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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Courtship and Marriage, by Annie S. Swan
+
+
+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: Courtship and Marriage
+       And the Gentle Art of Home-Making
+
+
+Author: Annie S. Swan
+
+
+
+Release Date: April 25, 2011  [eBook #35963]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Stephanie Kovalchik, and the Online
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+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Very sincerely yours, Annie S. Swan.]
+
+Twenty-fourth thousand.
+
+
+COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE
+
+And the Gentle Art of Home-Making.
+
+by
+
+ANNIE S. SWAN (Mrs. Burnett-Smith),
+
+Author of "A Bitter Debt," "Homespun," "Aldersyde," Etc., Etc.
+
+
+
+"_Love is the incense that doth sweeten earth._"
+
+
+  "_Be it ever so humble,
+  There's no place like home._"
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London, 1894:
+Hutchinson & Co., 34, Paternoster Row.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+New Books
+
+By ANNIE S. SWAN.
+
+
+A BITTER DEBT.
+
+A TALE OF THE BLACK COUNTRY.
+
+_In large crown 8vo, handsome cloth gilt binding, with
+illustrations by D. Murray-Smith. Price 5s._
+
+
+Thirty-second Thousand.
+
+HOMESPUN:
+
+A STUDY OF A SIMPLE FOLK.
+
+_In cloth, gilt, 1s. 6d., paper, 1s. With Illustrations._
+
+"The language is perfect; the highest strings of humanity
+are touched."--_Athenĉum._
+
+"'Homespun' is excellent, a masterpiece. It is told with
+great skill, and quiet but genuine power. The story will
+long be a favourite in Scotland, and is sure to be widely
+read in England."--_British Weekly._
+
+"Power and felicity are in evidence on every page."--_Glasgow
+Herald._
+
+
+London: HUTCHINSON & Co., 34, Paternoster Row.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *      *
+
+
+
+TO
+
+The Loved Memory
+
+OF
+
+MY FATHER.
+
+
+"An honest man--the noblest work of God."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+    CHAP.                                               PAGE
+
+       I.  THE LOVERS                                      7
+
+      II.  THE IDEAL WIFE                                 19
+
+     III.  THE IDEAL HUSBAND                              30
+
+      IV.  THE FIRST YEAR OF MARRIED LIFE                 43
+
+       V.  THE IDEAL HOME                                 56
+
+      VI.  KEEPING THE HOUSE                              64
+
+     VII.  THE TRUEST ECONOMY                             72
+
+    VIII.  ON KEEPING UP APPEARANCES                      80
+
+      IX.  MOTHERHOOD                                     90
+
+       X.  THE SON IN THE HOME                            99
+
+      XI.  THE DAUGHTER IN THE HOME                      109
+
+     XII.  THE EDUCATION OF OUR DAUGHTERS                117
+
+    XIII.  THE SERVANT IN THE HOME                       128
+
+     XIV.  RELIGION IN THE HOME                          136
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+_THE LOVERS._
+
+
+Of this truly gentle art we do not hear a great deal. It has no
+academies connected with its name, no learned body of directors or
+councillors, no diplomas or graduation honours; yet curiously enough it
+offers more enduring consequences than any other art which makes more
+noise in the world. Its business is the most serious business of life,
+fraught with the mightiest issues here and hereafter--viz., the moulding
+of human character and the guiding of human conduct. It is right and
+fitting, then, that it should demand from us some serious attention,
+and we may with profit consider how it can best be fostered and made
+competent to bless the greatest number, which, I take it, is the _ultima
+Thule_ of all art. To trace this gentle art from its early stages we
+must first consider, I think, the relation to each other before marriage
+of the young pair who aim at the upbuilding of a home, wherein they
+shall not only be happy themselves, but which, in their best moments,
+when the heavenly and the ideal is before them, they hope to make a
+centre of influence from which shall go forth means of grace and
+blessing to others.
+
+I do not feel that any apology is required for my desire to linger a
+little over that old-fashioned yet ever-new phase of life known as
+courting days. It is one which is oftener made a jest of than a serious
+study; yet such is its perennial freshness and interest for men and
+women, that it can never become threadbare; and though there cannot be
+much left that is new or original to say about it, yet a few thoughts
+from a woman's point of view may not be altogether unacceptable. We are
+constantly being told that we live in a hard, prosaic age, that romance
+has no place in our century, and that the rush and the fever of life
+have left but little time or inclination for the old-time grace and
+leisure with which our grandfathers and grandmothers loved, wooed, and
+wed.
+
+This study of human nature is my business, and it appears to me that the
+world is very much as it was--that Eden is still possible to those who
+are fit for it; and it is beyond question that love, courtship, and
+marriage are words to conjure with in the garden of youth, and that a
+love-story has yet the power to charm even sober men and women of middle
+age, for whom romance is mistakenly supposed to be over.
+
+Every man goes to woo in his own way, and the woman he woos is apt to
+think it the best way in the world; it would be superfluous for a mere
+outsider to criticise it. Examples might be multiplied; in the novels we
+read we have variety and to spare. We know the types well. Let me
+enumerate a few. The diffident youth, weighed down with a sense of his
+own unworthiness, approaching his divinity with a blush and a stammer;
+and in some extreme cases--these much affected by the novelists of an
+earlier decade--going down upon his knees; the bold wooer, who believes
+in storming the citadel, and is visited by no misgiving qualms; the
+cautious one, who counts the cost, and tries to make sure of his answer
+beforehand,--the only case in which I believe that a woman has a right
+to exercise the qualities of the coquette; then we have also the victim
+of extreme shyness, who would never come to the point at all without a
+little assistance from the other side. There are other types,--the
+schemer and the self-seeker, whose matrimonial ventures are only
+intended to advance worldly interests. We need not begin to dissect
+them--it would not be a profitable occupation.
+
+Well, while not seeking or attempting to lay down rules or offer any
+proposition as final, there are sundry large and general principles
+which may be touched upon to aid us in looking at this interesting
+subject from a sympathetic and common-sense point of view.
+
+Most people, looking back, think their own romance the most beautiful in
+the world, even if it sometimes lacked that dignity which the onlooker
+thought desirable.
+
+It is a crisis in the life of a young maiden when she becomes conscious
+for the first time that she is an object of special interest to a member
+of the opposite sex; that interest being conveyed in a thousand delicate
+yet unmistakable ways, which cause a strange flutter at her heart, and
+make her examine her own feelings to find whether there be a responsive
+chord. The modest, sensible, womanly girl, who is not yet extinct, in
+spite of sundry croakers, will know much better than anybody can tell
+her how to adjust her own conduct at this crisis in her life. Her own
+innate delicacy and niceness of perception will guide her how to act,
+and if the attentions be acceptable to her she will give just the right
+meed of encouragement, so that the course of true love may run smoothly
+towards consummation. Of course the usual squalls and cross currents
+must be looked for--else would that delightful period of life be robbed
+of its chief zest and charm, to say nothing of the unhappy novelist's
+occupation, which would undoubtedly be gone for ever.
+
+There have occasionally been discussions as to the desirability of long
+engagements, and there are sufficient arguments both for and against;
+but the best course appears to be, as in most other affairs of life, to
+try and strike the happy medium. Of necessity, circumstances alter
+cases. When the young pair have known each other for a long period of
+years, and there are no obstacles in the way, the long engagement is
+then superfluous.
+
+But in cases where an attachment arises out of a very brief
+acquaintance, I should think it desirable that some little time should
+be given for the pair to know something of each other before incurring
+the serious responsibility of life together. Of course it is true that
+you cannot thoroughly know a person till you live with him or her; yet
+it is surely possible to form a fair estimate of personal character
+before entering on that crucial ordeal, and there is no doubt that fair
+opportunity given for such estimate considerably reduces the matrimonial
+risk. That the risk is great and serious even the most giddy and
+thoughtless will not deny. No doubt both men and maidens are on their
+best behaviour during courting days; still, if a mask be worn, it must
+of necessity sometimes be drawn aside, and a glimpse of the real
+personality obtained.
+
+It is not for me to say what should or should not be the conduct of a
+young man during his period of probation, though of course I may be
+allowed my own ideas concerning it. One thing, however, is very sure,
+and that is, that if he truly and whole-heartedly love the woman he
+desires to make his wife, this pure and ennobling passion, which I
+believe to be a "means of grace" to every man, will arouse all that is
+best and purest and highest in him,--that is, if the woman be worthy his
+regard, and capable of exercising such an influence over him. It is
+possible for a man to deteriorate under the constant companionship of a
+light-minded, frivolous woman, who by force of her personal attractions
+and fascinations can keep him at her side, even against his better
+judgment. But only for a time: the woman who has beauty only, and does
+not possess those lasting qualities, stability of mind and purity of
+heart, will not long retain her hold upon the affections she has won.
+I will do men credit to believe that they desire something more in a
+wife than mere physical attractions, though these are by no means to be
+despised. I am sure every unmarried man hopes to find in the wife he may
+yet marry a companion and a sympathiser, who will wear the same
+steadfast and lovely look on grey days as well as gold.
+
+I once heard a young Scotch working man give his definition of a good
+wife--"A woman who will be the same to you on off-Saturday as pay
+Saturday." Nor was he very wide of the mark. I have no sort of
+hesitation in laying down a law for the guidance of young women during
+that halcyon time "being engaged." She knows very well, without any
+telling from me, that her influence is almost without limit. In these
+days before marriage the haunting fear of losing her is before her
+lover's mind, making him at once humble and pliable, and it is then
+that the wise, womanly girl sows the seed which will bear rich harvest
+in the more prosaic days of married life, when many engrossing cares are
+apt to wean her from the finer shading of higher things.
+
+And here I would wish to emphasise one inexorable fact, which is too
+often passed by or made light of. I do not set it down in a bitter or
+pessimistic spirit, but simply stating what men and women of larger
+experience know to be true: what a man will not give up for a woman
+before marriage, he never will after. Therefore no young girl can make a
+more profound mistake than to marry a man of doubtful habits in the hope
+of reforming him after she is his wife. The reformation must be begun,
+if not ended before, or the risks are perilous indeed. She will probably
+repent her folly in sadness and tears. And here I would protest, and
+solemnly, against that view, held by some women, I believe, though I
+hope they are few: that a man is none the worse for having been a little
+fast. It is a most dangerous creed, and one which has done much to lower
+the morals of this and other days. Let us reverse the position, and ask
+whether any man in his right mind will admit as much in regarding the
+woman he would make his wife. If it is imperative that she should be
+blameless and pure, let him see to it that his record also is
+clean--that he is fit to mate with her. And I would implore the mistaken
+and foolish girls who entertain an idea so false to every principle of
+righteousness and purity to put it from them for ever, and exact from
+the men to whom they give themselves so absolutely and irrevocably, a
+standard of purity as high as that set for them. I speak strongly on
+this subject because it is one on which I feel so very strongly. There
+is no necessity for priggishness or preaching; the womanly woman, true
+to the highest ideal, the ideal which God has set for her, can surround
+herself with that atmosphere, indescribable, undefinable, but in the
+presence of which impurity and lightness of speech or behaviour cannot
+live. I believe women are our great moral teachers--would that more of
+them would awaken to the stupendous greatness of their calling!
+
+Love is the most wonderful educator in the world; it opens up worlds and
+possibilities undreamed of to those to whom it comes, the gift of God. I
+am speaking of love which is worthy of the name, not of its many
+counterfeits. The genuine article only, based upon respect and esteem,
+can stand the test of time, the wear and tear of life; the love which is
+the wine of life, more stimulating and more heart-inspiring when the
+days are dark than at any other time,--the love which rises to the
+occasion, and which many waters cannot quench.
+
+Blessed be God that it is still as possible to us men and women of
+to-day as to the pair that dwelt in Eden!
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+II.
+
+_THE IDEAL WIFE._
+
+
+Now having brought our young pair so far on the road, we must needs go a
+step farther, and see what grit is in them for the plain prose of daily
+life; not that we admit or hint for a moment that poetry must be laid
+aside, only the prose may, very likely will, demand their first
+consideration. If the novels most eagerly read, most constantly sought
+after at the libraries and book-shops, are any sign of the times, we may
+feel very certain that marriage has caused no diminution of interest in
+those looking on, but rather the reverse, so we may follow them without
+hesitation across the threshold of their new home.
+
+And as the wife is properly supposed to be the light and centre of the
+home, we must first consider her position in it, and her fitness for it.
+It is by no means so easy to fill the position successfully as the
+uninitiated are apt to suppose; and I have no hesitation in saying that
+the first year of married life is a crucial test of a woman's
+disposition and character. It brings out her individuality in bold
+relief, shows her at her worst and best. She has to give herself so
+entirely and unreservedly, and in many cases to merge her individuality
+in that of another, that to do it with grace requires a considerable
+drain on her fund of unselfishness. It is even more difficult in cases
+where the wife has come from a home where she was idolised, and perhaps
+indulged a great deal more than was good for her.
+
+It seems to me that one of the most valuable qualities the new wife can
+take with her is unselfishness. Equipped with that, everything else will
+come easily.
+
+While it is true that she is required, to a certain extent, sometimes
+greater and sometimes less, to take a back place, she must be careful
+not to lose her individuality, to become merely an echo of her husband,
+to render herself insipid. It is a fine distinction, perhaps, but
+necessary to observe, because I am sure there is no man here present,
+married or unmarried, or anywhere else, unless a fool, who would wish to
+be tied for life to a nonentity.
+
+The woman who dearly loves her husband will never seek to usurp his
+place as head of the house; nay, she will delight to keep herself in the
+background if by so doing he can show to more advantage. Even if nature
+has endowed her with gifts more richly than her spouse, she will be
+careful, out of the very wealth of her love, not to make the contrast
+observable.
+
+It has been said that men prefer as wives women whose intelligence is
+not above the average; but is that not a libel on the sex? The higher
+the intelligence the more satisfactory the performance of the duties
+required of a reasonable being; and I would therefore insist that the
+woman of large brain power, provided she has well-balanced judgment, and
+a heart as expansive as her brain, will more nearly approach the ideal
+in matrimony than the more frivolous woman, who has no thought beyond
+her personal aggrandisement and adornment, and who buys her new bonnet
+with a kiss.
+
+The woman who looks with intelligent interest upon the large questions
+affecting the welfare of the world is likely to bring a more wide and
+loving sympathy to bear upon the concerns of more immediate moment to
+her, and which affect the welfare of all within the walls of her home.
+
+I am old-fashioned enough to think these latter should be her first
+concern, but in her large heart she may have room for many more; for
+when the outlook is narrow and mean, when nothing is deemed of
+consequence except what affects self and those circled by selfish
+interest, life becomes a poor thing, and human nature a stunted and
+miserable quality. I have known, as, I daresay, you also have known,
+women whose whole talk is "my home," "my husband," "my children," until
+one grows weary of the selfish iteration, and prays to be delivered from
+it.
+
+We have of late years had much amusing and perhaps, in some remote
+degree, profitable newspaper discussion on the subject of married life,
+and the respective merits of wives. On the whole, the wife, I think, has
+fared but badly at the hands of her critics. She is a great grievance to
+some, it would appear, from the minuteness with which her faults and
+failings have been enumerated. That she may have her uses has been
+somewhat grudgingly admitted; that she may in some rare instances
+sweeten the desert of life for her mate is not absolutely denied; but in
+the main she is judged to have fallen short--in a word, she is _not_
+ideal. Of course such discussion and such verdict is but the froth on a
+passing wave; still, it serves to illustrate my contention that there is
+no subject on earth of more surpassing interest to men and women than
+this very theme we are considering. The men who have written on the
+subject lay great stress on a loving disposition and an amiable temper,
+which are indeed two most powerful factors in the scene of wedded
+happiness. An amiable temper is a gift of God which cannot be too highly
+prized, since those who have it not must be constantly at war with self.
+When combined with these sweet qualities is a large meed of common
+sense, which accepts the inevitable, even if it bring disappointment and
+disillusionment in its train, with a cheerful philosophy, then is the
+happiness of married life secured. The buffets of fortune cannot touch
+it--its house is builded on a rock.
+
+It is Lady Henry Somerset, I think, who has said that sentimentality
+has been from time immemorial the curse of woman. There is a great deal
+of truth in the remark. We want women to be delivered from this sickly
+thrall of sentimentality--which word I use as distinct from sentiment, a
+very different quality indeed; we desire them to take wider, healthier,
+sounder views of life.
+
+In fiction it is no longer considered necessary to bring one's heroine
+to the very verge of a decline in order to make her interesting; and
+nobody now has much sympathy with Thackeray's favourite Amelia, and
+other limp young women who are dissolved in tears on the smallest
+provocation, sometimes on none at all.
+
+No, we want a more robust womanhood than that, sound of body and sound
+of mind, in order that our homes may be happy and well regulated, our
+children born and reared fit for the battle of life. A well-known
+novelist, lecturing recently on the younger generation of
+fiction-writers, remarked that Robert Louis Stevenson, in ignoring
+woman so much in his works, had passed by the most picturesque part of
+human life. The contention was perfectly unimpeachable from the artistic
+point of view; but we aim, I trust, at being something more than
+picturesque. While not disdaining the high privilege of giving the
+romance and sweetness to life, we would desire also to be strong,
+capable, serviceable to our day and generation. So and so only can we
+hope to be the equal and the friend of man. But in this worthy aim we
+have to steer clear of many quicksands; we must avoid the very semblance
+of usurpation or imitation.
+
+Surely we are sufficiently endowed with our own gifts and graces, so
+powerful in their influence, that I need not enumerate or expatiate upon
+them here.
+
+Let us not forget that in true womanliness is our strength, and that the
+end of our being is to comfort and bless and love--never to usurp.
+
+What can be more melancholy than to live with a grumbler, to sit
+opposite a face prematurely wrinkled at the brows and down-drooped at
+the lips? I have in my mind's eye, as perhaps you have in yours, such a
+woman, tied to the best of good fellows, who, through no fault of his
+own, has not as yet made such headway in life as was expected of him.
+And his Nemesis sits at home, querulous and fretful because her
+establishment is more modest than her ambition, her possessions than her
+pretensions. Life is embittered to him; hope has died: if love follow it
+sadly to the bier, who can blame him? Certainly not the woman who has
+been a hindrance and not a help, one whose reproaches, tacit and
+acknowledged, have caused the iron to enter into his soul. It is such
+women who send men to mental and moral destruction, nor is their
+punishment lacking.
+
+The ideal wife, then, will sedulously cultivate the happy spirit of
+contentment, and make the best of everything, not seeking to add to the
+burden an already overworked husband may have to carry. It is not the
+abundance of worldly possessions which makes happiness. I can speak from
+personal experience, and I could tell you a story of a young pair who
+began life in very humble circumstances, in the face of much opposition,
+and who, by dint of honest, faithful, united endeavours, overcame
+obstacles over which Experience shook her head and called
+insurmountable. And the struggle being over, the memory of it is sweet
+beyond all telling,--the little shifts to make ends meet, the constant
+planning and striving, the simple pleasures won by waiting and hard
+work, are possessions which they would not barter for untold gold.
+
+The woman who loves and is beloved finds herself strong to bear the ills
+that may meet her from day to day. We have much to bear physically, and
+it is hard to carry always a bright spirit in a frail body; but we have
+our compensations, which are many. They will at once occur to every
+sympathetic and discerning heart, but are they not after all summed up
+in the eloquent words of Holy Writ, "The heart of her husband doth
+safely trust in her;" "Her children arise and call her blessed"?
+
+And these, after all, are the heavenliest gifts for women here below,
+and the wise woman, so blessed, will always feel that her possessions
+are greater than her needs, and in her loving service, for her own
+first, and afterwards for all whom her blessed influence can reach, will
+as near as possible approach the ideal. With God, tender to Woman
+always, we may safely leave the rest.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+III.
+
+_THE IDEAL HUSBAND._
+
+
+The duties and obligations of the husband in the house are surely not
+less binding than those of the wife; he has to contribute his share
+towards its happiness or misery. The ideal husband, from a woman's point
+of view, is a many-sided creature; but his outstanding characteristic
+must of necessity be his power to make the home of which he is the head
+come as near to the heavenly type as may be in this mundane sphere.
+However wise and wifely and absolutely conscientious in her endeavour
+the wife may be, she cannot unaided make the perfect home--it must be a
+joint concern. The pity of it is we so often see two, bound together by
+the closest and most indissoluble of all earthly ties, walking their
+separate ways, forgetful of both spirit and letter of their marriage
+vows. This home-making and home-keeping quality is the very wherefore of
+the man's existence as a husband; for his home with its shelter,
+adequate or inadequate, is all he has to offer in exchange for the woman
+who has given him herself. If she be cheated of her birthright here, she
+may consider herself poor indeed.
+
+There are undoubtedly very many selfish and purely self-seeking women,
+who starve the atmosphere about them; but as a rule the beauty of true
+unselfishness is oftener found adorning the female character than the
+male. Nobody attempts to deny this, therefore when we meet a truly
+unselfish man we must regard him with reverence, as a being truly great.
+It is without doubt a more arduous task for a man to cultivate the
+unselfish spirit, because the training of the race for centuries has
+rather tended to the fostering of selfishness in him--woman having for
+long been cheated of her lawful place and power in the scheme of
+creation.
+
+The quality most of all admired by woman in man is manliness: she can
+forgive almost anything but his lack of courage.
+
+The manly man, conscious of his strength, is of necessity tender and
+considerate towards those weaker than himself, and so wins their
+confidence and love. When he marries, therefore, he takes a wife to
+shield her from the rude blasts of the world; all that his care and
+tenderness can do will be done to make lighter for her the ordinary
+burdens of life. Nor will he expect impossibilities, nor growl because
+he finds he has married a very human woman, with a great many needs and
+wants. Angels do not mate with mortals, the contrast would be too
+one-sided.
+
+It is well with the man who has in his wife not only a bright companion
+for his days of sunshine, but who in the crises of his life finds in her
+heart the jewel of common sense and the pearl of a quick understanding.
+The wife who comprehends him at once when he says expenditure has been
+too heavy, that it must be reduced to meet the altered finances, and who
+not only comprehends, but cheerfully acquiesces, planning with him how
+retrenchment can best be carried out; the wife to whom the lack of the
+new bonnet or the new carpet is a matter of small moment,--she it is who
+makes glad the heart of her husband. Ay, but what kind of a husband? He
+must first deserve this jewel before he can expect her to display those
+qualities which money cannot buy, but which prevent marriage from being
+the failure sundry croakers would have us believe. How is he to deserve
+her? how win her to this most desirable height of perfection? By
+treating her as an entirely reasonable being, which most women are, in
+spite of many affirmations to the contrary.
+
+The monetary basis of the engagement matrimonial is not, unfortunately,
+always sound. How common it is for a man to keep his wife in utter
+ignorance of the state of his affairs, thus depriving her of the only
+safe guide she can have in the conduct of her domestic affairs! If a
+woman is to be a man's true helpmeet, she must stand shoulder to
+shoulder with him in everything, sharing as far as is possible his
+anxieties and his hopes, and by judicious expenditure of his means
+aiding him to the best position it is possible for him to attain. Of
+course there are poor silly creatures fit to be wife to no man, who do
+not deserve and could not appreciate confidence, and who are lamentably
+ignorant of the value of £ _s. d._ But the majority of wives, I would
+hope, possess sufficient common sense to comprehend the simple questions
+of income and expenditure when candidly placed before them. How
+delightful, as well as imperative, to go into a committee of ways and
+means periodically, talking over everything confidentially, and feeling
+the sweet bond of union growing closer and dearer because of the cares
+and worries none can escape, though love and sympathy can make them
+light!
+
+There is a type of husband--unfortunately rather common--who begrudges
+his wife, whatever her character and disposition, every penny she
+spends, even though it is spent primarily for his own comfort, and who
+has never in his life cheerfully opened out to her his purse, whatever
+he may have done with the thing he calls his heart. This is a very
+serious matter, and one which presses heavily on the hearts of many
+wives. It is hard for a young girl, who may in her father's house have
+had pocket money always to supply her simple needs, to find herself
+after marriage practically penniless--having to ask for every penny she
+requires, and often to explain minutely how and where it is to be spent.
+I have known a man who required an absolute account of every halfpenny
+spent by his wife, and who took from her change of the shilling he had
+given her for a cab fare. We must pray, for the credit of the sex, that
+there are few so lost to all gentlemanly feeling, to speak of nothing
+else; but it is certain that, through thoughtlessness as much as
+stinginess often, many sensitive women suffer keenly from this form of
+humiliation. It ought not to be. If a woman is worthy to be trusted with
+a man's honour, which is supposed to be more valuable to him than his
+gold, let her likewise be trusted with a little of the latter, without
+having to crave it and answer for it as a servant sent on an errand
+counts out the copper change to her master on her return. There are many
+little harmless trifles a woman wants, many small kindnesses she would
+do on the impulse of the moment, had she money in her purse; and though
+she may sometimes not be altogether wise, she is blessed in the doing,
+and nobody is the poorer. However small a man's income, there are surely
+a few odd shillings the wife might have for her very own, if only to
+gratify her harmless little whims, and to make her feel that she
+sometimes has a penny to spare. It is quite desirable, I think, that
+there should be, even where means are limited (I am not of course
+alluding to working people whose weekly wage is barely sufficient for
+family needs), some arrangement whereby the wife may have something,
+however small, upon which she can depend, and which she can spend when
+and how she pleases.
+
+Some indulgent fathers, foreseeing the possibility of their daughters
+feeling the lack of a little money, continue their allowance to their
+married daughters; but there are very few husbands, one would think, who
+would care to leave their wives so dependent for little luxuries it
+should be their privilege to supply.
+
+The labourer is surely worthy of his hire; and the wife, upon whose
+shoulders the domestic load presses most heavily, is as justly entitled
+to her payment as her housemaid, whose duties are more clearly defined.
+Some high-flown personages may think this a very gross view of the case,
+and say, perchance, that where love is there can never be any hardship
+felt. But I know that I touch upon what is a sore point with many women,
+and I can only hope that if any stingy husbands read these words they
+will try a little experiment on their own account, and see how the
+unexpected gift of a little money, offered lovingly, can bring the light
+back to eyes which have grown a little weary, and smooth the lines away
+from a brow which care has wrinkled before its time.
+
+The ideal husband we are considering will also be a home-keeping
+husband. Let me not here be misunderstood. No sensible woman will desire
+to keep her husband always at her side, nor can any woman make a more
+profound mistake than to try and wean the man she has married away from
+all his old friends and associations. I am speaking of good men, of
+course, whose friends and associations are such as she need not regard
+with apprehension. Yet it is a mistake which many women make, and it is
+a common saying with the bachelors who may miss a certain bright spirit
+from their midst, "Oh, nobody ever sees him now, he's married!" And
+there is a peculiar emphasis on the last word which you must hear to
+appreciate, but it signifies that he is as good as dead.
+
+Now why should this be? The wise wife, instead of being so small-minded
+and jealous, should try to remember that there is a side of man's nature
+which demands sympathy and contact with his own sex--and also that her
+husband knew and loved these old friends of his perhaps before he ever
+saw her. Let her try instead to make them all so welcome in her home
+that they will come and come again, and instead of pitying her husband
+because he has got his head into a noose will go away thinking him a
+lucky fellow. This is not an impossibility. It can be done.
+
+But while this husband of ours does not give up his old friends of his
+own sex, nor abjure all the manly pursuits and recreations so dear to
+his soul in his state of bachelorhood, he will take care that they do
+not absorb an undue share of his leisure, but will prefer home and wife
+to them all, and _let her know it_. He will not be above expressing his
+satisfaction when his home suddenly strikes him with more force than
+usual as being the sweetest place on earth; he will say so just as
+frankly as he finds fault when there is just cause for complaint; and
+she will return it by a loving interest pressed down and running over,
+or I am neither woman nor wife.
+
+The ideal husband, then, is no more perfect than the ideal wife; nor
+would she wish him to be other than he is, manly, generous,
+kindly-hearted, well-conditioned, and, above all things, true as steel.
+That he occasionally loses his temper, and does many thoughtless and
+stupid things, makes no difference so long as his heart is pure and
+tender and true.
+
+The ideal relationship betwixt husband and wife has always appeared to
+me to be comradeship,--a standing shoulder to shoulder, upholding each
+other through thick and thin, and above all keeping their inner
+sanctuary sacred from the world. What says one of our greatest teachers
+in "Romola"?--"She who willingly lifts the veil from her married life
+transforms it from a sanctuary into a vulgar place." These are solemn
+words, solemn and true. We have in these strange days too much
+publicity--the fierce light beats not only on the throne but on the
+humbler home. The craving for details relating to the private life of
+those who may in any degree stand out among their fellows has developed
+into a species of disease. Kept within due bounds this curiosity is in
+itself harmless, and may be to a certain extent gratified, but the
+privacy of domestic life cannot be too sacredly guarded; the home ought
+to be to tired men and women a veritable sanctuary where they can be at
+peace.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+IV.
+
+_THE FIRST YEAR OF MARRIED LIFE._
+
+
+This is the crucial period in the lives of most married people; the test
+which decides the wisdom or the folly of the step they have taken. Now,
+when the irrevocable words have been said, the vow taken for better or
+for worse, and the door shut upon the outside world, if any mask has
+been worn it is laid aside and true self revealed. To some this means
+disillusionment, and disappointment is inevitable, since marriage is
+entered on from a great variety of motives, and love is not always the
+first and most potent. With these, meanwhile, we do not propose to deal;
+their punishment is certain, since there can be no misery on earth more
+hopeless and more galling than the misery of a loveless marriage.
+
+But even ordinary happy and sensible people, who have married for love,
+and who honestly desire to make their home as far as possible an earthly
+paradise, cannot escape the inevitable strain of this first year of
+married life. To begin with, it is a trite saying that you cannot know a
+person until you live with him or her; and people come to years of
+maturity have formed habits of thought and action which may, in some
+cases must, clash with those of the other with whom they are brought
+into contact every day. Contact, too, from which it is impossible to
+escape. You meet in business and society many persons with whom you find
+it difficult to agree, whose opinions jar upon you, and who rub you the
+wrong way, and you find it irksome enough to meet such a person even
+occasionally; imagine, then, what it would be like were you placed in,
+or forced to endure, his or her companionship every day. Yet such is the
+experience of some married persons, who have rushed into matrimony
+without due knowledge or consideration.
+
+But leaving these extreme cases out of the question, meanwhile let us
+think of the test of perpetual companionship as applied to an ordinary
+pair who enter on married life with the ordinary prospect of happiness.
+
+During the days of courtship and engagement they, of course, saw a good
+deal of each other, and got to know, as they thought, every peculiarity
+and characteristic. Sometimes, even, they had quarrels arising out of
+trifles, foolish misunderstandings which caused serious heart-burnings,
+none of which, however, were of long duration; and the making up was
+invariably sweet enough to atone for the temporary misery, and help to
+make up the poetry of life. But the lovers' quarrel and the quarrel
+matrimonial are entirely different; and while the former is usually but
+a passing breeze, the latter is more serious, and to be avoided almost
+at any cost. We want fair winds always, if possible, to speed our
+matrimonial barque; we do not wish its timbers shaken by the whirlwind
+of passion.
+
+We have all our little peculiarities, excrescences of character which
+are apt to rub roughly against our neighbours' sensibilities, let us
+not, when feeling these drawbacks, forget our own. We are so apt to
+magnify in others, and to minimise in ourselves.
+
+It is easy to be on good behaviour with a person we only see
+occasionally, even every day, so long as the cares and worries of life
+are in the background, never obtruded, however heavily they press,
+because these short moments are too precious to be clouded in any way.
+It is easy to be unselfish for a little while; to bow, now and then,
+absolutely to another's will; to suffer discomfort once a week, if
+necessary, to make a dear one comfortable. All such little sacrifices
+during courting days seem but a privilege, and make up the poetry of
+that happy time.
+
+But the day comes sooner or later to the married pair, when the prose
+pages must be turned, and poetry relegated to the background, days on
+which the reality of life, in all its grim nakedness, seems to banish
+romance, and when love needs all its strength and staying power for the
+fight. The common-sense man or woman, of which type a few examples yet
+remain with us, will prepare themselves for the slight disappointments
+which are inevitable, when two people, regarding each other from an
+adoring distance, and having invested each other with many exaggerated
+gifts and graces, put themselves voluntarily to the test of everyday
+life, with all its prosaic details, its crosses and losses, its silences
+and its tears. It is like making a new acquaintance, having to meet
+each other in all situations, and in various unromantic and sometimes
+supremely trying conditions. Edwin pacing his chamber floor
+anathematising a buttonless shirt is a picture our comic journals have
+made familiar to us; and Angelina in her curl-papers and untidy morning
+gown looks a different being from the sylph in evening attire all smiles
+and blushes. These extreme examples serve only to illustrate my
+contention, that the closeness of the marriage relation carries its
+peril with it. To the man or woman, however, who marries for that love
+which is based on the qualities of both head and heart, and who knows
+that daily life, with its rubs and scrubs, will sometimes mar the
+sweetest temper and cloud the serenest brow, there cannot come any
+serious disillusionment. Loving each other dearly, they remember they
+are but human; and as perfection is not inborn in humanity, they accept
+each other's faults and shortcomings gracefully, not magnifying them
+sourly and grumblingly, but bearing with them, and rejoicing in and
+accepting the good.
+
+Domestic life to the young and untried housekeeper is something of an
+ordeal. She may have had her own place in her father's home, her own
+special duties to attend to, even her own share of responsibility.
+Still, it is an altogether different matter to have the entire care of a
+household, to guide all its concerns, and be responsible for the
+domestic comfort of all within the four walls of the house. Happy the
+young wife who had a wise mother, and came well-equipped from the
+parental home.
+
+There is no more fruitful source of the disappointment and
+disillusionment of which we have been speaking than incapacity on the
+part of the young wife to steer the domestic boat. All men like creature
+comforts, and are more keenly sensible perhaps than women to the
+advantages of a well-ordered home. We all know how women living alone
+are apt to neglect themselves in the matter of preparing regular and
+substantial meals; and how many suffer thereby. A good dinner is more to
+a man than it is to a woman; and, for my part, I do not see why it
+should be necessary to sneer at a man because he desires and can enjoy a
+wholesome, well-cooked meal. It is a sign of a healthy body and a sound
+mind, and the true housewife is never happier than when she caters
+successfully for the members of her household, and beholds the hearty
+appreciation of her labours.
+
+It is the custom in certain quarters in these days to decry this special
+department of woman's work, and to belittle its importance, but I am
+old-fashioned enough to hold that one of the most essential points of
+fitness for the married life in woman is her ability to keep house
+economically, wisely, and successfully. Nothing will ever convince me
+that such fitness is not one of her solemn and binding duties; in fact,
+it is one of the reasons of her existence as a wife.
+
+Sometimes her worries and perplexities, at first, resting entirely on
+her shoulders, may give to her tongue an unusually sharp edge, and she
+may find it a too serious effort to smile just when her spouse may think
+it right and fitting that she should.
+
+Out of what trifles do great issues arise! Let not the sun go down upon
+your wrath. My advice to the young wife when things do _not_ go well
+with her, when she grows hot and tired over a weary dinner, which does
+not turn out the success she wishes, or when she has been tried beyond
+all patience with her "help",--my advice is, Don't nag. Be cheerful.
+Swallow the pill in the kitchen at any cost, but, above all, don't nag!
+A man will stand almost anything but nagging. Don't save up a long
+string of miseries, small and big, to pour on to him the moment he puts
+his head in at the door.
+
+Yes, I know all about it--that the day has been long and dreary, that
+nothing has gone right, and you have had nobody to share it; but I want
+you to let the man have his dinner or his tea in peace before you relate
+the tale of your woes. It will make all the difference in the world to
+his reception of it. Try to remember that he has had a long day too,
+that, maybe, he has been nagged and worried in the office, or the
+market, or behind the counter; and that he left it with relief, hoping
+for a little fireside comfort at home. Let him enjoy first, at least,
+the meal you have prepared or superintended, then, when you both have
+eaten, you will be in a better mood for the discussion of the little
+worries which looked so big and black all day. If they have not
+disappeared altogether by this time they have at least sensibly
+decreased in size and number.
+
+Another thing I should like to impress on the young wife, and that is
+the absolute necessity of being as fastidious and dainty with her
+personal appearance after marriage as before. It is a poor compliment to
+a man to show that you care so little for his opinion as a husband that
+you can't or won't take the trouble to dress up for him. Dear girls,
+contemplating the final leap, I want you to understand that you can
+afford a great deal less to be careless after marriage than before;
+because you have now to keep the husband you have won. Men like what is
+bright and cheerful, and pleasant to behold. So far as you are concerned
+see that you are never an eyesore. Even if you have your own work to do,
+there is no necessity why you should be a dowdy or a slattern. Even a
+cotton dress clean and daintily made can be as becoming to you as a robe
+of silk and lace.
+
+It is a great deal more important for you to keep your husband's love
+and respect than it was to win them as a lover; because now your stake
+is greater--in fact, it is your all.
+
+To the husband I would say, "Be kind, be true, be appreciative always.
+If you have to find fault do it gently. There are two ways of doing and
+saying everything. Take time to choose the better, the kinder, the more
+helpful and encouraging."
+
+Most women are quick to respond to the slightest touch of kindness, the
+sunshine their more dependent natures require. See that you, having
+taken this young creature from the shelter of a loving parental home, do
+not starve her in an atmosphere of cold criticism and fault-finding.
+Remember that she is young, inexperienced, ignorant of many things, and
+that wisdom walks with years. Little things these, you say? Yes, friend,
+but great and far-reaching in their issues even to the wreck or
+salvation of a human soul.
+
+To both in the early days, "Live near to God,"--His blessing alone can
+consecrate the home. So will your last days be better than your first,
+and love be as sweet and soul-satisfying on the brink of the grave, at
+the close of the long pilgrimage you have made together, as in the
+halcyon days, "when all the world was young."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+V.
+
+_THE IDEAL HOME._
+
+
+A house is not a home, although it has sometimes to pass as such. There
+are imposing mansions, replete with magnificence and luxury, which if
+realised would provide the outward trappings of many modest domiciles,
+but which offer shelter and nothing more to their possessors.
+
+Home is made by those who dwell within its walls, by the atmosphere they
+create; and if that spirit which makes humble things beautiful and
+gracious be absent, then there can be no home in the full and true sense
+of the word.
+
+While each member of the household contributes more or less to the
+upbuilding of the fabric, it is, of course, those at the head whose
+influence makes or mars. A lesser influence may be felt in a degree
+great enough to modify disagreeable elements, or intensify happy ones,
+but it cannot, save in very exceptional circumstances, set aside the
+influence of those at the head.
+
+It is to them, then, that our few words under this heading must be
+addressed; and, to reduce it to a still narrower basis, it is the
+woman's duty and privilege, and solemn responsibility, which make this
+art of home-making more interesting and important to her than any other
+art in the world. Her right to study it, and to make it a glorious and
+perfect thing, will never be for a moment questioned, even in this age
+of fierce rivalry and keen competition for the good things of life. In
+her own kingdom she may make new laws and inaugurate improvements
+without let or hindrance, and as a rule she will meet with more
+gratitude and appreciation than usually fall to the lot of law-givers
+and law-makers. She will also find in her own domain scope for her
+highest energies, and for the exercise of such originality as she may be
+endowed with. I do not know of any sphere with a wider scope, but of
+course it requires the open eye and the understanding heart to discern
+this fact.
+
+It seems superfluous, after the chapters preceding this, to say again
+that the very first principle to be learned in this art of home-making
+must be love. Without it the other virtues act but feebly. There may be
+patience, skill, tact, forbearance, but without true love the home
+cannot reach its perfect state. It may well be a comfortable abode, a
+place where creature comforts abound, and where there is much quiet
+peace of mind; but those who dwell in such an atmosphere the hidden
+sweetness of home will never touch. There will be heart-hunger and vague
+discontents, which puzzle and irritate, and which only the sunshine of
+love can dispel.
+
+Home-making, like the other arts, is with some an inborn gift,--the
+secret of making others happy, of conferring blessings, of scattering
+the sunny _largesse_ of love everywhere, is as natural to some as to
+breathe. Such sweet souls are to be envied, as are those whose happy lot
+it is to dwell with them. But, at the same time, perhaps they are not so
+deserving of our admiration and respect as some who, in order to confer
+happiness on others, themselves undergo what is to them mental and moral
+privation, who day by day have to keep a curb on themselves in order to
+crucify the "natural man."
+
+It is possible, even for some whom Nature has not endowed with her
+loveliest gifts, to cultivate that spirit in which is hidden the whole
+secret of home happiness. It is the spirit of unselfishness. No selfish
+man or woman has the power to make a happy home.
+
+By selfish, I mean giving prominence always to the demands and interests
+of self, to the detriment or exclusion of the interests and even the
+rights of others. It is possible, however, for a selfish person to
+possess a certain superficial gift of sunshine, which creates for the
+time being a pleasant atmosphere, which can deceive those who come
+casually into contact with him; but those who see him in all his moods
+are not deceived. They know by experience that a peaceful and endurable
+environment can only be secured and maintained by a constant pandering
+to his whims and ways. He must be studied, not at an odd time, but
+continuously and systematically, or woe betide the happiness of home!
+
+When this element is conspicuous in the woman who rules the household,
+then that household deserves our pity. A selfish woman is more selfish,
+if I may so put it, than a selfish man. Her tyranny is more petty and
+more relentless. She exercises it in those countless trifling things
+which, insignificant in themselves, yet possess the power to make life
+almost insufferable. Sometimes she is fretful and complaining, on the
+outlook for slights and injuries, so suspicious of those surrounding her
+that they feel themselves perpetually on the brink of a volcano. Or she
+is meek and martyred, bearing the buffets of a rude world and unkind
+relatives with pious resignation; or self-righteous and complacent,
+convinced that she and she alone knows and does the proper thing, and
+requiring absolutely that all within her jurisdiction should see eye to
+eye with her.
+
+It is no slight, insignificant domain, this kingdom of home, in which
+the woman reigns. In one family there are sure to be diversities of
+dispositions and contrasts of character most perplexing and difficult to
+deal with. She needs so much wisdom, patience, and tact that sometimes
+her heart fails her at the varied requirements she is expected to meet,
+and to meet both capably and cheerfully. If she has been herself trained
+in a well-ordered home, so much the better for her. She has her model to
+copy, and her opportunities before her to improve upon it.
+
+Every home is bound to bear the impress of the individuality which
+guides it. If it be a weak and colourless individuality, then so much
+the worse for the home, which must be its reflex.
+
+This fact has, I think, something solemn in it for women, and it is
+somewhat saddening that so many look upon the responsibilities that
+home-making entails without the smallest consideration. Verily fools
+rush in where angels fear to tread! If they think of the responsibility
+at all, they comfort themselves with the delusion that it is every
+woman's natural gift to keep house; but housekeeping and home-making are
+two different things, though each is dependent on the other.
+
+This thoughtlessness, which results in much needless domestic misery, is
+the less excusable because we hear and read so much about the
+inestimable value of home influences, the powerful and permanent nature
+of early impressions, even if we are not ourselves living examples of
+the same. Let us each examine our own heart and mind, and just ask
+ourselves how much we owe to the influences surrounding early life, and
+how much more vivid are the lessons and impressions of childhood
+compared with those of a later date. The contemplation is bound to
+astonish us, and if it does not awaken in us a higher sense of
+responsibility regarding those who are under the direct sway of our
+influence, then there is something amiss with our ideal of life and its
+purpose.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+VI.
+
+_KEEPING THE HOUSE._
+
+
+Making the home and keeping the house are two different things, though
+closely allied. Having considered the graces of mind and heart which so
+largely contribute to the successful art of home-making, it is not less
+necessary that we now devote our attention to the more practical, and
+certainly not less important, quality of housekeeping.
+
+Ignorance of the prosaic details of housekeeping is the primary cause of
+much of the domestic worry and discomfort that exist, to say nothing of
+the more serious discords that may arise from such a defect in the
+fitness of the woman supposed to be the home-maker.
+
+For such ignorance, or lack of fitness, to use a milder term, there does
+not appear to me to be any excuse; it is so needless, so often wilful.
+
+Some blame careless, indifferent mothers, who do not seem to have
+profited by their own experience, but allow their daughters to grow up
+in idleness, and launch them on the sea of matrimony with a very faint
+idea of what is required of them in their new sphere.
+
+It is very reprehensible conduct on the part of such mothers, and if in
+a short time the bright sky of their daughters' happiness begins to
+cloud a little, they need not wonder or feel aggrieved. A man is quite
+justified in expecting and exacting a moderate degree of comfort at
+least in his own house, and if it is not forthcoming may be forgiven a
+complaint. He is to be pitied, but his unhappy wife much more deserves
+our pity, since she finds herself amid a sea of troubles, at the mercy
+of her servants, if she possesses them; and if moderate circumstances
+necessitate the performance of the bulk of household duties, then her
+predicament is melancholy indeed.
+
+To revert again to our Angelina and Edwin of the comic papers, we have
+the threadbare jokes at the expense of the new husband subjected to the
+ordeal of Angelina's awful cooking. At first he is forbearing and
+encouraging; but in the end, when no improvement is visible, the
+honeymoon begins to wane much more rapidly than either anticipated.
+Edwin becomes sulky, discontented, and complaining; Angelina tearful or
+indignant, as her temperament dictates, but equally and miserably
+helpless.
+
+The chances are that time will not improve but rather aggravate her
+troubles, especially if the cares of motherhood be added to those of
+wifehood, which she finds quite enough for her capacities.
+
+True, some women have a clever knack of adapting themselves readily to
+every circumstance, and pick up knowledge with amazing rapidity. If they
+are by nature housewifely women, they will triumph over the faults of
+their early training, and after sundry mistakes and a good deal of
+unnecessary expenditure may develop into fairly competent housewives.
+
+But it is a dangerous and trying experiment, which ought not to be made,
+because there is absolutely no need for it. It is the duty of every
+mother who has daughters entrusted to her care to begin early to train
+them in domestic work. That there are servants in the house need be no
+obstacle in the way. There are silly domestics who resent what they call
+the "meddling" of young ladies in the kitchen; but no wise woman will
+allow that to trouble her, but will take care to show her young
+daughters, as time and opportunity offer, every secret contained in the
+domestic _répertoire_.
+
+One of the primary lessons to be learned in this housekeeping art is
+that of method; viz.--a place for everything, and a time. It is the key
+to all domestic comfort. Most of us are familiar with at least one
+household where the genius of method is conspicuous by its absence;
+where regularity and punctuality are unobserved, if not unknown. The
+household governed by a woman without method is to be pitied. Her
+husband is a stranger to the comfort of a well-ordered home; and her
+children, if she has any, hang as they grow, as the Scotch say; while
+her servants, having nobody to guide them, become careless and
+indifferent, and so suffer injustice at her hands.
+
+It is such women who are loudest in complaints against servants, and who
+are in a state of perpetual warfare against the class. Of course this
+method must be kept within bounds, and not carried to excess, thereby
+becoming an evil instead of an unmixed good.
+
+We are familiar with that other type of women, who make their
+housekeeping an idol, at whose shrine they perpetually worship,
+regardless of the comfort of those under their roof-tree. With them it
+is a perpetual cleaning day, and woe betide the luckless offender who
+has the misfortune to mar, if ever so slightly, the immaculate
+cleanliness of that abode! He is likely to have his fault brought home
+to him in no measured terms.
+
+The woman possessed of the cleaning mania, who goes to bed to dream of
+carpet-beating and furniture polish, and who rises to carry her dreams
+into execution, is quite as objectionable in her way as the woman who
+never cleans, and for whom the word dirt has no horrors. Although it is
+doubtless pleasant to feel assured that no microbe-producing speck can
+possibly lurk in any corner of the house, and to be certain that food
+and everything pertaining to it is perfect so far as cleanliness is
+concerned, there is a sense of insecurity and unrest in the abode of
+the over-particular woman which often develops into positive misery and
+discomfort. It is the sort of discomfort specially distasteful to the
+male portion of mankind. Although they may be compelled to admit, when
+brought to bay, that "cleaning" is a necessary evil, it requires a
+superhuman amount of persuasion to make them see any good in it. The way
+women revel, or appear to revel, in the chaos of a house turned
+topsy-turvy is to them the darkest of all mysteries. It is long since
+they were compelled to treat it as a conundrum, and give it up.
+
+I think, however, that, with few exceptions, women dislike the
+periodical household earthquake quite as much as men, and dread its
+approach. The housekeeper who considers the comfort of those about her
+will do her utmost to rob it of its horrors. This can be done by a
+judicious planning, and by resort to the method of which we spoke in the
+last chapter.
+
+Let "One room at a time" be her motto, and then the inmates of the house
+will not be made to feel that they are quite in the way, and have no
+abiding-place on the face of the earth.
+
+This may involve a little more work, and a great deal of patience; but
+she will have her reward in the grateful appreciation of those for whom
+she makes home such a happy and restful place.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+VII.
+
+_THE TRUEST ECONOMY._
+
+
+In these days many new phrases have been coined to give expression and
+significance to old truths; thus we hear of the "sin of cheapness," the
+fault attributed to those shortsighted bargain-hunters who waste time
+and energy and money hunting the length and breadth of the land for the
+cheapest market. The true and competent housekeeper knows that there is
+no economy in this method of marketing, but the reverse.
+
+Of course, where the family is large and the resources limited, it is
+absolutely incumbent on the purveyor to seek the most moderate market;
+and those of us who dwell in cities know that prices vary with
+localities, and that West-enders must pay a West-end price. But it is
+reprehensible always to hunt for cheap things simply because they are
+cheap, because we ought not to forget that this very cheapness has
+caused suffering, or at least deprivation, somewhere, since it would
+appear that some things are absolutely offered at prices under the cost
+of production.
+
+In the matter of food, so important a factor in the health and
+well-being of the family, it can seldom be a saving to buy in the cheap
+market, because cheapness there is too often a synonymous term with
+unwholesomeness; and a small quantity of the very best will undoubtedly
+afford more sustenance than an unlimited supply of inferior quality. In
+small and working-class homes the tea and tinned-food grievance is an
+old one, but one which does not appear to be in the way of mending.
+
+If the wives and mothers of the working-class could only have it
+demonstrated to them, beyond all question, that a small piece of
+excellent fresh beef, made into a wholesome soup flavoured with
+vegetables, would give three times the nourishment of this tinned stuff,
+which, good enough as an occasional stand-by, has become the curse and
+the tyrant of the lazy and thriftless housewife, what a step in the
+right direction that would be! The mere salting and preserving process
+destroys the most valuable nutritive elements of the meat; and though it
+may be tasty and palatable, it is practically useless as a
+strength-producer or strength-imparter.
+
+Milk, too, we fear has not its proper place in very many homes where
+children abound; though no mother of even ordinary intelligence can shut
+her eyes to the fact that it is Nature's own food for her children in
+their early years, when it is so important to build up the elements of a
+strong constitution. I would here put in a plea for oatmeal, in former
+days the backbone of my country's food, and which has of late years
+fallen sadly into disuse, especially in quarters where its very
+cheapness and absolute wholesomeness recommend it as _the_ food _par
+excellence_ for old and young. We have replaced it with tea and toast,
+to the great detriment of limb and muscle and digestive power. It is in
+the palace now we find oatmeal accorded its rightful place, not in the
+cottage; and the change is to be deplored.
+
+Regularity in meals is another thing the wise housekeeper will insist
+upon in her abode. Regularity and punctuality, how delightful they are,
+and how they ease the roll of the domestic wheels! A punctual and tidy
+woman makes a punctual and tidy home. We know the type who dawdles away
+the forenoon in idle talk or listless indolence, and rushes to prepare a
+hasty and only half-cooked meal when perhaps her husband or children are
+on their way home from school or workshop; and this is a very fruitful
+cause of domestic dispeace, and at the root even of much of the
+intemperance which has ruined so many homes. If a man has no comfort at
+his own fireside, then he is compelled in self-defence to seek it
+elsewhere.
+
+To recur to the question of buying in cheap markets, the principle that
+what is good and costs something to begin with will inevitably prove the
+cheapest in the end is even more clearly demonstrated in the matter of
+clothing than of food. The best will always wear and look the best, even
+when it has grown threadbare. Then when we hear so constantly of the
+appalling misery endured by men and women who make the garments sold in
+the cheap shops, we are bound to feel that these things are offered at a
+price which is the cost of flesh and blood. This is a very pressing
+question, and one which many Christian people do not lay to heart. There
+appears to be in every human breast the instinct of the bargain-hunter,
+and there is a placid satisfaction in having got something at an
+exceptionally low price which charms the finer sensibilities.
+
+To gratify this peculiar and morbid craving, witness the system of
+buying and selling which prevails in Italy; the shopkeepers there, with
+few exceptions, invariably asking double the money they are willing to
+accept. And to this craving in our own country is due the system of all
+cheap sales in the shops, and mock auctions in the sale-rooms, in which
+many a shortsighted person of both sexes fritter away both time and
+money. It is a rotten system, and shows that there is great need for
+reform in this matter of buying and selling, which occupies so much of
+our time, means, and thought.
+
+All good housekeepers know that those who buy in the ready-money market
+fare best; and besides, the paying out of ready-money is undoubtedly a
+check on expenditure, and is to be specially recommended to people of
+small means. It is easy and tempting to give an order, and though it can
+no doubt be paid for sooner or later, somehow the sum always seems to
+assume larger proportions as time goes on. We very seldom get in a bill
+for a less amount than we expect. My own view of the case is, that I
+grudge to pay for food after it is eaten, or clothes after they are
+worn; and in my own housekeeping I have found ready-money, or, at the
+outside, weekly accounts, the best arrangement, to which I adhere
+without any exceptions. Short accounts, also, give one another
+advantage, the choice of all markets. Thus the money is laid out to the
+best possible advantage, and the highest value obtained.
+
+All thrifty and far-seeing housekeepers know that it is cheaper to buy
+certain household stores, as sugar, butter, flour, soap, etc., in
+quantities, provided there is a suitable storeroom where the things
+will be kept in good condition. There are indeed innumerable methods
+whereby the good housewife can save her coppers and her shillings, and a
+wise woman is she who takes advantage of them to the utmost.
+
+This art of housekeeping is not learned in a day; those of us who have
+been engaged in it for years are constantly finding out how little we
+know, and how far we are, after all, from perfection.
+
+It requires a clever woman to keep house; and as I said before there is
+ample scope, even within the four walls of a house (a sphere which some
+affect to despise), for the exercise of originality, organising power,
+administrative ability. And to the majority of women I would fain
+believe it is the most interesting and satisfactory of all feminine
+occupations.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+VIII.
+
+_ON KEEPING UP APPEARANCES._
+
+
+In these very words lurks a danger likely to beset our young couple, on
+the very threshold of their career.
+
+All eyes are upon them, of course; their house and all it contains,
+their way of life, the position they take up and maintain, are, for the
+time being, topics of intense concern to all who know them, and to many
+who do not. There is no doubt that we need to go back in some degree to
+the simpler way of life in vogue in the days of our grandmothers; that
+pretentiousness and extravagance have reached a point which is almost
+unendurable. We are constantly being informed by statistics which cannot
+be questioned that the marriage rate is decreasing; and we know that in
+our own circles the number of marriageable girls and marriageable youths
+who for some inexplicable reason _don't_ marry is very great.
+
+What _is_ the reason? Is the age of romance over? is it impossible any
+longer to conjure with the words love and marriage in the garden of
+youth? or is it that our young people are less brave and enduring, that
+they shrink from the added responsibility, care, and self-denial
+involved in the double life? My own view is that this pretentiousness
+and desire for display is at the bottom of it; that young people want to
+begin where their fathers and mothers left off, and that courage is
+lacking to take a step down and begin together on the lowest rung of the
+ladder.
+
+I have heard many young men say that they are afraid to ask girls to
+leave the luxury and comfort of their father's house, and to enter a
+plainer home, where they will have less luxury and more care; and
+though I grant that there are many girls who would shrink from the
+ordeal, and who prefer the indolent ease of single blessedness to the
+cares of matrimony on limited means, yet have I been tempted sometimes,
+looking at these young men, to wonder in my soul whether it was not
+_they_ who shrank from the plain home and the increased responsibility
+marriage involves. The salary sufficient for the comfort and mild luxury
+of one is scarcely elastic enough for two.
+
+It would mean giving up a good many things; it would mean fewer cigars,
+fewer new suits, fewer first nights at the theatre,--in fact, a general
+modification of luxuries which he has begun to regard as indispensable;
+and he asks himself, Is the game worth the candle? His answer is, No.
+And so he drifts out of young manhood into bachelor middle age, passing
+unscathed through many flirtations, becoming encrusted with selfish
+ideas and selfish aims, and gradually less fit for domestic life. And
+all the time, while he imagines he has a fine time of it, he has missed
+the chief joy, the highest meaning of life.
+
+The conditions of modern life are certainly harder than they were.
+Competition in every profession and calling is so enormous that
+remuneration has necessarily fallen; and it is a problem to many how
+single life is to be respectably maintained, let alone double. Then the
+invasions of women into almost every domain of man's work is somewhat
+serious in its consequences to men. A woman can be got to do a certain
+thing as quickly, correctly, and efficiently as a man; therefore the man
+goes to the wall. While we are glad to see the position of woman
+improve, and the value of her labour in the markets of the world
+increase, we are perplexed as to the effect of this better condition of
+things on the position of men. The situation is full of perplexities,
+strained to the utmost.
+
+There is no doubt whatever that this improvement in the position of
+woman, the increased opportunities afforded her of making a respectable
+livelihood, has had, and is having, its serious effect in the marriage
+market. A single woman in a good situation, the duties of which she has
+strength of body and strength of mind to perform, is a very independent
+being, and in contrast with many of her married sisters a person to be
+envied. She has her hours, for one thing; there is no prospect of an
+eight hours' day for the married woman with a family to superintend.
+Then she, having earned her own money, can spend it as she likes--and
+has to give account of it only to herself; and she is free from the
+physical trials and disabilities consequent upon marriage and maternity.
+If you tell her that the sweet fulness of married life, its multiplied
+joys, amply compensate for the troubles, she will shake her head and
+want proof.
+
+Altogether, the outlook matrimonial is not very bright. Now, while we
+deplore, as a serious evil, hasty, improvident, ill-considered
+marriages, and hold that their consequences are very sad, we would also,
+scarcely less seriously, deplore that over-cautiousness which is
+reducing the marriage rate in quarters where it ought not to be
+reduced,--our lower middle-class, which is the backbone of society.
+There is no fear of a serious reduction in other quarters: where there
+is no responsibility felt, there is none to shirk; and so, among the
+very poor, children are multiplied, and obligations increased, without
+any thought for the morrow, or concern for future provision. There is a
+very supreme kind of selfishness in this over-cautiousness which is not
+delightful to contemplate, the fear lest self should be inconvenienced
+or deprived in the very slightest degree; and all this does not tend to
+the highest development of human nature, but rather the reverse, since
+the spirit of self-denial and self-sacrifice is one of the loveliest
+attributes of human character.
+
+That it is possible for two people to live together almost as cheaply as
+one, and, if the wife be careful, thrifty, and managing, with a great
+deal more comfort, is hardly disputed; and surely love is yet strong
+enough to take its chance of falling on evil days, and when they come of
+making the best of them. Our girls must exhibit less frivolity, less
+devotion to dress and idle amusements, if they wish for homes of their
+own; because at present it is partly true that men are afraid to take
+the risk and responsibility of them as partners in life.
+
+And this brings us back to the heading of our chapter, the subject of
+keeping up appearances. This fearful rivalry to make the greatest show
+on inadequate means, to outshine our neighbours in house and dress and
+everything else, is really a tremendous evil, the scourge of many
+middle-class families. And what, after all, is its aim or outcome; what
+its rewards?
+
+To begin with, it is a pandering, pure and simple, to the baser part of
+human nature--the desire to out-rival your neighbour, to be able to soar
+over him at any price; and more, it is both hypocritical and immoral.
+Hypocritical, because it is pure pretence to a station which has no
+means to support it; and immoral, because you cannot afford to pay for
+it, and thereby suffering is entailed somewhere and somehow. How many of
+us number among our acquaintances (if not absolutely guilty ourselves),
+persons who, possessed of a small and limited income, live in a large
+house, the rent of which is a kind of sword of Damocles hanging over
+them for ever?
+
+You know them by their hunted, eager, restless look, which tells of
+inward dispeace, of worry too great almost to be borne. Their servants
+do not stay long, perhaps because the larder of the big house is kept
+very bare, and comfort is sacrificed to outside show. They never have
+anything to give away, and their excuse is that they do not believe in
+indiscriminate charity. And they look back with a painful longing, never
+expressed, however, to the days when they lived at peace in a little
+house, and had enough and to spare for man and beast, and a penny for
+the beggar at the gate. The big house is but one thing; the struggle to
+keep up appearances is observed in many other ways--in expensive and not
+always efficient education of the children, in party-giving, extravagant
+dress, frequent going out of town, and many others too numerous to
+mention. And what, after all, is the advantage of it? Is there any
+advantage gained? You may succeed in exciting in the breast of your
+neighbour a bitter envy which will probably find expression in some such
+remark as this--"I only hope it is all paid for."
+
+And you never will have any peace of mind, without which the outward
+trappings are but a mockery.
+
+Oh, let us be simpler! Let us at least not pretend to be what we are
+not. In a word, let us not try to humbug ourselves and the world at
+large.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+IX.
+
+_MOTHERHOOD._
+
+
+It is a great theme, which I approach with fear and trembling; yet--is
+the home complete without the child? Can even an unpretentious book of
+this sort be written without some attempted treatment of the same?
+
+The first year of married life is often very full, as well as specially
+trying, a record of new and very crucial experiences such as are bound
+to prove the grit of our young housekeeper. She has many things to learn
+in her new sphere, both in the department of ethics as well as of
+housekeeping. She has a husband to study, for even though they have seen
+a great deal of each other before marriage, there yet remains much to
+learn of many little peculiarities before undreamed of, which in the
+full glare and test of daily life sometimes stand out with a certain
+unpleasant prominence, which both find trying. There are new tastes to
+discover and consider, new likes and dislikes to be studied--in a word,
+the situation is a severe ordeal, especially if our young wife be very
+young and inexperienced. Of course she has an adoring and approving love
+to aid her, and all her efforts to please will be appreciated at their
+full value, and perhaps a little over, and that is much.
+
+If in addition to all the trying amenities of her new position there be
+added early in her married life the prospect of motherhood, with its
+attendant cares, anxieties, and fears, then our young housekeeper may be
+granted to have hand and heart full. That it is a prospect full of joy
+and satisfaction, the realisation of a sweet and secret hope, nobody
+will deny. There are a few women, we are told, who do not desire
+motherhood, preferring the greater freedom and ease of childless
+wifehood; but it is not of such we seek to write, because the vast
+majority agree with me that motherhood is the crown of marriage, as well
+as the sweetest of all bonds between husband and wife.
+
+It is the great, almost awful, responsibility of this bond which makes
+thinking people deplore the prevalence of early and improvident marriage
+between persons who seem to lack entirely this sense of responsibility,
+and who undertake the most solemn duties in the same flippant mood as
+they go out on a day's enjoyment. The idea that they have in their power
+the making and marring of a human soul, to say nothing of the influences
+which in fulness of time must go forth from that same soul, does not
+trouble them, or indeed exist for them at all. They have no ideas--they
+never think. If the child comes, good and well--it has to be provided
+for; welcome or unwelcome it arrives; and is tolerated or rejoiced over
+as the case may be.
+
+We need a great deal of educating on this particular point, and the fact
+that a child may have rights before it is born is one which presses home
+to the heart of every man and woman who may give the matter any serious
+attention whatsoever.
+
+If we marry, then as surely do we undertake the possible obligations of
+parentage; and if we do not see that we are fit physically, mentally,
+and morally for this undoubtedly greatest of all human obligations, then
+are we blameworthy, and answerable to God and man for our shortcomings.
+
+Heroism is a word to stir the highest enthusiasm in every heart, and we
+Britons are not supposed to lack in that glorious quality. While not
+despising nor making light of that heroism which shows an unflinching
+front on the battlefield, or in the face of any danger, and while
+recognising also and glorying in that other heroism of which the world
+hears less, but which is nevertheless very rich and far-reaching in
+results--I mean that brave heart which does not sink under adverse
+circumstances, which makes the best of everything, which can do, dare,
+and suffer for others, without notice or applause--there is yet another
+phase of heroism of which the world knows not at all, but which in my
+estimation is as great, if not greater, than any of these. It is a
+delicate theme, and yet in such a book as this are we not justified in
+touching upon it, reverently and tenderly as it deserves? There are
+some--more, I believe, than we dream of--who, being afflicted physically
+or mentally, and who, fearing some hereditary moral taint for which they
+have to suffer, though entirely blameless, deliberately abstain from
+marriage for the highest of all reasons--that they fear to perpetuate in
+their own children the weaknesses which are already so stupendous a
+curse to mankind. Oh that such examples could be multiplied, and that we
+were once thoroughly awakened to the solemn significance of the fact
+that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children!
+
+But when we look around we see the innocent made to suffer daily for the
+guilty; we see children whose lives even in infancy are but a burden to
+them, and whose later life can only be a cross, and we pray for a great
+baptism of light on this painful subject, for a great awakening to that
+personal, individual responsibility which is the only solution of a
+difficulty which concerns the future and the highest interest of the
+race.
+
+To return to the question of rights as affecting the unborn babe: the
+mother has then so much in her power that she can not only determine to
+a great extent what kind of infancy the child shall have, but also
+whether her own duties therein shall be heavy or light. By attending
+strictly to her own health, adhering to natural laws, living simply and
+wholesomely, she can almost ensure the bodily health of the child; and
+by keeping her mind calm and even, avoiding worry, and cultivating
+cheerfulness and contentment, she thus moulds the disposition of the
+child to a far greater extent than she dreams of. The woman who lives in
+a condition of perpetual nervous excitement and worry before the birth
+of her child, who is fretful, complaining, impatient of the discomfort
+of her condition, need not be much surprised if her baby be fretful and
+difficult to rear. Of course this is all very easy to write down, and
+most difficult--in many cases of physical and nervous prostration
+impossible--to bear in mind; nevertheless, it is worth the trial, worth
+the self-denial involved, even looking at it from the most selfish
+standpoint, one's own ultimate comfort and ease. The gain to the child
+is too great to be estimated.
+
+And surely taking into consideration the enormous number of miserable,
+weakly babies who have never had a chance, the day of whose birth, like
+Job's, is sadder than the day of their death, it is not too much to ask
+from thoughtful Christian women, who at heart feel their responsibility
+and their high privilege, that nothing shall be lacking on their part to
+make the child given to them by God a moral, mental, and physical
+success. We are careful in all other departments of life to try and
+obtain the best--why not here? Is human life less precious, human souls
+of less account, than merchandise?
+
+I do not see why mothers should not seek to impress upon their
+daughters, and fathers upon their sons, as they approach maturity, the
+solemnity and sacredness of such themes, which involve all that is most
+important in human life. I consider that the ignorance with which so
+many young girls are allowed to enter matrimony is nothing short of
+criminal; and I do not myself see that a plain, straight, loving talk
+from her mother beforehand, which will prepare her for her new
+obligations and make them less a surprise and a trial when they come,
+can possibly take the edge off that exquisite and delicate purity which
+we would wish to be our daughters' outstanding characteristic, and which
+every right-thinking man desires in his wife. There are many who do not
+share this opinion, and hold that the wall of reserve should never be
+broken. But the issues are great, and I cannot but think that in this
+case ignorance is more likely to be fruitful of anxiety and foreboding,
+to say nothing of mistakes, than is a little knowledge wisely imparted
+by those whom experience has taught.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+X.
+
+_THE SON IN THE HOME._
+
+
+The son is peculiarly the mother's child, and the bond between them,
+seen at its best, is one of the loveliest, and, to the woman who has
+suffered for her firstborn, one of the most soul-satisfying on earth. I
+suppose most women given choice would wish their firstborn to be a son;
+and her pride in the boy as he grows in grace and strength and manliness
+is a very exquisite thing in the mother.
+
+As a rule, a boy is more difficult to rear. He has more strength of limb
+and will, and shows earlier, perhaps, the desire to be master of the
+whole situation, as very often he is. It is amazing at how early an age
+a child can begin to discern between the firm will and the weak will of
+those who guide him, and to profit thereby; and she is a wise woman who
+begins as she means to end, and who teaches her child that her decision
+is absolute from the earliest stage. The moment he begins to understand
+that though you say no a yell will probably convert it into a yes, your
+occupation is gone, so to speak--you have lost your hold, and Baby is
+master of the situation and of you.
+
+There is no doubt, I think, that the woman who has a nurse to relieve
+her of the child has a better chance than the one who has to fight the
+battle single-handed--for this reason, that extreme weariness of body,
+which nothing brings about more quickly than the perpetual care of a
+baby, is apt to weaken the will; the desire for peace at any price
+becomes too great to be resisted, and so the citadel is lost. It is
+impossible also for the ordinary woman, who has the care of a baby all
+day long, in addition to a multitude of other duties, not to become
+nervous, irritable, and excitable, and the probability is that the child
+becomes a reflex of herself. I know of no more self-denying and
+harassing life than that of the mother of many children, whose limited
+means prohibit much assistance in her labours. It would require the
+strength of a Hercules and the patience of a Job. Yet how many go on
+from day to day with an uncomplaining and heroic cheerfulness which does
+not strike the onlooker, simply because it is so common, like the
+toothache, that it attracts but little sympathy or attention.
+
+In one day such a mother may win moral victories beside which the
+brilliant engagements of the battlefield would pale. It is not one that
+she has to consider and contend with, but many; the diversity of
+disposition in one family is truly amazing, and affords a most
+interesting psychological study. If she be a thoughtful and
+conscientious woman she knows that she is sowing the seeds of future
+good and ill, that early impressions are never erased, and that her own
+influence is the one which will leave the strongest, the most indelible
+mark on the future of the little ones she has under her wing. To this
+there is no exception whatever; it is a fact nobody attempts to dispute.
+Who shall say, then--who shall dare to say--that a woman's work is
+slight, her sphere narrow, her influence feeble? Have we not yet with us
+the proverb, "She who rocks the cradle rules the world"? as true to-day
+as it was a hundred years ago, as it will be in a hundred years to come.
+
+But though the anxieties and responsibilities of the nursery are great,
+they increase, especially in the case of some, as the years go by;
+though as the boy grows older his mother may be somewhat relieved by the
+wise guidance of the father. There comes a time when the lad wants to
+emancipate himself from his mother's jurisdiction, and begins to look to
+his father, seeing in him the image of what he may yet become. He will
+not love his mother any less, but he will be impatient a little,
+perhaps, of her careful supervision; he wants to be a man, to imitate
+his father, to show that he is a being of another order. It is always
+amusing to look on at this subtle and inevitable change, but sometimes
+touching as well. It is the strong soul seeking his heritage, the first
+stirring of manhood in the boy, who will never be other than a bairn to
+his mother. Happy then the mother, blessed the boy, who has a good,
+wise, and tender father to take him by the hand, and show him at this
+critical stage the beauty of a noble, pure, and honest manhood, and how
+great is its power to bless the world.
+
+There are some men who never grow old, who, while doing a man's part
+better than most in the world, keep the child-heart pure within them.
+Happy are the children who call them father! The ideal father (since we
+are writing of what we all know to be the highest in home relationship,
+we may call him so) will be a boy in the midst of his boys all his days;
+he will share the pastimes, the interests, the absorbing occupations of
+his boys, in the schoolroom and the recreation-ground, just as he did
+not disdain to join sometimes in the frolic of the nursery. He will
+understand cricket and football, and hounds and hares, and know all the
+little points of schoolboy honour, so that he may at once grasp the
+situation when his lad brings his grievance or his tale of victory to
+him. And through it all, without preaching, which the soul of the
+average boy abhors, he will seek to inculcate the highest moral lessons,
+thus accentuating and deepening the teaching of the nursery still fresh
+in the boy's mind.
+
+This is the ideal which we would wish to see in every home, but the real
+is rather different, and sometimes perplexing to deal with. We have seen
+homes where the boys do not "get on" with their father, who seem to rub
+each other the wrong way, and to have no sort of kinship with each
+other--in a word, who are not chums, which is a boy's definition of the
+jolliest possible relationship, and which is very beautiful existing
+between father and son. But there are fathers who have no patience with
+the boy who, feeling in him the promptings of a larger life, begins to
+give himself little airs, and to adopt a manly and masterful manner; no
+sympathy with his desire for freedom; and who, instead of wisely guiding
+all these accompaniments of young manhood into fresh and legitimate
+channels, seeks to curb them, to restrain every impulse, and to enforce
+an authority the boy does not understand, and inwardly, if not
+outwardly, kicks against.
+
+I know many mothers who have difficulty in pouring oil on such troubled
+waters, and who see that the father and the boy do not understand each
+other, and cannot get on--and she is powerless to help. Out of this
+strained relationship many evils may arise. The young heart, bounding
+with a thousand buoyant impulses, eager to see life and taste its every
+cup, deprived of sympathy and outlet, and thrown back upon itself,
+becomes reserved, self-contained, and morbid. Then, again, there is
+a temptation to concealment, and even to prevarication, over mere
+trifles. When censure is feared--and the young heart is fearfully
+sensitive--little fibs are told to escape it, and so a great moral wrong
+is inflicted, which can undoubtedly be laid at the unsympathetic
+parent's door.
+
+The mother, by reason of her gentler nature (to which, of course, there
+are the usual exceptions), is not so feared, and is made the go-between.
+
+"Mother, will _you_ ask father for so-and-so?" is an everyday question
+in many homes; and why should it be? Why should sympathy and confidence
+be less full and sweet between father and son than between mother and
+son? Nay, rather, it might be fuller, since the father, being of the
+same sex, can the better understand the boy nature, making allowance for
+its failings, which were also his, if, indeed, they are not in an
+aggravated form still characteristic of him. Some men forget that they
+have ever been young; looking at them and witnessing their conduct in
+certain circumstances, one finds it difficult to believe that they ever
+_were_ young. They have been fossils from their birth. That is the grand
+mistake--to fix such a great gulf betwixt youth and maturity that
+nothing can bridge it. It is more love, more sympathy we want; it is the
+dearth of it that is the curse of the world. Yet how dare we, being
+responsible for the advent of the child into the world, deny him his
+heritage, starve his heart of its right to our affection and regard? The
+Lord sent him? Well, He did undoubtedly, and His commands with the gift.
+There is no hesitation or ambiguity about the Lord's mandate regarding
+little children.
+
+In homes where this lovely sympathy exists, anxiety regarding the moral
+welfare of the boy is reduced to a minimum. Where the youth can come to
+his mother, and still better to his father, in every dilemma, sure of
+advice and aid, he will not go very far wrong. The world is full of
+pitfalls, and it is sure nothing short of the grace of God can keep
+young manhood in the right way; but very certain am I that parents have
+much, ay, more than they dream of in their power.
+
+Let them at least see to it that they do not fall short. Let the boy
+feel that the home is his, that his friends are welcome to it, and that
+he need not go out always to seek liberty and enjoyment. In one word,
+let him have room to breathe and to live, and the chances are that he
+will repay you by becoming all you could desire even in your fondest
+dreams.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+XI.
+
+_THE DAUGHTER IN THE HOME._
+
+
+The home is incomplete without the daughter, the sweet little baby who
+from the first entwined herself about her parents' hearts; and who, as
+she grows in beauty, is a source of constant joy and pride, not quite
+untouched by anxiety. For when we have educated our sons and done for
+them all we possibly can, they can, as a rule, stand on their own sturdy
+legs, and take their own place in the world, we looking on with pride if
+they adorn it well--with sadness if they fall short. We do not love them
+less, but they sooner place themselves beyond our jurisdiction, and
+responsibility concerning them is sooner at an end. With the daughters
+it is different. As the old rhyme says--
+
+
+  "A son is a son till he gets him a wife,
+  A daughter's a daughter to the end of her life,"
+
+
+words which just express the whole situation. Even after she marries our
+anxiety and loving concern for her in her new sphere quite equals the
+old; her little children, reminding us of what she was once to us, are
+dear to us in a way our son's children can never be. It seems a strange
+anomaly, yet will most mothers bear me out in what I say.
+
+A home where there are many boys and no girls is a jolly, healthy, happy
+household enough, but it lacks something, a gentler element, which the
+boys miss keenly, though they may not even be conscious of it. It is a
+great misfortune for boys to have no sisters, because in the family
+circle, where they grow up side by side, they acquire a knowledge of
+girl-nature which is invaluable to them when they begin to take an
+interest in that interesting personage, "another fellow's sister." And
+_vice versâ_--girls brought up in a brotherless home have no opportunity
+of studying boy-nature, and are apt to take a very prim, narrow view of
+the same. The ideal family is the one judiciously mixed, where boys and
+girls rub shoulders and carry on their little campaigns, entering into
+each other's pursuits and being chums all round. It is good for both.
+
+As I said before, girls, even in infancy, are more easily managed and
+reared than boys, the usual exceptions being allowed; and the same may
+be said of them as they grow older. They are more docile, more amenable
+to control, and their animal spirits, dependent on bodily organisation,
+are not usually so obstreperous. It is astonishing how soon a little
+girl becomes a companionable creature; she develops at a much earlier
+age than her brothers. Of course there are great differences. We have
+the tomboy, never still, more interested in her brothers' pranks than
+in the sober frolics of girls--dolls have no charm for her; yet the
+curious thing is that the tomboy has been known to develop into the
+extraordinarily successful wife and mother, her very energies of mind
+and body, when mellowed by experience, proving invaluable to her in her
+new sphere.
+
+I have often thought that an interesting article might be written on the
+place and power of dolls in the early life of women; it is such an
+interesting study to watch the different grades of interest taken in
+them by different children. To some they are real flesh and blood,
+treated as such, fondled over and considered quite as much as any living
+baby, invested with aches and pains, tempers and troubles, and subjected
+to a regular system of reward and punishment; while to others they are
+mere toys, which serve only to beguile the tedium of a rainy day. Then
+there are the few who regard them as mere objects for scorn and hatred;
+and when they do not ignore them, maltreat them mercilessly.
+
+The small girl who hates dolls, and dubs them as stupid things, is apt
+to be a little troublesome to amuse, though it is also quite possible
+that she may possess a very original mind, which strikes out a new path
+even in amusement for itself.
+
+Some little boys who afterwards became good and noble men have not
+disdained dolls as a baby amusement, and you generally find that the
+small boy who takes a kind interest in his sister's dolls, and who does
+not spend his leisure in concocting schemes for their torture and
+dismemberment, has the fatherly instinct very strongly developed, and
+will in his own home be tenderly devoted to his children.
+
+Boys ought to be taught early the beauty of little kindly attentions and
+thoughtfulness for others. On no account ought their sisters to be
+allowed to fetch and carry for them. There may be a system of mutual
+obligation if you like, but boys of a certain age are apt to become very
+arbitrary, and to consider their sisters in the light of body servants.
+By allowing boys to order their sisters about, to bring them things and
+give in always, you foster a spirit of selfishness, which grows
+tyrannical as the years go by, and paves the way for some domestic
+discomfort in a future home which will be beyond your jurisdiction.
+
+They tell us the age of chivalry is dead; and really manners do not seem
+to be as they were. The changed order of things concerning women, who
+are no longer cooped up within the four walls of a house, and told that
+that is their sphere spelled with a very big S, but who are pushing
+their way steadily to the front in every walk of life, no doubt partly
+accounts for this; still the lapse of that old-fashioned and gracious
+courtesy of men to women is to be deplored, and I cannot but think that
+we who have raw material to work upon in the nursery might do something
+to restore it. We cannot afford to lose any of the graces of life.
+Heaven knows things are reduced to a prosaic enough level with us in
+these days, when the fret and fever seem to leave time for nothing but
+the barest realities.
+
+As we have already admitted that early impressions and early training
+never quite lose their hold, so if we teach our boys to be gracious,
+courteous, considerate always to their sisters because they are little
+women, some women of a later date will be grateful to us.
+
+The very advanced of our sex have been known to disclaim any desire for
+such consideration; they want none from the opposite sex, but only room
+to fight the battle side by side; but we who do not wish to see life
+robbed of all its grace and courtliness would respectfully insist that
+this reserve should not be entirely dispensed with. We still like a man
+to take off his hat to us in the street, instead of jerking his head on
+one side; we have no objection to the inside of the pavement or the most
+comfortable seat in carriage or tram, for which we have still a word of
+appreciative thanks left, though we may thereby show how far we are left
+behind in the race. I wish to make myself very clear. We do not want our
+girls to be namby-pamby, selfish, silly creatures, who imagine it is
+interesting and fascinating to pose as weak, dependent, fluttering
+creatures; but neither do we want our sons to be boors, and it is in the
+home where manners as well as morals are formed. So let us not despise
+the little courtesies which do so much to sweeten daily intercourse, but
+teach them to the children from the beginning, so that to be chivalrous,
+courteous, gentle to rich and poor, gentle and simple of both sexes,
+will become as natural for them as to breathe.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+XII.
+
+_THE EDUCATION OF OUR DAUGHTERS._
+
+
+Even a very young daughter can be of use to her mother, and her
+influence felt in the house, if she is taught how. Of course, the first
+concern, when our little maid gets out of the nursery, is that she
+should be educated, and her mental powers have the best possible chance
+of being brought to their full power.
+
+The education of our girls is one of the great questions of the
+day--engrossing the interest of those in the highest places; and a
+healthy sign of the times it is. For since it is upon the women of
+to-day that the future of the race depends, what could be of greater
+importance than that all her powers, physical, mental, and moral,
+should be brought as near perfection as possible?
+
+Do I of a set purpose mention the physical first? Yes; because the older
+I grow the more it comes home to me that unless we have sound and
+healthy bodies we can but poorly serve our day and generation. Therefore
+the food the children eat should be one of our chief studies and
+concerns; because if we can send them out into the world with
+constitutions built upon a sure and common-sense foundation, it is the
+best possible service we can render them; and one for which they and
+theirs will be grateful always.
+
+This question of education is rather a perplexing one, which gives
+parents a great deal of anxious thought. The present system is
+undoubtedly a great improvement upon any we have had heretofore, and yet
+it seems to leave something to be desired. In the board schools, where
+the bulk of the lower middle-class children are educated, and where
+tuition is very excellent and thorough, there is yet this
+drawback,--all are sought to be raised to one dead level, the passing of
+so many standards being imperative, nor any consideration given to
+individual capacity or fitness. The inevitable result of this is that
+the teacher is bound to concentrate his attention on the dull pupils, in
+order to get them dragged up to the required standard, the bright ones
+being left pretty much to their own devices. However much he may deplore
+this, he cannot help himself, since it is upon his percentage of passes
+that his status as a teacher, to say nothing of his salary, depends.
+Therefore in some respects the old system of parochial teaching had its
+advantage over the new.
+
+But it is very specially of the education of the girls we wish to speak,
+and it is gratifying to observe that many parents are awaking to the
+absurdity of insisting that their daughters shall acquire a superficial
+knowledge of certain accomplishments, whatever the bent of their minds.
+How much money, to say nothing of precious time, has been sacrificed in
+the vain pursuit of music, that sweetest of the arts; which is so often
+desecrated and tortured by unwilling and unsympathetic votaries. It very
+soon becomes evident whether the child has an aptitude for music or not;
+and if she has not, but finds the study of it an imposition and a trial,
+what is the use of forcing her to such unwilling drudgery, when very
+likely she possesses some other aptitude, the cultivation of which will
+be both profitable and pleasant? How many girls upon whom pounds and
+pounds have been spent never touch the piano when they are emancipated
+from schoolroom control; and how much more usefully could both time and
+money have been employed in the pursuit of something else!
+
+Mothers are beginning to see this, and it is a welcome awakening. So
+long as our young maiden is occupied with school and lessons, she has
+not time to learn much else, since it is imperative that she has
+recreation likewise; it is when she leaves school that the wise mother,
+having an eye to the future, will at once seek to initiate her into the
+mysteries of housekeeping. True, she may never have a home of her own;
+she may be one of those called to labour, perhaps, in the very forefront
+of the working women outside; but all the same she ought not to be
+ignorant of what used to be considered the chief, if not the only
+occupation for women,--she ought to be fit to keep house on the shortest
+notice. It is a woman's heritage. Whatever she may or may not know, I
+hold that she ought to acquire a certain amount of domestic knowledge,
+whether she uses it or not. Most young girls are interested in domestic
+affairs, and are never happier than when allowed to have their finger in
+the domestic pie; but in this as in other things a thorough grounding is
+the most satisfactory.
+
+It is astonishing what undreamed-of qualities a sense of responsibility
+awakens in a young soul; how the very idea that something depends on
+her, that she is being trusted, puts our little maid upon her mettle.
+Therefore it is a good plan to leave to a young daughter some particular
+duty or duties for which she is entirely responsible.
+
+This may of course be a very slight thing to begin with--the dusting of
+a room, or the arrangement of flowers or books, or the superintendence
+of the tea-table; but whatever it is, the mother should insist that it
+be done regularly and at the appointed time. Thus will she teach her
+child punctuality and a primary lesson in a method, which is the key to
+all perfect housekeeping. Of course it is a little trouble to the mother
+to superintend the performance of such little duties, but she will have
+her reward in the daily increasing helpfulness of the daughter in the
+home.
+
+Most young girls, if skilfully dealt with, speedily learn to take a
+special pride in their own little duties, especially if their efforts be
+met with appreciation. Never snub a child; the young heart is very
+sensitive, and takes a long time to forget. Little changes in the
+domestic routine will be introduced by the wise mother, in order that
+the work may not become irksome.
+
+Where there are several daughters, it is a good plan for them to
+exchange their particular duties for a time. Thus, one may assist with
+the cooking for a week, then change with her sister who has the care and
+arrangement of the drawing-room or sitting-room, or with the one who
+helps with the mending. So the daily round would never become
+monotonous, and by gradual and pleasant degrees a knowledge of the whole
+system of housekeeping is acquired, which will be simply invaluable to
+her, whatever her future may be. If the family circumstances demand that
+she shall go out into the world to earn her living by teaching or
+typewriting or shopkeeping, the wise mother will not for this reason
+relax her desire and effort to teach her the art and mystery of
+housekeeping. True, while she is occupied outside she has little
+opportunity to learn it, but "where there's a will there's a way"; and
+though it may not appear at present of much practical value to her, yet
+she may marry, or have to go to single housekeeping, when the home is no
+longer open to her. I again insist that it is every woman's duty to
+know, or to acquire some practical knowledge of housekeeping, so that
+she may be ready for any emergency. Her fitness for it will be a
+perpetual source of satisfaction to her, for there is nothing more
+self-satisfying than to feel that one is capable; it gives confidence,
+strength, and self-reliance.
+
+One of the very necessary lessons to be taught a young girl is the value
+of money. The sooner she learns what equivalent in household necessaries
+money can procure the better. The day may come when the tired mother
+will be glad to be relieved even of the responsibility of spending, and
+when, thanks to her own wisdom and foresight, she can place the family
+purse in younger hands, knowing that the contents will not be recklessly
+or extravagantly spent. Let our young maiden feel that she is entirely
+trusted, and that a great deal is expected of her, then will she display
+qualities undreamed-of. She will be eager to show what she can do; and
+when the word of encouragement and appreciation is not lacking she will
+be proud and happy indeed. Of course there are perverse natures, of whom
+one is tempted at times to despair--irresponsible young persons who
+would make wild havoc in any establishment left to their care; but I am
+speaking of the average young girl, who may be expected to be
+thoughtless and forgetful often, as is the way of youth, but who
+nevertheless has the makings of a fine, gentle-hearted, noble woman in
+her.
+
+"What shall we do with our daughters?" is one of the great questions of
+the day. Formerly marriage was their only destiny; if they missed that,
+they were supposed to have missed all that was worth the winning here.
+But that old fallacy is exploded. While still holding that in happy
+marriage is to be found the fullest and most soul-satisfying life for
+women, no open-eyed person will deny that a single, independent, and
+self-respecting life is far preferable to the miserable, starved,
+inadequate wifehood to which many women are bound. Having dealt in a
+former chapter with the question of matrimony, I must here avoid
+repetition, but in connection with this subject of our daughters we must
+touch upon it once again. The wise mother will rear her daughters to be
+independent, self-respecting, and, if possible, self-supporting; not
+hiding from them that she considers a real marriage (not the mockery of
+it so often seen) the highest destiny for them, but at the same time
+impressing on them that there are other spheres in which women may be as
+happy and comfortable, and where they will certainly have less anxiety
+and care.
+
+The woman who trains her daughters in the belief that marriage is their
+only end and aim, the very _raison d'être_ of their being, is a
+mistaken, despicable creature, and in all probability her daughters will
+take after her.
+
+If they do not marry, then what is to become of our daughters? Of late
+years their path of life has opened up more widely and clearly, and
+though the avocations open to women are very crowded there is still room
+for the best equipped. That is the secret,--to bring to the market the
+highest value only, to render oneself as efficient as nature and
+circumstances permit. I would have our girls fully comprehend that in
+this age of unprecedented strain and stress there is absolutely no room
+for mediocrity, and that they cannot afford to be anything but the most
+efficient workers in whatever department they have made their own. There
+is still room for the best, and persevering, conscientious labour, worth
+the highest market value, sooner or later meets its due appreciation and
+reward.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+XIII.
+
+_THE SERVANT IN THE HOME._
+
+
+Any little book attempting to treat of home-life must necessarily be
+incomplete without some reference to the place and power of the servant
+therein. We housekeepers all know that this servant question is just as
+pressing as any upon which we have yet touched, and it is one that is
+with us every day. We cannot rid ourselves of it, even if we would,
+because it involves so much of our domestic comfort and happiness.
+
+We of modern days are filled with a vague envy when we read of such
+treasures as Caleb Balderstone, Bell of the Manse, and various other
+types of a class now, we fear, extinct--the faithful servitor, who
+lived in the service of one house for generations and desired to die in
+it. Perhaps such types had their drawbacks likewise, and sometimes
+presumed past endurance, doing what seemed good in their own eyes, and
+that alone. But all that could be forgiven, because, weighed in the
+balance with a lifelong devotion and loyalty and love, they were as
+nothing. A few Calebs and Bells undoubtedly still exist, but the bulk of
+modern housekeepers know them not, and regard them as pleasant creatures
+of fiction, impossible to real life.
+
+Are servants really less efficient, less conscientious, less diligent
+than they were? Or is it that we expect and exact more? Modern life has
+undergone such a tremendous change, there have been so many upheavals in
+relative positions, that we are inclined to think domestic service is
+now regarded from a very different standpoint than it was fifty, or even
+twenty, years ago. It is no longer regarded as honourable; those who
+enter it seem to do so under protest, the result being a most
+unsatisfactory relation within doors. Some blame education for this; and
+yet it seems hard to believe that education, the pioneer of progress
+everywhere and in all ages, should be responsible for such a distorted
+view. Some will tell us that this very dissatisfaction is a sign of the
+times, indicating the march of progress towards the time when all men
+shall be equal, and no more lines of demarcation shall be drawn. Never
+were wages higher; never, I am very sure, were domestic servants treated
+with more consideration and respect; and yet the fact remains that girls
+prefer almost any other occupation to it. They will stand for hours
+behind a counter, suffering untold tortures from exhaustion and
+insufficient food, content to receive a mere pittance, and subjected to
+a system of espionage and bullying far harder to bear than anything
+found in domestic service; and they will give you as their reasons, in
+general, these: It is more genteel, they have their evenings and their
+Sundays free, and they are not required to wear the livery of cap and
+apron. These are the reasons, then; what are we to make of them?
+
+Can we make domestic service more genteel; give evenings and Sundays
+free; and are we willing to dispense with the badge distinguishing maid
+from mistress? These are the questions we have before us, waiting an
+answer; in that answer perhaps may be found the solution of the whole
+stupendous difficulty.
+
+I write under one disadvantage. I have never been a domestic servant,
+and I cannot therefore look at the situation from that particular
+standpoint; but I have had for some years servants under my roof, and I
+have my own experiences of these years to guide me from the mistress's
+point of view. During these years I can truthfully say that I have most
+conscientiously, kindly, and systematically done my best to make them
+happy; that I have considered them very often at the expense of my own
+comfort; and though I have had no startling experiences whatsoever, I am
+bound to admit that the result on the whole is not particularly
+encouraging. I have seldom found that corresponding consideration, that
+devotion to my concerns, that warm personal interest, which make one
+feel that one has friends in the household. I have had my pound of
+flesh, nothing more; they have done the work for which they have been
+paid, sometimes well, but often carelessly; and that is all. When it
+came to a question of personal consideration, of caring for my
+substance, looking after my interests as I have honestly tried to look
+after theirs, I have been disappointed, and now I expect no more,
+thankful if I have average comfort, and do not have my nerves and temper
+tried a hundred times a day. This I suppose is the experience of
+two-thirds of the women who may read this book.
+
+Nobody feels more keenly than I do the monotonous drudgery of a
+servant's life. Day in, day out, the same weary round; and while the
+same may be said of all workers, in whatsoever estate they may find
+themselves, yet is the lot of the domestic servant notoriously a dull
+routine. I often wonder, indeed, that without that element of personal
+interest which is the only thing to make the multitudinous and weary
+round of household duties sweet, or in any way tolerable, she should do
+it half so well; but, on the other hand, when one thinks of her absolute
+freedom from care, sordid or otherwise, a feeling of impatience is bound
+to arise. "All found" is a comprehensive phrase, and it is those who
+have to "find" it who have the care, the thought, the anxious planning.
+
+How, then, can we establish a better understanding between mistress and
+maid, how lift this question to its highest platform, and render the
+service one which will be honoured and sought after, instead of
+despised, and entered on under compulsion, or as a last resource? I
+confess, for once, I am baffled completely, and beyond redemption. I
+have thought of it long and earnestly, have done my best with my own
+opportunities, and I have no glorified results to offer. I am as others,
+worried and often weary, and grateful for every small mercy that comes
+in my way. It seems to me that we want to enlarge our own minds and the
+minds of those we take into our employ; we need a wider vision, which
+shall lift us clean above mere petty and selfish concerns. That is a
+baptism we all need. When shall it descend?
+
+I am forced to this conclusion--that it is this question of all others
+that is absolutely dependent on the grace of God. We must have the true
+spirit of Christianity in our kitchens and in our drawing-rooms,--that
+spirit whose gracious teaching is never ambiguous or difficult to
+understand; in a word, there is nothing but the Sermon on the Mount will
+do us any good. Of human preaching, teaching, and writing we have enough
+and to spare--it does not appear to go home, or to bear any practical
+fruit.
+
+We can only pray that He, whose great heart is open now as it was then
+to every human need, will help us to realise our responsibility to each
+other, will give us new lessons in the law of love, and show us that
+service is the highest form of praise, and that nothing is really small
+or mean or despicable, except sin and the littleness of human aims.
+
+All work is honourable, nay, it is the highest calling on earth. It can
+only be dishonoured in the doing. If each one, master and man, mistress
+and maid, could adopt this attitude towards their daily duty to the
+world and to each other, there would be found the solution of the
+problem vexing the souls of so many at the present day.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+XIV.
+
+_RELIGION IN THE HOME._
+
+
+Perhaps this chapter might more appropriately have been placed at the
+beginning of the book than at the end, seeing we have in it the root of
+the whole matter, the key to all happiness, fitness, comfort, and peace.
+Religion is a word much misunderstood, yet it is given to us in the
+Epistle of St. James in the clearest, most intelligible language,--"Pure
+religion and undefiled is to visit the widows and the fatherless in
+their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
+
+It always seems to me that the former part of the injunction is easier
+than the latter. There is so much in the world with which we must
+combat, so much that, though we can avoid in one sense, comes so very
+near to us, that it is well-nigh impossible to keep ourselves unspotted.
+But though there is a great deal of evil around us, we must not be such
+cowards as to shrink from facing it, and shut ourselves up in selfish
+safety, lest it should come near us at all. This is not what the Apostle
+means, for it is possible to be in the world and yet not of it, it is
+written too that "to the pure all things are pure." What we have to do
+is to see that in our inmost thoughts we are pure, not giving lodgment
+in our mind to any unholy thing which if revealed would bring the blush
+of shame to our cheek. But in the high standard of personal purity,
+which we may rightly set up for ourselves, let us not be too arrogant,
+or forgetful that such as fall away from purity may have been subjected
+to such terrible temptations as we know nothing of. Let us cultivate
+more of that Divine compassion towards them which Christ showed of old
+towards the Magdalene. It is in matters of such immediate and personal
+interest that the spirit of the religion we profess is to be
+exhibited,--in a word, we must consecrate all to the high service God
+requires of us, honouring us in the requirement. We are placed in this
+world to be happy and useful; and though we are reminded many times by
+personal sorrows and bereavements that we have no continuing city here,
+yet the knowledge need not make us gloomy, or restless, or dissatisfied.
+
+In this lovely world, so full of beauty and variety, we are bidden to
+rejoice; it is for our enjoyment and our use, there is no stint or
+condition attached to our citizenship of God's earth. Nature is mother
+to all, and has a message for the meanest and most tried of her
+children; and it is a message of divinest love. Through Nature, His
+handmaid, God speaks to us, giving us in the dawn of each new day, in
+the return of each season, in the shining of the sun and the blessing
+of the rain, grand and practical lessons in faith, fulfilment of
+promises which should mean a great deal to us, and teach us more and
+more to trust Him in all and through all. While we are in the world we
+have a duty to it, and those who neglect or think lightly of the
+practical and commonplace requirements of daily life are in the wrong.
+What is needed is a deepened sense of responsibility concerning the
+charge God has given us to keep for Him, in the house, the workshop, or
+the busy mart of life.
+
+It is with the home we have presently to deal; and it is in the home, I
+think, we need certainly, in as great a degree as elsewhere, all the aid
+and stimulus religion can give. It teaches us to make the very best of
+all our circumstances, adverse or pleasant; and aids us to the
+performance of all duties, however monotonous or irksome in themselves.
+It is not ours to inquire whether these duties are just what we would
+desire or choose for ourselves, had choice remained with us. Religion
+does not consist in the performance of religious ordinances, in
+conscientious reading of the Word or the utterance of its formal
+prayers; these are its attributes, its natural outcome, not by any means
+the thing itself. Religion is, I take it, to be a principle, a powerful
+guiding motive to direct us in the ordinary affairs of life, and its
+mainspring is love. Love for whom? For the Lord Jesus. And if we love
+Him, and truly desire to serve Him, it will be no difficulty for us, but
+a natural and exquisite result, that we love one another.
+
+Even the enemies of Christ, who deny His divinity, admit the beauty and
+perfectness of His character, and the unselfishness and holiness of His
+earthly life. Since these three-and-thirty years He walked with men many
+new Christs have risen, many new creeds and dogmas been offered for the
+world's acceptance; but all have passed away, disappeared into
+nothingness, and Christ remains, the mainstay and salvation of human
+souls. His teaching is still the very best we can obtain for our
+guidance here. Take the Sermon on the Mount, for instance. How perfect
+it is, how comprehensive, how full of little things, and yet how
+wide-reaching in its limit! There is nothing forgotten; nearly nineteen
+hundred years old, and yet it is adapted for every need of the human
+soul. If we could get the spirit of that blessed teaching more firmly
+planted in our hearts, we could make the world a happier place for
+ourselves and others. We are all fond of laying plans for the future;
+and there are few of us who do not at least once a year review the past,
+and make new resolves for the future. Some of us are constantly taking
+retrospects, and sometimes feel hopeless. We seem to be making so little
+progress in that higher life which we desire, and strive after in some
+degree. In a twofold sense this looking back may be made profitable to
+us. It must always, unless we are very hard of heart, make us grateful
+for past mercies; and when we consider how wonderfully and tenderly we
+have been led through difficulties and trials, or dangers, or guided
+through the more perilous waters of prosperity and success, it will give
+us greater heart to go forward to whatever may lie before us. When we
+look back on lost opportunities, it must make us more watchful of those
+present with us, and help us to give to each new day as it comes
+something upon which we shall afterwards look back without regret. The
+older I grow the more strongly do I feel that religion is a matter of
+daily living--of practice, not precept; and that unless the Spirit of
+Christ animate us in all our relations one to the other we name His name
+in vain. And what a lovely spirit it was, unsullied by any trace of
+selfishness, gentle, forbearing, long-suffering, just to the last
+degree!
+
+It is this spirit alone that can sanctify and bless the home, and raise
+all common life out of a sordid groove; that can make homely things
+beautiful, and hard things, of which so many meet us on life's road,
+easier to bear. Oh that we had a larger baptism of it; that we who so
+long and strive for it could have it always with us! Human nature is so
+perverse, and self so strong. Yet, even in its weakest efforts, this
+earnest desire to live the religion Christ has taught us will not go
+unblessed, but will make its little lesson felt wherever it is found.
+Because it makes us more self-denying, more charitable, more forbearing
+in every relation of life, it will make others inquire concerning the
+hope that is in us.
+
+
+  "In hidden and unnoticed ways;
+  In household work, on common days,"
+
+
+we may do the Master's work, and make our homes altars to His glory.
+
+We want less talk and more action, less precept and more example, which
+though reticent of speech is yet eloquent in testimony for good or for
+evil. So, whatever be our lot or circumstances, whatever our joys and
+sorrows, our losses or crosses, we may with confidence look ahead, and
+our great compensation will not be lacking--"She hath done what she
+could"; and again, "Well done, good and faithful servant: enter thou
+into the joy of thy Lord."
+
+
+
+Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
+
+
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