of the same size requires in our present
+experience, and the uglier part of the house is abolished, or where not
+abolished, is converted from servants' bed-rooms and attics--unpleasant,
+dusty, and ill furnished; redolent of tallow candle, shoes, brushes,
+and stale perfumery; with closed windows and the floor strewn with old
+letters, hair-pins, half-empty matchboxes, and dogs-eared penny
+novels--into a bower-like study or morning-room, where a young lady may
+entertain herself and her own especial visitors. I have even known an
+attic in Baker Street so converted by the invention and taste of a
+young lady, as to live in one's recollection as as pretty a summer room
+as any country rectory could boast, by being papered with bright
+flowery paper all over its sloping roof, and its window made cheerful
+with climbing plants and flowers; tasteful draperies, a work-table and
+work-basket in embroidered green satin, book-shelves carved by friends,
+a piano just good enough for practising upon, and water-colour drawings
+on the walls.
+
+I have known another room, cheaply fitted up in a French style by a
+French lady, as a dressing-room, with looking-glass wardrobe and
+painted furniture. A small bed in an alcove, in case the room might be
+wanted as a spare room, and lace curtains drawn over the alcove. The
+head of the bed and all its plain wood-work covered in quilted white
+cotton in large diamonds, and cross-barred with narrow blue satin
+ribbon, and large blue bows here and there. The walls papered with a
+paper resembling quilted muslin. The effect was soft, clean, and
+extremely pretty.
+
+A few words on the topic of sick-rooms before quitting this part of the
+subject.
+
+In cases of severe illness it is advisable to engage a professed nurse.
+She is a great help to the physician, and a support to the family, who
+too often, in their love for the sufferer, overtax their strength, and
+break down at the moment this is most required. No person can long
+sustain night and day nursing, particularly if to bodily fatigue
+anxiety and distress of mind be added; nor can they keep up that
+appearance of cheerfulness which is such a support to a sick person. It
+is a great mistake to attempt to do this in any case, but more
+especially if it is likely to be a prolonged illness. A sister of mercy
+is often found a most valuable member of the household under such
+circumstances. People often talk of not having had their clothes off
+for a fortnight. One's first thought on hearing this said is, how glad
+you will be to take a bath! And one's second thought, what good did it
+do the patient?
+
+The sick-room should be kept as much as possible in its usual order.
+The paraphernalia of illness distresses the sick person, causing
+nervousness. Do not let physic bottles be visible in all directions, or
+the patient will never feel well, and those in attendance will fancy
+they have caught the infection, simply because they are nauseated with
+the smell of the medicines, and the disagreeable sight of their dregs
+left about in spoons and glasses. The medicines that have to be given
+at stated hours should be neatly placed in readiness on a small tray,
+near the clock if possible, so that they may be remembered and the
+hours observed. Keep perfect cleanliness and neatness in the room, and
+avoid clatter. Wear thin shoes, and do not let your dress rustle. A
+woman's hand should at every touch improve or replace something, so
+that there may never be a great bustle of setting to rights. We have
+already spoken at length of ventilation: in sickness it must be
+particularly attended to, as fresh air is the most beneficial of all
+medicines.
+
+At the time of the great cattle-plague, fumigation with chlorine gas
+was advocated, and beneficially employed, by Professor Stone, of Owen's
+College, Manchester. It is simple for domestic use.
+
+One teaspoonful of powdered chlorate of potash should be loosely
+stirred together with three table-spoonfuls of dry sand in an empty dry
+pickle bottle; add to this nearly an ounce of muriatic acid; stand the
+bottle on some warm embers in an old Australian-meat tin, or other
+receptacle of this kind, and place it (with the embers in it) on a
+shelf, or somewhere high up in the room, taking care not to scorch the
+wood-work. The heavy chlorine gas will descend and so fill all parts of
+the room, and in about three hours disinfection will be complete.
+
+It would be a good thing if district-visitors, and other charitable
+persons, would instruct the clergy and their poor people in such
+effectual means of stamping out infection.
+
+In all hospitals "Condy's solution" is placed with the water and towels
+for the use of the visiting medical men. It is highly advisable to keep
+this in every house for cleansing and disinfecting purposes, and for
+the removal of unpleasant smells. It is useful in cleansing bird-cages
+and gun-barrels, in preparing poultry or game, and in many other ways.
+
+The solution may be made at home. The British Pharmacopoeia allows
+four grains of the permanganate of potash (the basis of the solution)
+to the fluid ounce. It is chiefly for external use. The permanganate of
+potash is sold in crystals of two kinds: the most expensive is the
+purple, which is used in what is called the ozonized water, a very weak
+solution of permanganate, sold by chemists for toilet use. The cheaper
+and more general disinfectant is a greenish coarse powder, sold by any
+honest chemist at under five shillings a pound. It may be bought of the
+General Apothecaries' Company, 49, Berner's Street, London, for from
+three shillings a pound to three-and-sixpence, as it varies with the
+market; and this does as well as Condy's patent, and is 500 per cent.
+cheaper, as fourteen gallons of disinfectant may be prepared from a
+pound of the powdered crystals, and these again will be extensively
+diluted for use. The purple crystals may be bought by the ounce.
+
+Be cautious in using this fluid, or the Condy, whichever you may happen
+to prefer, as it turns almost everything brown that it touches. Very
+deep stains will never come out; slight stains wash and wear out after
+a time, but china and all white ware, and sponges and brushes, have
+their appearance greatly injured by it. Bed-room floors may be washed
+with it; they will be thoroughly purified, and the colour will be as if
+they were stained dark oak previous to being varnished. Stains will
+wear off the hands in a few days, and a weak solution will not
+discolour them. The purple fluid is a test of water--if it turns brown
+the water is impure. It decolorizes on contact with animal matter.
+
+It is a useful plan to keep a filter on every floor of a house; the
+expense is not very great, while the increased safety is incalculable.
+Spencer's patent, or magnetic-carbide, filter is one of the best. He
+imitated nature's process when constructing it, having observed that
+the purest water filtered through oxide of iron in the earth's strata.
+
+Two articles of furniture will be found of great use in a sick-room.
+One is a chair back with bars of broad webbing, made to lift up and
+down like the music-desk of a grand piano. This is a most comfortable
+support to an invalid when sitting up to take food or medicine. When
+closed flat it will slip easily under the pillow, and it can be raised
+gently and gradually to the angle required. The other thing is an
+arm-chair, stood and fastened on a board with four French castors. This
+is a great assistance in cases of lameness or extreme weakness, as it
+is easy for the invalid to sit on it and be wheeled to any part of the
+room; and it costs less than a wheeled chair.
+
+None of the learned professions have advanced during the last thirty
+years so much as the medical. Medicine has become a new science since
+it has taken hold of the sanitary improvement of our towns and
+dwellings. The profession, with a disinterestedness and devotion to
+science worthy of liberal minds, combines to make the prevention of
+disease its aim, even beyond its cure. It forms a noble co-operative
+society.
+
+At the last meeting of the British Medical Association at Sheffield, it
+was most truly said that independent medical officers of health would
+before long change the character of disease throughout the nation, and
+save future generations much misery. It is to be hoped that the
+country, which will reap the benefit of their endeavours, will
+strengthen the hands of those whose efforts are directed to raising the
+standard of national health.
+
+
+
+
+THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS.
+
+To what age should boys' and girls' education be alike?--Accomplishments
+fruitlessly taught--Nursery and School-room government--Helplessness
+--Introduction to society--The convent system--Unhappy results--Scientific
+education--Geometrical illustration--Religion--Professional life for
+women--Home training--Varied knowledge--Companionship of a mother--
+Experience--Kindness--Truth.
+
+
+At what age should the training of boys and girls begin to differ? This
+is a doubtful point, though we may consider that as, until about the
+age of fourteen, their nature has been much the same, their strength of
+mind and body nearly equal, and their tastes and dispositions much
+alike, this may be the time when their training should begin to follow
+each its own path; as the boy's strength grows from this time beyond
+that of the girl, while she becomes more remarkable for the increasing
+delicacy of her skill.
+
+Practically there is a divergence when their clothing begins to differ,
+but this is merely artificial. The girl is made to wear finer and more
+delicate clothing than the boy; its texture and form impede her
+movements, and it is more easily injured by the weather. But where a
+girl is sensibly dressed, so that her clothes will not spoil with the
+rain, nor prevent her moving her limbs freely, this diversity between
+the two disappears.
+
+But although it will not harm a girl to share her brother's pursuits
+till the age of fourteen, the conditions of her so doing will depend
+upon circumstances. Except in the case of twins, the boy will be rather
+older or younger than the girl, if even she have brothers about her own
+age at all, and many accidents will be found to control her education.
+Besides these, nature works gradually, and there are seldom abrupt
+transitions in her processes. The girl's future skill of hand and the
+boy's strength of arm will be prepared for, and seen, in their
+differences of taste and choice of pursuits and games; the girl will
+prefer working for her doll and protecting it from the boy's rough
+handling, and the boy will love his bat and knife. He will show his
+instinct for construction, and she hers for preservation, after the
+first early stage when both alike delight in destruction. Here
+education comes into use, leading each child to exercise the good
+instinct instead of its converse.
+
+When the conventional proprieties are not allowed to warp the natural
+taste, a girl loves running and climbing as well as the boy does: she
+likes to collect stamps, minerals, fossils, birds' eggs, insects, etc.,
+fully as much as he does. Their favourite books are identical, their
+scrap-books equally enjoyed, the theatre and theatricals at home
+delighted in by both, and their pets are much beloved. Why, then,
+should we make so much difference between them where Nature has created
+none?
+
+Girls of the upper classes are always at lessons of some kind from six
+years old to eighteen; thus they have twelve years of instruction, and
+we know that of old a seven year's apprenticeship was held sufficient
+to make a master in some craft. What do the twelve years do for our
+girls? Does their training enable them to maintain them decently in any
+one line? What have they learnt, and what can they do?
+
+They have learnt music enough to play a _morceau de salon_ showily, and
+the allegretto movement of a sonata stumblingly, and the latter only
+because it was thought 'proper' that they should learn 'classical
+music.' But they do not know enough even to learn another _morceau de
+salon_ without the help of a master, so of course music cannot be
+reckoned upon as doing much for them.
+
+I place music first, because the most time has been given to it; a
+weary hour every day, had it not been so broken up by visits to the
+clock. Practical girls grudge this hour wasted on a weakness they are
+sure to give up when they marry, for they all think they are as certain
+to marry as to give up their music. They are healthy and strong and
+have good voices, but few of them can do more than incomprehensibly
+murmur a few lines of twaddle to a feeble accompaniment, or sing out of
+all time the top line of a glee, provided the piano helps them out with
+the notes. So here is a physical gift thrown aside.
+
+Can anything be made of that pencil-stroking on buff paper, with some
+splashes of white, which is held to represent a cottage, flanked on one
+side by a gate-post which could never have been a good gate-post, and
+on the other side by something smeary which is not at all like a tree,
+nor any other created thing?
+
+Every willow-pattern plate has a better landscape on it than that. So
+there are two hours a week gone, for the lop-sided chalk head is of no
+more use to anybody than was the landscape.
+
+The girl has been taught French and German, but has not learnt enough
+of either language to enjoy a good book, or to converse with
+intelligence in either tongue, and her stock of dialogue-book phrases
+is soon exhausted. Indeed, she can hardly talk better in English when
+she gets beyond the depth of drawing-room chatter, as her knowledge of
+facts is of a most uncertain sort; so in general conversation she
+covers her deficiencies by slang, which, although it distresses us, we
+forgive in a pretty, lively girl.
+
+She cannot cook, how should she? She was never permitted to peep inside
+the kitchen, but was kept in an upstairs nursery until she was six
+years old, under the stultifying dominion of "nurse," whose sole
+training was "Miss, I'll tell your ma," when wicked or cruel teaching
+did not replace this feebleness. When she was promoted to the
+school-room and made over to the care of the governess, the system of
+instruction was little more satisfactory. The list of the Kings of
+England superseded standing in the corner as a punishment for
+weariness, but her chief experience of life was gathered from tales in
+cheap magazines, read surreptitiously; and as she grew older, the
+railway novel by a sensational author replaced the serial in the penny
+paper.
+
+The child saw her parents together for a quarter of an hour in the
+evening, when she was full dressed to go down to dessert, and her
+mother for about five minutes in the course of the morning, when she
+came up to the school-room to find fault with the governess for the
+children's bad grammar, or awkward behaviour, on the previous evening.
+The round of the year brings the sea-side visit. Here, although health
+is gained, there is no education beyond lodging-house gossip. The
+children are put into the train like so many parcels, and in so many
+hours are somewhere else; frocks suited to the sea-side are put on them
+by the nurse, but these might have dropped from the clouds, and the
+children have been none the wiser. Helplessness is the natural outcome
+of all this.
+
+The school-room course begins in about six years to be agreeably
+diversified by the visits of music and drawing-masters; which, if the
+governess did not sit in the room all the time, trying to attract their
+admiration, would be a really pleasant change. But nothing comes of the
+lessons beyond the showy _morceau de salon_ aforesaid, the buff-paper
+drawing, and the weak rhyme jingled to an accompaniment in quavers;
+except an increase of energy in borrowing, or hiring, yellow-covered
+books revealing stirring impossibilities in the lives of Edwin and
+Angelina, over which a girl, according to her disposition, may weep or
+rage. For this is the only outlet for her poor imprisoned life, until,
+on her introduction to society, she is suddenly flung upon the world,
+to make her way as best, or worst, she can; and now, and now only, does
+her real education begin.
+
+This manner of bringing up our girls differs from the convent system in
+this, that it is worldly instead of being religious, and needlework and
+confectionery are worse taught; other things are about equal. Both we
+and our continental neighbours imprison our girls in a school-room or
+convent for twelve years, and yet boast of our superiority over the
+Turks!
+
+After this, can we wonder at the weakness or the folly of girls, or be
+surprised that society is at a dead-lock, or that our women eat bitter
+bread?
+
+Can we marvel that women ruin their husbands by their dress and
+extravagance; that they drive them to their clubs for companionship,
+and freedom from the wretchedness of home; that they tyrannize over
+their milliners, and are in their turn tyrannized over by their
+servants; that their sons drink the brandy and smoke the tobacco of
+idleness, and that their daughters grow up the patterns of themselves?
+Only where the mother is passively useless, the daughter will be
+actively mischievous; where the mother was merely frivolous, the
+daughter will be actually wicked.
+
+Does all our boasted culture come to this; or will Cambridge
+examinations and a scientific education set all right again? When an
+hour a day, at least, for twelve years passed in the study of music has
+failed to implant those habits of accuracy which this beautiful science
+so pre-eminently combines with sweetness and grace, is a smattering of
+geology certain to succeed? Will Greek strengthen the character more
+than German? Or is one as likely as the other to puff the mind with
+conceit, where it does not equally encourage a deceitful appearance of
+knowledge. And is the new system better calculated than the old one to
+prepare girls for fifty years of womanhood?
+
+People talk of depth, as if truth were only to be found at the bottom
+of a well. What seems most wanted is breadth, free expansion all round
+to keep the soul healthy. Let every branch have due encouragement to
+stretch out towards the light, to receive the shower or sunshine as
+they come.
+
+Some careful mothers say, "I keep my girls exclusively at 'studies' for
+the piano; they make such a good groundwork." This may be so, but
+finger training is not everything. The poor girls have had their souls
+so sickened over melancholy minor "meditations," that their hearts are
+closed to the tender or joyous melodies of music, and its rich,
+majestic harmonies.
+
+Point out these things to the young, who will love them, at first
+blindly, and afterwards with a gradually developing appreciation.
+
+Here a little, there a little, is a true precept in education. A thing
+can never be completely taught, for there is infinity everywhere. How
+rarely we can begin at the beginning, or even the unit, of anything;
+multiplication and subdivision meet us at both ends, besides all the
+collaterals.
+
+I have ever observed that those girls who have been the greatest number
+of years at the same school know the least, and are the most stupid. It
+is better to let children go to many different schools in succession,
+than to remain long in one: they gain more experience, while the
+chances of their learning evil are the same in both cases. In public
+schools as boys go up through the forms, they meet different sets of
+masters and subjects of study, so that these are, in fact, fresh
+schools.
+
+To use a simile which will be intelligible to this generation, women
+have been treated as if they were stones. Left shapeless under the
+school-room prison system, they are only fit to be broken up for the
+roads, as they will fit in nowhere. Our well-educated ancestresses,
+down to the time of Hannah More, were formed into cubes, very solid and
+steady on either of their bases, and suitable for many buildings,
+though the finer kinds of stone are in this manner misapplied. Modern
+science gives the stones more sides, and, while seeming to round them
+into more adaptable forms, only produces a number of small facets,
+making a somewhat polished dodecahedron, which rolls about in any
+position and is of no particular service, except, maybe, to stick upon
+a gate-post at a girl's school, though it has given a great deal of
+trouble in the cutting. But the hourly guidance of the loving hands of
+father and mother, aided by raspings and filings of circumstances, and
+many blows from chisels more or less severe, produces at last a
+beautiful statue, well shaped in all its parts, which becomes a perfect
+and nobly planned Galatea. What is the best training for girls? That is
+the question. What are they to be, or not to be?
+
+We have tried hitherto to bring up our girls so that they may be fitted
+for the high position here that we all wish they may attain, making
+their education tend solely to pleasure; forgetting how easily the
+nature of woman adapts itself to any superior station, and how soon it
+seems like everyday life, however high the rank or great the wealth to
+which a girl may be suddenly raised.
+
+We teach religion, when it is taught at all, under the head of
+"divinity," at school, where it is put on a par with the
+multiplication-table; or as a series of "religious duties," to be
+performed once a week and rendered as irksome as possible, quite
+ignoring that everything we do is our duty towards God, or towards our
+neighbour, which is part of the same duty; whereas we ought to train
+our girls for "duties" here, and give them joy in preparing for their
+high position as daughters of God in heaven. We should let our divine
+life so permeate through every hour of our stay here, that it may be
+the vivifying light shed upon everything we are concerned with, making
+the trifles of this life unfold their beauties, comforting sadness and
+gilding poverty, as the southern sunshine lights up squalid dwellings
+till they shine like gold and silver, and makes rags glow with light
+and colour.
+
+Our ideas have changed lately, and now we seem to think that all girls
+who are not born to high position here must of necessity be trained to
+professional life. But, after all, the demand for certified teachers,
+heads of ladies' colleges, doctors, and other learned professions, will
+never comprise the great bulk of the number of willing workers among
+the unmarried women of England: nor do these things constitute a
+quarter of the work to be done.
+
+Instances of marked talent or decided turn for some particular line of
+study should be furthered and fostered to the utmost, consistently with
+the possibility that after all the vocation may not be carried into
+effect; but women are really more valuable, and more likely to be
+happy, in what it is old-fashioned to call the sphere of a home.
+
+And this is best prepared for by home training; which does not mean
+being pushed aside so as to be out of the way, and shut up in the
+nursery or school-room, but enjoying the companionship of a judicious
+and sensible mother, and the freedom of the house--where the child will
+be taught to behave herself properly, and be useful and obliging; where
+she will have regular hours of study with her mother, her governess, or
+at school, and yet have opportunities of seeing how everything is
+managed in the kitchen and throughout the house, being allowed
+occasionally to do some little thing herself, and so acquire some of
+the needful practice; where she can be taught needlework and the proper
+use of many tools; learn to carve, to cut bread and butter, to help
+dishes neatly at table, and gain a knowledge of gardening and
+green-house culture.
+
+Children should be permitted to look on at the proceedings of all
+workmen employed in or out of the house: the glazier, gasfitter,
+gardener, carpet-stretcher, carpenter, locksmith, and piano-tuner; the
+exceptions being the dustman and the sweep, because of the dirt.
+
+How much money might be saved in a house if people understood the use
+of a few tools, the construction of a few fittings, or could take a
+piano to pieces and tune it. If a bell-wire is broken, a man is sent
+for; he charges half a day's work and some materials, and generally
+makes a little bit of work for some other tradesman, whereas a
+knowledge of how to unscrew and take off the bell-cover would often
+enable a piece of copper wire to be joined, and the bell set in order.
+How often people fail to force down a window whose weights are just
+over-lapping, where a blow with a mallet on the shutterbox would have
+shaken them into their places; or, failing that, the box containing the
+sash-weights might be opened by taking off the beading near the
+window-sash, the cords and weights put straight, and the beading
+replaced by hammering the brads. But no; we send for a man.
+
+Our water-pipes burst in winter, because during a hard frost we have
+not taken the precaution to turn the taps so that a few drops may pass
+to relieve the pressure in thawing.
+
+We cannot even frame and hang up a picture when we have painted it, or
+cover a chair with the piece of needlework we have made. We do not know
+how to renew the cord of a spring blind, nor many a little thing
+besides; and yet any one who keeps a house in order knows how
+constantly these things are recurring, and what a source of expense
+they are.
+
+Girls should be taken out shopping that they may learn the names and
+qualities of things, the quantities of material required for different
+purposes, and the value of money. The knowledge of how much it costs to
+clothe a child will teach them more practical arithmetic than any
+amount of extraction of the square root, and give an interest to their
+tables of weights and measures besides. Let Euclid be learnt by all
+means, if desired; but if it is only done for the sake of training, and
+not to aid some particular purpose, as good, if not as exact, training
+may be found in some study leading to a pleasing result, such as music,
+drawing, or knowledge of architecture, as from the pure mathematics.
+
+Let the girls learn to fit their clothes exactly, estimate the needful
+quantity of material, and calculate the cost of the quality. When the
+mother is considering the size and price of a new carpet, if she
+consult with her daughters about it, it will help their judgment at the
+same time that it improves their arithmetic. Let girls learn to write
+notes of invitation and letters of business, and write orders to
+tradespeople; let them accompany their parents on house-hunting
+expeditions--it is a school in itself--or when furniture is bought.
+Elder girls may go with their mothers when they are treating for
+schools for little brothers, and when servants are hired, or evening
+parties catered for; when lodgings are taken for friends, and a
+thousand and one other circumstances.
+
+It is all experience, and of the kind those girls never gain who are
+always at school-work; so that those who have not this knowledge begin
+life many years behind the home-trained girls, and commit many follies
+owing to their want of it. It need not be feared that this experience
+will destroy a girl's charm of manner. Ignorance is not simplicity, nor
+silliness a grace, neither are awkwardness and affectation as dignified
+as self-possession.
+
+I would on no account depreciate the efforts made for the higher
+education of women. No one rejoices more than I do at seeing things
+more thoroughly taught. Still, we cannot rest content with crumbs of
+science; female education must be filled with the milk of human
+kindness. It is not the nature of woman to stand Alp-like alone, with
+one peak seeming to pierce the heavens; she should be like the
+spreading tree which gives shelter and enjoyment to all within its
+influence, its roots being firmly fixed in the good ground.
+
+The nursery training for children is merely repressive. They are told
+not to be naughty, not to be greedy, not to break their toys, not to be
+noisy. Whereas a teaching more calculated to develop their intelligence
+would substitute some interesting occupation to counteract their
+naughtiness; such as mending a toy they have broken, which would
+delight them more than any new toy; and having seen the trouble it took
+to mend it, and the time it took to dry it, they would learn
+carefulness. If they wish to shout at inconvenient times and places,
+teach them to sing a chorus, and if the noise is too great, let them
+sing one at a time. If they are greedy, which often means hungry, for
+children need frequent feeding, give them a piece of bread.
+
+But although tender kindness is the best of nurture, on no account let
+it degenerate into weak indulgence. Compel instant obedience to the
+slightest word, the minutest direction, enforcing habits of attention
+and discipline. Never let children be obtrusive or feel that they are a
+power in the house; and require of them the utmost respect to elders.
+
+The good example of parents is the safeguard of the children. If they
+show reverence to all that is lovely, children will do so too. Above
+all, parents should never break a promise, nor ever deceive their
+children, even in play, or children will not honour their word.
+
+I do not like to see mothers or nurses take away from a child something
+they do not wish it to have, and hide it, and pretend not to know where
+it is gone; yet this is a very favourite form of play, and deemed quite
+innocent. Surely it were better kindly, but firmly and openly, to
+remove the object and turn the attention from the loss.
+
+I hope these few remarks will be found useful. I have tried to keep
+them brief, but in writing on so important a topic as that of
+education, it is difficult to bear in mind the clever old French
+saying, "Woe to him who says all that can be said."
+
+
+
+
+SUNDAY.
+
+Children's Sundays made wearisome--Sunday precious to workers--Moral
+workers--Moral vices--Our gifts--Misuse of them--Necessary work on
+Sunday--Diminished by management--Sunday prevents us living too
+fast--The rest must be earned--Sunday repairs the human machine.
+
+
+Do not let Sunday be turned into a day of dread to the children. It is
+the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. For
+years I lived in terror of the Sunday, and I feel for children who,
+being brought more into the presence of their elders on that day, are
+consequently more exposed to reproof for their natural animal spirits,
+which are trying to jaded and irritable persons. An only child, I was
+taken twice a day to a church built in the dismal style of the reign of
+George III., and put into a high pew, "shut up in a cupboard," as I
+have heard a little child express it, where I could only see a
+frightful ornament like a row of teeth in painted woodwork that ran
+round the upper part of the church. I sat contemplating this through
+the long low church service and sermon, of which I was too young to
+understand a word. The remainder of the day was filled up with collect,
+epistle, and catechism, Bible questions to write and answer, the text
+to remember, hymns to repeat to visitors, and a prolonged dessert, with
+half a glass of sherry, which was like a dose of physic to me. The
+"Life of Joseph" was my only recreation.
+
+Too often is Sunday given up to the display of toilet vanities out of
+doors and listlessness at home. Those who have been really working
+during the week know well what a blessing the Sunday rest is. Those who
+have been idle cannot expect to feel this, and they experience such a
+flatness in the quietly kept Sunday that they regard it as a weekly
+penance which interrupts their pleasures. But they ought not to have
+allowed themselves to get into this condition of feeling. There is work
+for all in the world; none but the dead have a right to be idle.
+
+As Kingsley justly asks: "If vanity, profligacy, pride, and idleness be
+not moral vices, what are?" What is more common than to find pride and
+vanity leading our women to idleness, and that extravagance and craving
+after gaiety which are the feminine form of profligacy? And Kingsley
+goes on to show that beneath these vices, and perhaps the cause of them
+all, lies another and deeper vice--godlessness, atheism.
+
+"I do not," continues he, "mean merely the want of religion, doctrinal
+unbelief. I mean want of belief in duty, in responsibility. Want of
+belief that there is a living God governing the universe, who has set
+us our work, and will judge us according to our work."
+
+Why are our noble gifts given to us; such gifts as these--
+
+    "The reason firm, the temperate will,
+    Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill."
+
+Is it that we may become "tolerably harmless dolls?" How shall we
+answer for having used our endurance only so much as may make us wait
+with common patience for next month's number of _Belgravia_; our
+foresight in choosing a pattern for a mantle which shall be fashionable
+enough to be worn next autumn; our skill in crochet-work, and our
+strength in skating on the outside edge.
+
+No wonder we do not value the Sunday rest. We know that heavenly
+mansions are being prepared for us to enjoy the heavenly rest in, and
+that we must prepare ourselves for these mansions, or we shall not be
+permitted to enter them. Then let us take pains to prepare our earthly
+houses for the right use of the day of rest, and be able to go up to
+the house of the Lord with the multitude that keep holy-day.
+
+We should so put our houses in order on Saturday that we may really be
+able to rest on Sunday. Some works of necessity must be done, such as
+the dinner prepared; but by dining early, and doing as much as possible
+on the previous day towards its preparation, the labour may be reduced
+to a minimum.
+
+There will be no needlework, no cleaning or dusting, no marketing to be
+done on Sunday. Pies and tarts should have been made on Saturday, a
+double quantity of potatoes and other vegetables prepared, and a
+general foresight used.
+
+Sunday is a good day for sending out a large joint to be baked, and a
+pudding also; indeed, this seems the opportunity for the national roast
+beef and plumpudding dinner. So that, in fact, beyond laying the cloth
+and removing the things used at meals, there is absolutely no work to
+be done beyond the five minutes' daily occupation of each person in
+making his or her own bed, as the re-arrangement of the used dinner
+things may be left till the following morning. The table is cleared as
+if by magic, if every child is told to put in its place two things, or
+three things, according to the number of things used and the number of
+children to put them back. Each person replaces his or her own chair,
+and the Sunday work is over. Life is not so hard to us as it was to the
+country squire's wife half a century ago, who always gave her servants
+physic on a Sunday because it was no loss of time. To us the Sunday is
+very helpful in another way: it keeps us from living too fast; without
+this wholesome stop we might drive ourselves on to frenzy.
+
+Many if not most of us feel lazy and desultory on Monday morning (which
+therefore had better be employed on some kind of desultory and
+irregular work), and we only get ourselves warm in the harness by the
+middle of the week. We go on working with gradually increasing
+excitement until Saturday night, when some sensible friend hints that
+it is too late to make a bad week's work good; precious Sunday comes to
+ease the strain, and the human machine is oiled and cooled.
+
+Let us be diligent during the week, and lengthen our days by beginning
+them earlier, so as to do most of our work in the morning; then with a
+clear conscience we may leave off our play as early as we please and go
+to rest: we shall enjoy the Sunday repose which we have earned, and
+find ourselves refreshed instead of wearied by it.
+
+I will conclude this essay in the words of Macaulay--words which he
+considers among the very best he ever wrote. "Man, man is the great
+instrument that produces wealth. The natural difference between
+Campania and Spitzbergen is trifling when compared with the difference
+between a country inhabited by men full of bodily and mental vigour,
+and a country inhabited by men sunk in bodily and mental decrepitude.
+Therefore it is that we are not poorer but richer, because we have,
+through many ages, rested from our labour one day in seven. That day is
+not lost. While industry is suspended, while the plough lies in the
+furrow, while the Exchange is silent, while no smoke ascends from the
+factory, a process is going on quite as important to the wealth of
+nations as any process which is performed on more busy days. Man, the
+machine of machines, the machine compared with which all the
+contrivances of the Watts and Arkwrights are worthless, is repairing
+and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on the Monday with
+clearer intellect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporal vigour.
+Never will I believe that what makes a population stronger and
+healthier and wiser and better can ultimately make it poorer.
+
+"If ever we are forced to yield the foremost place among commercial
+nations, we shall yield it not to a race of degenerate dwarfs, but to
+some people pre-eminently vigorous in body and in mind."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+PRINTED AT THE CAXTON PRESS, BECCLES.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Household Organization, by Florence Caddy
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