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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ee5329 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #64120 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64120) diff --git a/old/64120-0.txt b/old/64120-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ad2842a..0000000 --- a/old/64120-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8771 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of House and Home Papers, by Christopher -Crowfield - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: House and Home Papers - Seventh Edition - -Author: Christopher Crowfield - Harriet Beecher Stowe - -Release Date: December 23, 2020 [eBook #64120] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Image source(s): https://archive.org/details/househomepapers00stow_0/ - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS *** - - - Writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe. - ──── - -UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. _Popular Illustrated Edition._ 12mo, $2.00. - -THE SAME. _Illustrated Edition._ A new edition, from new plates, printed - with red-line border. With an Introduction of more than 30 pages, and - a Bibliography of the various editions and languages in which the - work has appeared, by Mr. GEORGE BULLEN, of the British Museum. Over - 100 illustrations. 8vo, $3.50. - -THE SAME. _Popular Edition._ With Introduction, and Portrait of “Uncle - Tom.” 12mo, $1.00. - -DRED (sometimes called “Nina Gordon.”) 12mo, $1.50. - -THE MINISTER’S WOOING. 12mo, $1.50. - -AGNES OF SORRENTO. 12mo, $1.50. - -THE PEARL OF ORR’S ISLAND. 12mo, $1.50. - -THE MAY-FLOWER, etc. 12mo, $1.50. - -OLDTOWN FOLKS. 12mo, $1.50. - -SAM LAWSON’S FIRESIDE STORIES. New and enlarged Edition. Illustrated. - 12mo, $1.50. - -THE SAME. 16mo, paper covers, 50 cents. - -MY WIFE AND I. New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50. - -WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS. New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50. - -POGANUC PEOPLE. New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50. - - The above eleven 12mo volumes, uniform, in box, $16.50. - -HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. 16mo, $1.50. - -LITTLE FOXES. 16mo, $1.50. - -THE CHIMNEY-CORNER. 16mo, $1.50. - -A DOG’S MISSION, etc. New Edition. Illustrated. Small 4to, $1.25. - -QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE. New Edition. Illustrated. Small 4to, $1.25. - -LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW. New Edition. Illustrated. Small 4to, $1.25. - -RELIGIOUS POEMS. Illustrated. 16mo, gilt edges, $1.50. - -PALMETTO LEAVES. Sketches of Florida. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.50. - - - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., _Publishers_, - BOSTON. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - HOUSE AND HOME - - PAPERS. - - - BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD. - - - SEVENTH EDITION. - - - Publisher’s Logo - - - BOSTON: - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. - The Riverside Press, Cambridge. - 1887. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by - - HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, - - in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of - Massachusetts. - - - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - CONTENTS. - - - PAGE - - I. THE RAVAGES OF A CARPET 1 - - II. HOME-KEEPING _vs._ 23 - HOUSE-KEEPING - - III. WHAT IS A HOME? 48 - - IV. THE ECONOMY OF THE BEAUTIFUL 79 - - V. RAKING UP THE FIRE 101 - - VI. THE LADY WHO DOES HER OWN WORK 125 - - VII. WHAT CAN BE GOT IN AMERICA 148 - - VIII. ECONOMY 164 - - IX. SERVANTS 195 - - X. COOKERY 225 - - XI. OUR HOUSE 266 - - XII. HOME RELIGION 309 - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. - - ───── - - - - - I. - - THE RAVAGES OF A CARPET. - - -“MY dear, it’s so cheap!” - -These words were spoken by my wife, as she sat gracefully on a roll of -Brussels carpet which was spread out in flowery lengths on the floor of -Messrs. Ketchem & Co. - -“It’s _so_ cheap!” - -Milton says that the love of fame is the last infirmity of noble minds. -I think he had not rightly considered the subject. I believe that last -infirmity is the love of getting things cheap! Understand me, now. I -don’t mean the love of getting cheap things, by which one understands -showy, trashy, ill-made, spurious articles, bearing certain apparent -resemblances to better things. All really sensible people are quite -superior to that sort of cheapness. But those fortunate accidents which -put within the power of a man things really good and valuable for half -or a third of their value what mortal virtue and resolution can -withstand? My friend Brown has a genuine Murillo, the joy of his heart -and the light of his eyes, but he never fails to tell you, as its -crowning merit, how he bought it in South America for just nothing,—how -it hung smoky and deserted in the back of a counting-room, and was -thrown in as a makeweight to bind a bargain, and, upon being cleaned, -turned out a genuine Murillo; and then he takes out his cigar, and calls -your attention to the points in it; he adjusts the curtain to let the -sunlight fall just in the right spot; he takes you to this and the other -point of view; and all this time you must confess, that, in your mind as -well as his, the consideration that he got all this beauty for ten -dollars adds lustre to the painting. Brown has paintings there for which -he paid his thousands, and, being well advised, they are worth the -thousands he paid; but this ewe-lamb that he got for nothing always -gives him a secret exaltation in his own eyes. He seems to have credited -to himself personally merit to the amount of what he should have paid -for the picture. Then there is Mrs. Crœsus, at the party yesterday -evening, expatiating to my wife on the surprising cheapness of her -point-lace set,—“Got for just nothing at all, my dear!” and a circle of -admiring listeners echoes the sound. “Did you ever _hear_ anything like -it? I never heard of such a thing in my life”; and away sails Mrs. -Crœsus as if she had a collar composed of all the cardinal virtues. In -fact, she is buoyed up with a secret sense of merit, so that her satin -slippers scarcely touch the carpet. Even I myself am fond of showing a -first edition of “Paradise Lost,” for which I gave a shilling in a -London book-stall, and stating that I would not take a hundred dollars -for it. Even I must confess there are points on which I am mortal. - -But all this while my wife sits on her roll of carpet, looking into my -face for approbation, and Marianne and Jenny are pouring into my ear a -running-fire of “How sweet! How lovely! Just like that one of Mrs. -Tweedleum’s!” - -“And she gave two dollars and seventy-five cents a yard for hers, and -this is—” - -My wife here put her hand to her mouth, and pronounced the incredible -sum in a whisper, with a species of sacred awe, common, as I have -observed, to females in such interesting crises. In fact, Mr. Ketchem, -standing smiling and amiable by, remarked to me that really he hoped -Mrs. Crowfield would not name generally what she gave for the article, -for positively it was so far below the usual rate of prices that he -might give offence to other customers; but this was the very last of the -pattern, and they were anxious to close off the old stock, and we had -always traded with them, and he had a great respect for my wife’s -father, who had always traded with their firm, and so, when there were -any little bargains to be thrown in any one’s way, why, he naturally, of -course—And here Mr. Ketchem bowed gracefully over the yardstick to my -wife, and I consented. - -Yes, I consented; but whenever I think of myself at that moment, I -always am reminded, in a small way, of Adam taking the apple; and my -wife, seated on that roll of carpet, has more than once suggested to my -mind the classic image of Pandora opening her unlucky box. In fact, from -the moment I had blandly assented to Mr. Ketchem’s remarks, and said to -my wife, with a gentle air of dignity, “Well, my dear, since it suits -you, I think you had better take it,” there came a load on my prophetic -soul, which not all the fluttering and chattering of my delighted girls -and the more placid complacency of my wife could entirely dissipate. I -presaged, I know not what, of coming woe; and all I presaged came to -pass. - -In order to know just _what_ came to pass, I must give you a view of the -house and home into which this carpet was introduced. - -My wife and I were somewhat advanced housekeepers, and our dwelling was -first furnished by her father, in the old-fashioned jog-trot days, when -furniture was made with a view to its lasting from generation to -generation. Everything was strong and comfortable,—heavy mahogany, -guiltless of the modern device of veneering, and hewed out with a square -solidity which had not an idea of change. It was, so to speak, a sort of -granite foundation of the household structure. Then, we commenced -housekeeping with the full idea that our house was a thing to be lived -in, and that furniture was made to be used. That most sensible of women, -Mrs. Crowfield, agreed fully with me, that in our house there was to be -nothing too good for ourselves,—no rooms shut up in holiday attire to be -enjoyed by strangers for three or four days in the year, while we lived -in holes and corners,—no best parlor from which we were to be -excluded,—no silver plate to be kept in the safe in the bank, and -brought home only in case of a grand festival, while our daily meals -were served with dingy Britannia. “Strike a broad, plain average,” I -said to my wife; “have everything abundant, serviceable; and give all -our friends exactly what we have ourselves, no better and no worse”;—and -my wife smiled approval on my sentiment. - -Smile! she did more than smile. My wife resembles one of those convex -mirrors I have sometimes seen. Every idea I threw out, plain and simple, -she reflected back upon me in a thousand little glitters and twinkles of -her own; she made my crude conceptions come back to me in such perfectly -dazzling performances that I hardly recognized them. My mind warms up, -when I think what a home that woman made of our house from the very -first day she moved into it. The great, large, airy parlor, with its -ample bow-window, when she had arranged it, seemed a perfect trap to -catch sunbeams. There was none of that discouraging trimness and newness -that often repel a man’s bachelor-friends after the first call, and make -them feel,—“O, well, one cannot go in at Crowfield’s now, unless one is -dressed; one might put them out.” The first thing our parlor said to any -one was, that we were not people to be put out, that we were -wide-spread, easy-going, and jolly folk. Even if Tom Brown brought in -Ponto and his shooting-bag, there was nothing in that parlor to strike -terror into man and dog; for it was written on the face of things, that -everybody there was to do just as he or she pleased. There were my books -and my writing-table spread out with all its miscellaneous confusion of -papers on one side of the fireplace, and there were my wife’s great, -ample sofa and work-table on the other; there I wrote my articles for -the “North American,” and there she turned and ripped and altered her -dresses, and there lay crochet and knitting and embroidery side by side -with a weekly basket of family-mending, and in neighborly contiguity -with the last book of the season, which my wife turned over as she took -her after-dinner lounge on the sofa. And in the bow-window were canaries -always singing, and a great stand of plants always fresh and blooming, -and ivy which grew and clambered and twined about the pictures. Best of -all, there was in our parlor that household altar, the blazing -wood-fire, whose wholesome, hearty crackle is the truest household -inspiration. I quite agree with one celebrated American author who holds -that an open fireplace is an altar of patriotism. Would our -Revolutionary fathers have gone barefooted and bleeding over snows to -defend air-tight stoves and cooking-ranges? I trow not. It was the -memory of the great open kitchen-fire, with its back-log and fore-stick -of cord-wood, its roaring, hilarious voice of invitation, its dancing -tongues of flame, that called to them through the snows of that dreadful -winter to keep up their courage, that made their hearts warm and bright -with a thousand reflected memories. Our neighbors said that it was -delightful to sit by our fire,—but then, for their part, they could not -afford it, wood was so ruinously dear, and all that. Most of these -people could not, for the simple reason that they felt compelled, in -order to maintain the family-dignity, to keep up a parlor with great -pomp and circumstance of upholstery, where they sat only on -dress-occasions, and of course the wood-fire was out of the question. - -When children began to make their appearance in our establishment, my -wife, like a well-conducted housekeeper, had the best of -nursery-arrangements,—a room all warmed, lighted, and ventilated, and -abounding in every proper resource of amusement to the rising race; but -it was astonishing to see how, notwithstanding this, the centripetal -attraction drew every pair of little pattering feet to our parlor. - -“My dear, why don’t you take your blocks up-stairs?” - -“I want to be where oo are,” said with a piteous under-lip, was -generally a most convincing answer. - -Then the small people could not be disabused of the idea that certain -chief treasures of their own would be safer under papa’s writing-table -or mamma’s sofa than in the safest closet of their own domains. My -writing-table was dock-yard for Arthur’s new ship, and stable for little -Tom’s pepper-and-salt-colored pony, and carriage-house for Charley’s new -wagon, while whole armies of paper-dolls kept house in the recess behind -mamma’s sofa. - -And then, in due time, came the tribe of pets who followed the little -ones and rejoiced in the blaze of the firelight. The boys had a splendid -Newfoundland, which, knowing our weakness, we warned them with awful -gravity was never to be a parlor dog; but, somehow, what with little -beggings and pleadings on the part of Arthur and Tom, and the piteous -melancholy with which Rover would look through the window-panes, when -shut out from the blazing warmth into the dark, cold, veranda, it at -last came to pass that Rover gained a regular corner at the hearth, a -regular _status_ in every family-convocation. And then came a little -black-and-tan English terrier for the girls; and then a fleecy poodle, -who established himself on the corner of my wife’s sofa; and for each of -these some little voices pleaded, and some little heart would be so near -broken at any slight, that my wife and I resigned ourselves to live in -menagerie, the more so as we were obliged to confess a lurking weakness -towards these four-footed children ourselves. - -So we grew and flourished together,—children, dogs, birds, flowers, and -all; and although my wife often, in paroxysms of housewifeliness to -which the best of women are subject, would declare that we never were -fit to be seen, yet I comforted her with the reflection that there were -few people whose friends seemed to consider them better worth seeing, -judging by the stream of visitors and loungers which was always setting -towards our parlor. People seemed to find it good to be there; they said -it was somehow home-like and pleasant, and that there was a kind of -charm about it that made it easy to talk and easy to live; and as my -girls and boys grew up, there seemed always to be some merry doing or -other going on there. Arty and Tom brought home their college friends, -who straightway took root there and seemed to fancy themselves a part of -us. We had no reception-rooms apart, where the girls were to receive -young gentlemen; all the courting and flirting that were to be done had -for their arena the ample variety of surface presented by our parlor, -which, with sofas and screens and lounges and recesses and writing-and -work-tables, disposed here and there, and the genuine _laisser aller_ of -the whole _menage_, seemed, on the whole, to have offered ample -advantages enough; for, at the time I write of, two daughters were -already established in marriage, while my youngest was busy, as yet, in -performing that little domestic ballet of the cat with the mouse, in the -case of a most submissive youth of the neighborhood. - -All this time our parlor-furniture, though of that granitic formation I -have indicated, began to show marks of that decay to which things -sublunary are liable. I cannot say that I dislike this look in a room. -Take a fine, ample, hospitable apartment, where all things, freely and -generously used, softly and indefinably grow old together, there is a -sort of mellow tone and keeping which pleases my eye. What if the seams -of the great inviting arm-chair, where so many friends have sat and -lounged, do grow white? What, in fact, if some easy couch has an -undeniable hole worn in its friendly cover? I regard with tenderness -even these mortal weaknesses of these servants and witnesses of our good -times and social fellowship. No vulgar touch wore them; they may be -called, rather, the marks and indentations which the glittering in and -out of the tide of social happiness has worn in the rocks of our strand. -I would no more disturb the gradual toning-down and aging of a well-used -set of furniture by smart improvements than I would have a modern dauber -paint in emendations in a fine old picture. - -So we men reason; but women do not always think as we do. There is a -virulent demon of housekeeping, not wholly cast out in the best of them, -and which often breaks out in unguarded moments. In fact, Miss Marianne, -being on the lookout for furniture wherewith to begin a new -establishment, and Jenny, who had accompanied her in her peregrinations, -had more than once thrown out little disparaging remarks on the -time-worn appearance of our establishment, suggesting comparison with -those of more modern-furnished rooms. - -“It is positively scandalous, the way our furniture looks,” I one day -heard one of them declaring to her mother; “and this old rag of a -carpet!” - -My feelings were hurt, not the less so that I knew that the large cloth -which covered the middle of the floor, and which the women call a -bocking, had been bought and nailed down there, after a solemn -family-counsel, as the best means of concealing the too evident darns -which years of good cheer had made needful in our stanch old household -friend, the three-ply carpet, made in those days when to be a three-ply -was a pledge of continuance and service. - -Well, it was a joyous and bustling day, when, after one of those -domestic whirlwinds which the women are fond of denominating -house-cleaning, the new Brussels carpet was at length brought in and -nailed down, and its beauty praised from mouth to mouth. Our old friends -called in and admired, and all seemed to be well, except that I had that -light and delicate presage of changes to come which indefinitely brooded -over me. - -The first premonitory symptom was the look of apprehensive suspicion -with which the female senate regarded the genial sunbeams that had -always glorified our bow-window. - -“This house ought to have inside blinds,” said Marianne, with all the -confident decision of youth, “this carpet will be ruined, if the sun is -allowed to come in like that.” - -“And that dirty little canary must really be hung in the kitchen,” said -Jenny; “he always did make such a litter, scattering his seed-chippings -about; and he never takes his bath without flirting out some water. And, -mamma, it appears to me it will never do to have the plants here. Plants -are always either leaking through the pots upon the carpet, or -scattering bits of blossoms and dead leaves, or some accident upsets or -breaks a pot. It was no matter, you know, when we had the old carpet; -but this we really want to have kept nice.” - -Mamma stood her ground for the plants,—darlings of her heart for many a -year,—but temporized, and showed that disposition towards compromise -which is most inviting to aggression. - -I confess I trembled; for, of all radicals on earth, none are to be -compared to females that have once in hand a course of domestic -innovation and reform. The sacred fire, the divine _furor_, burns in -their bosoms, they become perfect Pythonesses, and every chair they sit -on assumes the magic properties of the tripod. Hence the dismay that -lodges in the bosoms of us males at the fateful spring and autumn -seasons, denominated house-cleaning. Who can say whither the awful gods, -the prophetic fates, may drive our fair household divinities; what sins -of ours may be brought to light; what indulgences and compliances, which -uninspired woman has granted in her ordinary mortal hours, may be torn -from us? He who has been allowed to keep a pair of pet slippers in a -concealed corner, and by the fireside indulged with a chair which he -might, _ad libitum_, fill with all sorts of pamphlets and miscellaneous -literature, suddenly finds himself reformed out of knowledge, his -pamphlets tucked away into pigeon-holes and corners, and his slippers -put in their place in the hall, with, perhaps, a brisk insinuation about -the shocking dust and disorder that men will tolerate. - -The fact was, that the very first night after the advent of the new -carpet I had a prophetic dream. Among our treasures of art was a little -etching, by an English artist-friend, the subject of which was the -gambols of the household fairies in a baronial library after the -household were in bed. The little people are represented in every -attitude of frolic enjoyment. Some escalade the great arm-chair, and -look down from its top as from a domestic Mont Blanc; some climb about -the bellows; some scale the shaft of the shovel; while some, forming in -magic ring, dance festively on the yet glowing hearth. Tiny troops -promenade the writing-table. One perches himself quaintly on the top of -the inkstand, and holds colloquy with another who sits cross-legged on a -paper-weight, while a companion looks down on them from the top of the -sand-box. It was an ingenious little device, and gave me the idea, which -I often expressed to my wife, that much of the peculiar feeling of -security, composure, and enjoyment which seems to be the atmosphere of -some rooms and houses came from the unsuspected presence of these little -people, the household fairies, so that the belief in their existence -became a solemn article of faith with me. - -Accordingly, that evening, after the installation of the carpet, when my -wife and daughters had gone to bed, as I sat with my slippered feet -before the last coals of the fire, I fell asleep in my chair, and, lo! -my own parlor presented to my eye a scene of busy life. The little -people in green were tripping to and fro, but in great confusion. -Evidently something was wrong among them; for they were fussing and -chattering with each other, as if preparatory to a general movement. In -the region of the bow-window I observed a tribe of them standing with -tiny valises and carpet-bags in their hands, as though about to depart -on a journey. On my writing-table another set stood around my inkstand -and pen-rack, who, pointing to those on the floor, seemed to debate some -question among themselves; while others of them appeared to be -collecting and packing away in tiny trunks certain fairy treasures, -preparatory to a general departure. When I looked at the social hearth, -at my wife’s sofa and work-basket, I saw similar appearances of -dissatisfaction and confusion. It was evident that the household fairies -were discussing the question of a general and simultaneous removal. I -groaned in spirit, and, stretching out my hand, began a conciliatory -address, when whisk went the whole scene from before my eyes, and I -awaked to behold the form of my wife asking me if I were ill or had had -the nightmare that I groaned so. I told her my dream, and we laughed at -it together. - -“We must give way to the girls a little,” she said. “It is natural, you -know, that they should wish us to appear a little as other people do. -The fact is, our parlor is somewhat dilapidated; think how many years we -have lived in it without an article of new furniture.” - -“I hate new furniture,” I remarked, in the bitterness of my soul. “I -hate anything new.” - -My wife answered me discreetly, according to approved principles of -diplomacy. I was right. She sympathized with me. At the same time, it -was not necessary, she remarked, that we should keep a hole in our -sofa-cover and arm-chair; there would certainly be no harm in sending -them to the upholsterer’s to be new-covered; she didn’t much mind, for -her part, moving her plants to the south back-room, and the bird would -do well enough in the kitchen: I had often complained of him for singing -vociferously when I was reading aloud. - -So our sofa went to the upholsterer’s; but the upholsterer was struck -with such horror at its clumsy, antiquated, unfashionable appearance, -that he felt bound to make representations to my wife and daughters: -positively, it would be better for them to get a new one, of a tempting -pattern, which he showed them, than to try to do anything with that. -With a stitch or so here and there it might do for a basement -dining-room; but, for a parlor, he gave it as his disinterested -opinion,—he must say, if the case were his own, he should get, etc., -etc. In short, we had a new sofa and new chairs, and the plants and the -birds were banished, and some dark green blinds were put up to exclude -the sun from the parlor, and the blessed luminary was allowed there only -at rare intervals, when my wife and daughters were out shopping, and I -acted out my uncivilized male instincts by pulling up every shade and -vivifying the apartment as in days of old. - -But this was not the worst of it. The new furniture and new carpet -formed an opposition party in the room. I believe in my heart that for -every little household fairy that went out with the dear old things -there came in a tribe of discontented brownies with the new ones. These -little wretches were always twitching at the gowns of my wife and -daughters, jogging their elbows, and suggesting odious comparisons -between the smart new articles and what remained of the old ones. They -disparaged my writing-table in the corner; they disparaged the -old-fashioned lounge in the other corner, which had been the maternal -throne for years; they disparaged the work-table, the work-basket, with -constant suggestions of how such things as these would look in certain -well-kept parlors where new-fashioned furniture of the same sort as ours -existed. - -“We don’t have any parlor,” said Jenny, one day. “Our parlor has always -been a sort of log-cabin,—library, study, nursery, greenhouse, all -combined. We never have had things like other people.” - -“Yes, and this open fire makes such a dust; and this carpet is one that -shows every speck of dust; it keeps one always on the watch.” - -“I wonder why papa never had a study to himself; I’m sure I should think -he would like it better than sitting here among us all. Now there’s the -great south-room off the dining-room; if he would only move his things -there, and have his open fire, we could then close up the fireplace, and -put lounges in the recesses, and mamma could have her things in the -nursery,—and then we should have a parlor fit to be seen.” - -I overheard all this, though I pretended not to,—the little busy chits -supposing me entirely buried in the recesses of a German book over which -I was poring. - -There are certain crises in a man’s life when the female element in his -household asserts itself in dominant forms that seem to threaten to -overwhelm him. The fair creatures, who in most matters have depended on -his judgment, evidently look upon him at these seasons as only a -forlorn, incapable male creature, to be cajoled and flattered and -persuaded out of his native blindness and absurdity into the fairy-land -of their wishes. - -“Of course, mamma,” said the busy voices, “men can’t understand such -things. What _can_ men know of housekeeping, and how things ought to -look? Papa never goes into company; he don’t know and don’t care how the -world is doing, and don’t see that nobody now is living as we do.” - -“Aha, my little mistresses, are you there?” I thought; and I mentally -resolved on opposing a great force of what our politicians call -_backbone_ to this pretty domestic conspiracy. - -“When you get my writing-table out of this corner, my pretty dears, I’d -thank you to let me know it.” - -Thus spake I in my blindness, fool that I was. Jupiter might as soon -keep awake, when Juno came in best bib and tucker, and with the _cestus_ -of Venus, to get him to sleep. Poor Slender might as well hope to get -the better of pretty Mistress Anne Page, as one of us clumsy-footed men -might endeavor to escape from the tangled labyrinth of female wiles. - -In short, in less than a year it was all done, without any quarrel, any -noise, any violence,—done, I scarce knew when or how, but with the -utmost deference to my wishes, the most amiable hopes that I would not -put myself out, the most sincere protestations that, if I liked it -better as it was, my goddesses would give up and acquiesce. In fact, I -seemed to do it of myself, constrained thereto by what the Emperor -Napoleon has so happily called the logic of events,—that old, well-known -logic by which the man who has once said A must say B, and he who has -said B must say the whole alphabet. In a year, we had a parlor with two -lounges in decorous recesses, a fashionable sofa, and six chairs and a -looking-glass, and a grate always shut up, and a hole in the floor which -kept the parlor warm, and great, heavy curtains that kept out all the -light that was not already excluded by the green shades. - -It was as proper and orderly a parlor as those of our most fashionable -neighbors; and when our friends called, we took them stumbling into its -darkened solitude, and opened a faint crack in one of the window-shades, -and came down in our best clothes, and talked with them there. Our old -friends rebelled at this, and asked what they had done to be treated so, -and complained so bitterly that gradually we let them into the secret -that there was a great south-room which I had taken for my study, where -we all sat, where the old carpet was down, where the sun shone in at the -great window, where my wife’s plants flourished and the canary-bird -sang, and my wife had her sofa in the corner, and the old brass andirons -glistened and the wood-fire crackled,—in short, a room to which all the -household fairies had emigrated. - -When they once had found _that_ out, it was difficult to get any of them -to sit in our parlor. I had purposely christened the new room _my -study_, that I might stand on my rights as master of ceremonies there, -though I opened wide arms of welcome to any who chose to come. So, then, -it would often come to pass, that, when we were sitting round the fire -in my study of an evening, the girls would say,— - -“Come, what do we always stay here for? Why don’t we ever sit in the -parlor?” - -And then there would be manifested among guests and family-friends a -general unwillingness to move. - -“O, hang it, girls!” would Arthur say; “the parlor is well enough, all -right; let it stay as it is, and let a fellow stay where he can do as he -pleases and feels at home”; and to this view of the matter would respond -divers of the nice young bachelors who were Arthur’s and Tom’s sworn -friends. - -In fact, nobody wanted to stay in our parlor now. It was a cold, -correct, accomplished fact; the household fairies had left it,—and when -the fairies leave a room, nobody ever feels at home in it. No pictures, -curtains, no wealth of mirrors, no elegance of lounges, can in the least -make up for their absence. They are a capricious little set; there are -rooms where they will _not_ stay, and rooms where they _will_; but no -one can ever have a good time without them. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - II. - - HOME-KEEPING _vs._ HOUSE-KEEPING. - - -I AM a frank, open-hearted man, as, perhaps, you have by this time -perceived, and you will not, therefore, be surprised to know that I read -my last article on the carpet to my wife and the girls before I sent it -to the “Atlantic,” and we had a hearty laugh over it together. My wife -and the girls, in fact, felt that they could afford to laugh, for they -had carried their point, their reproach among women was taken away, they -had become like other folks. Like other folks they had a parlor, an -undeniable best parlor, shut up and darkened, with all proper carpets, -curtains, lounges, and marble-topped tables, too good for human nature’s -daily food; and being sustained by this consciousness, they cheerfully -went on receiving their friends in the study, and having good times in -the old free-and-easy way; for did not everybody know that this room was -not their best? and if the furniture was old-fashioned and a little the -worse for antiquity, was it not certain that they had better, which they -could use, if they would? - -“And supposing we wanted to give a party,” said Jenny, “how nicely our -parlor would light up! Not that we ever do give parties, but if we -should,—and for a wedding-reception, you know.” - -I felt the force of the necessity; it was evident that the four or five -hundred extra which we had expended was no more than such solemn -possibilities required. - -“Now, papa thinks we have been foolish,” said Marianne, “and he has his -own way of making a good story of it; but, after all, I desire to know -if people are never to get a new carpet. Must we keep the old one till -it actually wears to tatters?” - -This is a specimen of the _reductio ad absurdum_ which our fair -antagonists of the other sex are fond of employing. They strip what we -say of all delicate shadings and illusory phrases, and reduce it to some -bare question of fact, with which they make a home-thrust at us. - -“Yes, that’s it; are people _never_ to get a new carpet?” echoed Jenny. - -“My dears,” I replied, “it is a fact that to introduce anything new into -an apartment hallowed by many home-associations, where all things have -grown old together, requires as much care and adroitness as for an -architect to restore an arch or niche in a fine old ruin. The fault of -our carpet was that it was in another style from everything in our room, -and made everything in it look dilapidated. Its colors, material, and -air belonged to another manner of life, and were a constant plea for -alterations; and you see it actually drove out and expelled the whole -furniture of the room, and I am not sure yet that it may not entail on -us the necessity of refurnishing the whole house.” - -“My dear!” said my wife, in a tone of remonstrance; but Jane and -Marianne laughed and colored. - -“Confess, now,” said I, looking at them, “have you not had secret -designs on the hall- and stair-carpet?” - -“Now, papa, how could you know it? I only said to Marianne that to have -Brussels in the parlor and that old mean-looking ingrain carpet in the -hall did not seem exactly the thing; and, in fact, you know, mamma, -Messrs. Ketchem & Co. showed us such a lovely pattern, designed to -harmonize with our parlor-carpet.” - -“I know it, girls,” said my wife; “but you know I said at once that such -an expense was not to be thought of.” - -“Now, girls,” said I, “let me tell you a story I heard once of a very -sensible old New-England minister, who lived, as our country ministers -generally do, rather near to the bone, but still quite contentedly. It -was in the days when knee-breeches and long stockings were worn, and -this good man was offered a present of a very nice pair of black silk -hose. He declined, saying, he ‘could not afford to wear them.’ - -“‘Not afford it?’ said the friend; ‘why, I _give_ them to you.’ - -“‘Exactly; but it will cost me not less than two hundred dollars to take -them, and I cannot do it.’ - -“‘How is that?’ - -“‘Why, in the first place, I shall no sooner put them on than my wife -will say, “My dear, you must have a new pair of knee-breeches,” and I -shall get them. Then my wife will say, “My dear, how shabby your coat -is! You must have a new one,” and I shall get a new coat. Then she will -say, “Now, my dear, that hat will never do,” and then I shall have a new -hat; and then I shall say, “My dear, it will never do for me to be so -fine and you to wear your old gown,” and so my wife will get a new gown; -and then the new gown will require a new shawl and a new bonnet; all of -which we shall not feel the need of, if I don’t take this pair of silk -stockings, for, as long as we don’t see them, our old things seem very -well suited to each other.’” - -The girls laughed at this story, and I then added, in my most determined -manner,— - -“But I must warn you, girls, that I have compromised to the utmost -extent of my power, and that I intend to plant myself on the old -stair-carpet in determined resistance. I have no mind to be forbidden -the use of the front-stairs, or condemned to get up into my bedroom by a -private ladder, as I should be immediately, if there were a new carpet -down.” - -“Why, papa!” - -“Would it not be so? Can the sun shine in the parlor now for fear of -fading the carpet? Can we keep a fire there for fear of making dust, or -use the lounges and sofas for fear of wearing them out? If you got a new -entry- and stair-carpet, as I said, I should have to be at the expense -of another staircase to get up to our bedroom.” - -“O no, papa,” said Jane, innocently; “there are very pretty druggets, -now, for covering stair-carpets, so that they can be used without -hurting them.” - -“Put one over the old carpet, then,” said I, “and our acquaintance will -never know but it is a new one.” - -All the female senate laughed at this proposal, and said it sounded just -like a man. - -“Well,” said I, standing up resolutely for my sex, “a man’s ideas on -woman’s matters may be worth some attention. I flatter myself that an -intelligent, educated man doesn’t think upon and observe with interest -any particular subject for years of his life without gaining some ideas -respecting it that are good for something; at all events, I have written -another article for the ‘Atlantic,’ which I will read to you.” - -“Well, wait one minute, papa, till we get our work,” said the girls, -who, to say the truth, always exhibit a flattering interest in anything -their papa writes, and who have the good taste never to interrupt his -readings with any conversations in an undertone on cross-stitch and -floss-silks, as the manner of some is. Hence the little feminine bustle -of arranging all these matters beforehand. Jane, or Jenny, as I call her -in my good-natured moods, put on a fresh clear stick of hickory, of that -species denominated shagbark, which is full of most charming slivers, -burning with such a clear flame, and emitting such a delicious perfume -in burning, that I would not change it with the millionnaire who kept up -his fire with cinnamon. - -You must know, my dear Mr. Atlantic, and you, my confidential friends of -the reading public, that there is a certain magic or spiritualism which -I have the knack of in regard to these mine articles, in virtue of which -my wife and daughters never hear or see the little personalities -respecting _them_ which form parts of my papers. By a peculiar -arrangement which I have made with the elves of the inkstand and the -familiar spirits of the quill, a sort of glamour falls on their eyes and -ears when I am reading, or when they read the parts personal to -themselves; otherwise their sense of feminine propriety would be shocked -at the free way in which they and their most internal affairs are -confidentially spoken of between me and you, O loving readers. - -Thus, in an undertone, I tell you that my little Jenny, as she is -zealously and systematically arranging the fire, and trimly whisking -every untidy particle of ashes from the hearth, shows in every movement -of her little hands, in the cock of her head, in the knowing, observing -glance of her eye, and in all her energetic movements, that her small -person is endued and made up of the very expressed essence of -house-wifeliness,—she is the very attar, not of roses, but of -housekeeping. Care-taking and thrift and neatness are a nature to her; -she is as dainty and delicate in her person as a white cat, as -everlastingly busy as a bee; and all the most needful faculties of time, -weight, measure, and proportion ought to be fully developed in her -skull, if there is any truth in phrenology. Besides all this, she has a -sort of hard-grained little vein of common sense, against which my -fanciful conceptions and poetical notions are apt to hit with just a -little sharp grating, if they are not well put. In fact, this kind of -woman needs carefully to be idealized in the process of education, or -she will stiffen and dry, as she grows old, into a veritable household -Pharisee, a sort of domestic tyrant. She needs to be trained in artistic -values and artistic weights and measures, to study all the arts and -sciences of the beautiful, and then she is charming. Most useful, most -needful, these little women: they have the centripetal force which keeps -all the domestic planets from gyrating and frisking in unseemly -orbits,—and properly trained, they fill a house with the beauty of -order, the harmony and consistency of proportion, the melody of things -moving in time and tune, without violating the graceful appearance of -ease which Art requires. - -So I had an eye to Jenny’s education in my article which I unfolded and -read, and which was entitled, - - - HOME-KEEPING _vs._ HOUSE-KEEPING. - - There are many women who know how to keep a house, but there are - but few that know how to keep a _home_. To keep a house may seem - a complicated affair, but it is a thing that may be learned; it - lies in the region of the material, in the region of weight, - measure, color, and the positive forces of life. To keep a home - lies not merely in the sphere of all these, but it takes in the - intellectual, the social, the spiritual, the immortal. - -Here the hickory-stick broke in two, and the two brands fell -controversially out and apart on the hearth, scattering the ashes and -coals, and calling for Jenny and the hearth-brush. Your wood-fire has -this foible, that it needs something to be done to it every five -minutes; but, after all, these little interruptions of our bright-faced -genius are like the piquant sallies of a clever friend,—they do not -strike us as unreasonable. - -When Jenny had laid down her brush, she said,— - -“Seems to me, papa, you are beginning to soar into metaphysics.” - -“Everything in creation is metaphysical in its abstract terms,” said I, -with a look calculated to reduce her to a respectful condition. -“Everything has a subjective and an objective mode of presentation.” - -“There papa goes with subjective and objective!” said Marianne. “For my -part, I never can remember which is which.” - -“I remember,” said Jenny; “it’s what our old nurse used to call internal -and _out_-ternal,—I always remember by that.” - -“Come, my dears,” said my wife, “let your father read”; so I went on as -follows:— - - * * * * * - -I remember in my bachelor days going with my boon companion, Bill -Carberry, to look at the house to which he was in a few weeks to -introduce his bride. Bill was a gallant, free-hearted, open-handed -fellow, the life of our whole set, and we felt that natural aversion to -losing him that bachelor friends would. How could we tell under what -strange aspects he might look forth upon us, when once he had passed -into “that undiscovered country” of matrimony? But Bill laughed to scorn -our apprehensions. - -“I’ll tell you what, Chris,” he said, as he sprang cheerily up the steps -and unlocked the door of his future dwelling, “do you know what I chose -this house for? Because it’s a social-looking house. Look there, now,” -he said, as he ushered me into a pair of parlors,—“look at those long -south windows, the sun lies there nearly all day long; see what a -capital corner there is for a lounging-chair; fancy us, Chris, with our -books or our paper, spread out loose and easy, and Sophie gliding in and -out like a sunbeam. I’m getting poetical, you see. Then, did you ever -see a better, wider, airier dining-room? What capital suppers and things -we’ll have there! the nicest times,—everything free and easy, you -know,—just what I’ve always wanted a house for. I tell you, Chris, you -and Tom Innis shall have latch-keys just like mine, and there is a -capital chamber there at the head of the stairs, so that you can be free -to come and go. And here now’s the library,—fancy this full of books and -engravings from the ceiling to the floor; here you shall come just as -you please and ask no questions,—all the same as if it were your own, -you know.” - -“And Sophie, what will she say to all this?” - -“Why, you know Sophie is a prime friend to both of you, and a capital -girl to keep things going. O, Sophie ’ll make a house of this, you may -depend!” - -A day or two after, Bill dragged me stumbling over boxes and through -straw and wrappings to show me the glories of the parlor-furniture,—with -which he seemed pleased as a child with a new toy. - -“Look here,” he said; “see these chairs, garnet-colored satin, with a -pattern on each; well, the sofa’s just like them, and the curtains to -match, and the carpets made for the floor with centre-pieces and -borders. I never saw anything more magnificent in my life. Sophie’s -governor furnishes the house, and everything is to be A No. 1, and all -that, you see. Messrs. Curtain and Collamore are coming to make the -rooms up, and her mother is busy as a bee getting us in order.” - -“Why, Bill,” said I, “you are going to be lodged like a prince. I hope -you’ll be able to keep it up; but law-business comes in rather slowly at -first, old fellow.” - -“Well, you know it isn’t the way I should furnish, if my capital was the -one to cash the bills; but then, you see, Sophie’s people do it, and let -them,—a girl doesn’t want to come down out of the style she has always -lived in.” - -I said nothing, but had an oppressive presentiment that social freedom -would expire in that house, crushed under a weight of upholstery. - -But there came in due time the wedding and the wedding-reception, and we -all went to see Bill in his new house splendidly lighted up and complete -from top to toe, and everybody said what a lucky fellow he was; but that -was about the end of it, so far as our visiting was concerned. The -running in, and dropping in, and keeping latch-keys, and making informal -calls, that had been forespoken, seemed about as likely as if Bill had -lodged in the Tuileries. - -Sophie, who had always been one of your snapping, sparkling, busy sort -of girls, began at once to develop her womanhood, and show her -principles, and was as different from her former self as your careworn, -mousing old cat is from your rollicking, frisky kitten. Not but that -Sophie was a good girl. She had a capital heart, a good, true womanly -one, and was loving and obliging; but still she was one of the -desperately painstaking, conscientious sort of women whose very blood, -as they grow older, is devoured with anxiety, and she came of a race of -women in whom housekeeping was more than an art or a science,—it was, so -to speak, a religion. Sophie’s mother, aunts, and grandmothers, for -nameless generations back, were known and celebrated housekeepers. They -might have been genuine descendants of the inhabitants of that Hollandic -town of Broeck, celebrated by Washington Irving, where the cows’ tails -are kept tied up with unsullied blue ribbons, and the ends of the -firewood are painted white. He relates how a celebrated preacher, -visiting this town, found it impossible to draw these housewives from -their earthly views and employments, until he took to preaching on the -_neatness_ of the celestial city, the unsullied crystal of its walls and -the polish of its golden pavement, when the faces of all the housewives -were set Zionward at once. - -Now this solemn and earnest view of housekeeping is onerous enough when -a poor girl first enters on the care of a moderately furnished house, -where the articles are not too expensive to be reasonably renewed as -time and use wear them; but it is infinitely worse when a cataract of -splendid furniture is heaped upon her care,—when splendid crystals cut -into her conscience, and mirrors reflect her duties, and moth and rust -stand ever ready to devour and sully in every room and passage-way. - -Sophie was solemnly warned and instructed by all the mothers and -aunts,—she was warned of moths, warned of cockroaches, warned of flies, -warned of dust; all the articles of furniture had their covers, made of -cold Holland linen, in which they looked like bodies laid out,—even the -curtain-tassels had each its little shroud,—and bundles of receipts and -of rites and ceremonies necessary for the preservation and purification -and care of all these articles were stuffed into the poor girl’s head, -before guiltless of cares as the feathers that floated above it. - -Poor Bill found very soon that his house and furniture were to be kept -at such an ideal point of perfection that he needed another house to -live in,—for, poor fellow, he found the difference between having a -house and a home. It was only a year or two after that my wife and I -started our _menage_ on very different principles, and Bill would often -drop in upon us, wistfully lingering in the cosey arm-chair between my -writing-table and my wife’s sofa, and saying with a sigh how -confoundedly pleasant things looked there,—so pleasant to have a bright, -open fire, and geraniums and roses and birds, and all that sort of -thing, and to dare to stretch out one’s legs and move without thinking -what one was going to hit. “Sophie is a good girl!” he would say, “and -wants to have everything right, but you see they won’t let her. They’ve -loaded her with so many things that have to be kept in lavender, that -the poor girl is actually getting thin and losing her health; and then, -you see, there’s Aunt Zeruah, she mounts guard at our house, and keeps -up such strict police-regulations that a fellow can’t do a thing. The -parlors are splendid, but so lonesome and dismal!—not a ray of sunshine, -in fact not a ray of light, except when a visitor is calling, and then -they open a crack. They’re afraid of flies, and yet, dear knows, they -keep every looking-glass and picture-frame muffled to its throat from -March to December. I’d like for curiosity to see what a fly would do in -our parlors!” - -“Well,” said I, “can’t you have some little family sitting-room, where -you can make yourselves cosey?” - -“Not a bit of it. Sophie and Aunt Zeruah have fixed their throne up in -our bedroom, and there they sit all day long, except at calling-hours, -and then Sophie dresses herself and comes down. Aunt Zeruah insists upon -it that the way is to put the whole house in order, and shut all the -blinds, and sit in your bedroom, and then, she says, nothing gets out of -place; and she tells poor Sophie the most hocus-pocus stories about her -grandmothers and aunts, who always kept everything in their houses so -that they could go and lay their hands on it in the darkest night. I’ll -bet they could in our house. From end to end it is kept looking as if we -had shut it up and gone to Europe,—not a book, not a paper, not a glove, -or any trace of a human being, in sight. The piano shut tight, the -bookcases shut and locked, the engravings locked up, all the drawers and -closets locked. Why, if I want to take a fellow into the library, in the -first place it smells like a vault, and I have to unbarricade windows, -and unlock and rummage for half an hour before I can get at anything; -and I know Aunt Zeruah is standing tiptoe at the door, ready to whip -everything back and lock up again. A fellow can’t be social, or take any -comfort in showing his books and pictures that way. Then there’s our -great, light dining-room, with its sunny south windows,—Aunt Zeruah got -us out of that early in April, because she said the flies would speck -the frescos and get into the china-closet, and we have been eating in a -little dingy den, with a window looking out on a back-alley, ever since; -and Aunt Zeruah says that now the dining-room is always in perfect -order, and that it is such a care off Sophie’s mind that I ought to be -willing to eat down-cellar to the end of the chapter. Now, you see, -Chris, my position is a delicate one, because Sophie’s folks all agree, -that, if there is anything in creation that is ignorant and dreadful and -mustn’t be allowed his way anywhere, it’s ‘a man.’ Why, you’d think, to -hear Aunt Zeruah talk, that we were all like bulls in a china-shop, -ready to toss and tear and rend, if we are not kept down-cellar and -chained; and she worries Sophie, and Sophie’s mother comes in and -worries, and if I try to get anything done differently, Sophie cries, -and says she don’t know what to do, and so I give it up. Now, if I want -to ask a few of our set in sociably to dinner, I can’t have them where -we eat down-cellar,—O, that would never do! Aunt Zeruah and Sophie’s -mother and the whole family would think the family honor was forever -ruined and undone. We mustn’t ask them, unless we open the dining-room, -and have out all the best china, and get the silver home from the bank; -and if we do that, Aunt Zeruah doesn’t sleep for a week beforehand, -getting ready for it, and for a week after, getting things put away; and -then she tells me, that, in Sophie’s delicate state, it really is -abominable for me to increase her cares, and so I invite fellows to dine -with me at Delmonico’s, and then Sophie cries, and Sophie’s mother says -it doesn’t look respectable for a family-man to be dining at public -places; but, hang it, a fellow wants a home somewhere!” - -My wife soothed the chafed spirit, and spake comfortably unto him, and -told him that he knew there was the old lounging-chair always ready for -him at our fireside. “And you know,” she said, “our things are all so -plain that we are never tempted to mount any guard over them; our -carpets are nothing, and therefore we let the sun fade them, and live on -the sunshine and the flowers.” - -“That’s it,” said Bill, bitterly. “Carpets fading—that’s Aunt Zeruah’s -monomania. These women think that the great object of houses is to keep -out sunshine. What a fool I was, when I gloated over the prospect of our -sunny south windows! Why, man, there are three distinct sets of -fortifications against the sunshine in those windows: first, outside -blinds; then, solid, folding, inside shutters; and, lastly, heavy, -thick, lined damask curtains, which loop quite down to the floor. What’s -the use of my pictures, I desire to know? They are hung in that room, -and it’s a regular campaign to get light enough to see what they are.” - -“But, at all events, you can light them up with gas in the evening.” - -“In the evening! Why, do you know my wife never wants to sit there in -the evening? She says she has so much sewing to do that she and Aunt -Zeruah must sit up in the bedroom, because it wouldn’t do to bring work -into the parlor. Didn’t you know that? Don’t you know there mustn’t be -such a thing as a bit of real work ever seen in a parlor? What if some -threads should drop on the carpet? Aunt Zeruah would have to open all -the fortifications next day, and search Jerusalem with candles to find -them. No; in the evening the gas is lighted at half-cock, you know; and -if I turn it up, and bring in my newspapers and spread about me, and -pull down some books to read, I can feel the nervousness through the -chamber-floor. Aunt Zeruah looks in at eight, and at a quarter past, and -at half-past, and at nine, and at ten, to see if I am done, so that she -may fold up the papers and put a book on them, and lock up the books in -their cases. Nobody ever comes in to spend an evening. They used to try -it when we were first married, but I believe the uninhabited appearance -of our parlors discouraged them. Everybody has stopped coming now, and -Aunt Zeruah says ‘it is such a comfort, for now the rooms are always in -order. How poor Mrs. Crowfield lives, with her house such a -thoroughfare, she is sure she can’t see. Sophie never would have -strength for it; but then, to be sure, some folks a’n’t as particular as -others. Sophie was brought up in a family of _very_ particular -housekeepers.’” - -My wife smiled, with that calm, easy, amused smile that has brightened -up her sofa for so many years. - -Bill added, bitterly,— - -“Of course, I couldn’t say that I wished the whole set and system of -housekeeping women at the—what-’s-his-name? because Sophie would have -cried for a week, and been utterly forlorn and disconsolate. I know it’s -not the poor girl’s fault; I try sometimes to reason with her, but you -can’t reason with the whole of your wife’s family, to the third and -fourth generation backwards; but I’m sure it’s hurting her -health,—wearing her out. Why, you know Sophie used to be the life of our -set; and now she really seems eaten up with care from morning to night, -there are so many things in the house that something dreadful is -happening to all the while, and the servants we get are so clumsy. Why, -when I sit with Sophie and Aunt Zeruah, it’s nothing but a constant -string of complaints about the girls in the kitchen. We keep changing -our servants all the time, and they break and destroy so that now we are -turned out of the use of all our things. We not only eat in the -basement, but all our pretty table-things are put away, and we have all -the cracked plates and cracked tumblers and cracked teacups and old -buck-handled knives that can be raised out of chaos. I could use these -things and be merry, if I didn’t know we had better ones; and I can’t -help wondering whether there isn’t some way that our table could be set -to look like a gentleman’s table; but Aunt Zeruah says that ‘it would -cost thousands, and what difference does it make as long as nobody sees -it but us?’ You see, there is no medium in her mind between china and -crystal and cracked earthen-ware. Well, I’m wondering how all these laws -of the Medes and Persians are going to work when the children come -along. I’m in hopes the children will soften off the old folks, and make -the house more habitable.” - -Well, children did come, a good many of them, in time. There was Tom, a -broad-shouldered, chubby-cheeked, active, hilarious son of mischief, -born in the very image of his father; and there was Charlie, and Jim, -and Louisa, and Sophie the second, and Frank,—and a better, brighter, -more joy-giving household, as far as temperament and nature were -concerned, never existed. - -But their whole childhood was a long battle, children _versus_ -furniture, and furniture always carried the day. The first step of the -housekeeping powers was to choose the least agreeable and least -available room in the house for the children’s nursery, and to fit it up -with all the old, cracked, rickety furniture a neighboring auction-shop -could afford, and then to keep them in it. Now everybody knows that to -bring up children to be upright, true, generous, and religious, needs so -much discipline, so much restraint and correction, and so many rules and -regulations, that it is all that the parents can carry out, and all the -children can bear. There is only a certain amount of the vital force for -parents or children to use in this business of education, and one must -choose what it shall be used for. The Aunt-Zeruah faction chose to use -it for keeping the house and furniture, and the children’s education -proceeded accordingly. The rules of right and wrong of which they heard -most frequently were all of this sort: Naughty children were those who -went up the front-stairs, or sat on the best sofa, or fingered any of -the books in the library, or got out one of the best teacups, or drank -out of the cut-glass goblets. - -Why did they ever want to do it? If there ever is a forbidden fruit in -an Eden, will not our young Adams and Eves risk soul and body to find -out how it tastes? Little Tom, the oldest boy, had the courage and -enterprise and perseverance of a Captain Parry or Dr. Kane, and he used -them all in voyages of discovery to forbidden grounds. He stole Aunt -Zeruah’s keys, unlocked her cupboards and closets, saw, handled, and -tasted everything for himself, and gloried in his sins. - -“Don’t you know, Tom,” said the nurse to him once, “if you are so noisy -and rude, you’ll disturb your dear mamma? She’s sick, and she may die, -if you’re not careful.” - -“Will she die?” says Tom, gravely. - -“Why, she _may_.” - -“Then,” said Tom, turning on his heel,—“then I’ll go up the -front-stairs.” - -As soon as ever the little rebel was old enough, he was sent away to -boarding-school, and then there was never found a time when it was -convenient to have him come home again. He could not come in the spring, -for then they were house-cleaning, nor in the autumn, because _then_ -they were house-cleaning; and so he spent his vacations at school, -unless, by good luck, a companion who was so fortunate as to have a home -invited him there. His associations, associates, habits, principles, -were as little known to his mother as if she had sent him to China. Aunt -Zeruah used to congratulate herself on the rest there was at home, now -he was gone, and say she was only living in hopes of the time when -Charlie and Jim would be big enough to send away too; and meanwhile -Charlie and Jim, turned out of the charmed circle which should hold -growing boys to the father’s and mother’s side, detesting the dingy, -lonely play-room, used to run the city streets, and hang round the -railroad depots or docks. Parents may depend upon it, that, if they do -not make an attractive resort for their boys, Satan will. There are -places enough, kept warm and light and bright and merry, where boys can -go whose mothers’ parlors are too fine for them to sit in. There are -enough to be found to clap them on the back, and tell them stories that -their mothers must not hear, and laugh when they compass with their -little piping voices the dreadful litanies of sin and shame. In middle -life, our poor Sophie, who as a girl was so gay and frolicsome, so full -of spirits, had dried and sharpened into a hard-visaged, angular -woman,—careful and troubled about many things, and forgetful that one -thing is needful. One of the boys had run away to sea; I believe he has -never been heard of. As to Tom, the oldest, he ran a career wild and -hard enough for a time, first at school and then in college, and there -came a time when he came home, in the full might of six feet two, and -almost broke his mother’s heart with his assertions of his home rights -and privileges. Mothers who throw away the key of their children’s -hearts and childhood sometimes have a sad retribution. As the children -never were considered when they were little and helpless, so they do not -consider when they are strong and powerful. Tom spread wide desolation -among the household gods, lounging on the sofas, spitting tobacco-juice -on the carpets, scattering books and engravings hither and thither, and -throwing all the family traditions into wild disorder, as he would never -have done, had not all his childish remembrances of them been embittered -by the association of restraint and privation. He actually seemed to -hate any appearance of luxury or taste or order,—he was a perfect -Philistine. - -As for my friend Bill, from being the pleasantest and most genial of -fellows, he became a morose, misanthropic man. Dr. Franklin has a -significant proverb,—“Silks and satins put out the kitchen-fire.” Silks -and satins—meaning by them the luxuries of housekeeping—often put out -not only the parlor-fire, but that more sacred flame, the fire of -domestic love. It is the greatest possible misery to a man and to his -children to be _homeless_; and many a man has a splendid house, but no -home. - -“Papa,” said Jenny, “you ought to write and tell what are your ideas of -keeping a _home_.” - -“Girls, you have only to think how your mother has brought you up.” - - * * * * * - -Nevertheless, I think, being so fortunate a husband, I might reduce my -wife’s system to an analysis, and my next paper shall be,— - -_What is a Home, and how to keep it._ - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - III. - - WHAT IS A HOME? - - -IT is among the sibylline secrets which lie mysteriously between you and -me, O reader, that these papers, besides their public aspect, have a -private one proper to the bosom of mine own particular family. - -They are not merely an _ex post facto_ protest in regard to that carpet -and parlor of celebrated memory, but they are forth-looking towards -other homes that may yet arise near us. - -For, among my other confidences, you may recollect I stated to you that -our Marianne was busy in those interesting cares and details which -relate to the preparing and ordering of another dwelling. - -Now, when any such matter is going on in a family, I have observed that -every feminine instinct is in a state of fluttering vitality,—every -woman, old or young, is alive with womanliness to the tips of her -fingers; and it becomes us of the other sex, however consciously -respected, to walk softly and put forth our sentiments discreetly and -with due reverence for the mysterious powers that reign in the feminine -breast. - -I had been too well advised to offer one word of direct counsel on a -subject where there were such charming voices, so able to convict me of -absurdity at every turn. I had merely so arranged my affairs as to put -into the hands of my bankers, subject to my wife’s order, the very -modest marriage-portion which I could place at my girl’s disposal; and -Marianne and Jenny, unused to the handling of money, were incessant in -their discussions with ever-patient mamma as to what was to be done with -it. I say Marianne and Jenny, for, though the case undoubtedly is -Marianne’s, yet, like everything else in our domestic proceedings, it -seems to fall, somehow or other, into Jenny’s hands, through the -intensity and liveliness of her domesticity of nature. Little Jenny is -so bright and wide-awake, and with so many active plans and fancies -touching anything in the housekeeping world, that, though the youngest -sister, and second party in this affair, a stranger, hearkening to the -daily discussions, might listen a half-hour at a time without finding -out that it was not Jenny’s future establishment that was in question. -Marianne is a soft, thoughtful, quiet girl, not given to many words; and -though, when you come fairly at it, you will find, that, like most quiet -girls, she has a will five times as inflexible as one who talks more, -yet in all family counsels it is Jenny and mamma that do the discussion, -and her own little well-considered “Yes,” or “No,” that finally settles -each case. - -I must add to this family _tableau_ the portrait of the excellent Bob -Stephens, who figured as future proprietor and householder in these -consultations. So far as the question of financial possibilities is -concerned, it is important to remark that Bob belongs to the class of -young Edmunds celebrated by the poet:— - - “Wisdom and worth were all he had.” - -He is, in fact, an excellent-hearted and clever fellow, with a world of -agreeable talents, a good tenor in a parlor-duet, a good actor at a -charade, a lively, off-hand conversationist, well up in all the current -literature of the day, and what is more, in my eyes, a well-read lawyer, -just admitted to the bar, and with as fair business prospects as usually -fall to the lot of young aspirants in that profession. - -Of course, he and my girl are duly and truly in love, in all the proper -moods and tenses; but as to this work they have in hand of being -householders, managing fuel, rent, provision, taxes, gas- and -water-rates, they seem to my older eyes about as sagacious as a pair of -this year’s robins. Nevertheless, as the robins of each year do somehow -learn to build nests as well as their ancestors, there is reason to hope -as much for each new pair of human creatures. But it is one of the -fatalities of our ill-jointed life that houses are usually furnished for -future homes by young people in just this state of blissful ignorance of -what they are really wanted for, or what is likely to be done with the -things in them. - -Now, to people of large incomes, with ready wealth for the rectification -of mistakes, it doesn’t much matter how the _menage_ is arranged at -first; they will, if they have good sense, soon rid themselves of the -little infelicities and absurdities of their first arrangements, and -bring their establishment to meet their more instructed tastes. - -But to that greater class who have only a modest investment for this -first start in domestic life mistakes are far more serious. I have known -people go on for years groaning under the weight of domestic possessions -they did not want, and pining in vain for others which they did, simply -from the fact that all their first purchases were made in this time of -blissful ignorance. - -I had been a quiet auditor to many animated discussions among the young -people as to what they wanted, and were to get, in which the subject of -prudence and economy was discussed, with quotations of advice thereon -given in serious good faith by various friends and relations who lived -easily on incomes four or five times larger than our own. Who can show -the ways of elegant economy more perfectly than people thus at ease in -their possessions? From what serene heights do they instruct the -inexperienced beginners! Ten thousand a year gives one leisure for -reflection, and elegant leisure enables one to view household economies -dispassionately; hence the unction with which these gifted daughters of -upper-air delight to exhort young neophytes. - -“Depend upon it, my dear,” Aunt Sophia Easygo had said, “it’s always the -best economy to get the best things. They cost more in the beginning, -but see how they last! These velvet carpets on my floor have been in -constant wear for ten years, and look how they wear! I never have an -ingrain carpet in my house,—not even on the chambers. Velvet and -Brussels cost more to begin with, but then they last. Then I cannot -recommend the fashion that is creeping in, of having plate instead of -solid silver. Plate wears off, and has to be renewed, which comes to -about the same thing in the end as if you bought all solid at first. If -I were beginning as Marianne is, I should just set aside a thousand -dollars for my silver, and be content with a few plain articles. She -should buy all her furniture at Messrs. David and Saul’s. People call -them dear, but their work will prove cheapest in the end, and there is -an air and style about their things that can be told anywhere. Of -course, you won’t go to any extravagant lengths,—simplicity is a grace -of itself.” - -The waters of the family council were troubled, when Jenny, flaming with -enthusiasm, brought home the report of this conversation. When my wife -proceeded, with her well-trained business knowledge, to compare the -prices of the simplest elegancies recommended by Aunt Easygo with the -sum-total to be drawn on, faces lengthened perceptibly. - -“How _are_ people to go to housekeeping,” said Jenny, “if everything -costs so much?” - -My wife quietly remarked, that we had had great comfort in our own -home,—had entertained unnumbered friends, and had only ingrain carpets -on our chambers and a three-ply on our parlor, and she doubted if any -guest had ever thought of it,—if the rooms had been a shade less -pleasant; and as to durability, Aunt Easygo had renewed her carpets -oftener than we. Such as ours were, they had worn longer than hers. - -“But, mamma, you know everything has gone on since your day. Everybody -must at least approach a certain style now-a-days. One can’t furnish so -far behind other people.” - -My wife answered in her quiet way, setting forth her doctrine of a plain -average to go through the whole establishment, placing parlors, -chambers, kitchen, pantries, and the unseen depths of linen-closets in -harmonious relations of just proportion, and showed by calm estimates -how far the sum given could go towards this result. _There_ the limits -were inexorable. There is nothing so damping to the ardor of youthful -economies as the hard, positive logic of figures. It is so delightful to -think in some airy way that the things we _like_ best are the cheapest, -and that a sort of rigorous duty compels us to get them at any -sacrifice. There is no remedy for this illusion but to show by the -multiplication and addition tables what things are and are not possible. -My wife’s figures met Aunt Easygo’s assertions, and there was a lull -among the high contracting parties for a season; nevertheless, I could -see Jenny was secretly uneasy. I began to hear of journeys made to far -places, here and there, where expensive articles of luxury were selling -at reduced prices. Now a gilded mirror was discussed, and now a velvet -carpet which chance had brought down temptingly near the sphere of -financial possibility. I thought of our parlor, and prayed the good -fairies to avert the advent of ill-assorted articles. - -“Pray keep common sense uppermost in the girls’ heads, if you can,” said -I to Mrs. Crowfield, “and don’t let the poor little puss spend her money -for what she won’t care a button about by and by.” - -“I shall try,” she said; “but you know Marianne is inexperienced, and -Jenny is so ardent and active, and so confident, too. Then they both, I -think, have the impression that we are a little behind the age. To say -the truth, my dear, I think your papers afford a good opportunity of -dropping a thought now and then in their minds. Jenny was asking last -night when you were going to write your next paper. The girl has a -bright, active mind, and thinks of what she hears.” - -So flattered, by the best of flatterers, I sat down to write on my -theme; and that evening, at firelight time, I read to my little senate -as follows:— - - - WHAT IS A HOME, AND HOW TO KEEP IT. - -I have shown that a dwelling, rented or owned by a man, in which his own -wife keeps house, is not always, or of course, a home. What is it, then, -that makes a home? All men and women have the indefinite knowledge of -what they want and long for when that word is spoken. “Home!” sighs the -disconsolate bachelor, tired of boarding-house fare and buttonless -shirts. “Home!” says the wanderer in foreign lands, and thinks of -mother’s love, of wife and sister and child. Nay, the word has in it a -higher meaning, hallowed by religion; and when the Christian would -express the highest of his hopes for a better life, he speaks of his -_home_ beyond the grave. The word home has in it the elements of love, -rest, permanency, and liberty; but besides these it has in it the idea -of an education by which all that is purest within us is developed into -nobler forms, fit for a higher life. The little child by the -home-fireside was taken on the Master’s knee when he would explain to -his disciples the mysteries of the kingdom. - -Of so great dignity and worth is this holy and sacred thing, that the -power to create a HOME ought to be ranked above all creative faculties. -The sculptor who brings out the breathing statue from cold marble, the -painter who warms the canvas into a deathless glow of beauty, the -architect who built cathedrals and hung the world-like dome of St. -Peter’s in mid-air, is not to be compared, in sanctity and worthiness, -to the humblest artist, who, out of the poor materials afforded by this -shifting, changing, selfish world, creates the secure Eden of a _home_. - -A true home should be called the noblest work of art possible to human -creatures, inasmuch as it is the very image chosen to represent the last -and highest rest of the soul, the consummation of man’s blessedness. - -Not without reason does the oldest Christian church require of those -entering on marriage the most solemn review of all the past life, the -confession and repentance of every sin of thought, word, and deed, and -the reception of the holy sacrament; for thus the man and woman who -approach the august duty of creating a home are reminded of the sanctity -and beauty of what they undertake. - -In this art of home-making I have set down in my mind certain first -principles, like the axioms of Euclid, and the first is,— - -_No home is possible without love._ - -All business marriages and marriages of convenience, all mere culinary -marriages and marriages of mere animal passion, make the creation of a -true home impossible in the outset. Love is the jewelled foundation of -this New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven, and takes as many -bright forms as the amethyst, topaz, and sapphire of that mysterious -vision. In this range of creative art all things are possible to him -that loveth, but without love nothing is possible. - -We hear of most convenient marriages in foreign lands, which may better -be described as commercial partnerships. The money on each side is -counted; there is enough between the parties to carry on the firm, each -having the appropriate sum allotted to each. No love is pretended, but -there is great politeness. All is so legally and thoroughly arranged, -that there seems to be nothing left for future quarrels to fasten on. -Monsieur and Madame have each their apartments, their carriages, their -servants, their income, their friends, their pursuits,—understand the -solemn vows of marriage to mean simply that they are to treat each other -with urbanity in those few situations where the path of life must -necessarily bring them together. - -We are sorry that such an idea of marriage should be gaining foothold in -America. It has its root in an ignoble view of life,—an utter and pagan -darkness as to all that man and woman are called to do in that highest -relation where they act as one. It is a mean and low contrivance on both -sides, by which all the grand work of home-building, all the noble pains -and heroic toils of home-education,—that education where the parents -learn more than they teach,—shall be (let us use the expressive Yankee -idiom) _shirked_. - -It is a curious fact that in those countries where this system of -marriages is the general rule there is no word corresponding to our -English word _home_. In many polite languages of Europe it would be -impossible neatly to translate the sentiment with which we began this -essay, that a man’s _house_ is not always his _home_. - -Let any one try to render the song, “Sweet Home,” into French, and one -finds how Anglo-Saxon is the very genius of the word. The structure of -life, in all its relations, in countries where marriages are matter of -arrangement, and not of love, excludes the idea of home. - -How does life run in such countries? The girl is recalled from her -convent or boarding-school, and told that her father has found a husband -for her. No objection on her part is contemplated or provided for; none -generally occurs, for the child is only too happy to obtain the fine -clothes and the liberty which she has been taught come only with -marriage. Be the man handsome or homely, interesting or stupid, still he -brings these. - -How intolerable such a marriage! we say, with the close intimacies of -Anglo-Saxon life in our minds. They are not intolerable, because they -are provided for by arrangements which make it possible for each to go -his or her several way, seeing very little of the other. The son or -daughter, which in due time makes its appearance in this _menage_, is -sent out to nurse in infancy, sent to boarding-school in youth, and in -maturity portioned and married, to repeat the same process for another -generation. Meanwhile, father and mother keep a quiet establishment, and -pursue their several pleasures. Such is the system. - -Houses built for this kind of life become mere sets of reception-rooms, -such as are the greater proportion of apartments to let in Paris, where -a hearty English or American family, with their children about them, -could scarcely find room to establish themselves. Individual character, -it is true, does something to modify this programme. There are charming -homes in France and Italy, where warm and noble natures, thrown -together, perhaps, by accident, or mated by wise paternal choice, infuse -warmth into the coldness of the system under which they live. There are -in all states of society some of such domesticity of nature that they -will create a home around themselves under any circumstances, however -barren. Besides, so kindly is human nature, that Love uninvited before -marriage, often becomes a guest after, and with Love always comes a -home. - -My next axiom is,— - -_There can be no true home without liberty._ - -The very idea of home is of a retreat where we shall be free to act out -personal and individual tastes and peculiarities, as we cannot do before -the wide world. We are to have our meals at what hour we will, served in -what style suits us. Our hours of going and coming are to be as we -please. Our favorite haunts are to be here or there, our pictures and -books so disposed as seems to us good, and our whole arrangements the -expression, so far as our means can compass it, of our own personal -ideas of what is pleasant and desirable in life. This element of -liberty, if we think of it, is the chief charm of home. “Here I can do -as I please,” is the thought with which the tempest-tossed earth-pilgrim -blesses himself or herself, turning inward from the crowded ways of the -world. This thought blesses the man of business, as he turns from his -day’s care, and crosses the sacred threshold. It is as restful to him as -the slippers and gown and easy-chair by the fireside. Everybody -understands him here. Everybody is well content that he should take his -ease in his own way. Such is the case in the _ideal_ home. That such is -not always the case in the real home comes often from the mistakes in -the house-furnishing. Much house-furnishing is _too fine_ for liberty. - -In America there is no such thing as rank and station which impose a -sort of prescriptive style on people of certain income. The consequence -is that all sorts of furniture and belongings, which in the Old World -have a recognized relation to certain possibilities of income, and which -require certain other accessories to make them in good keeping, are -thrown in the way of all sorts of people. - -Young people who cannot expect by any reasonable possibility to keep -more than two or three servants, if they happen to have the means in the -outset, furnish a house with just such articles as in England would suit -an establishment of sixteen. We have seen houses in England having two -or three house-maids, and tables served by a butler and two waiters, -where the furniture, carpets, china, crystal, and silver were in one and -the same style with some establishments in America where the family was -hard pressed to keep three Irish servants. - -This want of servants is the one thing that must modify everything in -American life; it is, and will long continue to be, a leading feature in -the life of a country so rich in openings for man and woman that -domestic service can be only the stepping-stone to something higher. -Nevertheless, we Americans are great travellers; we are sensitive, -appreciative, fond of novelty, apt to receive and incorporate into our -own life what seems fair and graceful in that of other people. Our -women’s wardrobes are made elaborate with the thousand elegancies of -French toilet,—our houses filled with a thousand knick-knacks of which -our plain ancestors never dreamed. Cleopatra did not set sail on the -Nile in more state and beauty than that in which our young American -bride is often ushered into her new home. Her wardrobe all gossamer lace -and quaint frill and crimp and embroidery, her house a museum of elegant -and costly gewgaws; and amid the whole collection of elegancies and -fragilities, she, perhaps, the frailest. - -Then comes the tug of war. The young wife becomes a mother, and while -she is retired to her chamber, blundering Biddy rusts the elegant -knives, or takes off the ivory handles by soaking in hot water,—the -silver is washed in greasy soap-suds, and refreshed now and then with a -thump, which cocks the nose of the teapot awry, or makes the handle -assume an air of drunken defiance. The fragile China is chipped here and -there around its edges with those minute gaps so vexatious to a woman’s -soul; the handles fly hither and thither in the wild confusion of -Biddy’s washing-day hurry, when cook wants her to help hang out the -clothes. Meanwhile, Bridget sweeps the parlor with a hard broom, and -shakes out showers of ashes from the grate, forgetting to cover the -damask lounges, and they directly look as rusty and time-worn as if they -had come from an auction-store; and all together unite in making such -havoc of the delicate ruffles and laces of the bridal outfit and -baby-_layette_, that, when the poor young wife comes out of her chamber -after her nurse has left her, and, weakened and embarrassed with the -demands of the new-comer, begins to look once more into the affairs of -her little world, she is ready to sink with vexation and discouragement. -Poor little princess. Her clothes are made as princesses wear them, her -baby’s clothes like a young duke’s, her house furnished like a lord’s, -and only Bridget and Biddy and Polly to do the work of cook, -scullery-maid, butler, footman, laundress, nursery-maid, house-maid, and -lady’s maid. Such is the array that in the Old Country would be deemed -necessary to take care of an establishment got up like hers. Everything -in it is _too fine_,—not too fine to be pretty, not in bad taste in -itself, but too fine for the situation, too fine for comfort or liberty. - -What ensues in a house so furnished? Too often ceaseless fretting of the -nerves, in the wife’s despairing, conscientious efforts to keep things -as they should be. There is no freedom in a house where things are too -expensive and choice to be freely handled and easily replaced. Life -becomes a series of petty embarrassments and restrictions, something is -always going wrong, and the man finds his fireside oppressive,—the -various articles of his parlor and table seem like so many temper-traps -and spring-guns, menacing explosion and disaster. - -There may be, indeed, the most perfect home-feeling, the utmost -coseyness and restfulness, in apartments crusted with gilding, carpeted -with velvet, and upholstered with satin. I have seen such, where the -home-like look and air of free use was as genuine as in a Western -log-cabin; but this was in a range of princely income that made all -these things as easy to be obtained or replaced as the most ordinary of -our domestic furniture. But so long as articles must be shrouded from -use, or used with fear and trembling, because their cost is above the -general level of our means, we had better be without them, even though -the most lucky of accidents may put their possession in our power. - -But it is not merely by the effort to maintain too much elegance that -the sense of home-liberty is banished from a house. It is sometimes -expelled in another way, with all painstaking and conscientious -strictness, by the worthiest and best of human beings, the blessed -followers of Saint Martha. Have we not known them, the dear, worthy -creatures, up before daylight, causing most scrupulous lustrations of -every pane of glass and inch of paint in our parlors, in consequence -whereof every shutter and blind must be kept closed for days to come, -lest the flies should speck the freshly washed windows and wainscoting? -Dear shade of Aunt Mehitabel, forgive our boldness? Have we not been -driven for days, in our youth, to read our newspaper in the front -veranda, in the kitchen, out in the barn,—anywhere, in fact, where -sunshine could be found, because there was not a room in the house that -was not cleaned, shut up, and darkened? Have we not shivered with cold, -all the glowering, gloomy month of May, because the august front-parlor -having undergone the spring-cleaning, the andirons were snugly tied up -in the tissue-paper, and an elegant frill of the same material was -trembling before the mouth of the once glowing fireplace? Even so, dear -soul, full of loving-kindness and hospitality as thou wast, yet ever -making our house seem like a tomb! And with what patience wouldst thou -sit sewing by a crack in the shutters, an inch wide, rejoicing in thy -immaculate paint and clear glass! But was there ever a thing of thy -spotless and unsullied belongings which a boy might use? How I trembled -to touch thy scoured tins, that hung in appalling brightness! with what -awe I asked for a basket to pick strawberries! and where in the house -could I find a place to eat a piece of gingerbread? How like a ruffian, -a Tartar, a pirate, I always felt, when I entered thy domains! and how, -from day to day, I wondered at the immeasurable depths of depravity -which were always leading me to upset something, or break or tear or -derange something, in thy exquisitely kept premises! Somehow, the -impression was burned with overpowering force into my mind, that houses -and furniture, scrubbed floors, white curtains, bright tins and brasses -were the great, awful, permanent facts of existence,—and that men and -women, and particularly children, were the meddlesome intruders upon -this divine order, every trace of whose inter-meddling must be scrubbed -out and obliterated in the quickest way possible. It seemed evident to -me that houses would be far more perfect, if nobody lived in them at -all; but that, as men had really and absurdly taken to living in them, -they must live as little as possible. My only idea of a house was a -place full of traps and pitfalls for boys, a deadly temptation to sins -which beset one every moment; and when I read about a sailor’s free life -on the ocean, I felt an untold longing to go forth and be free in like -manner. - -But a truce to these fancies, and back again to our essay. - -If liberty in a house is a comfort to a husband, it is a necessity to -children. When we say liberty, we do not mean license. We do not mean -that Master Johnny be allowed to handle elegant volumes with -bread-and-butter fingers, or that little Miss be suffered to drum on the -piano, or practise line-drawing with a pin on varnished furniture. Still -it is essential that the family-parlors be not too fine for the family -to sit in,—too fine for the ordinary accidents, haps and mishaps, of -reasonably well-trained children. The elegance of the parlor where papa -and mamma sit and receive their friends should wear an inviting, not a -hostile and bristling, aspect to little people. Its beauty and its order -gradually form in the little mind a love of beauty and order, and the -insensible carefulness of regard. - -Nothing is worse for a child than to shut him up in a room which he -understands is his, _because_ he is disorderly,—where he is expected, of -course, to maintain and keep disorder. We have sometimes pitied the poor -little victims who show their faces longingly at the doors of elegant -parlors, and are forthwith collared by the domestic police and consigned -to some attic-apartment, called a play-room, where chaos continually -reigns. It is a mistake to suppose, because children derange a -well-furnished apartment, that they like confusion. Order and beauty are -always pleasant to them as to grown people, and disorder and defacement -are painful; but they know neither how to create the one nor to prevent -the other,—their little lives are a series of experiments, often making -disorder by aiming at some new form of order. Yet, for all this, I am -not one of those who feel that in a family everything should bend to the -sway of these little people. They are the worst of tyrants in such -houses,—still, where children are, though the fact must not appear to -them, _nothing must be done without a wise thought of them_. - -Here, as in all high art, the old motto is in force, “_Ars est celare -artem_.” Children who are taught too plainly by every anxious look and -word of their parents, by every family arrangement, by the impressment -of every chance guest into the service, that their parents consider -their education as the one important matter in creation, are apt to grow -up fantastical, artificial, and hopelessly self-conscious. The stars -cannot stop in their courses, even for our personal improvement, and the -sooner children learn this, the better. The great art is to organize a -home which shall move on with a strong, wide, generous movement, where -the little people shall act themselves out as freely and impulsively as -can consist with the comfort of the whole, and where the anxious -watching and planning for them shall be kept as secret from them as -possible. - -It is well that one of the sunniest and airiest rooms in the house be -the children’s nursery. It is good philosophy, too, to furnish it -attractively, even if the sum expended lower the standard of -parlor-luxuries. It is well that the children’s chamber, which is to act -constantly on their impressible natures for years, should command a -better prospect, a sunnier aspect, than one which serves for a day’s -occupancy of the transient guest. It is well that journeys should be -made or put off in view of the interests of the children,—that guests -should be invited with a view to their improvement,—that some intimacies -should be chosen and some rejected on their account. But it is _not_ -well that all this should, from infancy, be daily talked out before the -child, and he grow up in egotism from moving in a sphere where -everything from first to last is calculated and arranged with reference -to himself. A little appearance of wholesome neglect combined with real -care and never-ceasing watchfulness has often seemed to do wonders in -this work of setting human beings on their own feet for the -life-journey. - -Education is the highest object of home, but education in the widest -sense,—education of the parents no less than of the children. In a true -home the man and the woman receive, through their cares, their -watchings, their hospitality, their charity, the last and highest finish -that earth can put upon them. From that they must pass upward, for earth -can teach them no more. - -The home-education is incomplete, unless it include the idea of -hospitality and charity. Hospitality is a Biblical and apostolic virtue, -and not so often recommended in Holy Writ without reason. Hospitality is -much neglected in America for the very reasons touched upon above. We -have received our ideas of propriety and elegance of living from old -countries, where labor is cheap, where domestic service is a -well-understood, permanent occupation, adopted cheerfully for life, and -where of course there is such a subdivision of labor as insures great -thoroughness in all its branches. We are ashamed or afraid to conform -honestly and hardily to a state of things purely American. We have not -yet accomplished what our friend the Doctor calls “our weaning,” and -learned that dinners with circuitous courses and divers other -Continental and English refinements, well enough in their way, cannot be -accomplished in families with two or three untrained servants, without -an expense of care and anxiety which makes them heart-withering to the -delicate wife, and too severe a trial to occur often. America is the -land of subdivided fortunes, of a general average of wealth and comfort, -and there ought to be, therefore, an understanding in the social basis -far more simple than in the Old World. - -Many families of small fortunes know this,—they are quietly living -so,—but they have not the steadiness to share their daily average living -with a friend, a traveller, or guest, just as the Arab shares his tent -and the Indian his bowl of succotash. They cannot have company, they -say. Why? Because it is such a fuss to get out the best things, and then -to put them back again. But why get out the best things? Why not give -your friend, what he would like a thousand times better, a bit of your -average home-life, a seat at any time at your board, a seat at your -fire? If he sees that there is a handle off your teacup, and that there -is a crack across one of your plates, he only thinks, with a sigh of -relief, “Well, mine aren’t the only things that meet with accidents,” -and he feels nearer to you ever after; he will let you come to his table -and see the cracks in his teacups, and you will condole with each other -on the transient nature of earthly possessions. If it become apparent in -these entirely undressed rehearsals that your children are sometimes -disorderly, and that your cook sometimes overdoes the meat, and that -your second girl sometimes is awkward in waiting, or has forgotten a -table propriety, your friend only feels, “Ah, well, other people have -trials as well as I,” and he thinks, if you come to see him, he shall -feel, easy with you. - -“_Having company_” is an expense that may always be felt; but easy daily -hospitality, the plate always on your table for a friend, is an expense -that appears on no account-book, and a pleasure that is daily and -constant. - -Under this head of hospitality, let us suppose a case. A traveller comes -from England; he comes in good faith and good feeling to see how -Americans live. He merely wants to penetrate into the interior of -domestic life, to see what there is genuinely and peculiarly American -about it. Now here is Smilax, who is living, in a small, neat way, on -his salary from the daily press. He remembers hospitalities received -from our traveller in England, and wants to return them. He remembers, -too, with dismay, a well-kept establishment, the well-served table, the -punctilious, orderly servants. Smilax keeps two, a cook and chambermaid, -who divide the functions of his establishment between them. What shall -he do? Let him say, in a fair, manly way, “My dear fellow, I’m delighted -to see you. I live in a small way, but I’ll do my best for you, and Mrs. -Smilax will be delighted. Come and dine with us, so and so, and we’ll -bring in one or two friends.” So the man comes, and Mrs. Smilax serves -up such a dinner as lies within the limits of her knowledge and the -capacities of her servants. All plain, good of its kind, unpretending, -without an attempt to do anything English or French,—to do anything more -than if she were furnishing a gala-dinner for her father or returned -brother. Show him your house freely, just as it is, talk to him freely -of it, just as he in England showed you his larger house and talked to -you of his finer things. If the man is a true man, he will thank you for -such unpretending, sincere welcome; if he is a man of straw, then he is -not worth wasting Mrs. Smilax’s health and spirits for, in unavailing -efforts to get up a foreign dinner-party. - -A man who has any heart in him values a genuine, little bit of home more -than anything else you can give him. He can get French cooking at a -restaurant; he can buy expensive wines at first-class hotels, if he -wants them; but the traveller, though ever so rich and ever so -well-served at home, is, after all, nothing but a man as you are, and he -is craving something that doesn’t seem like an hotel,—some bit of real, -genuine heart-life. Perhaps he would like better than anything to show -you the last photograph of his wife, or to read to you the great, -round-hand letter of his ten-year-old which he has got to-day. He is -ready to cry when he thinks of it. In this mood he goes to see you, -hoping for something like home, and you first receive him in a parlor -opened only on state-occasions, and that has been circumstantially and -exactly furnished, as the upholsterer assures you, as every other parlor -of the kind in the city is furnished. You treat him to a dinner got up -for the occasion, with hired waiters,—a dinner which it has taken Mrs. -Smilax a week to prepare for, and will take her a week to recover -from,—for which the baby has been snubbed and turned off, to his loud -indignation, and your young four-year-old sent to his aunts. Your -traveller eats your dinner, and finds it inferior, as a work of art, to -other dinners,—a poor imitation. He goes away and criticises; you hear -of it, and resolve never to invite a foreigner again. But if you had -given him a little of your heart, a little home-warmth and feeling,—if -you had shown him your baby, and let him romp with your four-year-old, -and eat a genuine dinner with you,—would he have been false to that? Not -so likely. He wanted something real and human,—you gave him a bad -dress-rehearsal, and dress-rehearsals always provoke criticism. - -Besides hospitality, there is, in a true home, a mission of charity. It -is a just law which regulates the possession of great or beautiful works -of art in the Old World, that they shall in some sense be considered the -property of all who can appreciate. Fine grounds have hours when the -public may be admitted,—pictures and statues may be shown to visitors; -and this is a noble charity. In the same manner the fortunate -individuals who have achieved the greatest of all human works of art -should employ it as a sacred charity. How many, morally wearied, -wandering, disabled, are healed and comforted by the warmth of a true -home! When a mother has sent her son to the temptations of a distant -city, what news is so glad to her heart as that he has found some quiet -family where he visits often and is made to feel AT HOME? How many young -men have good women saved from temptation and shipwreck by drawing them -often to the sheltered corner by the fireside! The poor artist,—the -wandering genius who has lost his way in this world, and stumbles like a -child among hard realities,—the many men and women who, while they have -houses, have no homes,—see from afar, in their distant, bleak -life-journey, the light of a true home-fire, and, if made welcome there, -warm their stiffened limbs, and go forth stronger to their pilgrimage. -Let those who have accomplished this beautiful and perfect work of -divine art be liberal of its influence. Let them not seek to bolt the -doors and draw the curtains; for they know not, and will never know till -the future life, of the good they may do by the ministration of this -great charity of home. - -We have heard much lately of the restricted sphere of woman. We have -been told how many spirits among women are of a wider, stronger, more -heroic mould than befits the mere routine of housekeeping. It may be -true that there are many women far too great, too wise, too high, for -mere housekeeping. But where is the woman in any way too great or too -high, or too wise, to spend herself in creating a home? What can any -woman make diviner, higher, better? From such homes go forth all -heroisms, all inspirations, all great deeds. Such mothers and such homes -have made the heroes and martyrs, faithful unto death, who have given -their precious lives to us during these three years of our agony! - -Homes are the work of art peculiar to the genius of woman. Man _helps_ -in this work, but woman leads; the hive is always in confusion without -the _queen_-bee. But what a woman must she be who does this work -perfectly! She comprehends all, she balances and arranges all; all -different tastes and temperaments find in her their rest, and she can -unite at one hearthstone the most discordant elements. In her is order, -yet an order ever veiled and concealed by indulgence. None are checked, -reproved, abridged of privileges by her love of system; for she knows -that order was made for the family, and not the family for order. -Quietly she takes on herself what all others refuse or overlook. What -the unwary disarrange she silently rectifies. Everybody in her sphere -breathes easy, feels free; and the driest twig begins in her sunshine to -put out buds and blossoms. So quiet are her operations and movements, -that none sees that it is she who holds all things in harmony; only, -alas, when she is gone, how many things suddenly appear disordered, -inharmonious, neglected! All these threads have been smilingly held in -her weak hand. Alas, if that is no longer there! - -Can any woman be such a housekeeper without inspiration? No. In the -words of the old church-service, “Her soul must ever have affiance in -God.” The New Jerusalem of a perfect home cometh down from God out of -heaven. But to make such a home is ambition high and worthy enough for -_any_ woman, be she what she may. - -One thing more. Right on the threshold of all perfection lies _the -cross_ to be taken up. No one can go over or around that cross in -science or in art. Without labor and self-denial neither Raphael nor -Michel Angelo nor Newton was made perfect. Nor can man or woman create a -true home who is not willing in the outset to embrace life heroically, -to encounter labor and sacrifice. Only to such shall this divinest power -be given to create on earth that which is the nearest image of heaven. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - IV. - - THE ECONOMY OF THE BEAUTIFUL. - - -TALKING to you in this way once a month, O my confidential reader, there -seems to be danger, as in all intervals of friendship, that we shall not -readily be able to take up our strain of conversation just where we left -off. Suffer me, therefore, to remind you that the month past left us -seated at the fireside, just as we had finished reading of what a home -was, and how to make one. - -The fire had burned low, and great, solid hickory coals were winking -dreamily at us from out their fluffy coats of white ashes,—just as if -some household sprite there were opening now one eye and then the other, -and looking in a sleepy, comfortable way at us. - -The close of my piece, about the good house mother, had seemed to tell -on my little audience. Marianne had nestled close to her mother, and -laid her head on her knee; and though Jenny sat up straight as a pin, -yet her ever-busy knitting was dropped in her lap, and I saw the glint -of a tear in her quick, sparkling eye,—yes, actually a little bright -bead fell upon her work; whereupon she started up actively, and declared -that the fire wanted just one more stick to make a blaze before bedtime; -and then there was such a raking among the coals, such an adjusting of -the andirons, such vigorous arrangement of the wood, and such a brisk -whisking of the hearth-brush, that it was evident Jenny had something on -her mind. - -When all was done, she sat down again and looked straight into the -blaze, which went dancing and crackling up, casting glances and flecks -of light on our pictures and books, and making all the old, familiar -furniture seem full of life and motion. - -“I think that’s a good piece,” she said, decisively. “I think those are -things that should be thought about.” - -Now Jenny was the youngest of our flock, and therefore, in a certain -way, regarded by my wife and me as perennially “the baby”; and these -little, old-fashioned, decisive ways of announcing her opinions seemed -so much a part of her nature, so peculiarly “Jennyish,” as I used to -say, that my wife and I only exchanged amused glances over her head, -when they occurred. - -In a general way, Jenny, standing in the full orb of her feminine -instincts like Diana in the moon, rather looked down on all masculine -views of women’s matters as “_tolerabiles ineptiæ_”; but towards her -papa she had gracious turns of being patronizing to the last degree; and -one of these turns was evidently at its flood-tide, as she proceeded to -say,— - -“_I_ think papa is right,—that keeping house and having a home, and all -that, is a very serious thing, and that people go into it with very -little thought about it. I really think those things papa has been -saying there ought to be thought about.” - -“Papa,” said Marianne, “I wish you would tell me exactly how _you_ would -spend that money you gave me for house-furnishing. I should like just -your views.” - -“Precisely,” said Jenny, with eagerness; “because it is just as papa -says,—a sensible man, who has thought, and had experience, can’t help -having some ideas, even about women’s affairs, that are worth attending -to. I think so, decidedly.” - -I acknowledged the compliment for my sex and myself with my best bow. - -“But then, papa,” said Marianne, “I can’t help feeling sorry that one -can’t live in such a way as to have beautiful things around one. I’m -sorry they must cost so much, and take so much care, for I am made so -that I really want them. I do so like to see pretty things! I do like -rich carpets and elegant carved furniture, and fine china and cut-glass -and silver. I can’t bear mean, common-looking rooms. I should so like to -have my house look beautiful!” - -“Your house ought not to look mean and common,—your house ought to look -beautiful,” I replied. “It would be a sin and a shame to have it -otherwise. No house ought to be fitted up for a future home without a -strong and a leading reference to beauty in all its arrangements. If I -were a Greek, I should say that the first household libation should be -made to beauty; but, being an old-fashioned Christian, I would say that -he who prepares a home with no eye to beauty neglects the example of the -great Father who has filled our earth-home with such elaborate -ornament.” - -“But then, papa, there’s the money!” said Jenny, shaking her little head -wisely. “You men don’t think of that. You want us girls, for instance, -to be patterns of economy, but we must always be wearing fresh, nice -things; you abhor soiled gloves and worn shoes: and yet how is all this -to be done without money? And it’s just so in housekeeping. You sit in -your arm-chairs and conjure up visions of all sorts of impossible things -to be done; but when mamma there takes out that little account-book, and -figures away on the cost of things, where do the visions go?” - -“You are mistaken, my little dear, and you talk just like a -woman,”—(this was _my_ only way of revenging myself,)—“that is to say, -you jump to conclusions, without sufficient knowledge. I maintain that -in house-furnishing, as well as woman-furnishing, there’s nothing so -economical as beauty.” - -“There’s one of papa’s paradoxes!” said Jenny. - -“Yes,” said I, “that is my thesis, which I shall nail up over the -mantel-piece there, as Luther nailed his to the church-door. It is time -to rake up the fire now; but to-morrow night I will give you a paper on -the Economy of the Beautiful.” - - * * * * * - -“Come, now we are to have papa’s paradox,” said Jenny, as soon as the -tea-things had been carried out. - -_Entre nous_, I must tell you that insensibly we had fallen into the -habit of taking our tea by my study-fire. Tea, you know, is a mere -nothing in itself, its only merit being its social and poetic -associations, its warmth and fragrance,—and the more socially and -informally it can be dispensed, the more in keeping with its airy and -cheerful nature. - -Our circle was enlightened this evening by the cheery visage of Bob -Stephens, seated, as of right, close to Marianne’s work-basket. - -“You see, Bob,” said Jenny, “papa has undertaken to prove that the most -beautiful things are always the cheapest.” - -“I’m glad to hear that,” said Bob,—“for there’s a carved antique -bookcase and study-table that I have my eye on, and if this can in any -way be made to appear—” - -“O, it won’t be made to appear,” said Jenny, settling herself at her -knitting, “only in some transcendental, poetic sense, such as papa can -always make out. Papa is more than half a poet, and his truths turn out -to be figures of rhetoric, when one comes to apply them to matters of -fact.” - -“Now, Miss Jenny, please remember my subject and thesis,” I -replied,—“that in house-furnishing there is nothing so economical as -beauty; and I will make it good against all comers, not by figures of -rhetoric, but by figures of arithmetic. I am going to be very -matter-of-fact and commonplace in my details, and keep ever in view the -addition-table. I will instance a case which has occurred under my own -observation.” - - - THE ECONOMY OF THE BEAUTIFUL. - -Two of the houses lately built on the new land in Boston were bought by -two friends, Philip and John. Philip had plenty of money, and paid the -cash down for his house, without feeling the slightest vacancy in his -pocket. John, who was an active, rising young man, just entering on a -flourishing business, had expended all his moderate savings for years in -the purchase of his dwelling, and still had a mortgage remaining, which -he hoped to clear off by his future successes. Philip begins the work of -furnishing as people do with whom money is abundant, and who have simply -to go from shop to shop and order all that suits their fancy and is -considered ‘the thing’ in good society. John begins to furnish with very -little money. He has a wife and two little ones, and he wisely deems -that to insure to them a well-built house, in an open, airy situation, -with conveniences for warming, bathing, and healthy living, is a wise -beginning in life; but it leaves him little or nothing beyond. - -Behold, then, Philip and his wife, well pleased, going the rounds of -shops and stores in fitting up their new dwelling, and let us follow -step by step. To begin with the wall-paper. Imagine a front and back -parlor, with folding-doors, with two south windows on the front, and two -looking on a back court, after the general manner of city houses. We -will suppose they require about thirty rolls of wall-paper. Philip buys -the heaviest French velvet, with gildings and traceries, at four dollars -a roll. This, by the time it has been put on, with gold mouldings, -according to the most established taste of the best paper-hangers, will -bring the wall-paper of the two rooms to a figure something like two -hundred dollars. Now they proceed to the carpet-stores, and there are -thrown at their feet by obsequious clerks velvets and Axminsters, with -flowery convolutions and medallion-centres, as if the flower-gardens of -the tropics were whirling in waltzes, with graceful lines of -arabesque,—roses, callas, lilies, knotted, wreathed, twined, with blue -and crimson and golden ribbons, dazzling marvels of color and tracery. -There is no restraint in price,—four or six dollars a yard, it is all -the same to them,—and soon a magic flower-garden blooms on the floors, -at a cost of five hundred dollars. A pair of elegant rugs, at fifty -dollars apiece, complete the inventory, and bring our rooms to the mark -of eight hundred dollars for papering and carpeting alone. Now come the -great mantel-mirrors for four hundred more, and our rooms progress. Then -comes the upholsterer, and measures our four windows, that he may -skilfully barricade them from air and sunshine. The fortifications -against heaven, thus prepared, cost, in the shape of damask, cord, -tassels, shades, laces, and cornices, about two hundred dollars per -window. To be sure, they make the rooms close and sombre as the grave; -but they are of the most splendid stuffs; and if the sun would only -reflect, he would see, himself, how foolish it was for him to try to -force himself into a window guarded by his betters. If there is anything -cheap and plebeian, it is sunshine and fresh air! Behold us, then, with -our two rooms papered, carpeted, and curtained for two thousand dollars; -and now are to be put in them sofas, lounges, étagères, centre-tables, -screens, chairs of every pattern and device, for which it is but -moderate to allow a thousand more. We have now two parlors furnished at -an outlay of three thousand dollars, without a single picture, a single -article of statuary, a single object of Art of any kind, and without any -light to see them by, if they were there. We must say for our Boston -upholsterers and furniture-makers that such good taste generally reigns -in their establishments that rooms furnished at hap-hazard from them -cannot fail of a certain air of good taste, so far as the individual -things are concerned. But the different articles we have supposed, -having been ordered without reference to one another or the rooms, have, -when brought together, no unity of effect, and the general result is -scattering and confused. If asked how Philip’s parlors look, your reply -is, “O, the usual way of such parlors,—everything that such people -usually get,—medallion-carpets, carved furniture, great mirrors, bronze -mantel-ornaments, and so on.” The only impression a stranger receives, -while waiting in the dim twilight of these rooms, is that their owner is -rich, and able to get good, handsome things, such as all other rich -people get. - -Now our friend John, as often happens in America, is moving in the same -social circle with Philip, visiting the same people,—his house is the -twin of the one Philip has been furnishing, and how shall he, with a few -hundred dollars, make his rooms even presentable beside those which -Philip has fitted up elegantly at three thousand? - -Now for the economy of beauty. Our friend must make his prayer to the -Graces,—for, if they cannot save him, nobody can. One thing John has to -begin with, that rare gift to man, a wife with the magic cestus of -Venus,—not around her waist, but, if such a thing could be, in her -finger-ends. All that she touches falls at once into harmony and -proportion. Her eye for color and form is intuitive: let her arrange a -garret, with nothing but boxes, barrels, and cast-off furniture in it, -and ten to one she makes it seem the most attractive place in the house. -It is a veritable “gift of good faërie,” this tact of beautifying and -arranging, that some women have,—and, on the present occasion, it has a -real, material value, that can be estimated in dollars and cents. Come -with us and you can see the pair taking their survey of the yet -unfurnished parlors, as busy and happy as a couple of bluebirds picking -up the first sticks and straws for their nest. - -“There are two sunny windows to begin with,” says the good fairy, with -an appreciative glance. “That insures flowers all winter.” - -“Yes,” says John; “I never would look at a house without a good sunny -exposure. Sunshine is the best ornament of a house, and worth an extra -thousand a year.” - -“Now for our wall-paper,” says she. “Have you looked at wall-papers, -John?” - -“Yes; we shall get very pretty ones for thirty-seven cents a roll; all -you want of a paper, you know, is to make a ground-tint to throw out -your pictures and other matters, and to reflect a pleasant tone of -light.” - -“Well, John, you know Uncle James says that a stone-color is the -best,—but I can’t bear those cold blue grays.” - -“Nor I,” says John. “If we must have gray, let it at least be a gray -suffused with gold or rose-color, such as you see at evening in the -clouds.” - -“So I think,” responds she; “but, better, I should like a paper with a -tone of buff,—something that produces warm yellowish reflections, and -will almost make you think the sun is shining in cold gray weather; and -then there is nothing that lights up so cheerfully in the evening. In -short, John, I think the color of a _zafferano_ rose will be just about -the shade we want.” - -“Well, I can find that, in good American paper, as I said before, at -from thirty-seven to forty cents a roll. Then, our bordering: there’s an -important question, for that must determine the carpet, the chairs, and -everything else. Now what shall be the ground-tint of our rooms?” - -“There are only two to choose between,” says the lady,—“green and -marroon: which is the best for the picture?” - -“I think,” says John, looking above the mantel-piece, as if he saw a -picture there,—“I think a border of marroon velvet, with marroon -furniture, is the best for the picture.” - -“I think so too,” said she; “and then we will have that lovely marroon -and crimson carpet that I saw at Lowe’s;—it is an ingrain, to be sure, -but has a Brussels pattern, a mossy, mixed figure, of different shades -of crimson; it has a good warm, strong color, and when I come to cover -the lounges and our two old arm-chairs with marroon _rep_, it will make -such a pretty effect.” - -“Yes,” said John; “and then, you know, our picture is so bright, it will -light up the whole. Everything depends on the picture.” - -Now as to “the picture,” it has a story must be told. John, having been -all his life a worshipper and adorer of beauty and beautiful things, had -never passed to or from his business without stopping at the print-shop -windows, and seeing a little of what was there. - -On one of these occasions he was smitten to the heart with the beauty of -an autumn landscape, where the red maples and sumachs, the purple and -crimson oaks, all stood swathed and harmonized together in the hazy -Indian-summer atmosphere. There was a great yellow chestnut-tree, on a -distant hill, which stood out so naturally that John instinctively felt -his fingers tingling for a basket, and his heels alive with a desire to -bound over on to the rustling hillside and pick up the glossy brown -nuts. Everything was there of autumn, even to the golden-rod and purple -asters and scarlet creepers in the foreground. - -John went in and inquired. It was by an unknown French artist, without -name or patrons, who had just come to our shores to study our scenery, -and this was the first picture he had exposed for sale. John had just -been paid a quarter’s salary; he bethought him of board-bill and -washerwoman, sighed, and faintly offered fifty dollars. - -To his surprise he was taken up at once, and the picture became his. -John thought himself dreaming. He examined his treasure over and over, -and felt sure that it was the work of no amateur beginner, but of a -trained hand and a true artist-soul. So he found his way to the studio -of the stranger, and apologized for having got such a gem for so much -less than its worth. “It was all I _could_ give, though,” he said; “and -one who paid four times as much could not value it more.” And so John -took one and another of his friends, with longer purses than his own, to -the studio of the modest stranger; and now his pieces command their full -worth in the market, and he works with orders far ahead of his ability -to execute, giving to the canvas the traits of American scenery as -appreciated and felt by the subtile delicacy of the French mind,—our -rural summer views, our autumn glories, and the dreamy, misty delicacy -of our snowy winter landscapes. Whoso would know the truth of the same, -let him inquire for the modest studio of Morvillier, at Maiden, scarce a -bow-shot from our Boston. - -This picture had always been the ruling star of John’s house, his main -dependence for brightening up his bachelor-apartments; and when he came -to the task of furbishing those same rooms for a fair occupant, the -picture was still his mine of gold. For a picture, painted by a real -artist, who studies Nature minutely and conscientiously, has something -of the charm of the good Mother herself,—something of her faculty of -putting on different aspects under different lights. John and his wife -had studied their picture at all hours of the day: they had seen how it -looked when the morning sun came aslant the scarlet maples and made a -golden shimmer over the blue mountains, how it looked toned down in the -cool shadows of afternoon, and how it warmed up in the sunset, and died -off mysteriously into the twilight; and now, when larger parlors were to -be furnished, the picture was still the tower of strength, the -rallying-point of their hopes. - -“Do you know, John,” said the wife, hesitating, “I am really in doubt -whether we shall not have to get at least a few new chairs and a sofa -for our parlors? They are putting in such splendid things at the other -door that I am positively ashamed of ours; the fact is, they look almost -disreputable,—like a heap of rubbish.” - -“Well,” said John, laughing, “I don’t suppose all together sent to an -auction-room would bring us fifty dollars, and yet, such as they are, -they answer the place of better things for us; and the fact is, Mary, -the hard impassable barrier in the case is, that there really _is no -money to get any more_.” - -“Ah, well, then, if there isn’t, we must see what we can do with these, -and summon all the good fairies to our aid,” said Mary. “There’s your -little cabinet-maker, John, will look over the things, and furbish them -up; there’s that broken arm of the chair must be mended, and everything -revarnished; then I have found such a lovely _rep_, of just the richest -shade of marroon, inclining to crimson, and when we come to cover the -lounges and arm-chairs and sofas and ottomans all alike, you know they -will be quite another thing.” - -“Trust you for that, Mary! By the by, I’ve found a nice little woman, -who has worked on upholstery, who will come in by the day, and be the -hands that shall execute the decrees of your taste.” - -“Yes, I am sure we shall get on capitally. Do you know that I’m almost -glad we can’t get new things? It’s a sort of enterprise to see what we -can do with old ones.” - -“Now, you see, Mary,” said John, seating himself on a lime-cask which -the plasterers had left, and taking out his memorandum-book, “you see, -I’ve calculated this thing all over; I’ve found a way by which I can -make our rooms beautiful and attractive without a cent expended on new -furniture.” - -“Well, let’s hear.” - -“Well, my way is short and simple. We must put things into our rooms -that people will look at, so that they will forget to look at the -furniture, and never once trouble their heads about it. People never -look at furniture so long as there is anything else to look at; just as -Napoleon, when away on one of his expeditions, being told that the -French populace were getting disaffected, wrote back, ‘Gild the _dome -des Invalides_,’ and so they gilded it, and the people, looking at that, -forgot everything else.” - -“But I’m not clear yet,” said Mary, “what is coming of this rhetoric.” - -“Well, then, Mary, I’ll tell you. A suit of new carved black-walnut -furniture, severe in taste and perfect in style, such as I should choose -at David and Saul’s, could not be got under three hundred dollars, and I -haven’t the three hundred to give. What, then, shall we do? We must fall -back on our resources; we must look over our treasures. We have our -proof cast of the great glorious head of the Venus di Milo; we have -those six beautiful photographs of Rome, that Brown brought to us; we -have the great German lithograph of the San Sisto Mother and Child, and -we have the two angel-heads, from the same; we have that lovely golden -twilight sketch of Heade’s; we have some sea-photographs of Bradford’s; -we have an original pen-and-ink sketch by Billings; and then, as before, -we have ‘our picture.’ What has been the use of our watching at the -gates and waiting at the doors of Beauty all our lives, if she hasn’t -thrown us out a crust now and then, so that we might have it for time of -need? Now, you see, Mary, we must make the toilet of our rooms just as a -pretty woman makes hers when money runs low, and she sorts and freshens -her ribbons, and matches them to her hair and eyes, and, with a bow -here, and a bit of fringe there, and a button somewhere else, dazzles us -into thinking that she has an infinity of beautiful attire. Our rooms -are new and pretty of themselves, to begin with; the tint of the paper, -and the rich coloring of the border, corresponding with the furniture -and carpets, will make them seem prettier. And now for arrangement. Take -this front-room. I propose to fill those two recesses each side of the -fireplace with my books, in their plain pine cases, just breast-high -from the floor: they are stained a good dark color, and nobody need -stick a pin in them to find out that they are not rosewood. The top of -these shelves on either side to be covered with the same stuff as the -furniture, finished with a crimson fringe. On top of the shelves on one -side of the fireplace I shall set our noble Venus di Milo, and I shall -buy at Cicci’s the lovely Clytie, and put it the other side. Then I -shall get of Williams and Everett two of their chromo-lithographs, which -give you all the style and charm of the best English water-color school. -I will have the lovely Bay of Amalfi over my Venus, because she came -from those suns and skies of Southern Italy, and I will hang Lake Como -over my Clytie. Then, in the middle, over the fireplace, shall be ‘our -picture.’ Over each door shall hang one of the lithographed angel-heads -of the San Sisto, to watch our going-out and coming-in; and the glorious -Mother and Child shall hang opposite the Venus di Milo, to show how -Greek and Christian unite in giving the noblest type to womanhood. And -then, when we have all our sketches and lithographs framed and hung here -and there, and your flowers blooming as they always do, and your ivies -wandering and rambling as they used to, and hanging in the most graceful -ways and places, and all those little shells and ferns and vases, which -you are always conjuring with, tastefully arranged, I’ll venture to say -that our rooms will be not only pleasant, but beautiful, and that people -will oftener say, ‘How beautiful!’ when they enter, than if we spent -three times the money on new furniture.” - -In the course of a year after this conversation, one and another of my -acquaintances were often heard speaking of John Merton’s house. “Such -beautiful rooms,—so charmingly furnished,—you must go and see them. What -does make them so much pleasanter than those rooms in the other house, -which have everything in them that money can buy?” So said the folk,—for -nine people out of ten only feel the effect of a room, and never analyze -the causes from which it flows: they know that certain rooms seem dull -and heavy and confused, but they don’t know why; that certain others -seem cheerful, airy, and beautiful, but they know not why. The first -exclamation, on entering John’s parlors, was so often, “How beautiful!” -that it became rather a byword in the family. Estimated by their mere -money-value, the articles in the rooms were of very trifling worth; but -as they stood arranged and combined, they had all the effect of a lovely -picture. Although the statuary was only plaster, and the photographs and -lithographs such as were all within the compass of limited means, yet -every one of them was a good thing of its own kind, or a good reminder -of some of the greatest works of Art. A good plaster cast is a -daguerrotype, so to speak, of a great statue, though it may be bought -for five or six dollars, while its original is not to be had for any -namable sum. A chromo-lithograph of the best sort gives all the style -and manner and effect of Turner or Stanfield, or any of the best of -modern artists, though you buy it for five or ten dollars, and though -the original would command a thousand guineas. The lithographs from -Raphael’s immortal picture give you the results of a whole age of -artistic culture, in a form within the compass of very humble means. -There is now selling for five dollars at Williams and Everett’s a -photograph of Cheney’s crayon drawing of the San Sisto Madonna and -Child, which has the very spirit of the glorious original. Such a -picture, hung against the wall of a child’s room, would train its eye -from infancy; and yet how many will freely spend five dollars in -embroidery on its dress, that say they cannot afford works of Art! - -There was one advantage which John and his wife found in the way in -which they furnished their house, that I have hinted at before: it gave -freedom to their children. Though their rooms were beautiful, it was not -with the tantalizing beauty of expensive and frail knick-knacks. -Pictures hung against the wall, and statuary safely lodged on brackets, -speak constantly to the childish eye, but are out of the reach of -childish fingers, and are not upset by childish romps. They are not like -china and crystal, liable to be used and abused by servants; they do not -wear out; they are not spoiled by dust, nor consumed by moths. The -beauty once there is always there; though the mother be ill and in her -chamber, she has no fears that she shall find it all wrecked and -shattered. And this style of beauty, inexpensive as it is, compared with -luxurious furniture, is a means of cultivation. No child is ever -stimulated to draw or to read by an Axminster carpet or a carved -centre-table; but a room surrounded with photographs and pictures and -fine casts suggests a thousand inquiries, stimulates the little eye and -hand. The child is found with its pencil, drawing; or he asks for a book -on Venice, or wants to hear the history of the Roman Forum. - -But I have made my article too long. I will write another on the moral -and intellectual effects of house-furnishing. - -“I have proved my point, Miss Jenny, have I not? _In house-furnishing, -nothing is more economical than beauty._” - -“Yes, papa,” said Jenny; “I give it up.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - V. - - RAKING UP THE FIRE. - - -WE have a custom at our house which we call _raking up the fire_. That -is to say, the last half-hour before bedtime, we draw in, shoulder to -shoulder, around the last brands and embers of our hearth, which we -prick up and brighten, and dispose for a few farewell flickers and -glimmers. This is a grand time for discussion. Then we talk over -parties, if the young people have been out of an evening,—a book, if we -have been reading one; we discuss and analyze characters,—give our views -on all subjects, æsthetic, theological, and scientific, in a way most -wonderful to hear; and, in fact, we sometimes get so engaged in our -discussions that every spark of the fire burns out, and we begin to feel -ourselves shivering around the shoulders, before we can remember that it -is bedtime. - -So, after the reading of my last article, we had a “raking-up talk,”—to -wit, Jenny, Marianne, and I, with Bob Stephens;—my wife, still busy at -her work-basket, sat at the table a little behind us. Jenny, of course, -opened the ball in her usual incisive manner. - -“But now, papa, after all you say in your piece there, I cannot help -feeling, that, if I had the taste and the money too, it would be better -than the taste alone with no money. I like the nice arrangements and the -books and the drawings; but I think all these would appear better still -with really elegant furniture.” - -“Who doubts that?” said I. “Give me a large tub of gold coin to dip -into, and the furnishing and beautifying of a house is a simple affair. -The same taste that could make beauty out of cents and dimes could make -it more abundantly out of dollars and eagles. But I have been speaking -for those who have not, and cannot get, riches, and who wish to have -agreeable houses; and I begin in the outset by saying that beauty is a -thing to be respected, reverenced, and devoutly cared for,—and then I -say that BEAUTY IS CHEAP, nay, to put it so that the shrewdest Yankee -will understand it, BEAUTY IS THE CHEAPEST THING YOU CAN HAVE, because -in many ways it is a substitute for expense. A few vases of flowers in a -room, a few blooming, well-kept plants, a few prints framed in fanciful -frames of cheap domestic fabric, a statuette, a bracket, an engraving, a -pencil-sketch, above all, a few choice books,—all these arranged by a -woman who has the gift in her finger-ends often produce such an illusion -on the mind’s eye that one goes away without once having noticed that -the cushion of the arm-chair was worn out, and that some veneering had -fallen off the centre-table. - -“I have a friend, a schoolmistress, who lives in a poor little cottage -enough, which, let alone of the Graces, might seem mean and sordid, but -a few flowerseeds and a little weeding in the spring make it, all -summer, an object which everybody stops to look at. Her æsthetic soul -was at first greatly tried with the water-barrel which stood under the -eaves spout,—a most necessary evil, since only thus could her scanty -supply of soft water for domestic purposes be secured. One of the -Graces, however, suggested to her a happy thought. She planted a row of -morning-glories round the bottom of her barrel, and drove a row of tacks -around the top, and strung her water-butt with twine, like a great -harpsichord. A few weeks covered the twine with blossoming plants, which -every morning were a mass of many-colored airy blooms, waving in -graceful sprays, and looking at themselves in the water. The -water-barrel, in fact, became a celebrated stroke of ornamental -gardening, which the neighbors came to look at.” - -“Well, but,” said Jenny, “everybody hasn’t mamma’s faculty with flowers. -Flowers will grow for some people, and for some they won’t. Nobody can -see what mamma does so very much, but her plants always look fresh and -thriving and healthy,—her things blossom just when she wants them, and -do anything else she wishes them to; and there are other people that -fume and fuss and try, and their things won’t do anything at all. -There’s Aunt Easygo has plant after plant brought from the greenhouse, -and hanging-baskets, and all sorts of things; but her plants grow yellow -and drop their leaves, and her hanging-baskets get dusty and -poverty-stricken, while mamma’s go on flourishing as heart could -desire.” - -“I can tell you what your mother puts into her plants,” said I,—“just -what she has put into her children, and all her other home-things,—her -_heart_. She _loves_ them; she lives in them; she has in herself a -plant-life and a plant-sympathy. She feels for them as if she herself -were a plant; she anticipates their wants,—always remembers them without -an effort, and so the care flows to them daily and hourly. She hardly -knows when she does the things that make them grow,—but she gives them a -minute a hundred times a day. She moves this nearer the glass,—draws -that back,—detects some thief of a worm on one,—digs at the root of -another, to see why it droops,—washes these leaves, and sprinkles -those,—waters, and refrains from watering, all with the habitual care of -love. Your mother herself doesn’t know why her plants grow; it takes a -philosopher and a writer for the ‘Atlantic’ to tell her what the cause -is.” - -Here I saw my wife laughing over her work-basket as she answered,— - -“Girls, one of these days, _I_ will write an article for the ‘Atlantic,’ -that your papa need not have _all_ the say to himself: however, I -believe he has hit the nail on the head this time.” - -“Of course he has,” said Marianne. “But, mamma, I am afraid to begin to -depend much on plants for the beauty of my rooms, for fear I should not -have your gift,—and of all forlorn and hopeless things in a room, -ill-kept plants are the most so.” - -“I would not recommend,” said I, “a young house-keeper, just beginning, -to rest much for her home ornament on plant-keeping, unless she has an -experience of her own love and talent in this line, which makes her sure -of success; for plants will not thrive, if they are forgotten or -overlooked, and only tended in occasional intervals; and, as Marianne -says, neglected plants are the most forlorn of all things.” - -“But, papa,” said Marianne, anxiously, “there, in those patent parlors -of John’s that you wrote of, flowers acted a great part.” - -“The charm of those parlors of John’s may be chemically analyzed,” I -said. “In the first place, there is sunshine, a thing that always -affects the human nerves of happiness. Why else is it that people are -always so glad to see the sun after a long storm? Why? are bright days -matters of such congratulation? Sunshine fills a house with a thousand -beautiful and fanciful effects of light and shade,—with soft, luminous, -reflected radiances, that give picturesque effects to the pictures, -books, statuettes of an interior. John, happily, had no money to buy -brocatelle curtains,—and besides this, he loved sunshine too much to buy -them, if he could. He had been enough with artists to know that heavy -damask curtains darken precisely that part of the window where the light -proper for pictures and statuary should come in, namely, the upper part. -The fashionable system of curtains lights only the legs of the chairs -and the carpets, and leaves all the upper portion of the room in shadow. -John’s windows have shades which can at pleasure be drawn down from the -top or up from the bottom, so that the best light to be had may always -be arranged for his little interior.” - -“Well, papa,” said Marianne, “in your chemical analysis of John’s rooms, -what is the next thing to the sunshine?” - -“The next,” said I, “is harmony of color. The wall-paper, the furniture, -the carpets, are of tints that harmonize with one another. This is a -grace in rooms always, and one often neglected. The French have an -expressive phrase with reference to articles which are out of -accord,—they say that they swear at each other. I have been in rooms -where I seemed to hear the wall-paper swearing at the carpet, and the -carpet swearing back at the wall-paper, and each article of furniture -swearing at the rest. These appointments may all of them be of the most -expensive kind, but with such dis-harmony no arrangement can ever -produce anything but a vulgar and disagreeable effect. On the other -hand, I have been in rooms where all the material was cheap, and the -furniture poor, but where, from some instinctive knowledge of the -reciprocal effect of colors, everything was harmonious, and produced a -sense of elegance. - -“I recollect once travelling on a Western canal through a long stretch -of wilderness, and stopping to spend the night at an obscure settlement -of a dozen houses. We were directed to lodgings in a common frame-house -at a little distance, where, it seemed, the only hotel was kept. When we -entered the parlor, we were struck with utter amazement at its -prettiness, which affected us before we began to ask ourselves how it -came to be pretty. It was, in fact, only one of the miracles of -harmonious color working with very simple materials. Some woman had been -busy there, who had both eyes and fingers. The sofa, the common wooden -rocking-chairs, and some ottomans, probably made of old soap-boxes, were -all covered with American nankeen of a soft yellowish-brown, with a -bordering of blue print. The window-shades, the table-cover, and the -piano-cloth, all repeated the same colors, in the same cheap material. A -simple straw matting was laid over the floor, and, with a few books, a -vase of flowers, and one or two prints, the room had a home-like, and -even elegant air, that struck us all the more forcibly from its contrast -with the usual tawdry, slovenly style of such parlors. - -“The means used for getting up this effect were the most inexpensive -possible,—simply the following-out, in cheap material, a law of -uniformity and harmony, which always will produce beauty. In the same -manner, I have seen a room furnished, whose effect was really gorgeous -in color, where the only materials used were Turkey-red cotton and a -simple ingrain carpet of corresponding color. - -“Now, you girls have been busy lately in schemes for buying a velvet -carpet for the new parlor that is to be, and the only points that have -seemed to weigh in the council were that it was velvet, that it was -cheaper than velvets usually are, and that it was a genteel pattern.” - -“Now, papa,” said Jenny, “what ears you have. We thought you were -reading all the time!” - -“I see what you are going to say,” said Marianne. “You think that we -have not once mentioned the consideration which should determine the -carpet,—whether it will harmonize with our other things. But, you see, -papa, we don’t really know what our other things are to be.” - -“Yes,” said Jenny, “and Aunt Easygo said it was an unusually good chance -to get a velvet carpet.” - -“Yet, good as the chance is, it costs just twice as much as an ingrain.” - -“Yes, papa, it does.” - -“And you are not sure that the effect of it, after you get it down, will -be as good as a well-chosen ingrain one.” - -“That’s true,” said Marianne, reflectively. - -“But, then, papa,” said Jenny, “Aunt Easygo said she never heard of such -a bargain; only think, two dollars a yard for a _velvet_!” - -“And why is it two dollars a yard? Is the man a personal friend, that he -wishes to make you a present of a dollar on the yard? or is there some -reason why it is undesirable?” said I. - -“Well, you know, papa, he said those large patterns were not so -salable.” - -“To tell the truth,” said Marianne, “I never did like the pattern -exactly; as to uniformity of tint, it might match with anything, for -there’s every color of the rainbow in it.” - -“You see, papa, it’s a gorgeous flower-pattern,” said Jenny. - -“Well, Marianne, how many yards of this wonderfully cheap carpet do you -want?” - -“We want sixty yards for both rooms,” said Jenny, always primed with -statistics. - -“That will be a hundred and twenty dollars,” I said. - -“Yes,” said Jenny; “and we went over the figures together, and thought -we could make it out by economizing in other things. Aunt Easygo said -that the carpet was half the battle,—that it gave the air to everything -else.” - -“Well, Marianne, if you want a man’s advice in the case, mine is at your -service.” - -“That is just what I want, papa.” - -“Well, then, my dear, choose your wall-papers and borderings, and, when -they are up, choose an ingrain carpet to harmonize with them, and adapt -your furniture to the same idea. The sixty dollars that you save on your -carpet spend on engravings, chromo-lithographs, or photographs of some -really _good_ works of Art, to adorn your walls.” - -“Papa, I’ll do it,” said Marianne. - -“My little dear,” said I, “your papa may seem to be a sleepy old -book-worm, yet he has his eyes open. Do you think I don’t know why my -girls have the credit of being the best-dressed girls on the street?” - -“O papa!” cried out both girls in a breath. - -“Fact, that!” said Bob, with energy, pulling at his mustache. “Everybody -talks about your dress, and wonders how you make it out.” - -“Well,” said I, “I presume you do not go into a shop and buy a yard of -ribbon because it is selling at half-price, and put it on without -considering complexion, eyes, hair, and shade of the dress, do you?” - -“Of course we don’t!” chimed in the duo, with energy. - -“Of course you don’t. Haven’t I seen you mincing down-stairs, with all -your colors harmonized, even to your gloves and gaiters? Now, a room -must be dressed as carefully as a lady.” - -“Well, I’m convinced,” said Jenny, “that papa knows how to make rooms -prettier than Aunt Easygo; but then she said this was _cheap_, because -it would outlast two common carpets.” - -“But, as you pay double price,” said I, “I don’t see that. Besides, I -would rather, in the course of twenty years, have two nice, fresh -ingrain carpets, of just the color and pattern that suited my rooms, -than labor along with one ill-chosen velvet that harmonized with -nothing.” - -“I give it up,” said Jenny; “I give it up.” - -“Now, understand me,” said I; “I am not traducing velvet or Brussels or -Axminster. I admit that more beautiful effects can be found in those -goods than in the humbler fabrics of the carpet-rooms. Nothing would -delight me more than to put an unlimited credit to Marianne’s account, -and let her work out the problems of harmonious color in velvet and -damask. All I have to say is, that certain unities of color, certain -general arrangements, will secure very nearly as good general effects in -either material. A library with a neat, mossy green carpet on the floor, -harmonizing with wall-paper and furniture, looks generally as well, -whether the mossy green is made in Brussels or in ingrain. In the -carpet-stores, these two materials stand side by side in the very same -pattern, and one is often as good for the purpose as the other. A lady -of my acquaintance, some years since, employed an artist to decorate her -parlors. The walls being frescoed and tinted to suit his ideal, he -immediately issued his decree that her splendid velvet carpets must be -sent to auction, and others bought of certain colors, harmonizing with -the walls. Unable to find exactly the color and pattern he wanted, he at -last had the carpets woven in a neighboring factory, where, as yet, they -had only the art of weaving ingrains. Thus was the material sacrificed -at once to the harmony.” - -I remarked, in passing, that this was before Bigelow’s mechanical genius -had unlocked for America the higher secrets of carpet-weaving, and made -it possible to have one’s desires accomplished in Brussels or velvet. In -those days, English carpet-weavers did not send to America for their -looms, as they now do. - -“But now to return to my analysis of John’s rooms. - -“Another thing which goes a great way towards giving them their -agreeable air is the books in them. Some people are fond of treating -books as others do children. One room in the house is selected, and -every book driven into it and kept there. Yet nothing makes a room so -home-like, so companionable, and gives it such an air of refinement, as -the presence of books. They change the aspect of a parlor from that of a -mere reception-room, where visitors perch for a transient call, and give -it the air of a room where one feels like taking off one’s things to -stay. It gives the appearance of permanence and repose and quiet -fellowship; and next to pictures on the walls, the many-colored bindings -and gildings of books are the most agreeable adornment of a room.” - -“Then, Marianne,” said Bob, “we have something to start with, at all -events. There are my English Classics and English Poets, and my uniform -editions of Scott and Thackeray and Macaulay and Prescott and Irving and -Longfellow and Lowell and Hawthorne and Holmes and a host more. We -really have something pretty there.” - -“You are a lucky girl,” I said, “to have so much secured. A girl brought -up in a house full of books, always able to turn to this or that author -and look for any passage or poem when she thinks of it, doesn’t know -what a blank a house without books might be.” - -“Well,” said Marianne, “mamma and I were counting over my treasures the -other day. Do you know, I have one really fine old engraving, that Bob -says is quite a genuine thing; and then there is that pencil-sketch that -poor Schöne made for me the month before he died,—it is truly artistic.” - -“And I have a couple of capital things of Landseer’s,” said Bob. - -“There’s no danger that your rooms will not be pretty,” said I, “now you -are fairly on the right track.” - -“But, papa,” said Marianne, “I am troubled about one thing. My love of -beauty runs into everything. I want pretty things for my table,—and yet, -as you say, servants are so careless, one cannot use such things freely -without great waste.” - -“For my part,” said my wife, “I believe in best china, to be kept -carefully on an upper-shelf, and taken down for high-days and holidays; -it may be a superstition, but I believe in it. It must never be taken -out except when the mistress herself can see that it is safely cared -for. My mother always washed her china herself; and it was a very pretty -social ceremony, after tea was over, while she sat among us washing her -pretty cups, and wiping them on a fine damask towel.” - -“With all my heart,” said I; “have your best china, and venerate it,—it -is one of the loveliest of domestic superstitions; only do not make it a -bar to hospitality, and shrink from having a friend to tea with you, -unless you feel equal to getting up to the high shelf where you keep it, -getting it down, washing, and putting it up again. - -“But in serving a table, I say, as I said of a house, beauty is a -necessity, and beauty is cheap. Because you cannot afford beauty in one -form, it does not follow that you cannot have it in another. Because one -cannot afford to keep up a perennial supply of delicate china and -crystal, subject to the accidents of raw, untrained servants, it does -not follow that the every-day table need present a sordid assortment of -articles chosen simply for cheapness, while the whole capacity of the -purse is given to the set forever locked away for state-occasions. - -“A table-service, all of simple white, of graceful forms, even though -not of china, if arranged with care, with snowy, well-kept table-linen, -clear glasses, and bright American plate in place of solid silver, may -be made to look inviting; add a glass of flowers every day, and your -table may look pretty;—and it is far more important that it should look -pretty for the family every day than for company once in two weeks.” - -“I tell my girls,” said my wife, “as the result of my experience, you -may have your pretty china and your lovely fanciful articles for the -table only so long as you can take all the care of them yourselves. As -soon as you get tired of doing this, and put them into the hands of the -trustiest servants, some good, well-meaning creature is sure to break -her heart and your own and your very pet darling china pitcher all in -one and the same minute; and then her frantic despair leaves you not -even the relief of scolding.” - -“I have become perfectly sure,” said I, “that there are spiteful little -brownies, intent on seducing good women to sin, who mount guard over the -special idols of the china-closet. If you hear a crash, and a loud Irish -wail from the inner depths, you never think of its being a yellow -pie-plate, or that dreadful one-handled tureen that you have been -wishing were broken these five years; no, indeed,—it is sure to be the -lovely painted china bowl, wreathed with morning-glories and sweet-peas, -or the engraved glass goblet, with quaint old-English initials. China -sacrificed must be a great means of saintship to women. Pope, I think, -puts it as the crowning grace of his perfect woman, that she is - - ‘Mistress of herself, though china fall.’” - -“I ought to be a saint by this time, then,” said mamma; “for in the -course of my days I have lost so many idols by breakage, and peculiar -accidents that seemed by a special fatality to befall my prettiest and -most irreplaceable things, that in fact it has come to be a -superstitious feeling now with which I regard anything particularly -pretty of a breakable nature.” - -“Well,” said Marianne, “unless one has a great deal of money, it seems -to me that the investment in these pretty fragilities is rather a poor -one.” - -“Yet,” said I, “the principle of beauty is never so captivating as when -it presides over the hour of daily meals. I would have the room where -they are served one of the pleasantest and sunniest in the house. I -would have its coloring cheerful, and there should be companionable -pictures and engravings on the walls. Of all things, I dislike a room -that seems to be kept like a restaurant, merely to eat in. I like to see -in a dining-room something that betokens a pleasant sitting-room at -other hours. I like there some books, a comfortable sofa or lounge, and -all that should make it cosey and inviting. The custom in some families, -of adopting for the daily meals one of the two parlors which a -city-house furnishes has often seemed to me a particularly happy one. -You take your meals, then, in an agreeable place, surrounded by the -little pleasant arrangements of your daily sitting-room; and after the -meal, if the lady of the house does the honors of her own pretty china -herself, the office may be a pleasant and social one. - -“But in regard to your table-service I have my advice at hand. Invest in -pretty table-linen, in delicate napkins, have your vase of flowers, and -be guided by the eye of taste in the choice and arrangement of even the -every-day table-articles, and have no ugly things when you can have -pretty ones by taking a little thought. If you are sore tempted with -lovely china and crystal, too fragile to last, too expensive to be -renewed, turn away to a print-shop and comfort yourself by hanging -around the walls of your dining-room beauty that will not break or fade, -that will meet your eye from year to year, though plates, tumblers, and -tea-sets successively vanish. There is my advice for you, Marianne.” - -At the same time, let me say, in parenthesis, that my wife, whose -weakness is china, informed me that night, when we were by ourselves, -that she was ordering secretly a tea-set as a bridal gift for Marianne, -every cup of which was to be exquisitely painted with the wild-flowers -of America, from designs of her own,—a thing, by the by, that can now be -very nicely executed in our country, as one may find by looking in at -our friend Briggs’s on School Street. “It will last her all her life,” -she said, “and always be such a pleasure to look at,—and a pretty -tea-table is such a pretty sight!” So spoke Mrs. Crowfield, “unweaned -from china by a thousand falls.” She spoke even with tears in her eyes. -Verily, these women are harps of a thousand strings! - -But to return to my subject. - -“Finally and lastly,” I said, “in my analysis and explication of the -agreeableness of those same parlors, comes the crowning grace,—their -_homeliness_. By homeliness I mean not ugliness, as the word is apt to -be used, but the air that is given to a room by being _really_ at home -in it. Not the most skilful arrangement can impart this charm. - -“It is said that a king of France once remarked,—‘My son, you must seem -to love your people.’ - -“‘Father, how shall I _seem_ to love them?’ - -“‘My son, you _must_ love them.’ - -“So to make rooms _seem_ home-like you must be at home in them. Human -light and warmth are so wanting in some rooms, it is so evident that -they are never used, that you can never be at ease there. In vain the -house-maid is taught to wheel the sofa and turn chair towards chair; in -vain it is attempted to imitate a negligent arrangement of the -centre-table. - -“Books that have really been read and laid down, chairs that have really -been moved here and there in the animation of social contact, have a -sort of human vitality in them; and a room in which people really live -and enjoy is as different from a shut-up apartment as a live woman from -a wax image. - -“Even rooms furnished without taste often become charming from this one -grace, that they seem to let you into the home-life and home-current. -You seem to understand in a moment that you are taken into the family, -and are moving in its inner circles, and not revolving at a distance in -some outer court of the gentiles. - -“How many people do we call on from year to year and know no more of -their feelings, habits, tastes, family ideas and ways, than if they -lived in Kamtschatka! And why? Because the room which they call a -front-parlor is made expressly so that you never shall know. They sit in -a back-room,—work, talk, read, perhaps. After the servant has let you in -and opened a crack of the shutters, and while you sit waiting for them -to change their dress and come in, you speculate as to what they may be -doing. From some distant region, the laugh of a child, the song of a -canary-bird, reaches you, and then a door claps hastily to. Do they love -plants? Do they write letters, sew, embroider, crochet? Do they ever -romp and frolic? What books do they read? Do they sketch or paint? Of -all these possibilities the mute and muffled room says nothing. A sofa -and six chairs, two ottomans fresh from the upholsterer’s, a Brussels -carpet, a centre-table with four gilt Books of Beauty on it, a -mantel-clock from Paris, and two bronze vases,—all these tell you only -in frigid tones, ‘This is the best room,’—only that, and nothing -more,—and soon _she_ trips in in her best clothes, and apologizes for -keeping you waiting, asks how your mother is, and you remark that it is -a pleasant day,—and thus the acquaintance progresses from year to year. -One hour in the little back-room, where the plants and canary-bird and -children are, might have made you fast friends for life; but as it is, -you care no more for them than for the gilt clock on the mantel. - -“And now, girls,” said I, pulling a paper out of my pocket, “you must -know that your father is getting to be famous by means of these ‘House -and Home Papers.’ Here is a letter I have just received:— - - “‘MOST EXCELLENT MR. CROWFIELD,—Your thoughts have lighted into - our family-circle, and echoed from our fireside. We all feel the - force of them, and are delighted with the felicity of your - treatment of the topic you have chosen. You have taken hold of a - subject that lies deep in our hearts, in a genial, temperate, - and convincing spirit. All must acknowledge the power of your - sentiments upon their imaginations;—if they could only trust to - them in actual life! There is the rub. - - “‘Omitting further upon these points, there is a special feature - of your articles upon which we wish to address you. You seem as - yet (we do not know, of course, what you may hereafter do) to - speak only of homes whose conduct depends upon the help of - servants. Now your principles apply, as some of us well - conceive, to nearly all classes of society; yet most people, to - take an impressive hint, must have their portraits drawn out - more exactly. We therefore hope that you will give a reasonable - share of your attention to us who do not employ servants, so - that you may ease us of some of _our_ burdens, which, in spite - of common sense, we dare not throw off. For instance, we have - company,—a friend from afar, (perhaps wealthy,) or a minister, - or some other man of note. What do we do? Sit down and receive - our visitor with all good-will and the freedom of a home? No; we - (the lady of the house) flutter about to clear up things, - apologizing about this, that, and the other condition of - unpreparedness, and, having settled the visitor in the parlor, - set about marshalling the elements of a grand dinner or supper, - such as no person but a gourmand wants to sit down to, when at - home and comfortable; and in getting up this meal, clearing - away, and washing the dishes, we use up a good half of the time - which our guest spends with us. We have spread ourselves, and - shown him what we could do; but what a paltry, heart-sickening - achievement! Now, good Mr. Crowfield, thou friend of the robbed - and despairing, wilt thou not descend into our purgatorial - circle, and tell the world what thou hast seen there of doleful - remembrance? Tell us how we, who must do and desire to do our - own work, can show forth in our homes a homely, yet genial - hospitality, and entertain our guests without making a fuss and - hurly-burly, and seeming to be anxious for their sake about many - things, and spending too much time getting meals, as if eating - were the chief social pleasure. _Won’t_ you do this, Mr. - Crowfield? - - “‘Yours beseechingly, - - “R. H. A.’” - -“That’s a good letter,” said Jenny. - -“To be sure it is,” said I. - -“And shall you answer it, papa?” - -“In the very next ‘Atlantic,’ you may be sure I shall. The class that do -their own work are the strongest, the most numerous, and, taking one -thing with another, quite as well cultivated a class as any other. They -are the anomaly of our country,—the distinctive feature of the new -society that we are building up here; and if we are to accomplish our -national destiny, that class must increase rather than diminish. I shall -certainly do my best to answer the very sensible and pregnant questions -of that letter.” - -Here Marianne shivered and drew up a shawl, and Jenny gaped; my wife -folded up the garment in which she had set the last stitch, and the -clock struck twelve. - -Bob gave a low whistle. “Who knew it was so late?” - -“We have talked the fire fairly out,” said Jenny. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - VI. - - THE LADY WHO DOES HER OWN WORK. - - -“MY dear Chris,” said my wife, “isn’t it time to be writing the next -‘House and Home Paper’?” - -I was lying back in my study-chair, with my heels luxuriously propped on -an ottoman, reading for the two-hundredth time Hawthorne’s “Mosses from -an Old Manse,” or his “Twice-Told Tales,” I forget which,—I only know -that these books constitute my cloud-land, where I love to sail away in -dreamy quietude, forgetting the war, the price of coal and flour, the -rates of exchange, and the rise and fall of gold. What do all these -things matter, as seen from those enchanted gardens in Padua where the -weird Rappaccini tends his enchanted plants, and his gorgeous daughter -fills us with the light and magic of her presence, and saddens us with -the shadowy allegoric mystery of her preternatural destiny? But my wife -represents the positive forces of time, place, and number in our family, -and, having also a chronological head, she knows the day of the month, -and therefore gently reminded me that by inevitable dates the time drew -near for preparing my—which is it now, May or June number? - -“Well, my dear, you are right,” I said, as by an exertion I came -head-uppermost, and laid down the fascinating volume. “Let me see, what -was I to write about?” - -“Why, you remember you were to answer that letter from the lady who does -her own work.” - -“Enough!” said I, seizing the pen with alacrity; “you have hit the exact -phrase:— - -“‘The _lady_ who _does her own work_.’” - - * * * * * - -America is the only country where such a title is possible,—the only -country where there is a class of women who may be described as _ladies_ -who do their own work. By a lady we mean a woman of education, -cultivation, and refinement, of liberal tastes and ideas, who, without -any very material additions or changes, would be recognized as a lady in -any circle of the Old World or the New. - -What I have said is, that the existence of such a class is a fact -peculiar to American society, a clear, plain result of the new -principles involved in the doctrine of universal equality. - -When the colonists first came to this country, of however mixed -ingredients their ranks might have been composed, and however imbued -with the spirit of feudal and aristocratic ideas, the discipline of the -wilderness soon brought them to a democratic level; the gentleman felled -the wood for his log-cabin side by side with the ploughman, and thews -and sinews rose in the market. “A man was deemed honorable in proportion -as he lifted his hand upon the high trees of the forest.” So in the -interior domestic circle. Mistress and maid, living in a log-cabin -together, became companions, and sometimes the maid, as the more -accomplished and stronger, took precedence of the mistress. It became -natural and unavoidable that children should begin to work as early as -they were capable of it. The result was a generation of intelligent -people brought up to labor from necessity, but turning on the problem of -labor the acuteness of a disciplined brain. The mistress, out-done in -sinews and muscles by her maid, kept her superiority by skill and -contrivance. If she could not lift a pail of water, she could invent -methods which made lifting the pail unnecessary,—if she could not take a -hundred steps without weariness, she could make twenty answer the -purpose of a hundred. - -Slavery, it is true, was to some extent introduced into New England, but -it never suited the genius of the people, never struck deep root, or -spread so as to choke the good seed of self-helpfulness. Many were -opposed to it from conscientious principle,—many from far-sighted -thrift, and from a love of thoroughness and well-doing which despised -the rude, unskilled work of barbarians. People, having once felt the -thorough neatness and beauty of execution which came of free, educated, -and thoughtful labor, could not tolerate the clumsiness of slavery. Thus -it came to pass that for many years the rural population of New England, -as a general rule, did their own work, both out doors and in. If there -were a black man or black woman or bound girl, they were emphatically -only the _helps_, following humbly the steps of master and mistress, and -used by them as instruments of lightening certain portions of their -toil. The master and mistress with their children were the head workers. - -Great merriment has been excited in the Old Country, because years ago -the first English travellers found that the class of persons by them -denominated servants were in America denominated _help_ or helpers. But -the term was the very best exponent of the state of society. There were -few servants, in the European sense of the word; there was a society of -educated workers, where all were practically equal, and where, if there -was a deficiency in one family and an excess in another, a _helper_, not -a servant, was hired. Mrs. Browne, who has six sons and no daughters, -enters into agreement with Mrs. Jones, who has six daughters and no -sons. She borrows a daughter, and pays her good wages to help in her -domestic toil, and sends a son to help the labors of Mr. Jones. These -two young people go into the families in which they are to be employed -in all respects as equals and companions, and so the work of the -community is equalized. Hence arose, and for many years continued, a -state of society more nearly solving than any other ever did the problem -of combining the highest culture of the mind with the highest culture of -the muscles and the physical faculties. - -Then were to be seen families of daughters, handsome, strong females, -rising each day to their in-door work with cheerful alertness,—one to -sweep the room, another to make the fire, while a third prepared the -breakfast for the father and brothers who were going out to manly labor; -and they chatted meanwhile of books, studies, embroidery, discussed the -last new poem, or some historical topic started by graver reading, or -perhaps a rural ball that was to come off the next week. They spun with -the book tied to the distaff; they wove; they did all manner of fine -needlework; they made lace, painted flowers, and, in short, in the -boundless consciousness of activity, invention, and perfect health, set -themselves to any work they had ever read or thought of. A bride in -those days was married with sheets and table-cloths of her own weaving, -with counterpanes and toilet-covers wrought in divers embroidery by her -own and her sisters’ hands. The amount of fancy-work done in our days by -girls who have nothing else to do will not equal what was done by these, -who performed besides, among them, the whole work of the family. - -For many years these habits of life characterized the majority of our -rural towns. They still exist among a class respectable in numbers and -position, though perhaps not as happy in perfect self-satisfaction and a -conviction of the dignity and desirableness of its lot as in former -days. Human nature is above all things—lazy. Every one confesses in the -abstract that exertion which brings out all the powers of body and mind -is the best thing for us all; but practically most people do all they -can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than -circumstances drive him to do. Even I would not write this article, were -not the publication-day hard on my heels. I should read Hawthorne and -Emerson and Holmes, and dream in my arm-chair, and project in the clouds -those lovely unwritten stories that curl and veer and change like -mist-wreaths in the sun. So, also, however dignified, however -invigorating, however really desirable are habits of life involving -daily physical toil, there is a constant evil demon at every one’s -elbow, seducing him to evade it, or to bear its weight with sullen, -discontented murmurs. - -I will venture to say that there are at least, to speak very moderately, -a hundred houses where these humble lines will be read and discussed, -where there are no servants except the ladies of the household. I will -venture to say, also, that these households, many of them, are not -inferior in the air of cultivation and refined elegance to many which -are conducted by the ministration of domestics. I will venture to -assert, furthermore, that these same ladies who live thus find quite as -much time for reading, letter-writing, drawing, embroidery, and -fancy-work as the women of families otherwise arranged. I am quite -certain that they would be found on an average to be in the enjoyment of -better health, and more of that sense of capability and vitality which -gives one confidence in one’s ability to look into life and meet it with -cheerful courage, than three quarters of the women who keep -servants,—and that on the whole their domestic establishment is -regulated more exactly to their mind, their food prepared and served -more to their taste. And yet, with all this, I will _not_ venture to -assert that they are satisfied with this way of living, and that they -would not change it forthwith, if they could. They have a secret feeling -all the while that they are being abused, that they are working harder -than they ought to, and that women who live in their houses like -boarders, who have only to speak and it is done, are the truly enviable -ones. One after another of their associates, as opportunity offers and -means increase, deserts the ranks, and commits her domestic affairs to -the hands of hired servants. Self-respect takes the alarm. Is it -altogether genteel to live as we do? To be sure, we are accustomed to -it; we have it all systematized and arranged; the work of our own hands -suits us better than any we can hire; in fact, when we do hire, we are -discontented and uncomfortable,—for who will do for us what we will do -for ourselves? But when we have company! there’s the rub, to get out all -our best things and put them back,—to cook the meals and wash the dishes -in-gloriously,—and to make all appear as if we didn’t do it, and had -servants like other people. - -There, after all, is the rub. A want of hardy self-respect,—an -unwillingness to face with dignity the actual facts and necessities of -our situation in life,—this, after all, is the worst and most dangerous -feature of the case. It is the same sort of pride which makes Smilax -think he must hire a waiter in white gloves, and get up a circuitous -dinner-party on English principles, to entertain a friend from England. -Because the friend in England lives in such and such a style, he must -make believe for a day that he lives so too, when in fact it is a -whirlwind in his domestic establishment equal to a removal or a fire, -and threatens the total extinction of Mrs. Smilax. Now there are two -principles of hospitality that people are very apt to overlook. One is, -that their guests like to be made at home, and treated with confidence; -and another is, that people are always interested in the details of a -way of life that is new to them. The Englishman comes to America as -weary of his old, easy, family-coach life as you can be of yours; he -wants to see something new under the sun,—something American; and -forthwith we all bestir ourselves to give him something as near as we -can fancy exactly like what he is already tired of. So city-people come -to the country, not to sit in the best parlor, and to see the nearest -imitation of city-life, but to lie on the hay-mow, to swing in the barn, -to form intimacy with the pigs, chickens, and ducks, and to eat baked -potatoes exactly on the critical moment when they are done, from the -oven of the cooking-stove,—and we remark, _en passant_, that nobody has -ever truly eaten a baked potato, unless he has seized it at that precise -and fortunate moment. - -I fancy you now, my friends, whom I have in my eye. You are three happy -women together. You are all so well that you know not how it feels to be -sick. You are used to early rising, and would not lie in bed, if you -could. Long years of practice have made you familiar with the shortest, -neatest, most expeditious method of doing every household office, so -that really for the greater part of the time in your house there seems -to a looker-on to be nothing to do. You rise in the morning and despatch -your husband, father, and brothers to the farm or wood-lot; you go -sociably about chatting with each other, while you skim the milk, make -the butter, turn the cheeses. The forenoon is long; it’s ten to one that -all the so-called morning work is over, and you have leisure for an -hour’s sewing or reading before it is time to start the dinner -preparations. By two o’clock your house-work is done, and you have the -long afternoon for books, needlework, or drawing,—for perhaps there is -among you one with a gift at her pencil. Perhaps one of you reads aloud -while the others sew, and you manage in that way to keep up with a great -deal of reading. I see on your book-shelves Prescott, Macaulay, Irving, -besides the lighter fry of poems and novels, and, if I mistake not, the -friendly covers of the “Atlantic.” When you have company, you invite -Mrs. Smith or Brown or Jones to tea; you have no trouble; they come -early, with their knitting or sewing; your particular crony sits with -you by your polished stove while you watch the baking of those light -biscuits and tea-rusks for which you are so famous, and Mrs. Somebody -else chats with your sister, who is spreading the table with your best -china in the best room. When tea is over, there is plenty of -volunteering to help you wash your pretty India teacups, and get them -back into the cupboard. There is no special fatigue or exertion in all -this, though you have taken down the best things and put them back, -because you have done all without anxiety or effort, among those who -would do precisely the same, if you were their visitors. - -But now comes down pretty Mrs. Simmons and her pretty daughter to spend -a week with you, and forthwith you are troubled. Your youngest, Fanny, -visited them in New York last fall, and tells you of their cook and -chambermaid, and the servant in white gloves that waits on table. You -say in your soul, “What shall we do? they never can be contented to live -as we do; how shall we manage?” And now you long for servants. - -This is the very time that you should know that Mrs. Simmons is tired to -death of her fine establishment, and weighed down with the task of -keeping the peace among her servants. She is a quiet soul, dearly loving -her ease, and hating strife; and yet last week she had five quarrels to -settle between her invaluable cook and the other members of her staff, -because invaluable cook, on the strength of knowing how to get up -state-dinners and to manage all sorts of mysteries which her mistress -knows nothing about, asserts the usual right of spoiled favorites to -insult all her neighbors with impunity, and rule with a rod of iron over -the whole house. Anything that is not in the least like her own home and -ways of living will be a blessed relief and change to Mrs. Simmons. Your -clean, quiet house, your delicate cookery, your cheerful morning tasks, -if you will let her follow you about, and sit and talk with you while -you are at your work, will all seem a pleasant contrast to her own life. -Of course, if it came to the case of offering to change lots in life, -she would not do it; but very likely she _thinks_ she would, and sighs -over and pities herself, and thinks sentimentally how fortunate you are, -how snugly and securely you live, and wishes she were as untrammelled -and independent as you. And she is more than half right; for, with her -helpless habits, her utter ignorance of the simplest facts concerning -the reciprocal relations of milk, eggs, butter, saleratus, soda, and -yeast, she is completely the victim and slave of the person she pretends -to rule. - -Only imagine some of the frequent scenes and rehearsals in her family. -After many trials, she at last engages a seamstress who promises to -prove a perfect treasure,—neat, dapper, nimble, skilful, and spirited. -The very soul of Mrs. Simmons rejoices in heaven. Illusive bliss! The -new-comer proves to be no favorite with Madam Cook, and the domestic -fates evolve the catastrophe, as follows. First, low murmur of distant -thunder in the kitchen; then a day or two of sulky silence, in which the -atmosphere seems heavy with an approaching storm. At last comes the -climax. The parlor-door flies open during breakfast. Enter seamstress, -in tears, followed by Mrs. Cook with a face swollen and red with wrath, -who tersely introduces the subject-matter of the drama in a voice -trembling with rage. - -“Would you be plased, Ma’am, to suit yerself with another cook? Me week -will be up next Tuesday, and I want to be going.” - -“Why, Bridget, what’s the matter?” - -“Matter enough, Ma’am! I niver could live with them Cork girls in a -house, nor I won’t; them as likes the Cork girls is welcome for all me; -but it’s not for the likes of me to live with them, and she been in the -kitchen a-upsettin’ of me gravies with her flat-irons and things.” - -Here bursts in the seamstress with a whirlwind of denial, and the -altercation wages fast and furious, and poor, little, delicate Mrs. -Simmons stands like a kitten in a thunder-storm in the midst of a -regular Irish row. - -Cook, of course, is sure of her victory. She knows that a great dinner -is to come off Wednesday, and that her mistress has not the smallest -idea how to manage it, and that, therefore, whatever happens, she must -be conciliated. - -Swelling with secret indignation at the tyrant, poor Mrs. Simmons -dismisses her seamstress with longing looks. She suited her mistress -exactly, but she didn’t suit cook! - -Now, if Mrs. Simmons had been brought up in early life with the -experience that _you_ have, she would be mistress in her own house. She -would quietly say to Madam Cook, “If my family arrangements do not suit -you, you can leave. I can see to the dinner myself.” And she _could_ do -it. Her well-trained muscles would not break down under a little extra -work; her skill, adroitness, and perfect familiarity with everything -that is to be done would enable her at once to make cooks of any bright -girls of good capacity who might still be in her establishment; and, -above all, she would feel herself mistress in her own house. This is -what would come of an experience in doing her own work as you do. She -who can at once put her own trained hand to the machine in any spot -where a hand is needed never comes to be the slave of a coarse, vulgar -Irishwoman. - -So, also, in forming a judgment of what is to be expected of servants in -a given time, and what ought to be expected of a given amount of -provisions, poor Mrs. Simmons is absolutely at sea. If even for one six -months in her life she had been a practical cook, and had really had the -charge of the larder, she would not now be haunted, as she constantly -is, by an indefinite apprehension of an immense wastefulness, perhaps of -the disappearance of provisions through secret channels of relationship -and favoritism. She certainly could not be made to believe in the -absolute necessity of so many pounds of sugar, quarts of milk, and -dozens of eggs, not to mention spices and wine, as are daily required -for the accomplishment of Madam Cook’s purposes. But though now she does -suspect and apprehend, she cannot speak with certainty. She cannot say, -“_I_ have made these things. I know exactly what they require. I have -done this and that myself, and know it can be done, and done well, in a -certain time.” It is said that women who have been accustomed to doing -their own work become hard mistresses. They are certainly more sure of -the ground they stand on,—they are less open to imposition,—they can -speak and act in their own houses more as those “having authority,” and -therefore are less afraid to exact what is justly their due, and less -willing to endure impertinence and unfaithfulness. Their general error -lies in expecting that any servant ever will do as well for them as they -will do for themselves, and that an untrained, undisciplined human being -ever _can_ do house-work, or any other work, with the neatness and -perfection that a person of trained intelligence can. It has been -remarked in our armies that the men of cultivation, though bred in -delicate and refined spheres, can bear up under the hardships of -camp-life better and longer than rough laborers. The reason is, that an -educated mind knows how to use and save its body, to work it and spare -it, as an uneducated mind cannot; and so the college-bred youth brings -himself safely through fatigues which kill the unreflective laborer. -Cultivated, intelligent women, who are brought up to do the work of -their own families, are labor-saving institutions. They make the head -save the wear of the muscles. By forethought, contrivance, system, and -arrangement, they lessen the amount to be done, and do it with less -expense of time and strength than others. The old New-England motto, -_Get your work done up in the forenoon_, applied to an amount of work -which would keep a common Irish servant toiling from daylight to sunset. - -A lady living in one of our obscure New England towns, where there were -no servants to be hired, at last by sending to a distant city succeeded -in procuring a raw Irish maid-of-all-work, a creature of immense bone -and muscle, but of heavy, unawakened brain. In one fortnight she -established such a reign of Chaos and old Night in the kitchen and -through the house, that her mistress, a delicate woman, encumbered with -the care of young children, began seriously to think that she made more -work each day than she performed, and dismissed her. What was now to be -done? Fortunately, the daughter of a neighboring farmer was going to be -married in six months, and wanted a little ready money for her -_trousseau_. The lady was informed that Miss So-and-so would come to -her, not as a servant, but as hired “help.” She was fain to accept any -help with gladness. Forthwith came into the family-circle a tall, -well-dressed young person, grave, unobtrusive, self-respecting, yet not -in the least presuming, who sat at the family-table and observed all its -decorums with the modest self-possession of a lady. The new-comer took a -survey of the labors of a family of ten members, including four or five -young children, and, looking, seemed at once to throw them into system, -matured her plans, arranged her hours of washing, ironing, baking, -cleaning, rose early, moved deftly, and in a single day the slatternly -and littered kitchen assumed that neat, orderly appearance that so often -strikes one in New England farm-houses. The work seemed to be all gone. -Everything was nicely washed, brightened, put in place, and stayed in -place; the floors, when cleaned, remained clean; the work was always -done, and not doing; and every afternoon the young lady sat neatly -dressed in her own apartment, either quietly writing letters to her -betrothed, or sewing on her bridal outfit Such is the result of -employing those who have been brought up to do their own work. That -tall, fine-looking girl, for aught we know, may yet be mistress of a -fine house on Fifth Avenue; and if she is, she will, we fear, prove -rather an exacting mistress to Irish Biddy and Bridget; but _she_ will -never be threatened by her cook and chambermaid, after the first one or -two have tried the experiment. - - * * * * * - -Having written thus far on my article, I laid it aside till evening, -when, as usual, I was saluted by the inquiry, “Has papa been writing -anything to-day?” and then followed loud petitions to hear it; and so I -read as far, reader, as you have. - -“Well, papa,” said Jenny, “what are you meaning to make out there? Do -you really think it would be best for us all to try to go back to that -old style of living you describe? After all, you have shown only the -dark side of an establishment with servants, and the bright side of the -other way of living. Mamma does not have such trouble with her servants; -matters have always gone smoothly in our family; and if we are not such -wonderful girls as those you describe, yet we may make pretty good -housekeepers on the modern system, after all.” - -“You don’t know all the troubles your mamma has had in your day,” said -my wife. “I have often, in the course of my family-history, seen the day -when I have heartily wished for the strength and ability to manage my -household matters as my grandmother of notable memory managed hers. But -I fear that those remarkable women of the olden times are like the -ancient painted glass,—the art of making them is lost; my mother was -less than her mother, and I am less than my mother.” - -“And Marianne and I come out entirely at the little end of the horn,” -said Jenny, laughing; “yet I wash the breakfast-cups and dust the -parlors, and have always fancied myself a notable housekeeper.” - -“It is just as I told you,” I said. “Human nature is always the same. -Nobody ever is or does more than circumstances force him to be and do. -Those remarkable women of old were made by circumstances. There were, -comparatively speaking, no servants to be had, and so children were -trained to habits of industry and mechanical adroitness from the cradle, -and every household process was reduced to the very minimum of labor. -Every step required in a process was counted, every movement calculated; -and she who took ten steps, when one would do, lost her reputation for -‘faculty.’ Certainly such an early drill was of use in developing the -health and the bodily powers, as well as in giving precision to the -practical mental faculties. All household economies were arranged with -equal niceness in those thoughtful minds. A trained housekeeper knew -just how many sticks of hickory of a certain size were required to heat -her oven, and how many of each different kind of wood. She knew by a -sort of intuition just what kinds of food would yield the most palatable -nutriment with the least outlay of accessories in cooking. She knew to a -minute the time when each article must go into and be withdrawn from her -oven; and if she could only lie in her chamber and direct, she could -guide an intelligent child through the processes with mathematical -certainty. It is impossible, however, that anything but early training -and long experience can produce these results, and it is earnestly to be -wished that the grandmothers of New England had only written down their -experiences for our children; they would have been a mine of maxims and -traditions, better than any other traditions of the elders which we know -of.” - -“One thing I know,” said Marianne,—“and that is, I wish I had been -brought up so, and knew all that I should, and had all the strength and -adroitness that those women had. I should not dread to begin -housekeeping, as I now do. I should feel myself independent. I should -feel that I knew how to direct my servants, and what it was reasonable -and proper to expect of them; and then, as you say, I shouldn’t be -dependent on all their whims and caprices of temper. I dread those -household storms, of all things.” - -Silently pondering these anxieties of the young expectant housekeeper, I -resumed my pen, and concluded my paper as follows. - - In this country, our democratic institutions have removed the - superincumbent pressure which in the Old World confines the - servants to a regular orbit. They come here feeling that this is - somehow a land of liberty, and with very dim and confused - notions of what liberty is. They are for the most part the raw, - untrained Irish peasantry, and the wonder is, that, with all the - unreasoning heats and prejudices of the Celtic blood, all the - necessary ignorance and rawness, there should be the measure of - comfort and success there is in our domestic arrangements. But, - so long as things are so, there will be constant changes and - interruptions in every domestic establishment, and constantly - recurring interregnums when the mistress must put her own hand - to the work, whether the hand be a trained or an untrained one. - As matters now are, the young housekeeper takes life at the - hardest. She has very little strength,—no experience to teach - her how to save her strength. She knows nothing experimentally - of the simplest processes necessary to keep her family - comfortably fed and clothed; and she has a way of looking at all - these things which makes them particularly hard and distasteful - to her. She does not escape being obliged to do house-work at - intervals, but she does it in a weak, blundering, confused way, - that makes it twice as hard and disagreeable as it need be. - - Now what I have to say is, that, if every young woman learned to - do house-work and cultivated her practical faculties in early - life, she would, in the first place, be much more likely to keep - her servants, and, in the second place, if she lost them - temporarily, would avoid all that wear and tear of the nervous - system which comes from constant ill-success in those - departments on which family health and temper mainly depend. - This is one of the peculiarities of our American life which - require a peculiar training. Why not face it sensibly? - - The second thing I have to say is, that our land is now full of - motorpathic institutions to which women are sent at great - expense to have hired operators stretch and exercise their - inactive muscles. They lie for hours to have their feet twigged, - their arms flexed, and all the different muscles of the body - worked for them, because they are so flaccid and torpid that the - powers of life do not go on. Would it not be quite as cheerful - and less expensive a process, if young girls from early life - developed the muscles in sweeping, dusting, ironing, rubbing - furniture, and all the multiplied domestic processes which our - grandmothers knew of? A woman who did all these, and diversified - the intervals with spinning on the great and little wheel, never - came to need the gymnastics of Dio Lewis or of the Swedish - motorpathist, which really are a necessity now. Does it not seem - poor economy to pay servants for letting our muscles grow - feeble, and then to pay operators to exercise them for us? I - will venture to say that our grandmothers in a week went over - every movement that any gymnast has invented, and went over them - to some productive purpose too. - - Lastly, my paper will not have been in vain, if those ladies who - have learned and practise the invaluable accomplishment of doing - their own work will know their own happiness and dignity, and - properly value their great acquisition, even though it may have - been forced upon them by circumstances. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - VII. - - WHAT CAN BE GOT IN AMERICA. - - -WHILE I was preparing my article for the “Atlantic,” our friend Bob -Stephens burst in upon us, in some considerable heat, with a newspaper -in his hand. - -“Well, girls, your time is come now! You women have been preaching -heroism and sacrifice to us,—‘so splendid to go forth and suffer and die -for our country,’—and now comes the test of feminine patriotism.” - -“Why, what’s the matter now?” said Jenny, running eagerly to look over -his shoulder at the paper. - -“No more foreign goods,” said he, waving it aloft,—“no more gold shipped -to Europe for silks, laces, jewels, kid gloves, and what-not. Here it -is,—great movement, headed by senators’ and generals’ wives, Mrs. -General Butler, Mrs. John P. Hale, Mrs. Henry Wilson, and so on, a long -string of them, to buy no more imported articles during the war.” - -“But I don’t see how it _can_ be done,” said Jenny. - -“Why,” said I, “do you suppose that ‘nothing to wear’ is made in -America?” - -“But, dear Mr. Crowfield,” said Miss Featherstone, a nice girl, who was -just then one of our family-circle, “there is not, positively, much that -is really fit to use or wear made in America,—_is_ there now? Just -think; how is Marianne to furnish her house here without French papers -and English carpets?—those American papers are so very ordinary, and as -to American carpets, everybody knows their colors don’t hold; and then, -as to dress, a lady must have gloves, you know,—and everybody knows no -such things are made in America as gloves.” - -“I think,” I said, “that I have heard of certain fair ladies wishing -that they were men, that they might show with what alacrity they would -sacrifice everything on the altar of their country: life and limb would -be nothing; they would glory in wounds and bruises, they would enjoy -losing a right arm, they wouldn’t mind limping about on a lame leg the -rest of their lives, _if they were John or Peter_, if only they might -serve their dear country.” - -“Yes,” said Bob, “that’s female patriotism! Girls are always ready to -jump off from precipices, or throw themselves into abysses, but as to -wearing an unfashionable hat or thread gloves, that they can’t do,—not -even for their dear country. No matter whether there’s any money left to -pay for the war or not, the dear souls must have twenty yards of silk in -a dress,—it’s the fashion, you know.” - -“Now, isn’t he too bad?” said Marianne. “As if we’d ever been asked to -make these sacrifices and refused! I think I have seen women ready to -give up dress and fashion and everything else, for a good cause.” - -“For that matter,” said I, “the history of all wars has shown women -ready to sacrifice what is most intimately feminine in times of peril to -their country. The women of Carthage not only gave up their jewels in -the siege of their city, but, in the last extremity, cut off their hair -for bow-strings. The women of Hungary and Poland, in their country’s -need, sold their jewels and plate and wore ornaments of iron and lead. -In the time of our own Revolution, our women dressed in plain homespun -and drank herb-tea,—and certainly nothing is more feminine than a cup of -tea. And in this very struggle, the women of the Southern States have -cut up their carpets for blankets, have borne the most humiliating -retrenchments and privations of all kinds without a murmur. So let us -exonerate the female sex of want of patriotism, at any rate.” - -“Certainly,” said my wife; “and if our Northern women have not -retrenched and made sacrifices, it has been because it has not been -impressed on them that there is any particular call for it. Everything -has seemed to be so prosperous and plentiful in the Northern States, -money has been so abundant and easy to come by, that it has really been -difficult to realize that a dreadful and destructive war was raging. -Only occasionally, after a great battle, when the lists of the killed -and wounded have been sent through the country, have we felt that we -were making a sacrifice. The women who have spent such sums for laces -and jewels and silks have not had it set clearly before them why they -should not do so. The money has been placed freely in their hands, and -the temptation before their eyes.” - -“Yes,” said Jenny, “I am quite sure that there are hundreds who have -been buying foreign goods, who would not do it, if they could see any -connection between their not doing it and the salvation of the country; -but when I go to buy a pair of gloves, I naturally want the best pair I -can find, the pair that will last the longest and look the best, and -these always happen to be French gloves.” - -“Then,” said Miss Featherstone, “I never could clearly see why people -should confine their patronage and encouragement to works of their own -country. I’m sure the poor manufacturers of England have shown the very -noblest spirit with relation to our cause, and so have the silk-weavers -and artisans of France,—at least, so I have heard; why should we not -give them a fair share of encouragement, particularly when they make -things that we are not in circumstances to make, have not the means to -make?” - -“Those are certainly sensible questions,” I replied, “and ought to meet -a fair answer, and I should say, that, were our country in a fair -ordinary state of prosperity, there would be no reason why our wealth -should not flow out for the encouragement of well-directed industry in -any part of the world; from this point of view we might look on the -whole world as our country, and cheerfully assist in developing its -wealth and resources. But our country is now in the situation of a -private family whose means are absorbed by an expensive sickness, -involving the life of its head; just now it is all we can do to keep the -family together, all our means are swallowed up by our own domestic -wants, we have nothing to give for the encouragement of other families, -we must exist ourselves, we must get through this crisis and hold our -own, and that we may do it all the family expenses must be kept within -ourselves as far as possible. If we drain off all the gold of the -country to send to Europe to encourage her worthy artisans, we produce -high prices and distress among equally worthy ones at home, and we -lessen the amount of our resources for maintaining the great struggle -for national existence. The same amount of money which we pay for -foreign luxuries, if passed into the hands of our own manufacturers and -producers, becomes available for the increasing expenses of the war.” - -“But, papa,” said Jenny, “I understood that a great part of our -Governmental income was derived from the duties on foreign goods, and so -I inferred that the more foreign goods were imported the better it would -be.” - -“Well, suppose,” said I, “that for every hundred thousand dollars we -send out of the country we pay the Government ten thousand; that is -about what our gain as a nation would be;—we send our gold abroad in a -great stream, and give our Government a little driblet.” - -“Well, but,” said Miss Featherstone, “_what can be got in America_? -Hardly anything, I believe, except common calicoes.” - -“Begging your pardon, my dear lady,” said I, “there is where you and -multitudes of others are greatly mistaken. Your partiality for foreign -things has kept you ignorant of what you have at home. Now I am not -blaming the love of foreign things; it is not peculiar to us Americans; -all nations have it. It is a part of the poetry of our nature to love -what comes from afar, and reminds us of lands distant and different from -our own. The English belles seek after French laces; the French beauty -enumerates English laces among her rarities; and the French dandy piques -himself upon an English tailor. We Americans are great travellers, and -few people travel, I fancy, with more real enjoyment than we; our -domestic establishments, as compared with those of the Old World, are -less cumbrous and stately, and so our money is commonly in hand as -pocket-money, to be spent freely and gayly in our tours abroad. - -“We have such bright and pleasant times in every country that we -conceive a kindliness for its belongings. To send to Paris for our -dresses and our shoes and our gloves may not be a mere bit of foppery, -but a reminder of the bright, pleasant hours we have spent in that city -of Boulevards and fountains. Hence it comes, in a way not very blamable, -that many people have been so engrossed with what can be got from abroad -that they have neglected to inquire what can be found at home; they have -supposed, of course, that to get a decent watch they must send to Geneva -or to London,—that to get thoroughly good carpets they must have the -English manufacture,—that a really tasteful wall-paper could be found -only in Paris,—and that flannels and broadcloths could come only from -France, Great Britain, or Germany.” - -“Well, isn’t it so?” said Miss Featherstone. “I certainly have always -thought so; I never heard of American watches, I’m sure.” - -“Then,” said I, “I’m sure you can’t have read an article that you should -have read on the Waltham watches, written by our friend George W. -Curtis, in the “Atlantic” for January of last year. I must refer you to -that to learn that we make in America watches superior to those of -Switzerland or England, bringing into the service machinery and modes of -workmanship unequalled for delicacy and precision; as I said before, you -must get the article and read it, and if some sunny day you could make a -trip to Waltham, and see the establishment, it would greatly assist your -comprehension.” - -“Then, as to men’s clothing,” said Bob, “I know to my entire -satisfaction that many of the most popular cloths for men’s wear are -actually American fabrics baptized with French and English names to make -them sell.” - -“Which shows,” said I, “the use of a general community movement to -employ American goods. It will change the fashion. The demand will -create the supply. When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for -American instead of French and English fabrics, they will be surprised -to find what nice American articles there are. The work of our own hands -will no more be forced to skulk into the market under French and English -names, and we shall see, what is really true, that an American gentleman -need not look beyond his own country for a wardrobe befitting him. I am -positive that we need not seek broadcloth or other woollen goods from -foreign lands,—that _better_ hats are made in America than in Europe, -and better boots and shoes; and I should be glad to send an American -gentleman to the World’s Fair dressed from top to toe in American -manufactures, with an American watch in his pocket, and see if he would -suffer in comparison with the gentlemen of any other country.” - -“Then, as to house-furnishing,” began my wife, “American carpets are -getting to be every way equal to the English.” - -“Yes,” said I, “and what is more, the Brussels carpets of England are -woven on looms invented by an American, and bought of him. Our -countryman, Bigelow, went to England to study carpet-weaving in the -English looms,—supposing that all arts were generously open for the -instruction of learners. He was denied the opportunity of studying the -machinery and watching the processes by a short-sighted jealousy. He -immediately sat down with a yard of carpeting, and, patiently -unravelling it, thread by thread, combined and calculated till he -invented the machinery on which the best carpets of the Old and New -World are woven. No pains which such ingenuity and energy can render -effective are spared to make our fabrics equal those of the British -market, and we need only to be disabused of the old prejudice, and to -keep up with the movement of our own country, and find out our own -resources. The fact is, every year improves our fabrics. Our mechanics, -our manufacturers, are working with an energy, a zeal, and a skill that -carry things forward faster than anybody dreams of; and nobody can -predicate the character of American articles, in any department, now, by -their character even five years ago.” - -“Well, as to wall-papers,” said Miss Featherstone, “there you must -confess the French are and must be unequalled.” - -“I do not confess any such thing,” said I, hardily. “I grant you that in -that department of paper-hangings which exhibits floral decoration the -French designs and execution are and must be for some time to come far -ahead of all the world,—their drawing of flowers, vines, and foliage has -the accuracy of botanical studies and the grace of finished works of -art, and we cannot as yet pretend in America to do anything equal to it. -But for satin finish, and for a variety of exquisite tints of plain -colors, American papers equal any in the world; our gilt papers even -surpass in the heaviness and polish of the gilding those of foreign -countries; and we have also gorgeous velvets. All I have to say is, let -people who are furnishing houses inquire for articles of American -manufacture, and they will be surprised at what they will see. We need -go no farther than our Cambridge glass-works to see that the most dainty -devices of cut-glass, crystal, ground and engraved glass of every color -and pattern, may be had of American workmanship, every way equal to the -best European make, and for half the price. And American painting on -china is so well executed both in Boston and New York, that deficiencies -in the finest French or English sets can be made up in a style not -distinguishable from the original, as one may easily see by calling on -our worthy next neighbor, Briggs, who holds the opposite corner to our -“Atlantic Monthly.” No porcelain, it is true, is yet made in America, -these decorative arts being exercised on articles imported from Europe. -Our tables must, therefore, per force, be largely indebted to foreign -lands for years to come. Exclusive of this item, however, I believe it -would require very little self-denial to paper, carpet, and furnish a -house entirely from the manufactures of America. I cannot help saying -one word here in favor of the cabinet-makers of Boston. There is so much -severity of taste, such a style and manner about the best made Boston -furniture, as raises it really quite into the region of the fine arts. -Our artisans have studied foreign models with judicious eyes, and so -transferred to our country the spirit of what is best worth imitating, -that one has no need to import furniture from Europe.” - -“Well,” said Miss Featherstone, “there is one point you cannot make -out,—gloves; certainly the French have the monopoly of that article.” - -“I am not going to ruin my cause by asserting too much,” said I. “I -haven’t been with nicely dressed women so many years not to speak with -proper respect of Alexander’s gloves,—and I confess, honestly, that to -forego them must be a fair, square sacrifice to patriotism. But then, on -the other hand, it is nevertheless true that gloves have long been made -in America and surreptitiously brought into market as French. I have -lately heard that very nice kid gloves are made at Watertown and in -Philadelphia. I have only heard of them, and not seen. A loud demand -might bring forth an unexpected supply from these and other sources. If -the women of America were bent on having gloves made in their own -country, how long would it be before apparatus and factories would -spring into being? Look at the hoop-skirt factories,—women wanted -hoop-skirts,—would have them or die,—and forthwith factories arose, and -hoop-skirts became as the dust of the earth for abundance.” - -“Yes,” said Miss Featherstone, “and, to say the truth, the American -hoop-skirts are the only ones fit to wear. When we were living on the -Champs Élysées, I remember we searched high and low for something like -them, and finally had to send home to America for some.” - -“Well,” said I, “that shows what I said. Let there be only a hearty call -for an article, and it will come. These spirits of the vasty deep are -not so very far off, after all, as we may imagine, and women’s unions -and leagues will lead to inquiries and demands which will as infallibly -bring supplies as a vacuum will create a draught of air.” - -“But, at least, there are no ribbons made in America,” said Miss -Featherstone. - -“Pardon, my lady, there is a ribbon-factory now in operation in Boston, -and ribbons of every color are made in New York; there is also in the -vicinity of Boston a factory which makes Roman scarfs. This shows that -the faculty of weaving ribbons is not wanting to us Americans, and a -zealous patronage would increase the supply. - -“Then, as for a thousand and one little feminine needs, I believe our -manufacturers can supply them. The Portsmouth Steam Company makes white -spool-cotton equal to any in England, and colored spool-cotton, of every -shade and variety, such as is not made either in England or France. Pins -are well made in America; so are hooks and eyes, and a variety of -buttons. Straw bonnets of American manufacture are also extensively in -market, and quite as pretty ones as the double-priced ones which are -imported. - -“As to silks and satins, I am not going to pretend that they are to be -found here. It is true, there are silk manufactories, like that of the -Cheneys in Connecticut, where very pretty foulard dress-silks are made, -together with sewing-silk enough to supply a large demand. Enough has -been done to show that silks might be made in America; but at present, -as compared with Europe, we claim neither silks nor thread laces among -our manufactures. - -“But what then? These are not necessaries of life. Ladies can be very -tastefully dressed in other fabrics besides silks. There are many pretty -American dress-goods which the leaders of fashion might make -fashionable; and certainly no leader of fashion could wish to dress for -a nobler object than to aid her country in deadly peril. - -“It is not a life-pledge, not a total abstinence, that is asked,—only a -temporary expedient to meet a stringent crisis. We only ask a preference -for American goods where they can be found. Surely, women whose -exertions in Sanitary Fairs have created an era in the history of the -world will not shrink from so small a sacrifice for so obvious a good. - -“Here is something in which every individual woman can help. Every woman -who goes into a shop and asks for American goods renders an appreciable -aid to our cause. She expresses her opinion and her patriotism; and her -voice forms a part of that demand which shall arouse and develop the -resources of her country. We shall learn to know our own country. We -shall learn to respect our own powers,—and every branch of useful labor -will spring and flourish under our well-directed efforts. We shall come -out of our great contest, not bedraggled, ragged, and poverty-stricken, -but developed, instructed, and rich. Then will we gladly join with other -nations in the free interchange of manufactures, and gratify our eye and -taste with what is foreign, while we can in turn send abroad our own -productions in equal ratio.” - -“Upon my word,” said Miss Featherstone, “I should think it was the -Fourth of July,—but I yield the point. I am convinced; and henceforth -you will see me among the most stringent of the leaguers.” - -“Right!” said I. - -And, fair lady-reader, let me hope you will say the same. You can do -something for your country,—it lies right in your hand. Go to the shops, -determined on supplying your family and yourself with American goods. -Insist on having them; raise the question of origin over every article -shown to you. In the Revolutionary times, some of the leading matrons of -New England gave parties where the ladies were dressed in homespun and -drank sage-tea. Fashion makes all things beautiful, and you, my charming -and accomplished friend, can create beauty by creating fashion. What -makes the beauty of half the Cashmere shawls? Not anything in the shawls -themselves, for they often look coarse and dingy and barbarous. It is -the association with style and fashion. Fair lady, give style and -fashion to the products of your own country,—resolve that the money in -your hand shall go to your brave brothers, to your co-Americans, now -straining every nerve to uphold the nation, and cause it to stand high -in the earth. What are you without your country? As Americans you can -hope for no rank but the rank of your native land, no badge of nobility -but her beautiful stars. It rests with this conflict to decide whether -those stars shall be badges of nobility to you and your children in all -lands. Women of America, your country expects every woman to do her -duty! - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - VIII. - - ECONOMY. - - -“THE fact is,” said Jenny, as she twirled a little hat on her hand, -which she had been making over, with nobody knows what of bows and -pompons, and other matters for which the women have curious names,—“the -fact is, American women and girls must learn to economize; it isn’t -merely restricting one’s self to American goods, it is general economy, -that is required. Now here’s this hat,—costs me only three dollars, all -told; and Sophie Page bought an English one this morning at Madame -Meyer’s for which she gave fifteen. And I really don’t think hers has -more of an air than mine. I made this over, you see, with things I had -in the house, bought nothing but the ribbon, and paid for altering and -pressing, and there you see what a stylish hat I have!” - -“Lovely! admirable!” said Miss Featherstone. “Upon my word, Jenny, you -ought to marry a poor parson; you would be quite thrown away upon a rich -man.” - -“Let me see,” said I. “I want to admire intelligently. That isn’t the -hat you were wearing yesterday?” - -“O no, papa! This is just done. The one I wore yesterday was my -waterfall-hat, with the green feather; this, you see, is an oriole.” - -“A what?” - -“An oriole. Papa, how can you expect to learn about these things?” - -“And that plain little black one, with the stiff crop of scarlet -feathers sticking straight up?” - -“That’s my jockey, papa, with a plume _en militaire_.” - -“And did the waterfall and the jockey cost anything?” - -“They were very, very cheap, papa, all things considered. Miss -Featherstone will remember that the waterfall was a great bargain, and I -had the feather from last year; and as to the jockey, that was made out -of my last year’s white one, dyed over. You know, papa, I always take -care of my things, and they last from year to year.” - -“I do assure you, Mr. Crowfield,” said Miss Featherstone, “I never saw -such little economists as your daughters; it is perfectly wonderful what -they contrive to dress on. How they manage to do it I’m sure I can’t -see. I never could, I’m convinced.” - -“Yes,” said Jenny, “I’ve bought but just one new hat. I only wish you -could sit in church where we do, and see those Miss Fielders. Marianne -and I have counted six new hats apiece of those girls’,—_new_, you know, -just out of the milliner’s shop; and last Sunday they came out in such -lovely puffed tulle bonnets! Weren’t they lovely, Marianne? And next -Sunday, I don’t doubt, there’ll be something else.” - -“Yes,” said Miss Featherstone,—“their father, they say, has made a -million dollars lately on Government contracts.” - -“For my part,” said Jenny, “I think such extravagance, at such a time as -this, is shameful.” - -“Do you know,” said I, “that I’m quite sure the Misses Fielder think -they are practising rigorous economy?” - -“Papa! Now there you are with your paradoxes! How can you say so?” - -“I shouldn’t be afraid to bet a pair of gloves, now,” said I, “that Miss -Fielder thinks herself half ready for translation, because she has -bought only six new hats and a tulle bonnet so far in the season. If it -were not for her dear bleeding country, she would have had thirty-six, -like the Misses Sibthorpe. If we were admitted to the secret councils of -the Fielders, doubtless we should perceive what temptations they daily -resist; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadful they suffer themselves to -be, because they feel it important now, in this crisis, to practise -economy; how they abuse the Sibthorpes, who have a new hat every time -they drive out, and never think of wearing one more than two or three -times; how virtuous and self-denying they feel, when they think of the -puffed tulle, for which they only gave eighteen dollars, when Madame -Caradori showed them those lovely ones, like the Misses Sibthorpe’s, for -forty-five; and how they go home descanting on virgin simplicity, and -resolving that they will not allow themselves to be swept into the -vortex of extravagance, whatever other people may do.” - -“Do you know,” said Miss Featherstone, “I believe your papa is right? I -was calling on the oldest Miss Fielder the other day, and she told me -that she positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but that she -really did feel the necessity of economy. ‘Perhaps we might afford to -spend more than some others,’ she said; ‘but it’s so much better to give -the money to the Sanitary Commission!’” - -“Furthermore,” said I, “I am going to put forth another paradox, and say -that very likely there are some people looking on my girls, and -commenting on them for extravagance in having three hats, even though -made over, and contrived from last year’s stock.” - -“They can’t know anything about it, then,” said Jenny, decisively; “for, -certainly, nobody can be decent, and invest less in millinery than -Marianne and I do.” - -“When I was a young lady,” said my wife, “a well-dressed girl got her a -new bonnet in the spring, and another in the fall;—that was the extent -of her purchases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of last year, -did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. My father was accounted -well-to-do, but I had no more, and wanted no more. I also bought myself, -every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a light pair, and wore them -through the summer, and another two through the winter; one or two pair -of white kids, carefully cleaned, carried me through all my parties. -Hats had not been heard of, and the great necessity which requires two -or three new ones every spring and fall had not arisen. Yet I was -reckoned a well-appearing girl, who dressed liberally. Now, a young lady -who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat, and a jockey, must still be -troubled with anxious cares for her spring and fall and summer and -winter bonnets,—all the variety will not take the place of them. Gloves -are bought by the dozen; and as to dresses, there seems to be no limit -to the quantity of material and trimming that may be expended upon them. -When I was a young lady, seventy-five dollars a year was considered by -careful parents a liberal allowance for a daughter’s wardrobe. I had a -hundred, and was reckoned rich; and I sometimes used a part to make up -the deficiencies in the allowance of Sarah Evans, my particular friend, -whose father gave her only fifty. We all thought that a very scant -allowance; yet she generally made a very pretty and genteel appearance, -with the help of occasional presents from friends.” - -“How could a girl dress for fifty dollars?” said Marianne. - -“She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, which, with different -sortings of ribbons, served her for all dress-occasions. A silk, in -those days, took only ten yards in the making, and one dark silk was -considered a reasonable allowance to a lady’s wardrobe. Once made, it -stood for something,—always worn carefully, it lasted for years. One or -two calico morning-dresses, and a merino for winter wear, completed the -list. Then, as to collars, capes, cuffs, etc., we all did our own -embroidering, and very pretty things we wore, too. Girls looked as -prettily then as they do now, when four or five hundred dollars a year -is insufficient to clothe them.” - -“But, mamma, you know our allowance isn’t anything like that,—it is -quite a slender one, though not so small as yours was,” said Marianne. -“Don’t you think the customs of society make a difference? Do you think, -as things are, we could go back and dress for the sum you did?” - -“You cannot,” said my wife, “without a greater sacrifice of feeling than -I wish to impose on you. Still, though I don’t see how to help it, I -cannot but think that the requirements of fashion are becoming -needlessly extravagant, particularly in regard to the dress of women. It -seems to me, it is making the support of families so burdensome that -young men are discouraged from marriage. A young man, in a moderately -good business, might cheerfully undertake the world with a wife who -could make herself pretty and attractive for seventy-five dollars a -year, when he might sigh in vain for one who positively could not get -through, and be decent, on four hundred. Women, too, are getting to be -so attached to the trappings and accessories of life, that they cannot -think of marriage without an amount of fortune which few young men -possess.” - -“You are talking in very low numbers about the dress of women,” said -Miss Featherstone. “I do assure you that it is the easiest thing in the -world for a girl to make away with a thousand dollars a year, and not -have so much to show for it either as Marianne and Jenny.” - -“To be sure,” said I. “Only establish certain formulas of expectation, -and it is the easiest thing in the world. For instance, in your mother’s -day girls talked of a pair of gloves,—now they talk of a pack; then it -was a bonnet summer and winter,—now it is a bonnet spring, summer, -autumn, and winter, and hats like monthly roses,—a new blossom every few -weeks.” - -“And then,” said my wife, “every device of the toilet is immediately -taken up and varied and improved on, so as to impose an almost monthly -necessity for novelty. The jackets of May are outshone by the jackets of -June; the buttons of June are antiquated in July; the trimmings of July -are _passées_ by September; side-combs, back-combs, puffs, rats, and all -sorts of such matters, are in a distracted race of improvement; every -article of feminine toilet is on the move towards perfection. It seems -to me that an infinity of money must be spent in these trifles, by those -who make the least pretension to keep in the fashion.” - -“Well, papa,” said Jenny, “after all, it’s just the way things always -have been since the world began. You know the Bible says, ‘Can a maid -forget her ornaments?’ It’s clear she can’t. You see, it’s a law of -Nature; and you remember all that long chapter in the Bible that we had -read in church last Sunday, about the curls and veils and tinkling -ornaments and crimping-pins, and all that of those wicked daughters of -Zion in old times. Women always have been too much given to dress, and -they always will be.” - -“The thing is,” said Marianne, “how can any woman, I, for example, know -what is too much or too little? In mamma’s day, it seems, a girl could -keep her place in society, by hard economy, and spend only fifty dollars -a year on her dress. Mamma found a hundred dollars ample. I have more -than that, and find myself quite straitened to keep myself looking well. -I don’t want to live for dress, to give all my time and thoughts to it; -I don’t wish to be extravagant; and yet I wish to be lady-like; it -annoys and makes me unhappy not to be fresh and neat and nice; -shabbiness and seediness are my aversion. I don’t see where the fault -is. Can one individual resist the whole current of society? It certainly -is not strictly necessary for us girls to have half the things we do. We -might, I suppose, live without many of them, and, as mamma says, look -just as well, because girls did so before these things were invented. -Now, I confess, I flatter myself, generally, that I am a pattern of good -management and economy, because I get so much less than other girls I -associate with. I wish you could see Miss Thorne’s fall dresses that she -showed me last year when she was visiting here. She had six gowns, and -no one of them could have cost less than seventy or eighty dollars, and -some of them must have been even more expensive; and yet I don’t doubt -that this fall she will feel that she must have just as many more. She -runs through and wears out these expensive things, with all their velvet -and thread lace, just as I wear my commonest ones; and at the end of the -season they are really gone,—spotted, stained, frayed, the lace all -pulled to pieces,—nothing left to save or make over. I feel as if Jenny -and I were patterns of economy, when I see such things. I really don’t -know what economy is. What is it?” - -“There is the same difficulty in my housekeeping,” said my wife. “I -think I am an economist. I mean to be one. All our expenses are on a -modest scale, and yet I can see much that really is not strictly -necessary; but if I compare myself with some of my neighbors, I feel as -if I were hardly respectable. There is no subject on which all the world -are censuring one another so much as this. Hardly any one but thinks her -neighbors extravagant in some one or more particulars, and takes for -granted that she herself is an economist.” - -“I’ll venture to say,” said I, “that there isn’t a woman of my -acquaintance that does not think she is an economist.” - -“Papa is turned against us women, like all the rest of them,” said -Jenny. “I wonder if it isn’t just so with the men?” - -“Yes,” said Marianne, “it’s the fashion to talk as if all the -extravagance of the country was perpetrated by women. For my part, I -think young men are just as extravagant. Look at the sums they spend for -cigars and meerschaums,—an expense which hasn’t even the pretence of -usefulness in any way; it’s a purely selfish, nonsensical indulgence. -When a girl spends money in making herself look pretty, she contributes -something to the agreeableness of society; but a man’s cigars and pipes -are neither ornamental nor useful.” - -“Then look at their dress,” said Jenny; “they are to the full as fussy -and particular about it as girls; they have as many fine, invisible -points of fashion, and their fashions change quite as often; and they -have just as many knick-knacks, with their studs and their -sleeve-buttons and waistcoat-buttons, their scarfs and scarf-pins, their -watch-chains and seals and seal-rings, and nobody knows what. Then they -often waste and throw away more than women, because they are not good -judges of material, nor saving in what they buy, and have no knowledge -of how things should be cared for, altered, or mended. If their cap is a -little too tight, they cut the lining with a pen-knife, or slit holes in -a new shirt-collar, because it does not exactly fit to their mind. For -my part, I think men are naturally twice as wasteful as women. A pretty -thing, to be sure, to have all the waste of the country laid to us!” - -“You are right, child,” said I; “women are by nature, as compared with -men, the care-taking and saving part of creation,—the authors and -conservators of economy. As a general rule, man earns and woman saves -and applies. The wastefulness of woman is commonly the fault of man.” - -“I don’t see into that,” said Bob Stephens. - -“In this way. Economy is the science of proportion. Whether a particular -purchase is extravagant depends mainly on the income it is taken from. -Suppose a woman has a hundred and fifty a year for her dress, and gives -fifty dollars for a bonnet; she gives a third of her income;—it is a -horrible extravagance, while for the woman whose income is ten thousand -it may be no extravagance at all. The poor clergyman’s wife, when she -gives five dollars for a bonnet, may be giving as much, in proportion to -her income, as the woman who gives fifty. Now the difficulty with the -greater part of women is, that the men who make the money and hold it -give them no kind of standard by which to measure their expenses. Most -women and girls are in this matter entirely at sea, without chart or -compass. They don’t know in the least what they have to spend. Husbands -and fathers often pride themselves about not saying a word on -business-matters to their wives and daughters. They don’t wish them to -understand them, or to inquire into them, or to make remarks or -suggestions concerning them. ‘I want you to have everything that is -suitable and proper,’ says Jones to his wife, ‘but don’t be -extravagant.’ - -“‘But, my dear,’ says Mrs. Jones, ‘what is suitable and proper depends -very much on our means; if you could allow me any specific sum for dress -and housekeeping, I could tell better.’ - -“‘Nonsense, Susan! I can’t do that,—it’s too much trouble. Get what you -need, and avoid foolish extravagances; that’s all I ask.’ - -“By and by Mrs. Jones’s bills are sent in, in an evil hour, when Jones -has heavy notes to meet, and then comes a domestic storm. - -“‘I shall just be ruined, Madam, if that’s the way you are going on. I -can’t afford to dress you and the girls in the style you have set -up;—look at this milliner’s bill!’ - -“‘I assure you,’ says Mrs. Jones, ‘we haven’t got any more than the -Stebbinses,—nor so much.’ - -“‘Don’t you know that the Stebbinses are worth five times as much as -ever I was?’ - -“No, Mrs. Jones did not know it;—how should she, when her husband makes -it a rule never to speak of his business to her, and she has not the -remotest idea of his income? - -“Thus multitudes of good conscientious women and girls are extravagant -from pure ignorance. The male provider allows bills to be run up in his -name, and they have no earthly means of judging whether they are -spending too much or too little, except the semi-annual hurricane which -attends the coming in of these bills. - -“The first essential in the practice of economy is a knowledge of one’s -income, and the man who refuses to accord to his wife and children this -information has never any right to accuse them of extravagance, because -he himself deprives them of that standard of comparison which is an -indispensable requisite in economy. As early as possible in the -education of children they should pass from that state of irresponsible -waiting to be provided for by parents, and be trusted with the spending -of some fixed allowance, that they may learn prices and values, and have -some notion of what money is actually worth and what it will bring. The -simple fact of the possession of a fixed and definite income often -suddenly transforms a giddy, extravagant girl into a care-taking, -prudent little woman. Her allowance is her own; she begins to plan upon -it,—to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and do numberless sums in her -little head. She no longer buys everything she fancies; she deliberates, -weighs, compares. And now there is room for self-denial and generosity -to come in. She can do without this article; she can furbish up some -older possession to do duty a little longer, and give this money to some -friend poorer than she; and ten to one the girl whose bills last year -were four or five hundred finds herself bringing through this year -creditably on a hundred and fifty. To be sure, she goes without numerous -things which she used to have. From the stand-point of a fixed income -she sees that these are impossible, and no more wants them than the -green cheese of the moon. She learns to make her own taste and skill -take the place of expensive purchases. She refits her hats and bonnets, -retrims her dresses, and in a thousand busy, earnest, happy little ways, -sets herself to make the most of her small income. - -“So the woman who has her definite allowance for housekeeping finds at -once a hundred questions set at rest. Before, it was not clear to her -why she should not ‘go and do likewise’ in relation to every purchase -made by her next neighbor. Now, there is a clear logic of proportion. -Certain things are evidently not to be thought of, though next neighbors -do have them; and we must resign ourselves to find some other way of -living.” - -“My dear,” said my wife, “I think there is a peculiar temptation in a -life organized as ours is in America. There are here no settled classes, -with similar ratios of income. Mixed together in the same society, going -to the same parties, and blended in daily neighborly intercourse, are -families of the most opposite extremes in point of fortune. In England -there is a very well-understood expression, that people should not dress -or live above their station; in America none will admit that they have -any particular station, or that they can live above it. The principle of -democratic equality unites in society people of the most diverse -positions and means. - -“Here, for instance, is a family like Dr. Selden’s, an old and highly -respected one, with an income of only two or three thousand,—yet they -are people universally sought for in society, and mingle in all the -intercourse of life with merchant-millionnaires whose incomes are from -ten to thirty thousand. Their sons and daughters go to the same schools, -the same parties, and are thus constantly meeting upon terms of social -equality. - -“Now it seems to me that our danger does not lie in the great and -evident expenses of our richer friends. We do not expect to have -pineries, graperies, equipages, horses, diamonds,—we say openly and of -course that we do not. Still, our expenses are constantly increased by -the proximity of these things, unless we understand ourselves better -than most people do. We don’t of course, expect to get a -fifteen-hundred-dollar Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we begin to -look at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble about the hook. We don’t expect -sets of diamonds, but a diamond ring, a pair of solitaire diamond -earrings, begins to be speculated about among the young people as among -possibilities. We don’t expect to carpet our house with Axminster and -hang our windows with damask, but at least we must have Brussels and -brocatelle,—it _would not do_ not to. And so we go on getting hundreds -of things that we don’t need, that have no real value except that they -soothe our self-love,—and for these inferior articles we pay a higher -proportion of our income than our rich neighbor does for his better -ones. Nothing is uglier than low-priced Cashmere shawls; and yet a young -man just entering business will spend an eighth of a year’s income to -put one on his wife, and when he has put it there it only serves as a -constant source of disquiet,—for now that the door is opened, and -Cashmere shawls are possible, she is consumed with envy at the superior -ones constantly sported around her. So also with point-lace, velvet -dresses, and hundreds of things of that sort, which belong to a certain -rate of income, and are absurd below it.” - -“And yet, mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that velvet, point-lace, and -Cashmere were the cheapest finery that could be bought, because they -lasted a lifetime.” - -“Aunt Easygo speaks from an income of ten thousand a year; they may be -cheap for her rate of living,—but for us, for example, by no magic of -numbers can it be made to appear that it is cheaper to have the greatest -bargain in the world in Cashmere, lace, and diamonds, than not to have -them at all. I never had a diamond, never wore a piece of point-lace, -never had a velvet dress, and have been perfectly happy, and just as -much respected as if I had. Who ever thought of objecting to me for not -having them? Nobody, as I ever heard.” - -“Certainly not, mamma,” said Marianne. - -“The thing I have always said to you girls is, that you were not to -expect to live like richer people, not to begin to try, not to think or -inquire about certain rates of expenditure, or take the first step in -certain directions. We have moved on all our life after a very -antiquated and old-fashioned mode. We have had our little old-fashioned -house, our little old-fashioned ways.” - -“Except the parlor-carpet, and what came of it, my dear,” said I, -mischievously. - -“Yes, except the parlor-carpet,” said my wife, with a conscious twinkle, -“and the things that came of it; there was a concession there, but one -can’t be wise always.” - -“_We_ talked mamma into that,” said Jenny. - -“But one thing is certain,” said my wife,—“that, though I have had an -antiquated, plain house, and plain furniture, and plain dress, and not -the beginning of a thing such as many of my neighbors have possessed, I -have spent more money than many of them for real comforts. While I had -young children, I kept more and better servants than many women who wore -Cashmeres and diamonds. I thought it better to pay extra wages to a -really good, trusty woman who lived with me from year to year, and -relieved me of some of my heaviest family-cares, than to have ever so -much lace locked away in my drawers. We always were able to go into the -country to spend our summers, and to keep a good family-horse and -carriage for daily driving,—by which means we afforded, as a family, -very poor patronage to the medical profession. Then we built our house, -and while we left out a great many expensive common-places that other -people think they must have, we put in a profusion of bathing -accommodations such as very few people think of having. There never was -a time when we did not feel able to afford to do what was necessary to -preserve or to restore health; and for this I always drew on the surplus -fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeeping and dressing.” - -“Your mother has had,” said I, “what is the great want in America, -perfect independence of mind to go her own way without regard to the way -others go. I think there is, for some reason, more false shame among -Americans about economy than among Europeans. ‘I cannot afford it’ is -more seldom heard among us. A young man beginning life, whose income may -be from five to eight hundred a year, thinks it elegant and gallant to -affect a careless air about money, especially among ladies,—to hand it -out freely, and put back his change without counting it,—to wear a -watch-chain and studs and shirt-fronts like those of some young -millionnaire. None but the most expensive tailors, shoemakers, and -hatters will do for him; and then he grumbles at the dearness of living, -and declares that he cannot get along on his salary. The same is true of -young girls, and of married men and women too,—the whole of them are -ashamed of economy. The cares that wear out life and health in many -households are of a nature that cannot be cast on God, or met by any -promise from the Bible,—it is not care for ‘food convenient,’ or for -comfortable raiment, but care to keep up false appearances, and to -stretch a narrow income over the space that can be covered only by a -wider one. - -“The poor widow in her narrow lodgings, with her monthly rent staring -her hourly in the face, and her bread and meat and candles and meal all -to be paid for on delivery or not obtained at all, may find comfort in -the good old Book, reading of that other widow whose wasting measure of -oil and last failing handful of meal were of such account before her -Father in heaven that a prophet was sent to recruit them; and when -customers do not pay, or wages are cut down, she can enter into her -chamber, and when she hath shut her door, present to her Father in -heaven His sure promise that with the fowls of the air she shall be fed -and with the lilies of the field she shall be clothed: but what promises -are there for her who is racking her brains on the ways and means to -provide as sumptuous an entertainment of oysters and Champagne at her -next party as her richer neighbor, or to compass that great bargain -which shall give her a point-lace set almost as handsome as that of Mrs. -Crœsus, who has ten times her income?” - -“But, papa,” said Marianne, with a twinge of that exacting sensitiveness -by which the child is characterized, “I think I am an economist, thanks -to you and mamma, so far as knowing just what my income is, and keeping -within it; but that does not satisfy me, and it seems that isn’t all of -economy;—the question that haunts me is, Might I not make my little all -do more and better than I do?” - -“There,” said I, “you have hit the broader and deeper signification of -economy, which is, in fact, the science of _comparative values_. In its -highest sense, economy is a just judgment of the comparative value of -things,—money only the means of enabling one to express that value. This -is the reason why the whole matter is so full of difficulty,—why every -one criticises his neighbor in this regard. Human beings are so various, -the necessities of each are so different, they are made comfortable or -uncomfortable by such opposite means, that the spending of other -people’s incomes must of necessity often look unwise from our -stand-point. For this reason multitudes of people who cannot be accused -of exceeding their incomes often seem to others to be spending them -foolishly and extravagantly.” - -“But is there no standard of value?” said Marianne. - -“There are certain things upon which there is a pretty general -agreement, verbally, at least, among mankind. For instance, it is -generally agreed that _health_ is an indispensable good,—that money is -well spent that secures it, and worse than ill spent that ruins it. - -“With this standard in mind, how much money is wasted even by people who -do not exceed their income! Here a man builds a house, and pays, in the -first place, ten thousand more than he need, for a location in a -fashionable part of the city, though the air will be closer and the -chances of health less; he spends three or four thousand more on a stone -front, on marble mantles imported from Italy, on plate-glass windows, -plated hinges, and a thousand nice points of finish, and has perhaps but -one bath-room for a whole household, and that so connected with his own -apartment that nobody but himself and his wife can use it. - -“Another man buys a lot in an open, airy situation, which fashion has -not made expensive, and builds without a stone front, marble mantels, or -plate glass windows, but has a perfect system of ventilation through his -house, and bathing-rooms in every story, so that the children and guests -may all, without inconvenience, enjoy the luxury of abundant water. - -“The first spends for fashion and show, the second for health and -comfort. - -“Here is a man that will buy his wife a diamond bracelet and a lace -shawl, and take her yearly to Washington to show off her beauty in -ball-dresses, who yet will not let her pay wages which will command any -but the poorest and most inefficient domestic service. The woman is worn -out, her life made a desert by exhaustion consequent on a futile attempt -to keep up a showy establishment with only half the hands needed for the -purpose. Another family will give brilliant parties, have a gay season -every year at the first hotels at Newport, and not be able to afford the -wife a fire in her chamber in midwinter, or the servants enough food to -keep them from constantly deserting. The damp, mouldy, dingy -cellar-kitchen, the cold, windy, desolate attic, devoid of any comfort, -where the domestics are doomed to pass their whole time, are witnesses -to what such families consider economy. Economy in the view of some is -undisguised slipshod slovenliness in the home-circle for the sake of -fine clothes to be shown abroad; it is undisguised hard selfishness to -servants and dependants, counting their every approach to comfort a -needless waste,—grudging the Roman-Catholic cook her cup of tea at -dinner on Friday, when she must not eat meat,—and murmuring that a -cracked, second-hand looking-glass must be got for the servants room: -what business have they to want to know how they look? - -“Some families will employ the cheapest physician, without regard to his -ability to kill or cure; some will treat diseases in their incipiency -with quack medicines, bought cheap, hoping thereby to fend off the -doctor’s bill. Some women seem to be pursued by an evil demon of -economy, which, like an _ignis fatuus_ in a bog, delights constantly to -tumble them over into the mire of expense. They are dismayed at the -quantity of sugar in the recipe for preserves, leave out a quarter, and -the whole ferments and is spoiled. They cannot by any means be induced -at any one time to buy enough silk to make a dress, and the dress -finally, after many convulsions and alterations, must be thrown by -altogether, as too scanty. They get poor needles, poor thread, poor -sugar, poor raisins, poor tea, poor coal. One wonders, in looking at -their blackened, smouldering grates, in a freezing day, what the fire is -there at all for,—it certainly warms nobody. The only thing they seem -likely to be lavish in is funeral expenses, which come in the wake of -leaky shoes and imperfect clothing. These funeral expenses at last -swallow all, since nobody can dispute an undertaker’s bill. One pities -these joyless beings. Economy, instead of a rational act of the -judgment, is a morbid monomania, eating the pleasure out of life, and -haunting them to the grave. - -“Some people’s ideas of economy seem to run simply in the line of -eating. Their flour is of an extra brand, their meat the first cut; the -delicacies of every season, in their dearest stages, come home to their -table with an apologetic smile,—‘It was scandalously dear, my love, but -I thought we must just treat ourselves.’ And yet these people cannot -afford to buy books, and pictures they regard as an unthought-of -extravagance. Trudging home with fifty dollars’ worth of delicacies on -his arm, Smith meets Jones who is exulting with a bag of crackers under -one arm and a choice little bit of an oil painting under the other, -which he thinks a bargain at fifty dollars. ‘_I_ can’t afford to buy -pictures,’ Smith says to his spouse, ‘and I don’t know how Jones and his -wife manage.’ Jones and his wife will live on bread and milk for a -month, and she will turn her best gown the third time, but they will -have their picture, and they are happy. Jones’s picture remains, and -Smith’s fifty dollars’ worth of oysters and canned fruit to-morrow will -be gone forever. Of all modes of spending money, the swallowing of -expensive dainties brings the least return. There is one step lower than -this,—the consuming of luxuries that are injurious to the health. If all -the money spent on tobacco and liquors could be spent in books and -pictures, I predict that nobody’s health would be a whit less sound, and -houses would be vastly more attractive. There is enough money spent in -smoking, drinking, and over-eating to give every family in the community -a good library, to hang every-body’s parlor-walls with lovely pictures, -to set up in every house a conservatory which should bloom all winter -with choice flowers, to furnish every dwelling with ample bathing and -warming accommodations, even down to the dwellings of the poor; and in -the millennium I believe this is the way things are to be. - -“In these times of peril and suffering, if the inquiry arises, How shall -there be retrenchment? I answer, First and foremost retrench things -needless, doubtful, and positively hurtful, as rum, tobacco, and all the -meerschaums of divers colors that do accompany the same. Second, -retrench all eating not necessary to health and comfort. A French family -would live in luxury on the leavings that are constantly coming from the -tables of those who call themselves in middling circumstances. There are -superstitions of the table that ought to be broken through. Why must you -always have cake in your closet? why need you feel undone to entertain a -guest with no cake on your tea-table? Do without it a year, and ask -yourselves if you or your children, or any one else, have suffered -materially in consequence. - -“Why is it imperative that you should have two or three courses at every -meal? Try the experiment of having but one, and that a very good one, -and see if any great amount of suffering ensues. Why must social -intercourse so largely consist in eating? In Paris there is a very -pretty custom. Each family has one evening in the week when it stays at -home and receives friends. Tea, with a little bread and butter and cake, -served in the most informal way, is the only refreshment. The rooms are -full, busy, bright,—everything as easy and joyous as if a monstrous -supper, with piles of jelly and mountains of cake were waiting to give -the company a nightmare at the close. - -“Said a lady, pointing to a gentleman and his wife in a social circle of -this kind, ‘I ought to know them well,—I have seen them every week for -twenty years.’ It is certainly pleasant and confirmative of social -enjoyment for friends to eat together; but a little enjoyed in this way -answers the purpose as well as a great deal, and better too.” - -“Well, papa,” said Marianne, “in the matter of dress now,—how much ought -one to spend just to look as others do?” - -“I will tell you what I saw the other night, girls, in the parlor of one -of our hotels. Two middle-aged Quaker ladies came gliding in, with calm, -cheerful faces, and lustrous dove-colored silks. By their conversation I -found that they belonged to that class of women among the Friends who -devote themselves to travelling on missions of benevolence. They had -just completed a tour of all the hospitals for wounded soldiers in the -country, where they had been carrying comforts, arranging, advising, and -soothing by their cheerful, gentle presence. They were now engaged on -another mission, to the lost and erring of their own sex; night after -night, guarded by a policeman, they had ventured after midnight into the -dance-houses where girls are being led to ruin, and with gentle words of -tender, motherly counsel sought to win them from their fatal -ways,—telling them where they might go the next day to find friends who -would open to them an asylum and aid them to seek a better life. - -“As I looked upon these women, dressed with such modest purity, I began -secretly to think that the Apostle was not wrong, when he spoke of women -adorning themselves with the _ornament_ of a meek and quiet spirit; for -the habitual gentleness of their expression, the calmness and purity of -the lines in their faces, the delicacy and simplicity of their apparel, -seemed of themselves a rare and peculiar beauty. I could not help -thinking that fashionable bonnets, flowing lace sleeves, and dresses -elaborately trimmed could not have improved even their outward -appearance. Doubtless, their simple wardrobe needed but a small trunk in -travelling from place to place, and hindered but little their prayers -and ministrations. - -“Now, it is true, all women are not called to such a life as this; but -might not all women take a leaf at least from their book? I submit the -inquiry humbly. It seems to me that there are many who go monthly to the -sacrament, and receive it with sincere devotion, and who give thanks -each time sincerely that they are thus made ‘members incorporate in the -mystical body of Christ,’ who have never thought of this membership as -meaning that they should share Christ’s sacrifices for lost souls, or -abridge themselves of one ornament or encounter one inconvenience for -the sake of those wandering sheep for whom he died. Certainly there is a -higher economy which we need to learn,—that which makes all things -subservient to the spiritual and immortal, and that not merely to the -good of our own souls and those of our family, but of all who are knit -with us in the great bonds of human brotherhood. - -“There have been from time to time, among well-meaning Christian people, -retrenchment societies on high moral grounds, which have failed for want -of knowledge how to manage the complicated question of necessaries and -luxuries. These words have a signification in the case of different -people as varied as the varieties of human habit and constitution. It is -a department impossible to be bound by external rules; but none the less -should every high-minded Christian soul in this matter have a law unto -itself. It may safely be laid down as a general rule, that no income, -however large or however small, should be unblessed by the divine touch -of self-sacrifice. Something for the poor, the sorrowing, the hungry, -the tempted, and the weak should be taken from _what is our own_ at the -expense of some personal sacrifice, or we suffer more morally than the -brother from whom we withdraw it. Even the Lord of all, when dwelling -among men, out of that slender private purse which he accepted for his -little family of chosen ones, had ever something reserved to give to the -poor. It is easy to say, ‘It is but a drop in the bucket. I cannot -remove the great mass of misery in the world. What little I could save -or give does nothing.’ It does this, if no more,—it prevents one soul, -and that soul your own, from drying and hardening into utter selfishness -and insensibility; it enables you to say I have done something; taken -one atom from the great heap of sins and miseries and placed it on the -side of good. - -“The Sisters of Charity and the Friends, each with their different -costume of plainness and self-denial, and other noble-hearted women of -no particular outward order, but kindred in spirit, have shown to -womanhood, on the battle-field and in the hospital, a more excellent -way,—a beauty and nobility before which all the common graces and -ornaments of the sex fade, appeal like dim candles by the pure, eternal -stars.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - IX. - - SERVANTS. - - -IN the course of my papers various domestic revolutions have occurred. -Our Marianne has gone from us with a new name to a new life, and a -modest little establishment not many squares off claims about as much of -my wife’s and Jenny’s busy thoughts as those of the proper mistress. - -Marianne, as I always foresaw, is a careful and somewhat anxious -housekeeper. Her tastes are fastidious; she is made for exactitude: the -smallest departures from the straight line appear to her shocking -deviations. She had always lived in a house where everything had been -formed to quiet and order under the ever-present care and touch of her -mother; nor had she ever participated in these cares more than to do a -little dusting of the parlor ornaments, or wash the best china, or make -sponge-cake or chocolate-caramels. Certain conditions of life had always -appeared so to be matters of course that she had never conceived of a -house without them. It never occurred to her that such bread and biscuit -as she saw at the home-table would not always and of course appear at -every table,—that the silver would not always be as bright, the glass as -clear, the salt as fine and smooth, the plates and dishes as nicely -arranged as she had always seen them, apparently without the thought or -care of any one,—for my wife is one of those housekeepers whose touch is -so fine that no one feels it. She is never heard scolding or -reproving,—never entertains her company with her recipes for cookery or -the faults of her servants. She is so unconcerned about receiving her -own personal share of credit for the good appearance of her -establishment, that even the children of the house have not supposed -that there is any particular will of hers in the matter,—it all seems -the natural consequence of having very good servants. - -One phenomenon they had never seriously reflected on,—that, under all -the changes of the domestic cabinet which are so apt to occur in -American households, the same coffee, the same bread and biscuit, the -same nicely prepared dishes and neatly laid table always gladdened their -eyes; and from this they inferred only that good servants were more -abundant than most people had supposed. They were somewhat surprised -when these marvels were wrought by professedly green hands, but were -given to suppose that these green hands must have had some remarkable -quickness or aptitude for acquiring. That sparkling jelly, well-flavored -ice-creams, clear soups, and delicate biscuits could be made by a raw -Irish girl, fresh from her native Erin, seemed to them a proof of the -genius of the race; and my wife, who never felt it important to attain -to the reputation of a cook, quietly let it pass. - -For some time, therefore, after the inauguration of the new household, -there was trouble in the camp. Sour bread had appeared on the -table,—bitter, acrid coffee had shocked and astonished the palate,—lint -had been observed on tumblers, and the spoons had sometimes dingy -streaks on the brightness of their first bridal polish,—beds were -detected made shockingly awry,—and Marianne came burning with -indignation to her mother. - -“Such a little family as we have, and two strong girls,” said -she,—“everything ought to be perfect; there is really nothing to do. -Think of a whole batch of bread absolutely sour! and when I gave that -away, then this morning another exactly like it! and when I talked to -cook about it, she said she had lived in this and that family, and her -bread had always been praised as equal to the baker’s!” - -“I don’t doubt she is right,” said I. “Many families never have anything -but sour bread from one end of the year to the other, eating it -unperceiving, and with good cheer; and they buy also sour bread of the -baker, with like approbation,—lightness being in their estimation the -only virtue necessary in the article.” - -“Could you not correct her fault?” suggested my wife. - -“I have done all I can. I told her we could not have such bread, that it -was dreadful; Bob says it would give him the dyspepsia in a week; and -then she went and made exactly the same;—it seems to me mere -wilfulness.” - -“But,” said I, “suppose, instead of such general directions, you should -analyze her proceedings and find out just where she makes her -mistake,—is the root of the trouble in the yeast, or in the time she -begins it, letting it rise too long?—the time, you know, should vary so -much with the temperature of the weather.” - -“As to that,” said Marianne, “I know nothing. I never noticed; it never -was my business to make bread; it always seemed quite a simple process, -mixing yeast and flour and kneading it; and our bread at home was always -good.” - -“It seems, then, my dear, that you have come to your profession without -even having studied it.” - -My wife smiled, and said,— - -“You know, Marianne, I proposed to you to be our family bread-maker for -one month of the year before you married.” - -“Yes, mamma, I remember; but I was like other girls; I thought there was -no need of it. I never liked to do such things; perhaps I had better -have done it.” - -“You certainly had,” said I; “for the first business of a housekeeper in -America is that of a teacher. She can have a good table only by having -practical knowledge, and tact in imparting it. If she understands her -business practically and experimentally, her eye detects at once the -weak spot; it requires only a little tact, some patience, some clearness -in giving directions, and all comes right. I venture to say that your -mother would have exactly such bread as always appears on our table, and -have it by the hands of your cook, because she could detect and explain -to her exactly her error.” - -“Do you know,” said my wife, “what yeast she uses?” - -“I believe,” said Marianne, “it’s a kind she makes herself. I think I -heard her say so. I know she makes a great fuss about it, and rather -values herself upon it. She is evidently accustomed to being praised for -her bread, and feels mortified and angry, and I don’t know how to manage -her.” - -“Well,” said I, “if you carry your watch to a watchmaker, and undertake -to show him how to regulate the machinery, he laughs and goes on his own -way; but if a brother-machinist makes suggestions, he listens -respectfully. So, when a woman who knows nothing of woman’s work -undertakes to instruct one who knows more than she does, she makes no -impression; but a woman who has been trained experimentally, and shows -she understands the matter thoroughly, is listened to with respect.” - -“I think,” said my wife, “that your Bridget is worth teaching. She is -honest, well-principled, and tidy. She has good recommendations from -excellent families, whose ideas of good bread it appears differ from -ours; and with a little good-nature, tact, and patience, she will come -into your ways.” - -“But the coffee, mamma,—you would not imagine it to be from the same bag -with your own, so dark and so bitter; what do you suppose she has done -to it?” - -“Simply this,” said my wife. “She has let the berries stay a few moments -too long over the fire,—they are burnt, instead of being roasted; and -there are people who think it essential to good coffee that it should -look black, and have a strong, bitter flavor. A very little change in -the preparing will alter this.” - -“Now,” said I, “Marianne, if you want my advice, I’ll give it to you -gratis:—Make your own bread for one month. Simple as the process seems, -I think it will take as long as that to give you a thorough knowledge of -all the possibilities in the case; but after that you will never need to -make any more,—you will be able to command good bread by the aid of all -sorts of servants; you will, in other words, be a thoroughly prepared -teacher.” - -“I did not think,” said Marianne, “that so simple a thing required so -much attention.” - -“It is simple,” said my wife, “and yet requires a delicate care and -watchfulness. There are fifty ways to spoil good bread; there are a -hundred little things to be considered and allowed for that require -accurate observation and experience. The same process that will raise -good bread in cold weather will make sour bread in the heat of summer; -different qualities of flour require variations in treatment, as also -different sorts and conditions of yeast; and when all is done, the -baking presents another series of possibilities which require exact -attention.” - -“So it appears,” said Marianne, gayly, “that I must begin to study my -profession at the eleventh hour.” - -“Better late than never,” said I. “But there is this advantage on your -side: a well-trained mind, accustomed to reflect, analyze, and -generalize, has an advantage over uncultured minds even of double -experience. Poor as your cook is, she now knows more of her business -than you do. After a very brief period of attention and experiment, you -will not only know more than she does, but you will convince her that -you do, which is quite as much to the purpose.” - -“In the same manner,” said my wife, “you will have to give lessons to -your other girl on the washing of silver and the making of beds. Good -servants do not often come to us; they must be _made_ by patience and -training; and if a girl has a good disposition and a reasonable degree -of handiness, and the housekeeper understands her profession, she may -make a good servant out of an indifferent one. Some of my best girls -have been those who came to me directly from the ship, with no -preparation but docility and some natural quickness. The hardest cases -to be managed are not of those who have been taught nothing, but of -those who have been taught wrongly,—who come to you self-opinionated, -with ways which are distasteful to you, and contrary to the genius of -your housekeeping. Such require that their mistress shall understand at -least so much of the actual conduct of affairs as to prove to the -servant that there are better ways than those in which she has hitherto -been trained.” - -“Don’t you think, mamma,” said Marianne, “that there has been a sort of -reaction against woman’s work in our day? So much has been said of the -higher sphere of woman, and so much has been done to find some better -work for her, that insensibly, I think, almost everybody begins to feel -that it is rather degrading for a woman in good society to be much tied -down to family affairs.” - -“Especially,” said my wife, “since in these Woman’s-Rights Conventions -there is so much indignation expressed at those who would confine her -ideas to the kitchen and nursery.” - -“There is reason in all things,” said I. “Woman’s-Rights Conventions are -a protest against many former absurd, unreasonable ideas,—the mere -physical and culinary idea of womanhood as connected only with puddings -and shirt-buttons, the unjust and unequal burdens which the laws of -harsher ages had cast upon the sex. Many of the women connected with -these movements are as superior in everything properly womanly as they -are in exceptional talent and culture. There is no manner of doubt that -the sphere of woman is properly to be enlarged, and that republican -governments in particular are to be saved from corruption and failure -only by allowing to woman this enlarged sphere. Every woman has rights -as a human being first, which belong to no sex, and ought to be as -freely conceded to her as if she were a man,—and first and foremost, the -great right of doing anything which God and Nature evidently have fitted -her to excel in. If she be made a natural orator, like Miss Dickenson, -or an astronomer, like Mrs. Somerville, or a singer, like Grisi, let not -the technical rules of womanhood be thrown in the way of her free use of -her powers. Nor can there be any reason shown why a woman’s vote in the -state should not be received with as much respect as in the family. A -state is but an association of families, and laws relate to the rights -and immunities which touch woman’s most private and immediate wants and -dearest hopes; and there is no reason why sister, wife, and mother -should be more powerless in the state than in the home. Nor does it make -a woman unwomanly to express an opinion by dropping a slip of paper into -a box, more than to express that same opinion by conversation. In fact, -there is no doubt, that, in all matters relating to the interests of -education, temperance, and religion, the state would be a material -gainer by receiving the votes of women. - -“But, having said all this, I must admit, _per contra_, not only a great -deal of crude, disagreeable talk in these conventions, but a too great -tendency of the age to make the education of women anti-domestic. It -seems as if the world never could advance, except like ships under a -head-wind, tacking and going too far, now in this direction, and now in -the opposite. Our common-school system now rejects sewing from the -education of girls, which very properly used to occupy many hours daily -in school a generation ago. The daughters of laborers and artisans are -put through algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and the higher mathematics, -to the entire neglect of that learning which belongs distinctively to -woman. A girl cannot keep pace with her class, if she gives any time to -domestic matters; and accordingly she is excused from them all during -the whole term of her education. The boy of a family, at an early age, -is put to a trade, or the labors of a farm; the father becomes impatient -of his support, and requires of him to care for himself. Hence an -interrupted education,—learning coming by snatches in the winter months -or in the intervals of work. As the result, the females in our country -towns are commonly, in mental culture, vastly in advance of the males of -the same household; but with this comes a physical delicacy, the result -of an exclusive use of the brain and a neglect of the muscular system, -with great inefficiency in practical domestic duties. The race of -strong, hardy, cheerful girls, that used to grow up in country places, -and made the bright, neat, New England kitchens of old times,—the girls -that could wash, iron, brew, bake, harness a horse and drive him, no -less than braid straw, embroider, draw, paint, and read innumerable -books,—this race of women, pride of olden time, is daily lessening; and -in their stead come the fragile, easily fatigued, languid girls of a -modern age, drilled in book-learning, ignorant of common things. The -great danger of all this, and of the evils that come from it, is that -society by and by will turn as blindly against female intellectual -culture as it now advocates it, and, having worked disproportionately -one way, will work disproportionately in the opposite direction.” - -“The fact is,” said my wife, “that domestic service is the great problem -of life here in America; the happiness of families, their thrift, -well-being, and comfort, are more affected by this than by any one thing -else. Our girls, as they have been brought up, cannot perform the labor -of their own families, as in those simpler, old-fashioned days you tell -of; and what is worse, they have no practical skill with which to -instruct servants, and servants come to us, as a class, raw and -untrained; so what is to be done? In the present state of prices, the -board of a domestic costs double her wages, and the waste she makes is a -more serious matter still. Suppose you give us an article upon this -subject in your ‘House and Home Papers.’ You could not have a better -one.” - -So I sat down, and wrote thus on - - - SERVANTS AND SERVICE. - -Many of the domestic evils in America originate in the fact, that, while -society here is professedly based on new principles which ought to make -social life in every respect different from the life of the Old World, -yet these principles have never been so thought out and applied as to -give consistency and harmony to our daily relations. America starts with -a political organization based on a declaration of the primitive freedom -and equality of all men. Every human being, according to this principle, -stands on the same natural level with every other, and has the same -chance to rise according to the degree of power or capacity given by the -Creator. All our civil institutions are designed to preserve this -equality, as far as possible, from generation to generation: there is no -entailed property, there are no hereditary titles, no monopolies, no -privileged classes,—all are to be as free to rise and fall as the waves -of the sea. - -The condition of domestic service, however, still retains about it -something of the influences from feudal times, and from the near -presence of slavery in neighboring States. All English literature, all -the literature of the world, describes domestic service in the old -feudal spirit and with the old feudal language, which regarded the -master as belonging to a privileged class and the servant to an inferior -one. There is not a play, not a poem, not a novel, not a history, that -does not present this view. The master’s rights, like the rights of -kings, were supposed to rest in his being born in a superior rank. The -good servant was one who, from childhood, had learned “to order himself -lowly and reverently to all his betters.” When New England brought to -these shores the theory of democracy, she brought, in the persons of the -first pilgrims, the habits of thought and of action formed in -aristocratic communities. Winthrop’s Journal, and all the old records of -the earlier colonists, show households where masters and mistresses -stood on the “right divine” of the privileged classes, howsoever they -might have risen up against authorities themselves. - -The first consequence of this state of things was a universal rejection -of domestic service in all classes of American-born society. For a -generation or two, there was, indeed, a sort of interchange of family -strength,—sons and daughters engaging in the service of neighboring -families, in default of a sufficient working-force of their own, but -always on conditions of strict equality. The assistant was to share the -table, the family sitting-room, and every honor and attention that might -be claimed by son or daughter. When families increased in refinement and -education so as to make these conditions of close intimacy with more -uncultured neighbors disagreeable, they had to choose between such -intimacies and the performance of their own domestic toil. No wages -could induce a son or daughter of New England to take the condition of a -servant on terms which they thought applicable to that of a slave. The -slightest hint of a separate table was resented as an insult; not to -enter the front-door, and not to sit in the front-parlor on -state-occasions, was bitterly commented on as a personal indignity. - -The well-taught, self-respecting daughters of farmers, the class most -valuable in domestic service, gradually retired from it. They preferred -any other employment, however laborious. Beyond all doubt, the labors of -a well-regulated family are more healthy, more cheerful, more -interesting, because less monotonous, than the mechanical toils of a -factory; yet the girls of New England, with one consent, preferred the -factory, and left the whole business of domestic service to a foreign -population; and they did it mainly because they would not take positions -in families as an inferior laboring-class by the side of others of their -own age who assumed as their prerogative to live without labor. - -“I can’t let you have one of my daughters,” said an energetic matron to -her neighbor from the city, who was seeking for a servant in her summer -vacation; “if you hadn’t daughters of your own, maybe I would; but my -girls ain’t going to work so that your girls may live in idleness.” - -It was vain to offer money. “We don’t need your money, ma’am, we can -support ourselves in other ways; my girls can braid straw, and bind -shoes, but they ain’t going to be slaves to anybody.” - -In the Irish and German servants who took the place of Americans in -families, there was, to begin with, the tradition of education in favor -of a higher class; but even the foreign population became more or less -infected with the spirit of democracy. They came to this country with -vague notions of freedom and equality, and in ignorant and uncultivated -people such ideas are often more unreasonable for being vague. They did -not, indeed, claim a seat at the table and in the parlor, but they -repudiated many of those habits of respect and courtesy which belonged -to their former condition, and asserted their own will and way in the -round, unvarnished phrase which they supposed to be their right as -republican citizens. Life became a sort of domestic wrangle and struggle -between the employers, who secretly confessed their weakness, but -endeavored openly to assume the air and bearing of authority, and the -employed, who knew their power and insisted on their privileges. From -this cause domestic service in America has had less of mutual kindliness -than in old countries. Its terms have been so ill understood and defined -that both parties have assumed the defensive; and a common topic of -conversation in American female society has often been the general -servile war which in one form or another was going on in their different -families,—a war as interminable as would be a struggle between -aristocracy and common people, undefined by any bill of rights or -constitution, and therefore opening fields for endless disputes. In -England, the class who go to service _are_ a class, and service is a -profession; the distance between them and their employers is so marked -and defined, and all the customs and requirements of the position are so -perfectly understood, that the master or mistress has no fear of being -compromised by condescension, and no need of the external voice or air -of authority. The higher up in the social scale one goes, the more -courteous seems to become the intercourse of master and servant; the -more perfect and real the power, the more is it veiled in outward -expression,—commands are phrased as requests, and gentleness of voice -and manner covers an authority which no one would think of offending -without trembling. - -But in America all is undefined. In the first place, there is no class -who mean to make domestic service a profession to live and die in. It is -universally an expedient, a stepping-stone to something higher; your -best servants always have something else in view as soon as they have -laid by a little money; some form of independence which shall give them -a home of their own is constantly in mind. Families look forward to the -buying of landed homesteads, and the scattered brothers and sisters work -awhile in domestic service to gain the common fund for the purpose; your -seamstress intends to become a dress-maker, and take in work at her own -house; your cook is pondering a marriage with the baker, which shall -transfer her toils from your cooking-stove to her own. Young women are -eagerly rushing into every other employment, till female trades and -callings are all overstocked. We are continually harrowed with tales of -the sufferings of distressed needle-women, of the exactions and -extortions practised on the frail sex in the many branches of labor and -trade at which they try their hands; and yet women will encounter all -these chances of ruin and starvation rather than make up their minds to -permanent domestic service. Now what is the matter with domestic -service? One would think, on the face of it, that a calling which gives -a settled home, a comfortable room, rent-free, with fire and lights, -good board and lodging, and steady, well-paid wages, would certainly -offer more attractions than the making of shirts for tenpence, with all -the risks of providing one’s own sustenance and shelter. - -I think it is mainly from the want of a definite idea of the true -position of a servant under our democratic institutions that domestic -service is so shunned and avoided in America, that it is the very last -thing which an intelligent young woman will look to for a living. It is -more the want of personal respect toward those in that position than the -labors incident to it which repels our people from it. Many would be -willing to perform these labors, but they are not willing to place -themselves in a situation where their self-respect is hourly wounded by -_the implication of a degree of inferiority which does not follow any -kind of labor or service in this country but that of the family_. - -There exists in the minds of employers an unsuspected spirit of -superiority, which is stimulated into an active form by the resistance -which democracy inspires in the working-class. Many families think of -servants only as a necessary evil, their wages as exactions, and all -that is allowed them as so much taken from the family; and they seek in -every way to get from them as much and to give them as little as -possible. Their rooms are the neglected, ill-furnished, incommodious -ones,—and the kitchen is the most cheerless and comfortless place in the -house. Other families, more good-natured and liberal, provide their -domestics with more suitable accommodations, and are more indulgent; but -there is still a latent spirit of something like contempt for the -position. That they treat their servants with so much consideration -seems to them a merit entitling them to the most prostrate gratitude; -and they are constantly disappointed and shocked at that want of sense -of inferiority on the part of these people which leads them to -appropriate pleasant rooms, good furniture, and good living as mere -matters of common justice. - -It seems to be a constant surprise to some employers that servants -should insist on having the same human wants as themselves. Ladies who -yawn in their elegantly furnished parlors, among books and pictures, if -they have not company, parties, or opera to diversify the evening, seem -astonished and half indignant that cook and chambermaid are more -disposed to go out for an evening gossip than to sit on hard chairs in -the kitchen where they have been toiling all day. The pretty -chambermaid’s anxieties about her dress, the time she spends at her -small and not very clear mirror, are sneeringly noticed by those whose -toilet-cares take up serious hours; and the question has never -apparently occurred to them why a serving-maid should not want to look -pretty as well as her mistress. She is a woman as well as they, with all -a woman’s wants and weaknesses; and her dress is as much to her as -theirs to them. - -A vast deal of trouble among servants arises from impertinent -interferences and petty tyrannical exactions on the part of employers. -Now the authority of the master and mistress of a house in regard to -their domestics extends simply to the things they have contracted to do -and the hours during which they have contracted to serve; otherwise than -this, they have no more right to interfere with them in the disposal of -their time than with any mechanic whom they employ. They have, indeed, a -right to regulate the hours of their own household, and servants can -choose between conformity to these hours and the loss of their -situation; but, within reasonable limits, their right to come and go at -their own discretion, in their own time, should be unquestioned. - -If employers are troubled by the fondness of their servants for dancing, -evening company, and late hours, the proper mode of proceeding is to -make these matters a subject of distinct contract in hiring. The more -strictly and perfectly the business matters of the first engagement of -domestics are conducted, the more likelihood there is of mutual quiet -and satisfaction in the relation. It is quite competent to every -housekeeper to say what practices are or are not consistent with the -rules of her family, and what will be inconsistent with the service for -which she agrees to pay. It is much better to regulate such affairs by -cool contract in the outset than by warm altercations and protracted -domestic battles. - -As to the terms of social intercourse it seems somehow to be settled in -the minds of many employers that their servants owe them and their -family more respect than they and the family owe to the servants. But do -they? What is the relation of servant to employer in a democratic -country? Precisely that of a person who for money performs any kind of -service for you. The carpenter comes into your house to put up a set of -shelves,—the cook comes into your kitchen to cook your dinner. You never -think that the carpenter owes you any more respect than you owe to him -because he is in your house doing your behests; he is your -fellow-citizen, you treat him with respect, you expect to be treated -with respect by him. You have a claim on him that he shall do your work -according to your directions,—no more. Now I apprehend that there is a -very common notion as to the position and rights of servants which is -quite different from this. Is it not a common feeling that a servant is -one who may be treated with a degree of freedom by every member of the -family which he or she may not return? Do not people feel at liberty to -question servants about their private affairs, to comment on their dress -and appearance, in a manner which they would feel to be an impertinence, -if reciprocated? Do they not feel at liberty to express dissatisfaction -with their performances in rude and unceremonious terms, to reprove them -in the presence of company, while yet they require that the -dissatisfaction of servants shall be expressed only in terms of respect? -A woman would not feel herself at liberty to talk to her milliner or her -dressmaker in language as devoid of consideration as she will employ -towards her cook or chambermaid. Yet both are rendering her a service -which she pays for in money, and one is no more made her inferior -thereby than the other. Both have an equal right to be treated with -courtesy. The master and mistress of a house have a right to require -respectful treatment from all whom their roof shelters, but they have no -more right to exact it of servants than of every guest and every child, -and they themselves owe it as much to servants as to guests. - -In order that servants may be treated with respect and courtesy, it is -not necessary, as in simpler patriarchal days, that they sit at the -family-table. Your carpenter or plumber does not feel hurt that you do -not ask him to dine with you, nor your milliner and mantua-maker that -you do not exchange ceremonious calls and invite them to your parties. -It is well-understood that your relations with them are of a mere -business character. They never take it as an assumption of superiority -on your part that you do not admit them to relations of private -intimacy. There may be the most perfect respect and esteem and even -friendship between them and you, notwithstanding. So it may be in the -case of servants. It is easy to make any person understand that there -are quite other reasons than the assumption of personal superiority for -not wishing to admit servants to the family privacy. It was not, in -fact, to sit in the parlor or at the table, in themselves considered, -that was the thing aimed at by New England girls,—these were valued only -as signs that they were deemed worthy of respect and consideration, and, -where freely conceded, were often in point of fact declined. - -Let servants feel, in their treatment by their employers, and in the -atmosphere of the family, that their position is held to be a -respectable one, let them feel in the mistress of the family the charm -of unvarying consideration and good manners, let their work-rooms be -made convenient and comfortable, and their private apartments bear some -reasonable comparison in point of agreeableness to those of other -members of the family, and domestic service will be more frequently -sought by a superior and self-respecting class. There are families in -which such a state of things prevails; and such families, amid the many -causes which unite to make the tenure of service uncertain, have -generally been able to keep good permanent servants. - -There is an extreme into which kindly disposed people often run with -regard to servants, which may be mentioned here. They make pets of them. -They give extravagant wages and indiscreet indulgences, and, through -indolence and easiness of temper, tolerate neglect of duty. Many of the -complaints of the ingratitude of servants come from those who have -spoiled them in this way; while many of the longest and most harmonious -domestic unions have sprung from a simple, quiet course of Christian -justice and benevolence, a recognition of servants as fellow-beings and -fellow-Christians, and a doing to them as we would in like circumstances -that they should do to us. - -The mistresses of American families, whether they like it or not, have -the duties of missionaries imposed upon them by that class from which -our supply of domestic servants is drawn. They may as well accept the -position cheerfully, and, as one raw, untrained hand after another -passes through their family, and is instructed by them in the mysteries -of good housekeeping, comfort themselves with the reflection that they -are doing something to form good wives and mothers for the Republic. - -The complaints made of Irish girls are numerous and loud; the failings -of green Erin, alas! are but too open and manifest; yet, in arrest of -judgment, let us move this consideration: let us imagine our own -daughters between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four, untaught and -inexperienced in domestic affairs as they commonly are, shipped to a -foreign shore to seek service in families. It may be questioned whether -as a whole they would do much better. The girls that fill our families -and do our house-work are often of the age of our own daughters, -standing for themselves, without mothers to guide them, in a foreign -country, not only bravely supporting themselves, but sending home in -every ship remittances to impoverished friends left behind. If our -daughters did as much for us, should we not be proud of their energy and -heroism? - -When we go into the houses of our country, we find a majority of -well-kept, well-ordered, and even elegant establishments where the only -hands employed are those of the daughters of Erin. True, American women -have been their instructors, and many a weary hour of care have they had -in the discharge of this office; but the result on the whole is -beautiful and good, and the end of it, doubtless, will be peace. - -In speaking of the office of the American mistress as being a missionary -one, we are far from recommending any controversial interference with -the religious faith of our servants. It is far better to incite them to -be good Christians in their own way than to run the risk of shaking -their faith in all religion by pointing out to them the errors of that -in which they have been educated. The general purity of life and -propriety of demeanor of so many thousands of undefended young girls -cast yearly upon our shores, with no home but their church, and no -shield but their religion, are a sufficient proof that this religion -exerts an influence over them not to be lightly trifled with. But there -is a real unity even in opposite Christian forms; and the Roman Catholic -servant and the Protestant mistress, if alike possessed by the spirit of -Christ, and striving to conform to the Golden Rule, cannot help being -one in heart, though one go to mass and the other to meeting. - -Finally, the bitter baptism through which we are passing, the life-blood -dearer than our own which is drenching distant fields, should remind us -of the preciousness of distinctive American ideas. They who would seek -in their foolish pride to establish the pomp of liveried servants in -America are doing that which is simply absurd. A servant can never in -our country be the mere appendage to another man, to be marked like a -sheep with the color of his owner; he must be a fellow-citizen, with an -established position of his own, free to make contracts, free to come -and go, and having in his sphere titles to consideration and respect -just as definite as those of any trade or profession whatever. - -Moreover, we cannot in this country maintain to any great extent large -retinues of servants. Even with ample fortunes they are forbidden by the -general character of society here, which makes them cumbrous and -difficult to manage. Every mistress of a family knows that her cares -increase with every additional servant. Two keep the peace with each -other and their employer; three begin a possible discord, which -possibility increases with four, and becomes certain with five or six. -Trained housekeepers, such as regulate the complicated establishments of -the Old World, form a class that are not, and from the nature of the -case never will be, found in any great numbers in this country. All such -women, as a general thing, are keeping, and prefer to keep, houses of -their own. - -A moderate style of housekeeping, small, compact, and simple domestic -establishments, must necessarily be the general order of life in -America. So many openings of profit are to be found in this country, -that domestic service necessarily wants the permanence which forms so -agreeable a feature of it in the Old World. - -This being the case, it should be an object in America to exclude from -the labors of the family all that can, with greater advantage, be -executed out of it by combined labor. - -Formerly, in New England, soap and candles were to be made in each -separate family; now, comparatively few take this toil upon them. We buy -soap of the soap-maker, and candles of the candle-factor. This principle -might be extended much further. In France no family makes its own bread, -and better bread cannot be eaten than what can be bought at the -appropriate shops. No family does its own washing, the family’s linen is -all sent to women who, making this their sole profession, get it up with -a care and nicety which can seldom be equalled in any family. - -How would it simplify the burdens of the American housekeeper to have -washing and ironing day expunged from her calendar! How much more neatly -and compactly could the whole domestic system be arranged! If all the -money that each separate family spends on the outfit and accommodations -for washing and ironing, on fuel, soap, starch, and the other et -ceteras, were united in a fund to create a laundry for every dozen -families, one or two good women could do in first rate style what now is -very indifferently done by the disturbance and disarrangement of all -other domestic processes in these families. Whoever sets neighborhood -laundries on foot will do much to solve the American housekeeper’s -hardest problem. - -Finally, American women must not try with three servants to carry on -life in the style which in the Old World requires sixteen,—they must -thoroughly understand, and be prepared _to teach_, every branch of -housekeeping,—they must study to make domestic service desirable, by -treating their servants in a way to lead them to respect themselves and -to feel themselves respected,—and there will gradually be evolved from -the present confusion a solution of the domestic problem which shall be -adapted to the life of a new and growing world. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - X. - - COOKERY. - - -MY wife and I were sitting at the open bow-window of my study, watching -the tuft of bright red leaves on our favorite maple, which warned us -that summer was over. I was solacing myself, like all the world in our -days, with reading the “Schönberg Cotta Family,” when my wife made her -voice heard through the enchanted distance, and dispersed the pretty -vision of German cottage-life. - -“Chris!” - -“Well, my dear.” - -“Do you know the day of the month?” - -Now my wife knows this is a thing that I never do know, that I can’t -know, and, in fact, that there is no need I should trouble myself about, -since she always knows, and what is more, always tells me. In fact, the -question, when asked by her, meant more than met the ear. It was a -delicate way of admonishing me that another paper for the “Atlantic” -ought to be in train; and so I answered, not to the external form, but -to the internal intention. - -“Well, you see, my dear, I haven’t made up my mind what my next paper -shall be about.” - -“Suppose, then, you let me give you a subject.” - -“Sovereign lady, speak on! Your slave hears!” - -“Well, then, take _Cookery_. It may seem a vulgar subject, but I think -more of health and happiness depends on that than on any other one -thing. You may make houses enchantingly beautiful, hang them with -pictures, have them clean and airy and convenient; but if the stomach is -fed with sour bread and burnt coffee, it will raise such rebellions that -the eyes will see no beauty anywhere. Now in the little tour that you -and I have been taking this summer, I have been thinking of the great -abundance of splendid material we have in America, compared with the -poor cooking. How often, in our stoppings, we have sat down to tables -loaded with material, originally of the very best kind, which had been -so spoiled in the treatment that there was really nothing to eat! Green -biscuits with acrid spots of alkali,—sour yeast-bread,—meat slowly -simmered in fat till it seemed like grease itself; and slowly congealing -in cold grease,—and above all, that unpardonable enormity, strong -butter! How often I have longed to show people what might have been done -with the raw material out of which all these monstrosities were -concocted!” - -“My dear,” said I, “you are driving me upon delicate ground. Would you -have your husband appear in public with that most opprobrious badge of -the domestic furies, a dishcloth pinned to his coat-tail? It is coming -to exactly the point I have always predicted, Mrs. Crowfield: you must -write yourself. I always told you that you could write far better than -I, if you would only try. Only sit down and write as you sometimes talk -to me, and I might hang up my pen by the side of ‘Uncle Ned’s’ fiddle -and bow.” - -“O, nonsense!” said my wife. “I never could write. I know what ought to -be said, and I could _say_ it to any one; but my ideas freeze in the -pen, cramp in my fingers, and make my brain seem like heavy bread. I was -born for extemporary speaking. Besides, I think the best things on all -subjects in this world of ours are said, not by the practical workers, -but by the careful observers.” - -“Mrs. Crowfield, that remark is as good as if I had made it myself,” -said I. “It is true that I have been all my life a speculator and -observer in all domestic matters, having them so confidentially under my -eye in our own household; and so, if I write on a pure woman’s matter, -it must be understood that I am only your pen and mouth-piece,—only -giving tangible form to wisdom which I have derived from you.” - -So down I sat and scribbled, while my sovereign lady quietly stitched by -my side. And here I tell my reader that I write on such a subject under -protest,—declaring again my conviction, that, if my wife only believed -in herself as firmly as I do, she would write so that nobody would ever -want to listen to me again. - - - COOKERY. - -We in America have the raw material of provision in greater abundance -than any other nation. There is no country where an ample, -well-furnished table is more easily spread, and for that reason, -perhaps, none where the bounties of Providence are more generally -neglected. I do not mean to say that the traveller through the length -and breadth of our land could not, on the whole, find an average of -comfortable subsistence; yet, considering that our resources are greater -than those of any other civilized people, our results are comparatively -poorer. - -It is said, that, a list of the summer vegetables which are exhibited on -New York hotel-tables being shown to a French _artiste_, he declared -that to serve such a dinner properly would take till midnight. I -recollect how I was once struck with our national plenteousness, on -returning from a Continental tour, and going directly from the ship to a -New York hotel, in the bounteous season of autumn. For months I had been -habituated to my neat little bits of chop or poultry garnished with the -inevitable cauliflower or potato, which seemed to be the sole -possibility after the reign of green-peas was over; now I sat down all -at once to a carnival of vegetables: ripe, juicy tomatoes, raw or -cooked; cucumbers in brittle slices; rich, yellow sweet-potatoes; broad -Lima-beans, and beans of other and various names; tempting ears of -Indian-corn steaming in enormous piles, and great smoking tureens of the -savory succotash, an Indian gift to the table for which civilization -need not blush; sliced egg-plant in delicate fritters; and -marrow-squashes, of creamy pulp and sweetness: a rich variety, -embarrassing to the appetite, and perplexing to the choice. Verily, the -thought has often impressed itself on my mind that the vegetarian -doctrine preached in America left a man quite as much as he had capacity -to eat or enjoy, and that in the midst of such tantalizing abundance he -really lost the apology which elsewhere bears him out in preying upon -his less gifted and accomplished animal neighbors. - -But with all this, the American table, taken as a whole, is inferior to -that of England or France. It presents a fine abundance of material, -carelessly and poorly treated. The management of food is nowhere in the -world, perhaps, more slovenly and wasteful. Everything betokens that -want of care that waits on abundance; there are great capabilities and -poor execution. A tourist through England can seldom fail, at the -quietest country-inn, of finding himself served with the essentials of -English table-comfort,—his mutton-chop done to a turn, his steaming -little private apparatus for concocting his own tea, his choice pot of -marmalade or slice of cold ham, and his delicate rolls and creamy -butter, all served with care and neatness. In France, one never asks in -vain for delicious _café-au-lait_, good bread and butter, a nice omelet, -or some savory little portion of meat with a French name. But to a -tourist taking like chance in American country-fare, what is the -prospect? What is the coffee? what the tea? and the meat? and above all, -the butter? - -In lecturing on cookery, as on house-building, I divide the subject into -not four, but five, grand elements: first, Bread; second, Butter; third, -Meat; fourth, Vegetables; and fifth, Tea,—by which I mean, generically, -all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served out in teacups, whether -they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or what-not. - -I affirm, that, if these five departments are all perfect, the great -ends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort and -well-being of life are concerned. I am aware that there exists another -department, which is often regarded by culinary amateurs and young -aspirants as the higher branch and very collegiate course of practical -cookery; to wit, Confectionery, by which I mean to designate all -pleasing and complicated compounds of sweets and spices, devised not for -health and nourishment, and strongly suspected of interfering with -both,—mere tolerated gratifications of the palate, which we eat, not -with the expectation of being benefited, but only with the hope of not -being injured by them. In this large department rank all sort of cakes, -pies, preserves, ices, etc. I shall have a word or two to say under this -head before I have done. I only remark now, that in my tours about the -country I have often had a virulent ill-will excited towards these works -of culinary supererogation, because I thought their excellence was -attained by treading under foot and disregarding the five grand -essentials. I have sat at many a table garnished with three or four -kinds of well-made cake, compounded with citron and spices and all -imaginable good things, where the meat was tough and greasy, the bread -some hot preparation of flour, lard, saleratus, and acid, and the butter -unutterably detestable. At such tables I have thought, that, if the -mistress of the feast had given the care, time, and labor to preparing -the simple items of bread, butter, and meat, that she evidently had -given to the preparation of these extras, the lot of a traveller might -be much more comfortable. Evidently, she never had thought of these -common articles as constituting a good table. So long as she had puff -pastry, rich black cake, clear jelly, and preserves, she seemed to -consider that such unimportant matters as bread, butter, and meat could -take care of themselves. It is the same inattention to common things as -that which leads people to build houses with stone fronts and -window-caps and expensive front-door trimmings, without bathing-rooms or -fireplaces or ventilators. - -Those who go into the country looking for summer board in farm-houses -know perfectly well that a table where the butter is always fresh, the -tea and coffee of the best kinds and well made, and the meats properly -kept, dressed, and served, is the one table of a hundred, the fabulous -enchanted island. It seems impossible to get the idea into the minds of -people that what is called common food, carefully prepared, becomes, in -virtue of that very care and attention, a delicacy, superseding the -necessity of artificially compounded dainties. - -To begin, then, with the very foundation of a good table,—_Bread_: What -ought it to be? It should be light, sweet, and tender. - -This matter of lightness is the distinctive line between savage and -civilized bread. The savage mixes simple flour and water into balls of -paste, which he throws into boiling water, and which come out solid, -glutinous masses, of which his common saying is, “Man eat dis, he no -die,”—which a facetious traveller who was obliged to subsist on it -interpreted to mean, “Dis no kill you, nothing will.” In short, it -requires the stomach of a wild animal or of a savage to digest this -primitive form of bread, and of course more or less attention in all -civilized modes of bread-making is given to producing lightness. By -lightness is meant simply that the particles are to be separated from -each other by little holes or air-cells; and all the different methods -of making light bread are neither more nor less than the formation in -bread of these air-cells. - -So far as we know, there are four practicable methods of aerating bread; -namely, by fermentation,—by effervescence of an acid and an alkali,—by -aerated egg, or egg which has been filled with air by the process of -beating,—and lastly, by pressure of some gaseous substance into the -paste, by a process much resembling the impregnation of water in a -soda-fountain. All these have one and the same object,—to give us the -cooked particles of our flour separated by such permanent air-cells as -will enable the stomach more readily to digest them. - -A very common mode of aerating bread, in America, is by the -effervescence of an acid and an alkali in the flour. The carbonic acid -gas thus formed produces minute air-cells in the bread, or, as the cook -says, makes it light. When this process is performed with exact -attention to chemical laws, so that the acid and alkali completely -neutralize each other, leaving no overplus of either, the result is -often very palatable. The difficulty is, that this is a happy -conjunction of circumstances which seldom occurs. The acid most commonly -employed is that of sour milk, and, as milk has many degrees of -sourness, the rule of a certain quantity of alkali to the pint must -necessarily produce very different results at different times. As an -actual fact, where this mode of making bread prevails, as we lament to -say it does to a great extent in this country, one finds five cases of -failure to one of success. It is a woful thing that the daughters of New -England have abandoned the old respectable mode of yeast-brewing and -bread-raising for this specious substitute, so easily made, and so -seldom well made. The green, clammy, acrid substance, called biscuit, -which many of our worthy republicans are obliged to eat in these days, -is wholly unworthy of the men and women of the Republic. Good patriots -ought not to be put off in that way,—they deserve better fare. - -As an occasional variety, as a household convenience for obtaining bread -or biscuit at a moment’s notice, the process of effervescence may be -retained; but we earnestly entreat American housekeepers, in Scriptural -language, to stand in the way and ask for the old paths, and return to -the good yeast-bread of their sainted grandmothers. - -If acid and alkali must be used, by all means let them be mixed in due -proportions. No cook should be left to guess and judge for herself about -this matter. There is an article, called “Preston’s Infallible -Yeast-Powder,” which is made by chemical rule, and produces very perfect -results. The use of this obviates the worst dangers in making bread by -effervescence. - -Of all processes of aeration in bread-making, the oldest and most -time-honored is by fermentation. That this was known in the days of our -Saviour is evident from the forcible simile in which he compares the -silent permeating force of truth in human society to the very familiar -household process of raising bread by a little yeast. - -There is, however, one species of yeast, much used in some parts of the -country, against which I have to enter my protest. It is called -salt-risings, or milk-risings, and is made by mixing flour, milk, and a -little salt together, and leaving them to ferment. The bread thus -produced is often very attractive, when new and made with great care. It -is white and delicate, with fine, even air-cells. It has, however, when -kept, some characteristics which remind us of the terms in which our -old-English Bible describes the effect of keeping the manna of the -ancient Israelites, which we are informed, in words more explicit than -agreeable, “stank, and bred worms.” If salt-rising bread does not fulfil -the whole of this unpleasant description, it certainly does emphatically -a part of it. The smell which it has in baking, and when more than a day -old, suggests the inquiry, whether it is the saccharine or the putrid -fermentation with which it is raised. Whoever breaks a piece of it after -a day or two will often see minute filaments or clammy strings drawing -out from the fragments, which, with the unmistakable smell, will cause -him to pause before consummating a nearer acquaintance. - -The fermentation of flour by means of brewer’s or distiller’s yeast -produces, if rightly managed, results far more palatable and wholesome. -The only requisites for success in it are, first, good materials, and, -second, great care in a few small things. There are certain low-priced -or damaged kinds of flour which can never by any kind of domestic -chemistry be made into good bread; and to those persons whose stomachs -forbid them to eat gummy, glutinous paste, under the name of bread, -there is no economy in buying these poor brands, even at half the price -of good flour. - -But good flour and good yeast being supposed, with a temperature -favorable to the development of fermentation, the whole success of the -process depends on the thorough diffusion of the proper proportion of -yeast through the whole mass, and on stopping the subsequent -fermentation at the precise and fortunate point. The true housewife -makes her bread the sovereign of her kitchen,—its behests must be -attended to in all critical points and moments, no matter what else be -postponed. She who attends to her bread when she has done this, and -arranged that, and performed the other, very often finds that the forces -of nature will not wait for her. The snowy mass, perfectly mixed, -kneaded with care and strength, rises in its beautiful perfection till -the moment comes for fixing the air-cells by baking. A few minutes now, -and the acetous fermentation will begin, and the whole result be -spoiled. Many bread-makers pass in utter carelessness over this sacred -and mysterious boundary. Their oven has cake in it, or they are skimming -jelly, or attending to some other of the so-called higher branches of -cookery, while the bread is quickly passing into the acetous stage. At -last, when they are ready to attend to it, they find that it has been -going its own way,—it is so sour that the pungent smell is plainly -perceptible. Now the saleratus-bottle is handed down, and a quantity of -the dissolved alkali mixed with the paste,—an expedient sometimes making -itself too manifest by greenish streaks or small acrid spots in the -bread. As the result, we have a beautiful article spoiled,—bread without -sweetness, if not absolutely sour. - -In the view of many, lightness is the only property required in this -article. The delicate, refined sweetness which exists in carefully -kneaded bread, baked just before it passes to the extreme point of -fermentation, is something of which they have no conception; and thus -they will even regard this process of spoiling the paste by the acetous -fermentation, and then rectifying that acid by effervescence with an -alkali, as something positively meritorious. How else can they value and -relish bakers’ loaves, such as some are, drugged with ammonia and other -disagreeable things, light indeed, so light that they seem to have -neither weight nor substance, but with no more sweetness or taste than -so much white cotton? - -Some persons prepare bread for the oven by simply mixing it in the mass, -without kneading, pouring it into pans, and suffering it to rise there. -The air-cells in bread thus prepared are coarse and uneven; the bread is -as inferior in delicacy and nicety to that which is well kneaded as a -raw Irish servant to a perfectly educated and refined lady. The process -of kneading seems to impart an evenness to the minute air-cells, a -fineness of texture, and a tenderness and pliability to the whole -substance, that can be gained in no other way. - -The divine principle of beauty has its reign over bread as well as over -all other things; it has its laws of æsthetics; and that bread which is -so prepared that it can be formed into separate and well-proportioned -loaves, each one carefully worked and moulded, will develop the most -beautiful results. After being moulded, the loaves should stand a little -while, just long enough to allow the fermentation going on in them to -expand each little air-cell to the point at which it stood before it was -worked down, and then they should be immediately put into the oven. - -Many a good thing, however, is spoiled in the oven. We cannot but -regret, for the sake of bread, that our old steady brick ovens have been -almost universally superseded by those of ranges and cooking-stoves, -which are infinite in their caprices, and forbid all general rules. One -thing, however, may be borne in mind as a principle,—that the excellence -of bread in all its varieties, plain or sweetened, depends on the -perfection of its air-cells, whether produced by yeast, egg, or -effervescence; that one of the objects of baking is to fix these -air-cells, and that the quicker this can be done through the whole mass, -the better will the result be. When cake or bread is made heavy by -baking too quickly, it is because the immediate formation of the top -crust hinders the exhaling of the moisture in the centre, and prevents -the air-cells from cooking. The weight also of the crust pressing down -on the doughy air-cells below destroys them, producing that horror of -good cooks, a heavy streak. The problem in baking, then, is the quick -application of heat rather below than above the loaf, and its steady -continuance till all the air-cells are thoroughly dried into permanent -consistency. Every housewife must watch her own oven to know how this -can be best accomplished. - -Bread-making can be cultivated to any extent as a fine art,—and the -various kinds of biscuit, tea-rusks, twists, rolls, into which bread may -be made, are much better worth a housekeeper’s ambition than the -getting-up of rich and expensive cake or confections. There are also -varieties of material which are rich in good effects. Unbolted flour, -altogether more wholesome than the fine wheat, and when properly -prepared more palatable,—rye-flour and corn-meal, each affording a -thousand attractive possibilities,—each and all of these come under the -general laws of bread-stuffs, and are worth a careful attention. - -A peculiarity of our American table, particularly in the Southern and -Western States, is the constant exhibition of various preparations of -hot bread. In many families of the South and West, bread in loaves to be -eaten cold is an article quite unknown. The effect of this kind of diet -upon the health has formed a frequent subject of remark among -travellers; but only those know the full mischiefs of it who have been -compelled to sojourn for a length of time in families where it is -maintained. The unknown horrors of dyspepsia from bad bread are a topic -over which we willingly draw a veil. - - * * * * * - -Next to Bread comes _Butter_,—on which we have to say, that, when we -remember what butter is in civilized Europe, and compare it with what it -is in America, we wonder at the forbearance and lenity of travellers in -their strictures on our national commissariat. - -Butter, in England, France, and Italy, is simply solidified cream, with -all the sweetness of the cream in its taste, freshly churned each day, -and unadulterated by salt. At the present moment, when salt is five -cents a pound and butter fifty, we Americans are paying, I should judge -from the taste, for about one pound of salt to every ten of butter, and -those of us who have eaten the butter of France and England do this with -rueful recollections. - -There is, it is true, an article of butter made in the American style -with salt, which, in its own kind and way, has a merit not inferior to -that of England and France. Many prefer it, and it certainly takes a -rank equally respectable with the other. It is yellow, hard, and worked -so perfectly free from every particle of buttermilk that it might make -the voyage of the world without spoiling. It is salted, but salted with -care and delicacy, so that it may be a question whether even a -fastidious Englishman might not prefer its golden solidity to the white, -creamy freshness of his own. Now I am not for universal imitation of -foreign customs, and where I find this butter made perfectly, I call it -our American style, and am not ashamed of it. I only regret that this -article is the exception, and not the rule, on our tables. When I -reflect on the possibilities which beset the delicate stomach in this -line, I do not wonder that my venerated friend Dr. Mussey used to close -his counsels to invalids with the direction, “And don’t eat grease on -your bread.” - -America must, I think, have the credit of manufacturing and putting into -market more bad butter than all that is made in all the rest of the -world together. The varieties of bad tastes and smells which prevail in -it are quite a study. This has a cheesy taste, that a mouldy,—this is -flavored with cabbage, and that again with turnip, and another has the -strong sharp savor of rancid animal fat. These varieties, I presume, -come from the practice of churning only at long intervals, and keeping -the cream meanwhile in unventilated cellars or dairies, the air of which -is loaded with the effluvia of vegetable substances. No domestic -articles are so sympathetic as those of the milk tribe: they readily -take on the smell and taste of any neighboring substance, and hence the -infinite variety of flavors on which one mournfully muses who has late -in autumn to taste twenty firkins of butter in hopes of finding one -which will simply not be intolerable on his winter table. - -A matter for despair as regards bad butter is that at the tables where -it is used it stands sentinel at the door to bar your way to every other -kind of food. You turn from your dreadful half-slice of bread, which -fills your mouth with bitterness, to your beefsteak, which proves -virulent with the same poison; you think to take refuge in vegetable -diet, and find the butter in the string-beans, and polluting the -innocence of early peas,—it is in the corn, in the succotash, in the -squash,—the beets swim in it, the onions have it poured over them. -Hungry and miserable, you think to solace yourself at the dessert,—but -the pastry is cursed, the cake is acrid with the same plague. You are -ready to howl with despair, and your misery is great upon -you,—especially if this is a table where you have taken board for three -months with your delicate wife and four small children. Your case is -dreadful,—and it is hopeless, because long usage and habit have rendered -your host perfectly incapable of discovering what is the matter. “Don’t -like the butter, Sir? I assure you I paid an extra price for it, and -it’s the very best in the market. I looked over as many as a hundred -tubs, and picked out this one.” You are dumb, but not less despairing. - -Yet the process of making good butter is a very simple one. To keep the -cream in a perfectly pure, cool atmosphere, to churn while it is yet -sweet, to work out the buttermilk thoroughly, and to add salt with such -discretion as not to ruin the fine, delicate flavor of the fresh -cream,—all this is quite simple, so simple that one wonders at thousands -and millions of pounds of butter yearly manufactured which are merely a -hobgoblin-bewitchment of cream into foul and loathsome poisons. - - * * * * * - -The third head of my discourse is that of _Meat_, of which America -furnishes, in the gross material, enough to spread our tables royally, -were it well cared for and served. - -The faults in the meat generally furnished to us are, first, that it is -too new. A beefsteak, which three or four days of keeping might render -practicable, is served up to us palpitating with freshness, with all the -toughness of animal muscle yet warm. In the Western country, the -traveller, on approaching an hotel is often saluted by the last shrieks -of the chickens which half an hour afterward are presented to him _à la_ -spread-eagle for his dinner. The example of the Father of the Faithful, -most wholesome to be followed in so many respects, is imitated only in -the celerity with which the young calf, tender and good, was transformed -into an edible dish for hospitable purposes. But what might be good -housekeeping in a nomadic Emir, in days when refrigerators were yet in -the future, ought not to be so closely imitated as it often is in our -own land. - -In the next place, there is a woful lack of nicety in the butcher’s work -of cutting and preparing meat. Who that remembers the neatly trimmed -mutton-chop of an English inn, or the artistic little circle of -lamb-chop fried in bread-crumbs coiled around a tempting centre of -spinach which can always be found in France, can recognize any -family-resemblance to these dapper civilized preparations in those -coarse, roughly hacked strips of bone, gristle, and meat which are -commonly called mutton-chop in America? There seems to be a large dish -of something resembling meat, in which each fragment has about two or -three edible morsels, the rest being composed of dry and burnt skin, -fat, and ragged bone. - -Is it not time that civilization should learn to demand somewhat more -care and nicety in the modes of preparing what is to be cooked and -eaten? Might not some of the refinement and trimness which characterize -the preparations of the European market be with advantage introduced -into our own? The housekeeper who wishes to garnish her table with some -of those nice things is stopped in the outset by the butcher. Except in -our large cities, where some foreign travel may have created the demand, -it seems impossible to get much in this line that is properly prepared. - -I am aware, that, if this is urged on the score of æsthetics, the ready -reply will be, “O, we can’t give time here in America to go into -niceties and French whim-whams!” But the French mode of doing almost all -practical things is based on that true philosophy and utilitarian good -sense which characterize that seemingly thoughtless people. Nowhere is -economy a more careful study, and their market is artistically arranged -to this end. The rule is so to cut their meats that no portion designed -to be cooked in a certain manner shall have wasteful appendages which -that mode of cooking will spoil. The French soup-kettle stands ever -ready to receive the bones, the thin fibrous flaps, the sinewy and -gristly portions, which are so often included in our roasts or -broilings, which fill our plates with unsightly _débris_, and finally -make an amount of blank waste for which we pay our butcher the same -price that we pay for what we have eaten. - -The dead waste of our clumsy, coarse way of cutting meats is immense. -For example, at the beginning of the present season, the part of a lamb -denominated leg and loin, or hind-quarter, sold for thirty cents a -pound. Now this includes, besides the thick, fleshy portions, a quantity -of bone, sinew, and thin fibrous substance, constituting full one third -of the whole weight. If we put it into the oven entire, in the usual -manner, we have the thin parts overdone, and the skinny and fibrous -parts utterly dried up, by the application of the amount of heat -necessary to cook the thick portion. Supposing the joint to weigh six -pounds, at thirty cents, and that one third of the weight is so treated -as to become perfectly useless, we throw away sixty cents. Of a piece of -beef at twenty-five cents a pound, fifty cents’ worth is often lost in -bone, fat, and burnt skin. - -The fact is, this way of selling and cooking meat in large, gross -portions is of English origin, and belongs to a country where all the -customs of society spring from a class who have no particular occasion -for economy. The practice of minute and delicate division comes from a -nation which acknowledges the need of economy, and has made it a study. -A quarter of lamb in this mode of division would be sold in three nicely -prepared portions. The thick part would be sold by itself, for a neat, -compact little roast; the rib-bones would be artistically separated, and -all the edible matters scraped away would form those delicate dishes of -lamb-chop, which, fried in bread-crumbs to a golden brown, are so -ornamental and so palatable a side-dish; the trimmings which remain -after this division would be destined to the soup-kettle or stew-pan. In -a French market is a little portion for every purse, and the far-famed -and delicately flavored soups and stews which have arisen out of French -economy are a study worth a housekeeper’s attention. Not one atom of -food is wasted in the French modes of preparation; even tough animal -cartilages and sinews, instead of appearing burned and blackened in -company with the roast meat to which they happen to be related, are -treated according to their own laws, and come out either in savory -soups, or those fine, clear meat-jellies which form a garnish no less -agreeable to the eye than palatable to the taste. - -Whether this careful, economical, practical style of meat-cooking can -ever to any great extent be introduced into our kitchens now is a -question. Our butchers are against it; our servants are wedded to the -old wholesale wasteful ways, which seem to them easier because they are -accustomed to them. A cook who will keep and properly tend a soup-kettle -which shall receive and utilize all that the coarse preparations of the -butcher would require her to trim away, who understands the art of -making the most of all these remains, is a treasure scarcely to be hoped -for. If such things are to be done, it must be primarily through the -educated brain of cultivated women who do not scorn to turn their -culture and refinement upon domestic problems. - -When meats have been properly divided, so that each portion can receive -its own appropriate style of treatment, next comes the consideration of -the modes of cooking. These may be divided into two great general -classes: those where it is desired to keep the juices within the meat, -as in baking, broiling, and frying,—and those whose object is to -extract the juice and dissolve the fibre, as in the making of soups and -stews. In the first class of operations, the process must be as rapid as -may consist with the thorough cooking of all the particles. In this -branch of cookery, doing quickly is doing well. The fire must be brisk, -the attention alert. The introduction of cooking-stoves offers to -careless domestics facilities for gradually drying-up meats, and -despoiling them of all flavor and nutriment,—facilities which appear to -be very generally laid hold of. They have almost banished the genuine, -old-fashioned roast-meat from our tables, and left in its stead dried -meats with their most precious and nutritive juices evaporated. How few -cooks, unassisted, are competent to the simple process of broiling a -beefsteak or mutton-chop! how very generally one has to choose between -these meats gradually dried away, or burned on the outside and raw -within! Yet in England these articles _never_ come on table done amiss; -their perfect cooking is as absolute a certainty as the rising of the -sun. - -No one of these rapid processes of cooking, however, is so generally -abused as frying. The frying-pan has awful sins to answer for. What -untold horrors of dyspepsia have arisen from its smoky depths, like the -ghosts from witches’ caldrons! The fizzle, of frying meat is as a -warning knell on many an ear, saying, “Touch not, taste not, if you -would not burn and writhe!” - -Yet those who have travelled abroad remember that some of the lightest, -most palatable, and most digestible preparations of meat have come from -this dangerous source. But we fancy quite other rites and ceremonies -inaugurated the process, and quite other hands performed its offices, -than those known to our kitchens. Probably the delicate _côtelettes_ of -France are not flopped down into half-melted grease, there gradually to -warm and soak and fizzle, while Biddy goes in and out on her other -ministrations, till finally, when thoroughly saturated, and dinner-hour -impends, she bethinks herself, and crowds the fire below to a roaring -heat, and finishes the process by a smart burn, involving the kitchen -and surrounding precincts in volumes of Stygian gloom. - -From such preparations has arisen the very current medical opinion that -fried meats are indigestible. They are indigestible, if they are greasy; -but French cooks have taught us that a thing has no more need to be -greasy because emerging from grease than Venus had to be salt because -she rose from the sea. - -There are two ways of frying employed by the French cook. One is, to -immerse the article to be cooked in _boiling_ fat, with an emphasis on -the present participle,—and the philosophical principle is, so -immediately to crisp every pore, at the first moment or two of -immersion, as effectually to seal the interior against the intrusion of -greasy particles; it can then remain as long as may be necessary -thoroughly to cook it, without imbibing any more of the boiling fluid -than if it were inclosed in an egg-shell. The other method is to rub a -perfectly smooth iron surface with just enough of some oily substance to -prevent the meat from adhering, and cook it with a quick heat, as cakes -are baked on a griddle. In both these cases there must be the most rapid -application of heat that can be made without burning, and by the -adroitness shown in working out this problem the skill of the cook is -tested. Any one whose cook attains this important secret will find fried -things quite as digestible and often more palatable than any other. - -In the second department of meat-cookery, to wit, the slow and gradual -application of heat for the softening and dissolution of its fibre and -the extraction of its juices, common cooks are equally untrained. Where -is the so-called cook who understands how to prepare soups and stews? -These are precisely the articles in which a French kitchen excels. The -soup-kettle, made with a double bottom, to prevent burning, is a -permanent, ever-present institution, and the coarsest and most -impracticable meats distilled through that alembic come out again in -soups, jellies, or savory stews. The toughest cartilage, even the bones, -being first cracked, are here made to give forth their hidden virtues, -and to rise in delicate and appetizing forms. One great law governs all -these preparations: the application of heat must be gradual, steady, -long protracted, never reaching the point of active boiling. Hours of -quiet simmering dissolve all dissoluble parts, soften the sternest -fibre, and unlock every minute cell in which Nature has stored away her -treasures of nourishment. This careful and protracted application of -heat and the skilful use of flavors constitute the two main points in -all those nice preparations of meat for which the French have so many -names,—processes by which a delicacy can be imparted to the coarsest and -cheapest food superior to that of the finest articles under less -philosophic treatment. - -French soups and stews are a study,—and they would not be an -unprofitable one to any person who wishes to live with comfort and even -elegance on small means. - -John Bull looks down from the sublime of ten thousand a year on French -kickshaws, as he calls them:—“Give me my meat cooked so I may know what -it is!” An ox roasted whole is dear to John’s soul, and his -kitchen-arrangements are Titanic. What magnificent rounds and sirloins -of beef, revolving on self-regulating spits, with a rich click of -satisfaction, before grates piled with roaring fires! Let us do justice -to the royal cheer. Nowhere are the charms of pure, unadulterated animal -food set forth in more imposing style. For John is rich, and what does -he care for odds and ends and parings? Has he not all the beasts of the -forest, and the cattle on a thousand hills? What does he want of -economy? But his brother Jean has not ten thousand pounds a -year,—nothing like it; but he makes up for the slenderness of his purse -by boundless fertility of invention and delicacy of practice. John began -sneering at Jean’s soups and ragouts, but all John’s modern sons and -daughters send to Jean for their cooks, and the sirloins of England rise -up and do obeisance to this Joseph with a white apron who comes to rule -in their kitchens. - -There is no animal fibre that will not yield itself up to -long-continued, steady heat. But the difficulty with almost any of the -common servants who call themselves cooks is, that they have not the -smallest notion of the philosophy of the application of heat. Such a one -will complacently tell you concerning certain meats, that the harder you -boil them the harder they grow,—an obvious fact, which, under her mode -of treatment, by an indiscriminate galloping boil, has frequently come -under her personal observation. If you tell her that such meat must -stand for six hours in a heat just below the boiling-point, she will -probably answer, “Yes, Ma’am,” and go on her own way. Or she will let it -stand till it burns to the bottom of the kettle,—a most common -termination of the experiment. The only way to make sure of the matter -is either to import a French kettle, or to fit into an ordinary kettle a -false bottom, such as any tinman may make, that shall leave a space of -an inch or two between the meat and the fire. This kettle may be -maintained as a constant _habitué_ of the range, and into it the cook -may be instructed to throw all the fibrous trimmings of meat, all the -gristle, tendons, and bones, having previously broken up these last with -a mallet. - -Such a kettle will furnish the basis for clear, rich soups or other -palatable dishes. Clear soup consists of the dissolved juices of the -meat and gelatine of the bones, cleared from the fat and fibrous -portions by straining when cold. The grease, which rises to the top of -the fluid, may thus be easily removed. In a stew, on the contrary, you -boil down this soup till it permeates the fibre which long exposure to -heat has softened. All that remains, after the proper preparation of the -fibre and juices, is the flavoring, and it is in this, particularly, -that French soups excel those of America and England and all the world. - -English and American soups are often heavy and hot with spices. There -are appreciable tastes in them. They burn your mouth with cayenne or -clove or allspice. You can tell at once what is in them, oftentimes to -your sorrow. But a French soup has a flavor which one recognizes at once -as delicious, yet not to be characterized as due to any single -condiment; it is the just blending of many things. The same remark -applies to all their stews, ragouts, and other delicate preparations. No -cook will ever study these flavors; but perhaps many cooks’ mistresses -may, and thus be able to impart delicacy and comfort to economy. - -As to those things called hashes, commonly manufactured by unwatched, -untaught cooks, out of the remains of yesterday’s repast, let us not -dwell too closely on their memory,—compounds of meat, gristle, skin, -fat, and burnt fibre, with a handful of pepper and salt flung at them, -dredged with lumpy flour, watered from the spout of the tea-kettle, and -left to simmer at the cook’s convenience while she is otherwise -occupied. Such are the best performances a housekeeper can hope for from -an untrained cook. - -But the cunningly devised minces, the artful preparations choicely -flavored, which may be made of yesterday’s repast,—by these is the true -domestic artist known. No cook untaught by an educated brain ever makes -these, and yet economy is a great gainer by them. - - * * * * * - -As regards the department of _Vegetables_, their number and variety in -America are so great that a table might almost be furnished by these -alone. Generally speaking, their cooking is a more simple art, and -therefore more likely to be found satisfactorily performed, than that of -meats. If only they are not drenched with rancid butter, their own -native excellence makes itself known in most of the ordinary modes of -preparation. - -There is, however, one exception. - -Our stanch old friend, the potato, is to other vegetables what bread is -on the table. Like bread, it is held as a sort of _sine-qua-non_; like -that, it may be made invariably palatable by a little care in a few -plain particulars, through neglect of which it often becomes -intolerable. The soggy, waxy, indigestible viand that often appears in -the potato-dish is a down-right sacrifice of the better nature of this -vegetable. - -The potato, nutritive and harmless as it appears, belongs to a family -suspected of very dangerous traits. It is a family-connection of the -deadly-nightshade and other ill-reputed gentry, and sometimes shows -strange proclivities to evil,—now breaking out uproariously, as in the -noted potato-rot, and now more covertly, in various evil affections. For -this reason scientific directors bid us beware of the water in which -potatoes are boiled,—into which, it appears, the evil principle is drawn -off; and they caution us not to shred them into stews without previously -suffering the slices to lie for an hour or so in salt and water. These -cautions are worth attention. - -The most usual modes of preparing the potato for the table are by -roasting or boiling. These processes are so simple that it is commonly -supposed every cook understands them without special directions; and yet -there is scarcely an uninstructed cook who can boil or roast a potato. - -A good roasted potato is a delicacy worth a dozen compositions of the -cook-book; yet when we ask for it, what burnt, shrivelled abortions are -presented to us! Biddy rushes to her potato-basket and pours out two -dozen of different sizes, some having in them three times the amount of -matter of others. These being washed, she tumbles them into her oven at -a leisure interval, and there lets them lie till it is time to serve -breakfast, whenever that may be. As a result, if the largest are cooked, -the smallest are presented in cinders, and the intermediate sizes are -withered and watery. Nothing is so utterly ruined by a few moments of -overdoing. That which at the right moment was plump with mealy richness, -a quarter of an hour later shrivels and becomes watery,—and it is in -this state that roast potatoes are most frequently served. - -In the same manner we have seen boiled potatoes from an untaught cook -coming upon the table like lumps of yellow wax,—and the same article, -the day after, under the directions of a skilful mistress, appearing in -snowy balls of powdery lightness. In the one case, they were thrown in -their skins into water and suffered to soak or boil, as the case might -be, at the cook’s leisure, and after they were boiled to stand in the -water till she was ready to peel them. In the other case, the potatoes -being first peeled were boiled as quickly as possible in salted water, -which the moment they were done was drained off, and then they were -gently shaken for a minute or two over the fire to dry them still more -thoroughly. We have never yet seen the potato so depraved and given over -to evil that could not be reclaimed by this mode of treatment. - -As to fried potatoes, who that remembers the crisp, golden slices of the -French restaurant, thin as wafers and light as snow-flakes, does not -speak respectfully of them? What cousinship with these have those -coarse, greasy masses of sliced potato, wholly soggy and partly burnt, -to which we are treated under the name of fried potatoes _à la_ America? -In our cities the restaurants are introducing the French article to -great acceptance, and to the vindication of the fair fame of this queen -of vegetables. - - * * * * * - -Finally, I arrive at the last great head of my subject, to wit, -TEA,—meaning thereby, as before observed, what our Hibernian friend did -in the inquiry, “Will y’r Honor take ‘tay tay’ or coffee tay?” - -I am not about to enter into the merits of the great tea-and-coffee -controversy, or say whether these substances are or are not wholesome. I -treat of them as actual existences, and speak only of the modes of -making the most of them. - -The French coffee is reputed the best in the world; and a thousand -voices have asked, What is it about the French coffee? - -In the first place, then, the French coffee is coffee, and not chiccory, -or rye, or beans, or peas. In the second place, it is freshly roasted, -whenever made,—roasted with great care and evenness in a little -revolving cylinder which makes part of the furniture of every kitchen, -and which keeps in the aroma of the berry. It is never overdone, so as -to destroy the coffee-flavor, which is in nine cases out of ten the -fault of the coffee we meet with. Then it is ground, and placed in a -coffee-pot with a filter, through which it percolates in clear drops, -the coffee-pot standing on a heated stove to maintain the temperature. -The nose of the coffee-pot is stopped up to prevent the escape of the -aroma during this process. The extract thus obtained is a perfectly -clear, dark fluid, known as _café noir_, or black coffee. It is black -only because of its strength, being in fact almost the very essential -oil of coffee. A table-spoonful of this in boiled milk would make what -is ordinarily called a strong cup of coffee. The boiled milk is prepared -with no less care. It must be fresh and new, not merely warmed or even -brought to the boiling-point, but slowly simmered till it attains a -thick, creamy richness. The coffee mixed with this, and sweetened with -that sparkling beet-root sugar which ornaments a French table, is the -celebrated _café-au-lait_, the name of which has gone round the world. - -As we look to France for the best coffee, so we must look to England for -the perfection of tea. The tea-kettle is as much an English institution -as aristocracy or the Prayer-Book; and when one wants to know exactly -how tea should be made, one has only to ask how a fine old English -housekeeper makes it. - -The first article of her faith is that the water must not merely be hot, -not merely _have boiled_ a few moments since, but be actually _boiling_ -at the moment it touches the tea. Hence, though servants in England are -vastly better trained than with us, this delicate mystery is seldom left -to their hands. Tea-making belongs to the drawing-room, and high-born -ladies preside at “the bubbling and loud-hissing urn,” and see that all -due rites and solemnities are properly performed,—that the cups are hot, -and that the infused tea waits the exact time before the libations -commence. O, ye dear old English tea-tables, resorts of the -kindest-hearted hospitality in the world! we still cherish your memory, -even though you do not say pleasant things of us there. One of these -days you will think better of us. Of late, the introduction of English -breakfast-tea has raised a new sect among the tea-drinkers, reversing -some of the old canons. Breakfast-tea must be boiled! Unlike the -delicate article of olden time, which required only a momentary infusion -to develop its richness, this requires a longer and severer treatment to -bring out its strength,—thus confusing all the established usages, and -throwing the work into the hands of the cook in the kitchen. - -The faults of tea, as too commonly found at our hotels and -boarding-houses, are that it is made in every way the reverse of what it -should be. The water is hot, perhaps but not boiling; the tea has a -general flat, stale, smoky taste, devoid of life or spirit; and it is -served, usually, with thin milk, instead of cream. Cream is as essential -to the richness of tea as of coffee. We could wish that the English -fashion might generally prevail, of giving the traveller his own kettle -of boiling water and his own tea-chest, and letting him make tea for -himself. At all events, he would then be sure of one merit in his -tea,—it would be hot, a very simple and obvious virtue, but one very -seldom obtained. - -Chocolate is a French and Spanish article, and one seldom served on -American tables. We, in America, however, make an article every way -equal to any which can be imported from Paris, and he who buys Baker’s -best vanilla-chocolate may rest assured that no foreign land can furnish -anything better. A very rich and delicious beverage may be made by -dissolving this in milk slowly boiled down after the French fashion. - - * * * * * - -I have now gone over all the ground I laid out, as comprising the great -first principles of cookery; and I would here modestly offer the opinion -that a table where all these principles are carefully observed would -need few dainties. The struggle after so-called delicacies comes from -the poorness of common things. Perfect bread and butter would soon drive -cake out of the field; it has done so in many families. Nevertheless, I -have a word to say under the head of _Confectionery_, meaning by this -the whole range of ornamental cookery,—or pastry, ices, jellies, -preserves, etc. The art of making all these very perfectly is far better -understood in America than the art of common cooking. - -There are more women who know how to make good cake than good -bread,—more who can furnish you with a good ice-cream than a well-cooked -mutton-chop; a fair charlotte-russe is easier to come by than a perfect -cup of coffee, and you shall find a sparkling jelly to your dessert -where you sighed in vain for so simple a luxury as a well-cooked potato. - -Our fair countrywomen might rest upon their laurels in these higher -fields, and turn their great energy and ingenuity to the study of -essentials. To do common things perfectly is far better worth our -endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably. We Americans in many -things as yet have been a little inclined to begin making our shirt at -the ruffle; but, nevertheless, when we set about it, we can make the -shirt as nicely as anybody,—it needs only that we turn our attention to -it, resolved, that, ruffle or no ruffle, the shirt we will have. - -I have also a few words to say as to the prevalent ideas in respect to -French cookery. Having heard much of it, with no very distinct idea what -it is, our people have somehow fallen into the notion that its forte -lies in high spicing,—and so, when our cooks put a great abundance of -clove, mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon into their preparations, they fancy -that they are growing up to be French cooks. But the fact is, that the -Americans and English are far more given to spicing than the French. -Spices in our made dishes are abundant, and their taste is strongly -pronounced. In living a year in France I forgot the taste of nutmeg, -clove, and allspice, which had met me in so many dishes in America. - -The thing may be briefly defined. The English and Americans deal in -_spices_, the French in _flavors_,—flavors many and subtile, imitating -often in their delicacy those subtile blendings which Nature produces in -high-flavored fruits. The recipes of our cookery-books are most of them -of English origin, coming down from the times of our phlegmatic -ancestors, when the solid, burly, beefy growth of the foggy island -required the heat of fiery condiments, and could digest heavy sweets. -Witness the national recipe for plum-pudding, which may be -rendered,—Take a pound of every indigestible substance you can think of, -boil into a cannon-ball, and serve in flaming brandy. So of the -Christmas mince-pie and many other national dishes. But in America, -owing to our brighter skies and more fervid climate, we have developed -an acute, nervous delicacy of temperament far more akin to that of -France than of England. - -Half of the recipes in our cook-books are mere murder to such -constitutions and stomachs as we grow here. We require to ponder these -things, and think how we in our climate and under our circumstances -ought to live, and in doing so, we may, without accusation of foreign -foppery, take some leaves from many foreign books. - - * * * * * - -But Christopher has prosed long enough. I must now read this to my wife, -and see what she says. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - XI. - - OUR HOUSE. - - -OUR gallant Bob Stephens, into whose life-boat our Marianne has been -received, has lately taken the mania of house-building into his head. -Bob is somewhat fastidious, difficult to please, fond of domesticities -and individualities; and such a man never can fit himself into a house -built by another, and accordingly house-building has always been his -favorite mental recreation. During all his courtship as much time was -taken up in planning a future house as if he had money to build one; and -all Marianne’s patterns, and the backs of half their letters, were -scrawled with ground-plans and elevations. But latterly this chronic -disposition has been quickened into an acute form by the falling-in of -some few thousands to their domestic treasury,—left as the sole residuum -of a painstaking old aunt, who took it into her head to make a will in -Bob’s favor, leaving, among other good things, a nice little bit of land -in a rural district half an hour’s railroad-ride from Boston. - -So now ground-plans thicken, and my wife is being consulted morning, -noon, and night; and I never come into the room without finding their -heads close together over a paper, and hearing Bob expatiate on his -favorite idea of a library. He appears to have got so far as this, that -the ceiling is to be of carved oak, with ribs running to a boss over -head, and finished mediævally with ultramarine blue and gilding,—and -then away he goes sketching Gothic patterns of book-shelves which -require only experienced carvers, and the wherewithal to pay them, to be -the divinest things in the world. - -Marianne is exercised about china-closets and pantries, and about a -bedroom on the ground-floor,—for, like all other women of our days, she -expects not to have strength enough to run up-stairs oftener than once -or twice a week; and my wife, who is a native genius in this line, and -has planned in her time dozens of houses for acquaintances, wherein they -are at this moment living happily, goes over every day with her pencil -and ruler the work of rearranging the plans, according as the ideas of -the young couple veer and vary. - -One day Bob is importuned to give two feet off from his library for a -closet in the bedroom,—but resists like a Trojan. The next morning, -being mollified by private domestic supplications, Bob yields, and my -wife rubs out the lines of yesterday, two feet come off the library, and -a closet is constructed. But now the parlor proves too narrow,—the -parlor-wall must be moved two feet into the hall. Bob declares this will -spoil the symmetry of the latter; and if there is anything he wants, it -is a wide, generous, ample hall to step into when you open the -front-door. - -“Well, then,” says Marianne, “let’s put two feet more into the width of -the house.” - -“Can’t on account of the expense, you see,” says Bob. “You see every -additional foot of outside wall necessitates so many more bricks, so -much more flooring, so much more roofing, etc.” - -And my wife, with thoughtful brow, looks over the plans, and considers -how two feet more are to be got into the parlor without moving any of -the walls. - -“I say,” says Bob, bending over her shoulder, “here, take your two feet -in the parlor, and put two more feet on to the other side of the -hall-stairs”; and he dashes heavily with his pencil. - -“O, Bob!” exclaims Marianne, “there are the kitchen-pantries! you ruin -them,—and no place for the cellar-stairs!” - -“Hang the pantries and cellar-stairs!” says Bob. “Mother must find a -place for them somewhere else. I say the house must be roomy and -cheerful, and pantries and those things may take care of themselves; -they can be put _somewhere_ well enough. No fear but you will find a -place for them somewhere. What do you women always want such a great -enormous kitchen for?” - -“It is not any larger than is necessary,” said my wife, thoughtfully; -“nothing is gained by taking off from it.” - -“What if you should put it all down into a basement,” suggests Bob, “and -so get it all out of sight together?” - -“Never if it can be helped,” said my wife. “Basement-kitchens are -necessary evils, only to be tolerated in cities where land is too dear -to afford any other.” - -So goes the discussion till the trio agree to sleep over it. The next -morning an inspiration visits my wife’s pillow. She is up and seizes -plans and paper, and before six o’clock has enlarged the parlor very -cleverly, by throwing out a bow-window. So waxes and wanes the -prospective house, innocently battered down and rebuilt with -India-rubber and black-lead. Doors are cut out to-night, and walled up -to-morrow; windows knocked out here and put in there, as some observer -suggests possibilities of too much or too little draught. Now all seems -finished, when, lo, a discovery! There is no fireplace nor stove-flue in -my lady’s bedroom, and can be none without moving the bathing-room. -Pencil and India-rubber are busy again, and for a while the whole house -seems to threaten to fall to pieces with the confusion of the moving; -the bath-room wanders like a ghost, now invading a closet, now -threatening the tranquillity of the parlor, till at last it is laid by -some unheard-of calculations of my wife’s, and sinks to rest in a place -so much better that every body wonders it never was thought of before. - -“Papa,” said Jenny, “it appears to me people don’t exactly know what -they want when they build; why don’t you write a paper on -house-building?” - -“I have thought of it,” said I, with the air of a man called to settle -some great reform. “It must be entirely because Christopher has not -written that our young people and mamma are tangling themselves daily in -webs which are untangled the next day.” - -“You see,” said Jenny, “they have only just so much money, and they want -everything they can think of under the sun. There’s Bob been studying -architectural antiquities, and nobody knows what, and sketching all -sorts of curly-whorlies; and Marianne has her notions about a parlor and -boudoir and china-closets and bedroom-closets; and Bob wants a baronial -hall; and mamma stands out for linen-closets and bathing-rooms and all -that; and so among them all it will just end in getting them head over -ears in debt.” - -The thing struck me as not improbable. - -“I don’t know, Jenny, whether my writing an article is going to prevent -all this; but as my time in the ‘Atlantic’ is coming round, I may as -well write on what I am obliged to think of, and so I will give a paper -on the subject to enliven our next evening’s session.” - -So that evening, when Bob and Marianne had dropped in as usual, and -while the customary work of drawing and rubbing-out was going on at Mrs. -Crowfield’s sofa, I produced my paper and read as follows:— - -OUR HOUSE. - -There is a place called “Our House,” which everybody knows of. The -sailor talks of it in his dreams at sea. The wounded soldier, turning in -his uneasy hospital-bed, brightens at the word; it is like the dropping -of cool water in the desert, like the touch of cool fingers on a burning -brow. “Our house,” he says feebly, and the light comes back into his dim -eyes,—for all homely charities, all fond thoughts, all purities, all -that man loves on earth or hopes for in heaven, rise with the word. - -“Our house” may be in any style of architecture, low or high. It may be -the brown old farm-house, with its tall well-sweep; or the one-story -gambrel-roofed cottage; or the large, square, white house, with green -blinds, under the wind-swung elms of a century; or it may be the -log-cabin of the wilderness, with its one room,—still there is a spell -in the memory of it beyond all conjurations. Its stone and brick and -mortar are like no other; its very clapboards and shingles are dear to -us, powerful to bring back the memories of early days, and all that is -sacred in home-love. - - * * * * * - -“Papa is getting quite sentimental,” whispered Jenny, loud enough for me -to hear. I shook my head at her impressively, and went on undaunted. - - * * * * * - -There is no one fact of our human existence that has a stronger -influence upon us than the house we dwell in,—especially that in which -our earlier and more impressible years are spent. The building and -arrangement of a house influence the health, the comfort, the morals, -the religion. There have been houses built so devoid of all -consideration for the occupants, so rambling and hap-hazard in the -disposal of rooms, so sunless and cheerless and wholly without snugness -or privacy, as to make it seem impossible to live a joyous, generous, -rational, religious family-life in them. - -There are, we shame to say, in our cities _things_ called houses, built -and rented by people who walk erect and have the general air and manner -of civilized and Christianized men, which are so inhuman in their -building that they can only be called snares and traps for souls,—places -where children cannot well escape growing up filthy and impure,—places -where to form a home is impossible, and to live a decent, Christian life -would require miraculous strength. - -A celebrated British philanthropist, who had devoted much study to the -dwellings of the poor, gave it as his opinion that temperance-societies -were a hopeless undertaking in London, unless these dwellings underwent -a transformation. They were so squalid, so dark, so comfortless, so -constantly pressing upon the senses foulness, pain, and inconvenience, -that it was only by being drugged with gin and opium that their -miserable inhabitants could find heart to drag on life from day to day. -He had himself tried the experiment of reforming a drunkard by taking -him from one of these loathsome dens, and enabling him to rent a -tenement in a block of model lodging-houses which had been built under -his supervision. The young man had been a designer of figures for -prints; he was of a delicate frame, and a nervous, susceptible -temperament. Shut in one miserable room with his wife and little -children, without the possibility of pure air, with only filthy, fetid -water to drink, with the noise of other miserable families resounding -through the thin partitions, what possibility was there of doing -anything except by the help of stimulants, which for a brief hour lifted -him above the perception of these miseries? Changed at once to a neat -flat, where, for the same rent as his former den, he had three good -rooms, with water for drinking, house-service, and bathing freely -supplied, and the blessed sunshine and air coming in through windows -well arranged for ventilation, he became in a few weeks a new man. In -the charms of the little spot which he could call home, its quiet, its -order, his former talent came back to him, and he found strength, in -pure air and pure water and those purer thoughts of which they are the -emblems, to abandon burning and stupefying stimulants. - -The influence of dwelling-houses for good or for evil—their influence on -the brain, the nerves, and, through these, on the heart and life—is one -of those things that cannot be enough pondered by those who build houses -to sell or rent. - -Something more generous ought to inspire a man than merely the -percentage which he can get for his money. He who would build houses -should think a little on the subject. He should reflect what houses are -for,—what they may be made to do for human beings. The great majority of -houses in cities are not built by the indwellers themselves,—they are -built _for_ them by those who invest their money in this way, with -little other thought than the percentage which the investment will -return. - -For persons of ample fortune there are, indeed, palatial residences, -with all that wealth can do to render life delightful. But in that class -of houses which must be the lot of the large majority, those which must -be chosen by young men in the beginning of life, when means are -comparatively restricted, there is yet wide room for thought and the -judicious application of money. - -In looking over houses to be rented by persons of moderate means, one -cannot help longing to build,—one sees so many ways in which the same -sum which built an inconvenient and unpleasant house might have been -made to build a delightful one. - - * * * * * - -“That’s so!” said Bob, with emphasis. “Don’t you remember, Marianne, how -many dismal, commonplace, shabby houses we trailed through?” - -“Yes,” said Marianne. “You remember those houses with such little -squeezed rooms and that flourishing staircase, with the colored-glass -china-closet window, and no butler’s sink?” - -“Yes,” said Bob; “and those astonishing, abominable stone abortions that -adorned the door-steps. People do lay out a deal of money to make houses -look ugly, it must be confessed.” - -“One would willingly,” said Marianne, “dispense with frightful stone -ornaments in front, and with heavy mouldings inside, which are of no -possible use or beauty, and with showy plaster cornices and -centre-pieces in the parlor-ceilings, and even with marble mantels, for -the luxury of hot and cold water in each chamber, and a couple of -comfortable bath-rooms. Then, the disposition of windows and doors is so -wholly without regard to convenience! How often we find rooms, meant for -bedrooms, where really there is no good place for either bed or -dressing-table!” - -Here my wife looked up, having just finished redrawing the plans to the -latest alteration. - -“One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these reforming days,” -she observed, “would be to have women architects. The mischief with -houses built to rent is that they are all mere male contrivances. No -woman would ever plan chambers where there is no earthly place to set a -bed except against a window or door, or waste the room in entries that -might be made into closets. I don’t see, for my part, _apropos_ to the -modern movement for opening new professions to the female sex, why there -should not be well-educated female architects. The planning and -arrangement of houses, and the laying-out of grounds, are a fair subject -of womanly knowledge and taste. It is the teaching of Nature. What would -anybody think of a bluebird’s nest that had been built entirely by Mr. -Blue, without the help of his wife?” - -“My dear,” said I, “you must positively send a paper on this subject to -the next Woman’s-Rights Convention.” - -“I am of Sojourner Truth’s opinion,” said my wife,—“that the best way to -prove the propriety of one’s doing anything is to go and _do it_. A -woman who should have energy to go through the preparatory studies and -set to work in this field would, I am sure, soon find employment.” - -“If she did as well as you would do, my dear,” said I. “There are plenty -of young women in our Boston high-schools who are going through higher -fields of mathematics than are required by the architect, and the -schools for design show the flexibility and fertility of the female -pencil. The thing appears to me altogether more feasible than many other -openings which have been suggested to woman.” - -“Well,” said Jenny, “isn’t papa ever to go on with his paper?” - - * * * * * - -I continued:— - -What ought “our house” to be? Could any other question be asked -admitting in its details of such varied answers,—answers various as the -means, the character, and situation of different individuals? But there -are great wants pertaining to every human being, into which all lesser -ones run. There are things in a house that every one, high or low, rich -or poor, ought, according to his means, to seek. I think I shall class -them according to the elemental division of the old philosophers,—Fire, -Air, Earth, and Water. These form the groundwork of this _need-be_,—the -_sine-qua-nons_ of a house. - - * * * * * - -“Fire, air, earth, and water! I don’t understand,” said Jenny. - -“Wait a little till you do, then,” said I. “I will try to make my -meaning plain.” - - * * * * * - -The first object of a house is shelter from the elements. This object is -effected by a tent or wigwam which keeps off rain and wind. The first -disadvantage of this shelter is, that the vital air which you take into -your lungs, and on the purity of which depends the purity of blood and -brain and nerve, is vitiated. In the wigwam or tent you are constantly -taking in poison, more or less active, with every inspiration. Napoleon -had his army sleep without tents. He stated, that from experience, he -found it more healthy, and wonderful have been the instances of delicate -persons gaining constantly in vigor from being obliged, in the midst of -hardships, to sleep constantly in the open air. Now the first problem in -house-building is to combine the advantage of shelter with the fresh -elasticity of out-door air. I am not going to give here a treatise on -ventilation, but merely to say, in general terms, that the first object -of a house-builder or contriver should be to make a healthy house; and -the first requisite of a healthy house is a pure, sweet, elastic air. - -I am in favor, therefore, of those plans of house-building which have -wide central spaces, whether halls or courts, into which all the rooms -open, and which necessarily preserve a body of fresh air for the use of -them all. In hot climates this is the object of the central court which -cuts into the body of the house, with its fountain and flowers, and its -galleries, into which the various apartments open. When people are -restricted for space, and cannot afford to give up wide central portions -of the house for the mere purposes of passage, this central hall can be -made a pleasant sitting-room. With tables, chairs, bookcases, and sofas -comfortably disposed, this ample central room above and below is, in -many respects, the most agreeable lounging-room of the house; while the -parlors below and the chambers above, opening upon it, form agreeable -withdrawing-rooms for purposes of greater privacy. - -It is customary with many persons to sleep with bedroom windows open,—a -very imperfect and often dangerous mode of procuring that supply of -fresh air which a sleeping-room requires. In a house constructed in the -manner indicated, windows might be freely left open in these central -halls, producing there a constant movement of air, and the doors of the -bedrooms placed ajar, when a very slight opening in the windows would -create a free circulation through the apartments. - -In the planning of a house, thought should be had as to the general -disposition of the windows, and the quarters from which favoring breezes -may be expected should be carefully considered. Windows should be so -arranged that draughts of air can be thrown quite through and across the -house. How often have we seen pale mothers and drooping babes fanning -and panting during some of our hot days on the sunny side of a house, -while the breeze that should have cooled them beat in vain against a -dead wall! One longs sometimes to knock holes through partitions, and -let in the air of heaven. - -No other gift of God, so precious, so inspiring, is treated with such -utter irreverence and contempt in the calculations of us mortals as this -same air of heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if one had a preacher who -understood the subject, might do more to repress sin than the most -orthodox discourse to show when and how and why sin came. A minister -gets up in a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air almost makes -the candles burn blue, and bewails the deadness of the church,—the -church the while, drugged by the poisoned air, growing sleepier and -sleepier, though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so. - -Little Jim, who, fresh from his afternoon’s ramble in the fields, last -evening said his prayers dutifully, and lay down to sleep in a most -Christian frame, this morning sits up in bed with his hair bristling -with crossness, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won’t say his -prayers,—that he don’t want to be good. The simple difference is, that -the child, having slept in a close box of a room, his brain all night -fed by poison, is in a mild state of moral insanity. Delicate women -remark that it takes them till eleven or twelve o’clock to get up their -strength in the morning. Query,—Do they sleep with closed windows and -doors, and with heavy bed-curtains? - -The houses built by our ancestors were better ventilated in certain -respects than modern ones, with all their improvements. The great -central chimney, with its open fireplaces in the different rooms, -created a constant current which carried off foul and vitiated air. In -these days, how common is it to provide rooms with only a flue for a -stove! This flue is kept shut in summer, and in winter opened only to -admit a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of the air quite -as fast as the occupants breathe it away. The sealing-up of fireplaces -and introduction of air-tight stoves may, doubtless, be a saving of -fuel: it saves, too, more than that; in thousands and thousands of cases -it has saved people from all further human wants, and put an end forever -to any needs short of the six feet of narrow earth which are man’s only -inalienable property. In other words, since the invention of air-tight -stoves, thousands have died of slow poison. It is a terrible thing to -reflect upon, that our northern winters last from November to May, six -long months, in which many families confine themselves to one room, of -which every window-crack has been carefully calked to make it air-tight, -where an air-tight stove keeps the atmosphere at a temperature between -eighty and ninety, and the inmates sitting there with all their winter -clothes on become enervated both by the heat and by the poisoned air, -for which there is no escape but the occasional opening of a door. - -It is no wonder that the first result of all this is such a delicacy of -skin and lungs that about half the inmates are obliged to give up going -into the open air during the six cold months, because they invariably -catch cold, if they do so. It is no wonder that the cold caught about -the first of December has by the first of March become a fixed -consumption, and that the opening of the spring, which ought to bring -life and health, in so many cases brings death. - -We hear of the lean condition in which the poor bears emerge from their -six-months’ wintering, during which they subsist on the fat which they -have acquired the previous summer. Even so in our long winters, -multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily waning strength which -they acquired in the season when windows and doors were open, and fresh -air was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of spring fever and spring -biliousness, and have thousands of nostrums for clearing the blood in -the spring. All these things are the pantings and palpitations of a -system run down under slow poison, unable to get a step farther. Better, -far better, the old houses of the olden time, with their great roaring -fires, and their bedrooms where the snow came in and the wintry winds -whistled. Then, to be sure, you froze your back while you burned your -face, your water froze nightly in your pitcher, your breath congealed in -ice-wreaths on the blankets, and you could write your name on the pretty -snow-wreath that had sifted in through the window-cracks. But you woke -full of life and vigor,—you looked out into whirling snow-storms without -a shiver, and thought nothing of plunging through drifts as high as your -head on your daily way to school. You jingled in sleighs, you -snowballed, you lived in snow like a snow-bird, and your blood coursed -and tingled, in full tide of good, merry, real life, through your -veins,—none of the slow-creeping, black blood which clogs the brain and -lies like a weight on the vital wheels! - -“Mercy upon us, papa!” said Jenny, “I hope we need not go back to such -houses!” - -“No, my dear,” I replied. “I only said that such houses were better than -those which are all winter closed by double windows and burnt-out -air-tight stoves.” - - * * * * * - -The perfect house is one in which there is a constant escape of every -foul and vitiated particle of air through one opening, while a constant -supply of fresh out-door air is admitted by another. In winter, this -out-door air must pass through some process by which it is brought up to -a temperate warmth. - -Take a single room, and suppose on one side a current of out-door air -which has been warmed by passing through the air-chamber of a modern -furnace. Its temperature need not be above sixty-five,—it answers -breathing purposes better at that. On the other side of the room let -there be an open wood-or coal-fire. One cannot conceive the purposes of -warmth and ventilation more perfectly combined. - -Suppose a house with a great central hall, into which a current of -fresh, temperately warmed air is continually pouring. Each chamber -opening upon this hall has a chimney up whose flue the rarefied air is -constantly passing, drawing up with it all the foul and poisonous gases. -That house is well ventilated, and in a way that need bring no dangerous -draughts upon the most delicate invalid. For the better securing of -privacy in sleeping-rooms, we have seen two doors employed, one of which -is made with slats, like a window-blind, so that air is freely -transmitted without exposing the interior. - -When we speak of fresh air, we insist on the full rigor of the term. It -must not be the air of a cellar, heavily laden with the poisonous -nitrogen of turnips and cabbages, but good, fresh, out-door air from a -cold-air pipe, so placed as not to get the lower stratum near the -ground, where heavy damps and exhalations collect, but high up, in just -the clearest and most elastic region. - -The conclusion of the whole matter is, that as all of man’s and woman’s -peace and comfort, all their love, all their amiability, all their -religion, have got to come to them, while they live in this world, -through the medium of the brain,—and as black, uncleansed blood acts on -the brain as a poison, and as no other than black, uncleansed blood can -be got by the lungs out of impure air,—the first object of the man who -builds a house is to secure a pure and healthy atmosphere therein. - -Therefore, in allotting expenses, set this down as a _must-be_: “Our -house must have fresh air,—everywhere, at all times, winter and summer.” -Whether we have stone facings or no,—whether our parlor has cornices or -marble mantles or no,—whether our doors are machine-made or hand-made. -All our fixtures shall be of the plainest and simplest, but we will have -fresh air. We will open our door with a latch and string, if we cannot -afford lock and knob and fresh air too,—but in our house we will live -cleanly and Christianly. We will no more breathe the foul air rejected -from a neighbor’s lungs than we will use a neighbor’s tooth-brush and -hair-brush. Such is the first essential of “our house,”—the first great -element of human health and happiness,—AIR. - - * * * * * - -“I say, Marianne,” said Bob, “have we got fireplaces in our chambers?” - -“Mamma took care of that,” said Marianne. - -“You may be quite sure,” said I, “if your mother has had a hand in -planning your house, that the ventilation is cared for.” - -It must be confessed that Bob’s principal idea in a house had been a -Gothic library, and his mind had labored more on the possibility of -adapting some favorite bits from the baronial antiquities to modern -needs than on anything so terrestrial as air. Therefore he awoke as from -a dream, and taking two or three monstrous inhalations, he seized the -plans and began looking over them with new energy. Meanwhile I went on -with my prelection. - - * * * * * - -The second great vital element for which provision must be made in “our -house” is FIRE. By which I do not mean merely artificial fire, but fire -in all its extent and branches,—the heavenly fire which God sends us -daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as well as the mimic fires by -which we warm our dwellings, cook our food, and light our nightly -darkness. - -To begin, then, with heavenly fire or sunshine. If God’s gift of vital -air is neglected and undervalued, His gift of sunshine appears to be -hated. There are many houses where not a cent has been expended on -ventilation, but where hundreds of dollars have been freely lavished to -keep out the sunshine. The chamber, truly, is tight as a box,—it has no -fireplace, not even a ventilator opening into the stove-flue; but, oh, -joy and gladness! it has outside blinds and inside folding-shutters, so -that in the brightest of days we may create there a darkness that may be -felt. To observe the generality of New-England houses, a spectator might -imagine they were planned for the torrid zone, where the great object is -to keep out a furnace-draught of burning air. - -But let us look over the months of our calendar. In which of them do we -not need fires on our hearths? We will venture to say that from October -to June all families, whether they actually have it or not, would be the -more comfortable for a morning and evening fire. For eight months in the -year the weather varies on the scale of cool, cold, colder, and -freezing; and for all the four other months what is the number of days -that really require the torrid-zone system of shutting up houses? We all -know that extreme heat is the exception, and not the rule. - -Yet let anybody travel, as I did last year, through the valley of the -Connecticut, and observe the houses. All clean and white and neat and -well-to-do, with their turfy yards and their breezy great elms,—but all -shut up from basement to attic, as if the inmates had all sold out and -gone to China. Not a window-blind open above or below. Is the house -inhabited? No,—yes,—there is a faint stream of blue smoke from the -kitchen-chimney, and half a window-blind open in some distant back-part -of the house. They are living there in the dim shadows, bleaching like -potato-sprouts in the cellar. - - * * * * * - -“I can tell you why they do it, papa,” said Jenny,—“It’s the flies, and -flies are certainly worthy to be one of the plagues of Egypt. I can’t -myself blame people that shut up their rooms and darken their houses in -fly-time,—do you, mamma?” - -“Not in extreme cases; though I think there is but a short season when -this is necessary; yet the habit of shutting up lasts the year round, -and gives to New-England villages that dead, silent, cold, uninhabited -look which is so peculiar. - -“The one fact that a traveller would gather in passing through our -villages would be this,” said I, “that the people live in their houses -and in the dark. Rarely do you see doors and windows open, people -sitting at them, chairs in the yard, and signs that the inhabitants are -living out-of-doors.” - -“Well,” said Jenny, “I have told you why, for I have been at Uncle -Peter’s in summer, and aunt does her spring-cleaning in May, and then -she shuts all the blinds and drops all the curtains, and the house stays -clean till October. That’s the whole of it. If she had all her windows -open, there would be paint and windows to be cleaned every week; and who -is to do it? For my part, I can’t much blame her.” - -“Well,” said I, “I have my doubts about the sovereign efficacy of living -in the dark, even if the great object of existence were to be rid of -flies. I remember, during this same journey, stopping for a day or two -at a country boarding-house which was dark as Egypt from cellar to -garret. The long, dim, gloomy dining-room was first closed by outside -blinds, and then by impenetrable paper curtains, notwithstanding which -it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive. You found where the cake-plate was -by the buzz which your hand made, if you chanced to reach in that -direction. It was disagreeable, because in the darkness flies could not -always be distinguished from huckleberries; and I couldn’t help wishing, -that, since we must have the flies, we might at last have the light and -air to console us under them. People darken their rooms and shut up -every avenue of out-door enjoyment, and sit and think of nothing but -flies; in fact, flies are all they have left. No wonder they become -morbid on the subject.” - -“Well, now, papa talks just like a man, doesn’t he?” said Jenny. “He -hasn’t the responsibility of keeping things clean. I wonder what he -would do, if he were a housekeeper.” - -“Do? I will tell you. I would do the best I could. I would shut my eyes -on fly-specks, and open them on the beauties of Nature. I would let the -cheerful sun in all day long, in all but the few summer days when -coolness is the one thing needful: those days may be soon numbered every -year. I would make a calculation in the spring how much it would cost to -hire a woman to keep my windows and paint clean, and I would do with one -less gown and have her; and when I had spent all I could afford on -cleaning windows and paint, I would harden my heart and turn off my -eyes, and enjoy my sunshine, and my fresh air, my breezes, and all that -can be seen through the picture-windows of an open, airy house, and snap -my fingers at the flies. There you have it.” - -“Papa’s hobby is sunshine,” said Marianne. - -“Why shouldn’t it be? Was God mistaken, when He made the sun? Did He -make him for us to hold a life’s battle with? Is that vital power which -reddens the cheek of the peach and pours sweetness through the fruits -and flowers of no use to us? Look at plants that grow without sun,—wan, -pale, long-visaged, holding feeble, imploring hands of supplication -towards the light. Can human beings afford to throw away a vitalizing -force so pungent, so exhilarating? You remember the experiment of a -prison, where one row of cells had daily sunshine, and the others none. -With the same regimen, the same cleanliness, the same care, the inmates -of the sunless cells were visited with sickness and death in double -measure. Our whole population in New England are groaning and suffering -under afflictions, the result of a depressed vitality,—neuralgia, with a -new ache for every day of the year, rheumatism, consumption, general -debility; for all these a thousand nostrums are daily advertised, and -money enough is spent on them to equip an army, while we are fighting -against, wasting, and throwing away with both hands that blessed -influence which comes nearest to pure vitality of anything God has -given. - -“Who is it that the Bible describes as a sun, arising with healing in -his wings? Surely, that sunshine which is the chosen type and image of -His love must be healing through all the recesses of our daily life, -drying damp and mould, defending from moth and rust, sweetening ill -smells, clearing from the nerves the vapors of melancholy, making life -cheery. If I did not know Him, I should certainly adore and worship the -sun, the most blessed and beautiful image of Him among things visible! -In the land of Egypt, in the day of God’s wrath, there was darkness, but -in the land of Goshen there was light. I am a Goshenite, and mean to -walk in the light, and forswear the works of darkness. But to proceed -with our reading.” - - * * * * * - -“Our house” shall be set on a southeast line, so that there shall not be -a sunless room in it, and windows shall be so arranged that it can be -traversed and transpierced through and through with those bright shafts -of light which come straight from God. - -“Our house” shall not be blockaded with a dank, dripping mass of -shrubbery set plumb against the windows, keeping out light and air. -There shall be room all round it for breezes to sweep, and sunshine to -sweeten and dry and vivify; and I would warn all good souls who begin -life by setting out two little evergreen-trees within a foot of each of -their front-windows, that these trees will grow and increase till their -front-rooms will be brooded over by a sombre, stifling shadow fit only -for ravens to croak in. - -One would think, by the way some people hasten to convert a very narrow -front-yard into a dismal jungle, that the only danger of our New England -climate was sunstroke. Ah, in those drizzling months which form at least -one half of our life here, what sullen, censorious, uncomfortable, -unhealthy thoughts are bred of living in dark, chilly rooms, behind such -dripping thickets? Our neighbors’ faults assume a deeper hue,—life seems -a dismal thing,—our very religion grows mouldy. - -My idea of a house is, that, as far as is consistent with shelter and -reasonable privacy, it should give you on first entering an open, -breezy, out-door freshness of sensation. Every window should be a -picture; sun and trees and clouds and green grass should seem never to -be far from us. “Our house” may shade but not darken us. “Our house” -shall have bow-windows, many, sunny, and airy,—not for the purpose of -being cleaned and shut up, but to be open and enjoyed. There shall be -long verandahs above and below, where invalids may walk dry-shod, and -enjoy open-air recreation in wettest weather. In short, I will try to -have “our house” combine as far as possible the sunny, joyous, fresh -life of a gypsy in the fields and woods with the quiet and neatness and -comfort and shelter of a roof, rooms, floors, and carpets. - -After heavenly fire, I have a word to say of earthly, artificial fires. -Furnaces, whether of hot water, steam, or hot air, are all healthy and -admirable provisions for warming our houses during the eight or nine -months of our year that we must have artificial heat, if only, as I have -said, fireplaces keep up a current of ventilation. - -The kitchen-range with its water-back I humbly salute. It is a great -throbbing heart, and sends its warm tides of cleansing, comforting fluid -all through the house. One could wish that this friendly dragon could be -in some way moderated in his appetite for coal,—he does consume without -mercy, it must be confessed,—but then great is the work he has to do. At -any hour of day or night, in the most distant part of your house, you -have but to turn a stop-cock and your red dragon sends you hot water for -your needs; your washing-day becomes a mere play-day; your pantry has -its ever-ready supply; and then, by a little judicious care in arranging -apartments and economizing heat, a range may make two or three chambers -comfortable in winter weather. A range with a water-back is among the -_must-bes_ in “our house.” - -Then, as to the evening light,—I know nothing as yet better than gas, -where it can be had. I would certainly not have a house without it. The -great objection to it is the danger of its escape through imperfect -fixtures. But it must not do this; a fluid that kills a tree or a plant -with one breath must certainly be a dangerous ingredient in the -atmosphere, and if admitted into houses, must be introduced with every -safeguard. - -There are families living in the country who make their own gas by a -very simple process. This is worth an inquiry from those who build. -There are also contrivances now advertised, with good testimonials, of -domestic machines for generating gas, said to be perfectly safe, simple -to be managed, and producing a light superior to that of the city -gas-works. This also is worth an inquiry when “our house” is to be in -the country. - - * * * * * - -And now I come to the next great vital element for which “our house” -must provide,—WATER. “Water, water, everywhere,”—it must be plentiful, -it must be easy to get at, it must be pure. Our ancestors had some -excellent ideas in home-living and house-building. Their houses were, -generally speaking, very sensibly contrived,—roomy, airy, and -comfortable; but in their water-arrangements they had little mercy or -womankind. The well was out in the yard; and in winter one must flounder -through snow and bring up the ice-bound bucket, before one could fill -the tea-kettle for breakfast. For a sovereign princess of the republic -this was hardly respectful or respectable. Wells have come somewhat -nearer in modern times; but the idea of a constant supply of fresh water -by the simple turning of a stop-cock has not yet visited the great body -of our houses. Were we free to build “our house” just as we wish it, -there should be a bath-room to every two or three inmates, and the hot -and cold water should circulate to every chamber. - -Among our _must-bes_, we would lay by a generous sum for plumbing. Let -us have our bath-rooms, and our arrangements for cleanliness and health -in kitchen and pantry; and afterwards let the quality of our lumber and -the style of our finishings be according to the sum we have left. The -power to command a warm bath in a house at any hour of day or night is -better in bringing up a family of children than any amount of ready -medicine. In three-quarters of childish ailments the warm bath is an -almost immediate remedy. Bad colds, incipient fevers, rheumatisms, -convulsions, neuralgias innumerable, are washed off in their first -beginnings, and run down the lead pipes into oblivion. Have, then, O -friend, all the water in your house that you can afford, and enlarge -your ideas of the worth of it, that you _may_ afford a great deal. A -bathing-room is nothing to you that requires an hour of lifting and -fire-making to prepare it for use. The apparatus is too cumbrous,—you do -not turn to it. But when your chamber opens upon a neat, quiet little -nook, and you have only to turn your stop-cocks and all is ready, your -remedy is at hand, you use it constantly. You are waked in the night by -a scream, and find little Tom sitting up, wild with burning fever. In -three minutes he is in the bath, quieted and comfortable; you get him -back, cooled and tranquil, to his little crib, and in the morning he -wakes as if nothing had happened. - -Why should not so invaluable and simple a remedy for disease, such a -preservative of health, such a comfort, such a stimulus, be considered -as much a matter-of-course in a house as a kitchen-chimney? At least -there should be one bath-room always in order, so arranged that all the -family can have access to it, if one cannot afford the luxury of many. - -A house in which water is universally and skilfully distributed is so -much easier to take care of as almost to verify the saying of a friend, -that his house was so contrived that it did its own work: one had better -do without carpets on the floors, without stuffed sofas and -rocking-chairs, and secure this. - -“Well, papa,” said Marianne, “you have made out all your four elements -in your house, except one. I can’t imagine what you want of _earth_.” - -“I thought,” said Jenny, “that the less of our common mother we had in -our houses, the better housekeepers we were.” - -“My dears,” said I, “we philosophers must give an occasional dip into -the mystical, and say something apparently absurd for the purpose of -explaining that we mean nothing in particular by it. It gives common -people an idea of our sagacity, to find how clear we come out of our -apparent contradictions and absurdities. Listen.” - - * * * * * - -For the fourth requisite of “our house,” EARTH, let me point you to your -mother’s plant-window, and beg you to remember the fact that through our -long, dreary winters we are never a month without flowers, and the vivid -interest which always attaches to growing things. The perfect house, as -I conceive it, is to combine as many of the advantages of living out of -doors as may be consistent with warmth and shelter, and one of these is -the sympathy with green and growing things. Plants are nearer in their -relations to human health and vigor than is often imagined. The -cheerfulness that well-kept plants impart to a room comes not merely -from gratification of the eye,—there is a healthful exhalation from -them, they are a corrective of the impurities of the atmosphere. Plants, -too, are valuable as tests of the vitality of the atmosphere; their -drooping and failure convey to us information that something is amiss -with it. A lady once told me that she could never raise plants in her -parlors on account of the gas and anthracite coal. I answered, “Are you -not afraid to live and bring up your children in an atmosphere which -blights your plants?” If the gas escapes from the pipes, and the red-hot -anthracite coal or the red-hot air-tight stove burns out all the vital -part of the air, so that healthy plants in a few days wither and begin -to drop their leaves, it is a sign that the air must be looked to and -reformed. It is a fatal augury for a room that plants cannot be made to -thrive in it. Plants should not turn pale, be long-jointed, long-leaved, -and spindling; and where they grow in this way, we may be certain that -there is a want of vitality for human beings. But where plants appear as -they do in the open air, with vigorous, stocky growth, and -short-stemmed, deep-green leaves, we may believe the conditions of that -atmosphere are healthy for human lungs. - -It is pleasant to see how the custom of plant-growing has spread through -our country. In how many farm-house windows do we see petunias and -nasturtiums vivid with bloom while snows are whirling without, and how -much brightness have those cheap enjoyments shed on the lives of those -who cared for them! We do not believe there is a human being who would -not become a passionate lover of plants, if circumstances once made it -imperative to tend upon and watch the growth of one. The history of -Picciola for substance has been lived over and over by many a man and -woman who once did not know that there was a particle of plant-love in -their souls. But to the proper care of plants in pots there are many -hindrances and drawbacks. The dust chokes the little pores of their -green lungs, and they require constant showering; and to carry all one’s -plants to a sink or porch for this purpose is a labor which many will -not endure. Consequently plants often do not get a showering once a -month! We should try to imitate more closely the action of Mother -Nature, who washes every green child of hers nightly with dews, which -lie glittering on its leaves till morning. - - * * * * * - -“Yes, there it is!” said Jenny. “I think I could manage with plants, if -it were not for this eternal showering and washing they seem to require -to keep them fresh. They are always tempting one to spatter the carpet -and surrounding furniture, which are not equally benefited by the -libation.” - -“It is partly for that very reason,” I replied, “that the plan of ‘our -house’ provides for the introduction of Mother Earth, as you will see.” - - * * * * * - -A perfect house, according to my idea, should always include in it a -little compartment where plants can be kept, can be watered, can be -defended from the dust, and have the sunshine and all the conditions of -growth. - -People have generally supposed a conservatory to be one of the last -trappings of wealth,—something not to be thought of for those in modest -circumstances. But is this so? You have a bow-window in your parlor. -Leave out the flooring, fill the space with rich earth, close it from -the parlor by glass doors, and you have room for enough plants and -flowers to keep you gay and happy all winter. If on the south side, -where the sunbeams have power, it requires no heat but that which warms -the parlor; and the comfort of it is incalculable, and the expense a -mere trifle greater than that of the bow-window alone. - -In larger houses a larger space might be appropriated in this way. We -will not call it a conservatory, because that name suggests ideas of -gardeners, and mysteries of culture and rare plants, which bring all -sorts of care and expense in their train. We would rather call it a -greenery, a room floored with earth, with glass sides to admit the -sun,—and let it open on as many other rooms of the house as possible. - -Why should not the dining-room and parlor be all winter connected by a -spot of green and flowers, with plants, mosses, and ferns for the -shadowy portions, and such simple blooms as petunias and nasturtiums -garlanding the sunny portion near the windows? If near the water-works, -this greenery might be enlivened by the play of a fountain, whose -constant spray would give that softness to the air which is so often -burned away by the dry heat of the furnace. - - * * * * * - -“And do you really think, papa, that houses built in this way are a -practical result to be aimed at?” said Jenny. “To me it seems like a -dream of the Alhambra.” - -“Yet I happen to have seen real people in our day living in just such a -house,” said I. “I could point you, this very hour, to a cottage, which -in style of building is the plainest possible, which unites many of the -best ideas of a true house. My dear, can you sketch the ground plan of -that house we saw in Brighton?” - -“Here it is,” said my wife, after a few dashes with her pencil,—“an -inexpensive house, yet one of the pleasantest I ever saw.” - -[Illustration: - - _c_, China-closet. _p_, Passage. _d_, - Kitchen-closet. -] - -“This cottage, which might, at the rate of prices before the war, have -been built for five thousand dollars, has many of the requirements which -I seek for a house. It has two stories, and a tier of very pleasant -attic-rooms, two bathing-rooms, and the water carried into each story. -The parlor and dining-room both look into a little bower, where a -fountain is ever playing into a little marble basin, and which all the -year through has its green and bloom. It is heated simply from the -furnace by a register, like any other room of the house, and requires no -more care than a delicate woman could easily give. The brightness and -cheerfulness it brings during our long, dreary winters is incredible.” - - * * * * * - -But one caution is necessary in all such appendages. The earth must be -thoroughly underdrained to prevent the vapors of stagnant water, and -have a large admixture of broken charcoal to obviate the consequences of -vegetable decomposition. Great care must be taken that there be no -leaves left to fall and decay on the ground, since vegetable exhalations -poison the air. With these precautions such a plot will soften and -purify the air of a house. - -Where the means do not allow even so small a conservatory, a recessed -window might be fitted with a deep box, which should have a drain-pipe -at the bottom, and a thick layer of broken charcoal and gravel, with a -mixture of fine wood-soil and sand, for the top stratum. Here ivies may -be planted, which will run and twine and strike their little tendrils -here and there, and give the room in time the aspect of a bower; the -various greenhouse nasturtiums will make winter gorgeous with blossoms. -In windows unblest by sunshine—and, alas, such are many!—one can -cultivate ferns and mosses; the winter-growing ferns, of which there are -many varieties, can be mixed with mosses and woodland flowers. - -Early in February, when the cheerless frosts of winter seem most -wearisome, the common blue violet, wood-anemone, hepatica, or -rock-columbine, if planted in this way, will begin to bloom. The common -partridge-berry, with its brilliant scarlet fruit and dark green leaves, -will also grow finely in such situations, and have a beautiful effect. -These things require daily showering to keep them fresh, and the -moisture arising from them will soften and freshen the too dry air of -heated winter rooms. - - * * * * * - -Thus I have been through my four essential elements in -house-building,—air, fire, water, and earth. I would provide for these -before anything else. After they are secured, I would gratify my taste -and fancy as far as possible in other ways. I quite agree with Bob in -hating commonplace houses, and longing for some little bit of -architectural effect; and I grieve profoundly that every step in that -direction must cost so much. I have also a taste for niceness of finish. -I have no objection to silver-plated door-locks and hinges, none to -windows which are an entire plate of clear glass. I congratulate -neighbors who are so fortunate as to be able to get them; and after I -have put all the essentials into a house, I would have these too, if I -had the means. - -But if all my wood-work were to be without groove or moulding, if my -mantels were to be of simple wood, if my doors were all to be -machine-made, and my lumber of the second quality, I would have my -bath-rooms, my conservatory, my sunny bow-windows, and my perfect -ventilation; and my house would then be so pleasant, and every one in it -in such a cheerful mood, that it would verily seem to be ceiled with -cedar. - -Speaking of ceiling with cedar, I have one thing more to say. We -Americans have a country abounding in beautiful timber, of whose -beauties we know nothing, on account of the pernicious and stupid habit -of covering it with white paint. - -The celebrated zebra-wood with its golden stripes cannot exceed in -quaint beauty the grain of unpainted chestnut, prepared simply with a -coat or two of oil. The butternut has a rich golden brown, the very -darling color of painters,—a shade so rich, and grain so beautiful, that -it is of itself as charming to look at as a rich picture. The -black-walnut, with its heavy depth of tone, works in well as an adjunct; -and as to oak, what can we say enough of its quaint and many shadings? -Even common pine, which has been considered not decent to look upon till -hastily shrouded in a friendly blanket of white paint, has, when oiled -and varnished, the beauty of satin-wood. The second quality of pine, -which has what are called _shakes_ in it, under this mode of treatment -often shows clouds and veins equal in beauty to the choicest woods. The -cost of such a finish is greatly less than that of the old method; and -it saves those days and weeks of cleaning which are demanded by white -paint, while its general tone is softer and more harmonious. Experiments -in color may be tried in the combination of these woods, which at small -expense produce the most charming effects. - -As to paper-hangings, we are proud to say that our American -manufacturers now furnish all that can be desired. There are some -branches of design where artistic, ingenious France must still excel us; -but whoso has a house to fit up, let him first look at what his own -country has to show, and he will be astonished. - -There is one topic in house-building on which I would add a few words. -The difficulty of procuring and keeping good servants, which must long -be one of our chief domestic troubles, warns us so to arrange our houses -that we shall need as few as possible. There is the greatest conceivable -difference in the planning and building of houses as to the amount of -work which will be necessary to keep them in respectable condition. Some -houses require a perfect staff of house-maids;—there are plated hinges -to be rubbed, paint to be cleaned, with intricacies of moulding and -carving which daily consume hours of dusting to preserve them from a -slovenly look. Simple finish, unpainted wood, a general distribution of -water through the dwelling, will enable a very large house to be cared -for by one pair of hands, and yet maintain a creditable appearance. - -In kitchens one servant may perform the work of two by a close packing -of all the conveniences for cooking and such arrangements as shall save -time and steps. Washing-day may be divested of its terrors by suitable -provisions for water, hot and cold, by wringers, which save at once the -strength of the linen and of the laundress, and by drying-closets -connected with ranges, where articles can in a few moments be perfectly -dried. These, with the use of a small mangle, such as is now common in -America, reduce the labors of the laundry one half. - -There are many more things which might be said of “our house,” and -Christopher may, perhaps, find some other opportunity to say them. For -the present his pen is tired and ceaseth. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - XII. - - HOME RELIGION. - - -IT was Sunday evening, and our little circle were convened by my -study-fireside, where a crackling hickory fire proclaimed the fall of -the year to be coming on, and cold weather impending. Sunday evenings, -my married boys and girls are fond of coming home and gathering round -the old hearthstone, and “making believe” that they are children again. -We get out the old-fashioned music-books, and sing old hymns to very old -tunes, and my wife and her matron daughters talk about the babies in the -intervals; and we discourse of the sermon, and of the choir, and all the -general outworks of good pious things which Sunday suggests. - -“Papa,” said Marianne, “you are closing up your House and Home Papers, -are you not?” - -“Yes,—I am come to the last one, for this year at least.” - -“My dear,” said my wife, “there is one subject you haven’t touched on -yet; you ought not to close the year without it; no house and home can -be complete without Religion: you should write a paper on Home -Religion.” - -My wife, as you may have seen in these papers, is an old-fashioned -woman, something of a conservative. I am, I confess, rather given to -progress and speculation; but I feel always as if I were going on in -these ways with a string round my waist, and my wife’s hand steadily -pulling me back into the old paths. My wife is a steady, Bible-reading, -Sabbath-keeping woman, cherishing the memory of her fathers, and loving -to do as they did,—believing, for the most part, that the paths well -beaten by righteous feet are safest, even though much walking therein -has worn away the grass and flowers. Nevertheless, she has an indulgent -ear for all that gives promise of bettering anybody or anything, and -therefore is not severe on any new methods that may arise in our -progressive days of accomplishing old good objects. - -“There must be a home religion,” said my wife. - -“I believe in home religion,” said Bob Stephens,—“but not in the outward -show of it. The best sort of religion is that which one keeps at the -bottom of his heart, and which goes up thence quietly through all his -actions, and not the kind that comes through a certain routine of forms -and ceremonies. Do you suppose family prayers, now, and a blessing at -meals, make people any better?” - -“Depend upon it, Robert,” said my wife,—she always calls him Robert on -Sunday evenings,—“depend upon it, we are not so very much wiser than our -fathers were, that we need depart from their good old ways. Of course I -would have religion in the heart, and spreading quietly through the -life; but does this interfere with those outward, daily acts of respect -and duty which we owe to our Creator? It is too much the slang of our -day to decry forms, and to exalt the excellency of the spirit in -opposition to them; but tell me, are you satisfied with friendship that -has none of the outward forms of friendship, or love that has none of -the outward forms of love? Are you satisfied of the existence of a -sentiment that has no outward mode of expression? Even the old heathen -had their pieties; they would not begin a feast without a libation to -their divinities, and there was a shrine in every well-regulated house -for household gods.” - -“The trouble with all these things,” said Bob, “is that they get to be -mere forms. I never could see that family worship amounted to much more -in most families.” - -“The outward expression of all good things is apt to degenerate into -mere form,” said I. “The outward expression of social good feeling -becomes a mere form; but for that reason must we meet each other like -oxen? not say, ‘Good morning,’ or ‘Good evening,’ or ‘I am happy to see -you’? Must we never use any of the forms of mutual good-will, except in -those moments when we are excited by a real, present emotion? What would -become of society? Forms are, so to speak, a daguerrotype of a past good -feeling, meant to take and keep the impression of it when it is gone. -Our best and most inspired moments are crystallized in them; and even -when the spirit that created them is gone, they help to bring it back. -Every one must be conscious that the use of the forms of social -benevolence, even towards those who are personally unpleasant to us, -tends to ameliorate prejudices. We see a man entering our door who is a -weary bore, but we use with him those forms of civility which society -prescribes, and feel far kinder to him than if we had shut the door in -his face, and said, ‘Go along, you tiresome fellow!’ Now why does not -this very obvious philosophy apply to better and higher feelings? The -forms of religion are as much more necessary than the forms of -politeness and social good-will as religion is more important than all -other things.” - -“Besides,” said my wife, “a form of worship, kept up from year to year -in a family,—the assembling of parents and children for a few sacred -moments each day, though it may be a form many times, especially in the -gay and thoughtless hours of life,—often becomes invested with deep -sacredness in times of trouble, or in those crises that rouse our deeper -feelings. In sickness, in bereavement, in separation, the daily prayer -at home has a sacred and healing power. Then we remember the scattered -and wandering ones; and the scattered and wandering think tenderly of -that hour when they know they are remembered. I know, when I was a young -girl, I was often thoughtless and careless about family-prayers; but now -that my father and mother are gone forever, there is nothing I recall -more often. I remember the great old Family Bible, the hymn-book, the -chair where father used to sit. I see him as he looked bending over that -Bible more than in any other way; and expressions and sentences in his -prayers which fell unheeded on my ears in those days have often come -back to me like comforting angels. We are not aware of the influence -things are having on us till we have left them far behind in years. When -we have summered and wintered them, and look back on them from changed -times and other days, we find that they were making their mark upon us, -though we knew it not.” - -“I have often admired,” said I, “the stateliness and regularity of -family worship in good old families in England,—the servants, guests, -and children all assembled,—the reading of the Scriptures and the daily -prayers by the master or mistress of the family, ending with the united -repetition of the Lord’s Prayer by all.” - -“No such assemblage is possible in our country,” said Bob. “Our servants -are for the most part Roman Catholics, and forbidden by their religion -to join with us in acts of worship.” - -“The greater the pity,” said I. “It is a pity that all Christians who -can conscientiously repeat the Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer -together should for any reason be forbidden to do so. It would do more -to harmonize our families, and promote good feeling between masters and -servants, to meet once a day on the religious ground common to both, -than many sermons on reciprocal duties.” - -“But while the case is so,” said Marianne, “we can’t help it. Our -servants cannot unite with us; our daily prayers are something forbidden -to them.” - -“We cannot in this country,” said I, “give to family prayer that solemn -stateliness which it has in a country where religion is a civil -institution, and masters and servants, as a matter of course, belong to -one church. Our prayers must resemble more a private interview with a -father than a solemn act of homage to a king. They must be more intimate -and domestic. The hour of family devotion should be the children’s -hour,—held dear as the interval when the busy father drops his business -and cares, and, like Jesus of old, takes the little ones in his arms and -blesses them. The child should remember it as the time when the father -always seemed most accessible and loving. The old family worship of New -England lacked this character of domesticity and intimacy,—it was -stately and formal, distant and cold; but whatever were its defects, I -cannot think it an improvement to leave it out altogether, as too many -good sort of people in our day are doing. There may be practical -religion where its outward daily forms are omitted, but there is -assuredly no more of it for the omission. No man loves God and his -neighbor _less_, is a _less_ honest and good man, for daily prayers in -his household,—the chances are quite the other way; and if the spirit of -love rules the family hour, it may prove the source and spring of all -that is good through the day. It seems to be a solemn duty in the -parents thus to make the Invisible Fatherhood real to their children, -who can receive this idea at first only through outward forms and -observances. The little one thus learns that his father has a Father in -heaven, and that the earthly life he is living is only a sacrament and -emblem,—a type of the eternal life which infolds it, and of more lasting -relations there. Whether, therefore, it be the silent grace and silent -prayer of the Friends, or the form of prayer of ritual churches, or the -extemporaneous outpouring of those whose habits and taste lead them to -extempore prayer,—in one of these ways there should be daily outward and -visible acts of worship in every family.” - -“Well, now,” said Bob, “about this old question of Sunday-keeping, -Marianne and I are much divided. I am always for doing something that -she thinks isn’t the thing.” - -“Well, you see,” said Marianne, “Bob is always talking against our old -Puritan fathers, and saying all manner of hard things about them. He -seems to think that all their ways and doings must of course have been -absurd. For my part, I don’t think we are in any danger of being too -strict about anything. It appears to me that in this country there is a -general tendency to let all sorts of old forms and observances float -down-stream, and yet nobody seems quite to have made up his mind what -shall come next.” - -“The fact is,” said I, “that we realize very fully all the objections -and difficulties of the experiments in living that we have tried; but -the difficulties in others that we are intending to try have not yet -come to light. The Puritan Sabbath had great and very obvious evils. Its -wearisome restraints and over-strictness cast a gloom on religion, and -arrayed against the day itself the active prejudices that now are -undermining it and threatening its extinction. But it had great merits -and virtues, and produced effects on society that we cannot well afford -to dispense with. The clearing of a whole day from all possibilities of -labor and amusement necessarily produced a grave and thoughtful people; -and a democratic republic can be carried on by no other. In lands which -have Sabbaths of mere amusement, mere gala-days, republics rise and fall -as fast as children’s card-houses; and the reason is, they are built by -those whose political and religious education has been childish. The -common people of Europe have been sedulously nursed on amusements by the -reigning powers, to keep them from meddling with serious matters; their -religion has been sensuous and sentimental, and their Sabbaths -thoughtless holidays. The common people of New England are educated to -think, to reason, to examine all questions of politics and religion for -themselves; and one deeply thoughtful day every week baptizes and -strengthens their reflective and reasoning faculties. The Sunday schools -of Paris are whirligigs where Young France rides round and round on -little hobby-horses till his brain spins even faster than Nature made it -to spin; and when he grows up, his political experiments are as -whirligig as his Sunday education. If I were to choose between the -Sabbath of France and the old Puritan Sabbath, I should hold up both -hands for the latter, with all its objectionable features.” - -“Well,” said my wife, “cannot we contrive to retain all that is really -valuable of the Sabbath, and to ameliorate and smooth away what is -forbidding?” - -“That is the problem of our day,” said I. “We do not want the Sabbath of -Continental Europe: it does not suit democratic institutions; it cannot -be made even a quiet or a safe day, except by means of that ever-present -armed police that exists there. If the Sabbath of America is simply to -be a universal loafing, picnicking, dining-out day, as it is now with -all our foreign population, we shall need what they have in Europe, the -gendarmes at every turn, to protect the fruit on our trees and the -melons in our fields. People who live a little out from great cities see -enough, and more than enough, of this sort of Sabbath-keeping, with our -loose American police. - -“The fact is, our system of government was organized to go by moral -influences as much as mills by water, and Sunday was the great day for -concentrating these influences and bringing them to bear; and we might -just as well break down all the dams and let out all the water of the -Lowell mills, and expect still to work the looms, as to expect to work -our laws and constitution with European notions of religion. - -“It is true the Puritan Sabbath had its disagreeable points. So have the -laws of Nature. They are of a most uncomfortable sternness and rigidity; -yet for all that, we would hardly join in a petition to have them -repealed, or made wavering and uncertain for human convenience. We can -bend to them in a thousand ways, and live very comfortably under them.” - -“But,” said Bob, “Sabbath-keeping is the iron rod of bigots; they don’t -allow a man any liberty of his own. One says it’s wicked to write a -letter Sunday; another holds that you must read no book but the Bible; -and a third is scandalized, if you take a walk, ever so quietly, in the -fields. There are all sorts of quips and turns. We may fasten things -with pins of a Sunday, but it’s wicked to fasten with needle and thread, -and so on, and so on; and each one, planting himself on his own -individual mode of keeping Sunday, points his guns and frowns severely -over the battlements on his neighbors whose opinions and practice are -different from his.” - -“Yet,” said I, “Sabbath-days are expressly mentioned by Saint Paul as -among those things concerning which no man should judge another. It -seems to me that the error as regards the Puritan Sabbath was in -representing it, not as a gift from God to man, but as a tribute of man -to God. Hence all these hagglings and nice questions and exactions to -the uttermost farthing. The holy time must be weighed and measured. It -must begin at twelve o’clock of one night, and end at twelve o’clock of -another; and from beginning to end, the mind must be kept in a state of -tension by the effort not to think any of its usual thoughts or do any -of its usual works. The fact is, that the metaphysical, defining, -hair-splitting mind of New England, turning its whole powers on this one -bit of ritual, this one only day of divine service, which was left of -all the feasts and fasts of the old churches, made of it a thing -straighter and stricter than ever the old Jews dreamed of. - -“The old Jewish Sabbath entered only into the physical region, merely -enjoining cessation from physical toil. ‘Thou shalt not _labor_ nor do -any _work_,’ covered the whole ground. In other respects than this it -was a joyful festival, resembling, in the mode of keeping it, the -Christmas of the modern Church. It was a day of social hilarity,—the -Jewish law strictly forbidding mourning and gloom during festivals. The -people were commanded on feast-days to rejoice before the Lord their God -with all their might. We fancy there were no houses where children were -afraid to laugh, where the voice of social cheerfulness quavered away in -terror lest it should awake a wrathful God. The Jewish Sabbath was -instituted, in the absence of printing, of books, and of all the -advantages of literature, to be the great means of preserving sacred -history,—a day cleared from all possibility of other employment than -social and family communion, when the heads of families and the elders -of tribes might instruct the young in those religious traditions which -have thus come down to us. - -“The Christian Sabbath is meant to supply the same moral need in that -improved and higher state of society which Christianity introduced. Thus -it was changed from the day representing the creation of the world to -the resurrection-day of Him who came to make all things new. The Jewish -Sabbath was buried with Christ in the sepulchre, and arose with Him, not -a Jewish, but a Christian festival, still holding in itself that -provision for man’s needs which the old institution possessed, but with -a wider and more generous freedom of application. It was given to the -Christian world as a day of rest, of refreshment, of hope and joy,—and -of worship. The manner of making it such a day was left open and free to -the needs and convenience of the varying circumstances and characters of -those for whose benefit it was instituted.” - -“Well,” said Bob, “don’t you think there is a deal of nonsense about -Sabbath-keeping?” - -“There is a deal of nonsense about everything human beings have to deal -with,” said I. - -“And,” said Marianne, “how to find out what is nonsense?” - -“By clear conceptions,” said I, “of what the day is for. I should define -the Sabbath as a divine and fatherly gift to man,—a day expressly set -apart for the cultivation of his moral nature. Its object is not merely -physical rest and recreation, but moral improvement. The former are -proper to the day only so far as they are subservient to the latter. The -whole human race have the conscious need of being made better, purer, -and more spiritual; the whole human race have one common danger of -sinking to a mere animal life under the pressure of labor or in the -dissipations of pleasure; and of the whole human race the proverb holds -good, that what may be done any time is done at no time. Hence the -Heavenly Father appoints one day as a special season for the culture of -man’s highest faculties. Accordingly, whatever ways and practices -interfere with the purpose of the Sabbath as a day of worship and moral -culture should be avoided; and all family arrangements for the day -should be made with reference thereto.” - -“Cold dinners on Sunday, for example,” said Bob. “Marianne holds these -as prime articles of faith.” - -“Yes,—they doubtless are most worthy and merciful, in giving to the poor -cook one day she may call her own, and rest from the heat of range and -cooking-stove. For the same reason, I would suspend as far as possible -all travelling, and all public labor, on Sunday. The hundreds of hands -that these things require to carry them on are the hands of human -beings, whose right to this merciful pause of rest is as clear as their -humanity. Let them have their day to look upward.” - -“But the little ones,” said my oldest matron daughter, who had not as -yet spoken,—“they are the problem. Oh, this weary labor of making -children keep Sunday! If I try it, I have no rest at all myself. If I -must talk to them or read to them to keep them from play, my Sabbath -becomes my hardest working-day.” - -“And, pray, what commandment of the Bible ever said children should not -play on Sunday?” said I. “We are forbidden to work, and we see the -reason why; but lambs frisk and robins sing on Sunday; and little -children, who are as yet more than half animals, must not be made to -keep the day in the manner proper to our more developed faculties. As -much cheerful, attractive religious instruction as they can bear without -weariness may be given, and then they may simply be restrained from -disturbing others. Say to the little one,—‘This day we have noble and -beautiful things to think of that interest us deeply; you are a child; -you cannot read and think and enjoy such things as much as we can; you -may play softly and quietly, and remember not to make a disturbance.’ I -would take a child to public worship at least once of a Sunday; it forms -a good habit in him. If the sermon be long and unintelligible, there are -the little Sabbath-school books in every child’s hands; and while the -grown people are getting what they understand, who shall forbid a -child’s getting what is suited to him in a way that interests him and -disturbs nobody? The Sabbath school is the child’s church; and happily -it is yearly becoming a more and more attractive institution. I approve -the custom of those who beautify the Sabbath school-room with plants, -flowers, and pictures, thus making it an attractive place to the -childish eye. The more this custom prevails, the more charming in after -years will be the memories of Sunday. - -“It is most especially to be desired that the whole air and aspect of -the day should be one of cheerfulness. Even the new dresses, new -bonnets, and new shoes, in which children delight of a Sunday, should -not be despised. They have their value in marking the day as a festival; -and it is better for the child to long for Sunday for the sake of his -little new shoes than that he should hate and dread it as a period of -wearisome restraint. All the latitude should be given to children that -can be, consistently with fixing in their minds the idea of a sacred -season. I would rather that the atmosphere of the day should resemble -that of a weekly Thanksgiving than that it should make its mark on the -tender mind only by the memory of deprivations and restrictions.” - -“Well,” said Bob, “here’s Marianne always breaking her heart about my -reading on Sunday. Now I hold that what is bad on Sunday is bad on -Monday,—and what is good on Monday is good on Sunday.” - -“We cannot abridge other people’s liberty,” said I. “The generous, -confiding spirit of Christianity has imposed not a single restriction -upon us in reference to Sunday. The day is put at our disposal as a good -Father hands a piece of money to his child:—‘There it is; take it and -spend it well.’ The child knows from his father’s character what he -means by spending it well; but he is left free to use his own judgment -as to the mode. - -“If a man conscientiously feels that reading of this or that description -is the best for him as regards his moral training and improvement, let -him pursue it, and let no man judge him. It is difficult, with the -varying temperaments of men, to decide what are or are not religious -books. One man is more religiously impressed by the reading of history -or astronomy than he would be by reading a sermon. There may be -overwrought and wearied states of the brain and nerves which require and -make proper the diversions of light literature; and if so, let it be -used. The mind must have its recreations as well as the body.” - -“But for children and young people,” said my daughter,—“would you let -them read novels on Sunday?” - -“That is exactly like asking, Would you let them talk with people on -Sunday? Now people are different; it depends, therefore, on who they -are. Some are trifling and flighty, some are positively bad-principled, -some are altogether good in their influence. So of the class of books -called novels. Some are merely frivolous, some are absolutely noxious -and dangerous, others again are written with a strong moral and -religious purpose, and, being vivid and interesting, produce far more -religious effect on the mind than dull treatises and sermons. The -parables of Christ sufficiently establish the point that there is no -inherent objection to the use of fiction in teaching religious truth. -Good religious fiction, thoughtfully read, may be quite as profitable as -any other reading.” - -“But don’t you think,” said Marianne, “that there is danger in too much -fiction?” - -“Yes,” said I. “But the chief danger of all that class of reading is its -_easiness_, and the indolent, careless mental habits it induces. A great -deal of the reading of young people on all days is really reading to no -purpose, its object being merely present amusement. It is a listless -yielding of the mind to be washed over by a stream which leaves no -fertilizing properties, and carries away by constant wear the good soil -of thought I should try to establish a barrier against this kind of -reading, not only on Sunday, but on Monday, on Tuesday, and on all days. -Instead, therefore, of objecting to any particular class of books for -Sunday reading, I should say in general, that reading merely for -pastime, without any moral aim, is the thing to be guarded against. That -which inspires no thought, no purpose, which steals away all our -strength and energy, and makes the Sabbath a day of dreams, is the -reading I would object to. - -“So of music. I do not see the propriety of confining one’s self to -technical sacred music. Any grave, solemn, thoughtful, or pathetic music -has a proper relation to our higher spiritual nature, whether it be -printed in a church service-book or on secular sheets. On me, for -example, Beethoven’s Sonatas have a far more deeply religious influence -than much that has religious names and words. Music is to be judged of -by its effects.” - -“Well,” said Bob, “if Sunday is given for our own individual -improvement, I for one should not go to church. I think I get a great -deal more good in staying at home and reading.” - -“There are two considerations to be taken into account in reference to -this matter of church-going,” I replied. “One relates to our duty as -members of society in keeping up the influence of the Sabbath, and -causing it to be respected in the community; the other, to the proper -disposition of our time for our own moral improvement. As members of the -community, we should go to church, and do all in our power to support -the outward ordinances of religion. If a conscientious man makes up his -mind that Sunday is a day for outward acts of worship and reverence, he -should do his own part as an individual towards sustaining these -observances. Even though he may have such mental and moral resources -that as an individual he could gain much more in solitude than in a -congregation, still he owes to the congregation the influence of his -presence and sympathy. But I have never yet seen the man, however finely -gifted morally and intellectually, whom I thought in the long run a -gainer in either of these respects by the neglect of public worship. I -have seen many who in their pride kept aloof from the sympathies and -communion of their brethren, who lost strength morally, and deteriorated -in ways that made themselves painfully felt. Sunday is apt in such cases -to degenerate into a day of mere mental idleness and reverie, or to -become a sort of waste-paper box for scraps, odds and ends of secular -affairs. - -“As to those very good people—and many such there are—who go straight on -with the work of life on Sunday, on the plea that “to labor is to pray,” -I simply think they are mistaken. In the first place, to labor is _not_ -the same thing as to pray. It may sometimes be as good a thing to do, -and in some cases even a better thing; but it is not the same thing. A -man might as well never write a letter to his wife on the plea that -making money for her is writing to her. It may possibly be quite as -great a proof of love to work for a wife as to write to her, but few -wives would not say that both were not better than either alone. -Furthermore, there is no doubt that the intervention of one day of -spiritual rest and aspiration so refreshes a man’s whole nature, and -oils the many wheels of existence, that he who allows himself a weekly -Sabbath does more work in the course of his life for the omission of -work on that day. - -“A young student in a French college, where the examinations are rigidly -severe, found by experience that he succeeded best in his examination by -allowing one day of entire rest just before it. His brain and nervous -system refreshed in this way carried him through the work better than if -taxed to the last moment. There are men transacting a large and -complicated business who can testify to the same influence from the -repose of the Sabbath. - -“I believe those Christian people who from conscience and principle turn -their thoughts most entirely out of the current of worldly cares on -Sunday fulfil unconsciously a great law of health; and that, whether -their moral nature be thereby advanced or not, their brain will work -more healthfully and actively for it even in physical and worldly -matters. It is because the Sabbath thus harmonizes the physical and -moral laws of our being, that the injunction concerning it is placed -among the ten great commandments, each of which represents some one of -the immutable needs of humanity.” - -“There is yet another point of family religion that ought to be thought -of,” said my wife: “I mean the customs of mourning. If there is anything -that ought to distinguish Christian families from Pagans, it should be -their way of looking at and meeting those inevitable events that must -from time to time break the family chain. It seems to be the peculiarity -of Christianity to shed hope on such events. And yet it seems to me as -if it were the very intention of many of the customs of society to add -tenfold to their gloom and horror,—such swathings of black crape, such -funereal mufflings of every pleasant object, such darkening of rooms, -and such seclusion from society and giving up to bitter thoughts and -lamentation. How can little children that look on such things believe -that there is a particle of truth in all they hear about the joyous and -comforting doctrines which the Bible holds forth for such times?” - -“That subject is a difficult one,” I rejoined. “Nature seems to indicate -a propriety in some outward expressions of grief when we lose our -friends. All nations agree in these demonstrations. In a certain degree -they are soothing to sorrow; they are the language of external life made -to correspond to the internal. Wearing mourning has its advantages. It -is a protection to the feelings of the wearer, for whom it procures -sympathetic and tender consideration; it saves grief from many a hard -jostle in the ways of life; it prevents the necessity of many a trying -explanation, and is the ready apology for many an omission of those -tasks to which sorrow is unequal. For all these reasons I never could -join the crusade which some seem disposed to wage against it. Mourning, -however, ought not to be continued for years. Its uses are more for the -first few months of sorrow, when it serves the mourner as a safeguard -from intrusion, insuring quiet and leisure, in which to reunite the -broken threads of life, and to gather strength for a return to its -duties. But to wear mourning garments and forego society for two or -three years after the loss of any friend, however dear, I cannot but -regard as a morbid, unhealthy nursing of sorrow, unworthy of a -Christian.” - -“And yet,” said my wife, “to such an unhealthy degree does this custom -prevail, that I have actually known young girls who have never worn any -other dress than mourning, and consequently never been into society, -during the entire period of their girlhood. First, the death of a father -necessitated three years of funereal garments and abandonment of social -relations; then the death of a brother added two years more; and before -that mourning was well ended, another of a wide circle of relatives -being taken, the habitual seclusion was still protracted. What must a -child think of the Christian doctrine of life and death, who has never -seen life except through black crape? We profess to believe in a better -life to which the departed good are called,—to believe in the shortness -of our separation, the certainty of reunion, and that all these events -are arranged in all their relations by an infinite tenderness which -cannot err. Surely, Christian funerals too often seem to say that -affliction “cometh of the dust,” and not from above. - -“But,” said Bob, “after all, death is a horror; you can make nothing -less of it. You can’t smooth it over, nor dress it with flowers; it is -what Nature shudders at.” - -“It is precisely for this reason,” said I, “that Christians should avoid -those customs which aggravate and intensify this natural dread. Why -overpower the senses with doleful and funereal images in the hour of -weakness and bereavement, when the soul needs all her force to rise -above the gloom of earth, and to realize the mysteries of faith? Why -shut the friendly sunshine from the mourner’s room? Why muffle in a -white shroud every picture that speaks a cheerful household word to the -eye? Why make a house look stiff and ghastly and cold as a corpse? In -some of our cities, on the occurrence of a death in the family, all the -shutters on the street are closed and tied with black crape, and so -remain for months. What an oppressive gloom must this bring on a house! -how like the very shadow of death! It is enlisting the nerves and the -senses against our religion, and making more difficult the great duty of -returning to life and its interests. I would have flowers and sunshine -in the deserted rooms, and make them symbolical of the cheerful mansions -above, to which our beloved ones are gone. Home ought to be so -religiously cheerful, so penetrated by the life of love and hope and -Christian faith, that the other world may be made real by it. Our home -life should be a type of the higher life. Our home should be so -sanctified, its joys and its sorrows so baptized and hallowed, that it -shall not be sacrilegious to think of heaven as a higher form of the -same thing,—a Father’s house in the better country, whose mansions are -many, whose love is perfect, whose joy is eternal.” - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - Standard and Popular Library Books - - SELECTED FROM THE CATALOGUE OF - - HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. - - ───── - - -=Brooks Adams.= The Emancipation of Massachusetts, crown 8vo. - -=John Adams and Abigail Adams.= Familiar Letters of, during the - Revolution, 12mo, $2.00. - -=Oscar Fay Adams.= Handbook of English Authors, 16mo, 75 cents; Handbook - of American Authors, 16mo, 75 cents. - -=Louis Agassiz.= Methods of Study in Natural History, Illustrated, 12mo, - $1.50; Geological Sketches, Series I. and II., 12mo, each, $1.50; A - Journey in Brazil, Illustrated, 12mo, $2.50; Life and Letters, edited - by his wife, 2 vols. 12mo, $4.00; Life and Works, 6 vols. $10.00. - -=Anne A. 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Scott, 3 vols. 12mo, $4.50. - -=Henry Cabot Lodge.= Studies in History, cr. 8vo, $1.50. - -=Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.= Complete Poetical and Prose Works, - _Riverside Edition_, 11 vols. cr. 8vo, each $1.50; the set, $16.50; - Poetical Works, _Cambridge Edition_, 4 vols. 12mo, $7.00; Poems, - _Octavo Edition_, Portrait and 300 Illustrations, $7.50; _Household - Edition_, Illustrated, 12mo, $1.75; cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25; - _Red-Line Edition_, Portrait and 12 Illustrations, small 4to, $2.50; - _Cabinet Edition_, $1.00; _Library Edition_, Portrait and 32 - Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50; Christus, _Household Edition_, $1.75; cr. - 8vo, full gilt, $2.25; _Cabinet Edition_, $1.00; Prose Works, - _Cambridge Edition_, 2 vols. 12mo, $3.50; Hyperion, 16mo, $1.50; - Kavanagh, 16mo, $1.50; Outre-Mer, 16mo, $1.50; In the Harbor, 16mo, - $1.00; Michael Angelo: a Drama, Illustrated, folio, $5.00; Twenty - Poems, Illustrated, small 4to, $2.50; Translation of the Divina - Commedia of Dante, 1 vol. cr. 8vo, $2.50; 3 vols. royal 8vo, $13.50; - cr. 8vo, $4.50; Poets and Poetry of Europe, royal 8vo, $5.00; Poems - of Places, 31 vols, each $1.00; the set, $25.00. - -=James Russell Lowell.= Poems, _Red-Line Edition_, Portrait, - Illustrated, small 4to, $2.50; _Household Edition_, Illustrated, - 12mo, $1.75; cr. 8vo, full gilt, $2.25; _Library Edition_, Portrait - and 32 Illustrations, 8vo, $3.50; _Cabinet Edition_, $1.00; Fireside - Travels, 12mo, $1.50; Among my Books, Series I. and II. 12mo, each - $2.00; My Study Windows, 12mo, $2.00; Democracy and other Addresses, - 16mo. - -=Thomas Babington Macaulay.= Works, 16 vols, 12mo, $20.00. - -=Mrs. Madison.= Memoirs and Letters of Dolly Madison, 16mo, $1.25. - -=Harriet Martineau.= Autobiography, New Edition, 2 vols. 12mo, $4.00; - Household Education, 18mo, $1.25. - -=H. 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A. Wilstach.= Translation of Virgil’s Works, 2 vols. cr. 8vo, $5.00. - -=Justin Winsor.= Reader’s Handbook of American Revolution, 16mo, $1.25. - -=W. B. Wright.= Ancient Cities from the Dawn to the Daylight, 16mo, - $1.25. - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - ● Transcriber’s Notes: - ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. - ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. - ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only - when a predominant form was found in this book. - ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_); - text that was bold by “equal” signs (=bold=). - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS *** - -***** This file should be named 64120-0.txt or 64120-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - https://www.gutenberg.org/6/4/1/2/64120/ - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: House and Home Papers</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Seventh Edition</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Christopher Crowfield and Harriet Beecher Stowe</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 23, 2020 [eBook #64120]</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> -<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charlene Taylor, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS ***</div> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/cover.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p><span class='small'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</span></p> -</div> -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c000' /> -</div> -<div class='box1'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><span class='xlarge'><span class="blackletter">Writings of Harriet Beecher Stowe.</span></span></div> - <div>────</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c002'>UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. <i>Popular Illustrated Edition.</i> 12mo, -$2.00.</p> -<p class='c002'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> <i>Illustrated Edition.</i> A new edition, from new -plates, printed with red-line border. With an Introduction of -more than 30 pages, and a Bibliography of the various editions -and languages in which the work has appeared, by Mr. <span class='sc'>George -Bullen</span>, of the British Museum. Over 100 illustrations. 8vo, -$3.50.</p> -<p class='c002'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> <i>Popular Edition.</i> With Introduction, and Portrait -of “Uncle Tom.” 12mo, $1.00.</p> -<p class='c002'>DRED (sometimes called “Nina Gordon.”) 12mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>THE MINISTER’S WOOING. 12mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>AGNES OF SORRENTO. 12mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>THE PEARL OF ORR’S ISLAND. 12mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>THE MAY-FLOWER, etc. 12mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>OLDTOWN FOLKS. 12mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>SAM LAWSON’S FIRESIDE STORIES. New and enlarged -Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'><span class='sc'>The Same.</span> 16mo, paper covers, 50 cents.</p> -<p class='c002'>MY WIFE AND I. New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS. New Edition. Illustrated. -12mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>POGANUC PEOPLE. New Edition. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div>The above eleven 12mo volumes, uniform, in box, $16.50.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c002'>HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. 16mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>LITTLE FOXES. 16mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>THE CHIMNEY-CORNER. 16mo, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>A DOG’S MISSION, etc. New Edition. Illustrated. Small -4to, $1.25.</p> -<p class='c002'>QUEER LITTLE PEOPLE. New Edition. Illustrated. Small -4to, $1.25.</p> -<p class='c002'>LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW. New Edition. Illustrated. Small -4to, $1.25.</p> -<p class='c002'>RELIGIOUS POEMS. Illustrated. 16mo, gilt edges, $1.50.</p> -<p class='c002'>PALMETTO LEAVES. Sketches of Florida. Illustrated. -16mo, $1.50.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div>HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., <i>Publishers</i>,</div> - <div>BOSTON.</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div> - <h1 class='c003'><span class='xxlarge'>HOUSE AND HOME<br /> <br />PAPERS.</span></h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><span class='sc'>By</span> CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD.</div> - <div class='c001'><span class='small'>SEVENTH EDITION.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'> </p> -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/publogo.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> -<p class='c005'> </p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div>BOSTON:</div> - <div>HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.</div> - <div><span class="blackletter">The Riverside Press, Cambridge.</span></div> - <div>1887.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c006'> - <div>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by</div> - <div class='c000'>HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,</div> - <div class='c000'>in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c006' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c007'>CONTENTS.</h2> -</div> -<table class='table0' summary=''> -<colgroup> -<col width='12%' /> -<col width='76%' /> -<col width='10%' /> -</colgroup> - <tr> - <td class='c008'> </td> - <td class='c009'> </td> - <td class='c010'><span class='sc'>Page</span></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>I.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Ravages of a Carpet</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch01'>1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>II.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Home-Keeping</span> <i>vs.</i> <span class='sc'>House-Keeping</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch02'>23</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>III.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>What is a Home?</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch03'>48</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>IV.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Economy of the Beautiful</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch04'>79</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>V.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Raking up the Fire</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch05'>101</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>VI.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>The Lady who does her own Work</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch06'>125</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>VII.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>What can be got in America</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch07'>148</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>VIII.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Economy</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch08'>164</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>IX.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Servants</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch09'>195</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>X.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Cookery</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch10'>225</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>XI.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Our House</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch11'>266</a></td> - </tr> - <tr><td> </td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c008'>XII.</td> - <td class='c009'><span class='sc'>Home Religion</span></td> - <td class='c010'><a href='#ch12'>309</a></td> - </tr> -</table> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><span class='xxlarge'><span class='sc'>House and Home Papers.</span></span></div> - <div class='c000'>─────</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch01' class='c007'>I.<br /> <br />THE RAVAGES OF A CARPET.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_7 c011'>“MY dear, it’s so cheap!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>These words were spoken by my wife, as -she sat gracefully on a roll of Brussels carpet which -was spread out in flowery lengths on the floor of -Messrs. Ketchem & Co.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s <i>so</i> cheap!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milton says that the love of fame is the last infirmity -of noble minds. I think he had not rightly -considered the subject. I believe that last infirmity -is the love of getting things cheap! Understand me, -now. I don’t mean the love of getting cheap things, -by which one understands showy, trashy, ill-made, -spurious articles, bearing certain apparent resemblances -to better things. All really sensible people -are quite superior to that sort of cheapness. But -those fortunate accidents which put within the power -of a man things really good and valuable for half or -a third of their value what mortal virtue and resolution -can withstand? My friend Brown has a genuine -Murillo, the joy of his heart and the light of his eyes, -but he never fails to tell you, as its crowning merit, -how he bought it in South America for just nothing,—how -it hung smoky and deserted in the back of a -counting-room, and was thrown in as a makeweight to -bind a bargain, and, upon being cleaned, turned out -a genuine Murillo; and then he takes out his cigar, -and calls your attention to the points in it; he adjusts -the curtain to let the sunlight fall just in the right -spot; he takes you to this and the other point of -view; and all this time you must confess, that, in -your mind as well as his, the consideration that he -got all this beauty for ten dollars adds lustre to the -painting. Brown has paintings there for which he -paid his thousands, and, being well advised, they are -worth the thousands he paid; but this ewe-lamb that -he got for nothing always gives him a secret exaltation -in his own eyes. He seems to have credited to himself -personally merit to the amount of what he should -have paid for the picture. Then there is Mrs. Crœsus, -at the party yesterday evening, expatiating to my wife -on the surprising cheapness of her point-lace set,—“Got -for just nothing at all, my dear!” and a circle -of admiring listeners echoes the sound. “Did you -ever <i>hear</i> anything like it? I never heard of such a -thing in my life”; and away sails Mrs. Crœsus as if -she had a collar composed of all the cardinal virtues. -In fact, she is buoyed up with a secret sense of merit, -so that her satin slippers scarcely touch the carpet. -Even I myself am fond of showing a first edition of -“Paradise Lost,” for which I gave a shilling in a -London book-stall, and stating that I would not take -a hundred dollars for it. Even I must confess there -are points on which I am mortal.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But all this while my wife sits on her roll of carpet, -looking into my face for approbation, and Marianne -and Jenny are pouring into my ear a running-fire -of “How sweet! How lovely! Just like that one -of Mrs. Tweedleum’s!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And she gave two dollars and seventy-five cents a -yard for hers, and this is—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>My wife here put her hand to her mouth, and -pronounced the incredible sum in a whisper, with a -species of sacred awe, common, as I have observed, -to females in such interesting crises. In fact, Mr. -Ketchem, standing smiling and amiable by, remarked -to me that really he hoped Mrs. Crowfield would not -name generally what she gave for the article, for positively -it was so far below the usual rate of prices that -he might give offence to other customers; but this -was the very last of the pattern, and they were anxious -to close off the old stock, and we had always -traded with them, and he had a great respect for my -wife’s father, who had always traded with their firm, -and so, when there were any little bargains to be -thrown in any one’s way, why, he naturally, of -course—And here Mr. Ketchem bowed gracefully -over the yardstick to my wife, and I consented.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Yes, I consented; but whenever I think of myself -at that moment, I always am reminded, in a -small way, of Adam taking the apple; and my wife, -seated on that roll of carpet, has more than once -suggested to my mind the classic image of Pandora -opening her unlucky box. In fact, from the moment -I had blandly assented to Mr. Ketchem’s remarks, -and said to my wife, with a gentle air of dignity, -“Well, my dear, since it suits you, I think you had -better take it,” there came a load on my prophetic -soul, which not all the fluttering and chattering of -my delighted girls and the more placid complacency -of my wife could entirely dissipate. I presaged, I -know not what, of coming woe; and all I presaged -came to pass.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In order to know just <i>what</i> came to pass, I must -give you a view of the house and home into which -this carpet was introduced.</p> - -<p class='c005'>My wife and I were somewhat advanced housekeepers, -and our dwelling was first furnished by her -father, in the old-fashioned jog-trot days, when furniture -was made with a view to its lasting from generation -to generation. Everything was strong and -comfortable,—heavy mahogany, guiltless of the modern -device of veneering, and hewed out with a square -solidity which had not an idea of change. It was, -so to speak, a sort of granite foundation of the household -structure. Then, we commenced housekeeping -with the full idea that our house was a thing to be -lived in, and that furniture was made to be used. -That most sensible of women, Mrs. Crowfield, agreed -fully with me, that in our house there was to be nothing -too good for ourselves,—no rooms shut up in -holiday attire to be enjoyed by strangers for three -or four days in the year, while we lived in holes and -corners,—no best parlor from which we were to be -excluded,—no silver plate to be kept in the safe in -the bank, and brought home only in case of a grand -festival, while our daily meals were served with dingy -Britannia. “Strike a broad, plain average,” I said -to my wife; “have everything abundant, serviceable; -and give all our friends exactly what we have ourselves, -no better and no worse”;—and my wife -smiled approval on my sentiment.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Smile! she did more than smile. My wife resembles -one of those convex mirrors I have sometimes -seen. Every idea I threw out, plain and simple, she -reflected back upon me in a thousand little glitters -and twinkles of her own; she made my crude conceptions -come back to me in such perfectly dazzling -performances that I hardly recognized them. My -mind warms up, when I think what a home that woman -made of our house from the very first day she -moved into it. The great, large, airy parlor, with its -ample bow-window, when she had arranged it, seemed -a perfect trap to catch sunbeams. There was none -of that discouraging trimness and newness that often -repel a man’s bachelor-friends after the first call, and -make them feel,—“O, well, one cannot go in at -Crowfield’s now, unless one is dressed; one might -put them out.” The first thing our parlor said to -any one was, that we were not people to be put out, -that we were wide-spread, easy-going, and jolly folk. -Even if Tom Brown brought in Ponto and his shooting-bag, -there was nothing in that parlor to strike -terror into man and dog; for it was written on the -face of things, that everybody there was to do just -as he or she pleased. There were my books and -my writing-table spread out with all its miscellaneous -confusion of papers on one side of the fireplace, and -there were my wife’s great, ample sofa and work-table -on the other; there I wrote my articles for the -“North American,” and there she turned and ripped -and altered her dresses, and there lay crochet and -knitting and embroidery side by side with a weekly -basket of family-mending, and in neighborly contiguity -with the last book of the season, which my wife -turned over as she took her after-dinner lounge on -the sofa. And in the bow-window were canaries -always singing, and a great stand of plants always -fresh and blooming, and ivy which grew and clambered -and twined about the pictures. Best of all, -there was in our parlor that household altar, the -blazing wood-fire, whose wholesome, hearty crackle -is the truest household inspiration. I quite agree -with one celebrated American author who holds that -an open fireplace is an altar of patriotism. Would -our Revolutionary fathers have gone barefooted and -bleeding over snows to defend air-tight stoves and -cooking-ranges? I trow not. It was the memory of -the great open kitchen-fire, with its back-log and fore-stick -of cord-wood, its roaring, hilarious voice of -invitation, its dancing tongues of flame, that called -to them through the snows of that dreadful winter to -keep up their courage, that made their hearts warm -and bright with a thousand reflected memories. Our -neighbors said that it was delightful to sit by our fire,—but -then, for their part, they could not afford it, -wood was so ruinously dear, and all that. Most of -these people could not, for the simple reason that -they felt compelled, in order to maintain the family-dignity, -to keep up a parlor with great pomp and -circumstance of upholstery, where they sat only on -dress-occasions, and of course the wood-fire was out -of the question.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When children began to make their appearance in -our establishment, my wife, like a well-conducted -housekeeper, had the best of nursery-arrangements,—a -room all warmed, lighted, and ventilated, and -abounding in every proper resource of amusement to -the rising race; but it was astonishing to see how, -notwithstanding this, the centripetal attraction drew -every pair of little pattering feet to our parlor.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear, why don’t you take your blocks up-stairs?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I want to be where oo are,” said with a piteous -under-lip, was generally a most convincing answer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then the small people could not be disabused of -the idea that certain chief treasures of their own -would be safer under papa’s writing-table or mamma’s -sofa than in the safest closet of their own domains. -My writing-table was dock-yard for Arthur’s new -ship, and stable for little Tom’s pepper-and-salt-colored -pony, and carriage-house for Charley’s new -wagon, while whole armies of paper-dolls kept house -in the recess behind mamma’s sofa.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And then, in due time, came the tribe of pets who -followed the little ones and rejoiced in the blaze of -the firelight. The boys had a splendid Newfoundland, -which, knowing our weakness, we warned them -with awful gravity was never to be a parlor dog; but, -somehow, what with little beggings and pleadings on -the part of Arthur and Tom, and the piteous melancholy -with which Rover would look through the window-panes, -when shut out from the blazing warmth -into the dark, cold, veranda, it at last came to pass -that Rover gained a regular corner at the hearth, a -regular <i>status</i> in every family-convocation. And then -came a little black-and-tan English terrier for the -girls; and then a fleecy poodle, who established himself -on the corner of my wife’s sofa; and for each of -these some little voices pleaded, and some little heart -would be so near broken at any slight, that my wife -and I resigned ourselves to live in menagerie, the more -so as we were obliged to confess a lurking weakness -towards these four-footed children ourselves.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So we grew and flourished together,—children, -dogs, birds, flowers, and all; and although my wife -often, in paroxysms of housewifeliness to which the -best of women are subject, would declare that we -never were fit to be seen, yet I comforted her with -the reflection that there were few people whose -friends seemed to consider them better worth seeing, -judging by the stream of visitors and loungers which -was always setting towards our parlor. People -seemed to find it good to be there; they said it -was somehow home-like and pleasant, and that there -was a kind of charm about it that made it easy to -talk and easy to live; and as my girls and boys grew -up, there seemed always to be some merry doing or -other going on there. Arty and Tom brought home -their college friends, who straightway took root there -and seemed to fancy themselves a part of us. We -had no reception-rooms apart, where the girls were -to receive young gentlemen; all the courting and -flirting that were to be done had for their arena the -ample variety of surface presented by our parlor, -which, with sofas and screens and lounges and recesses -and writing-and work-tables, disposed here -and there, and the genuine <i>laisser aller</i> of the whole -<i>menage</i>, seemed, on the whole, to have offered ample -advantages enough; for, at the time I write of, two -daughters were already established in marriage, while -my youngest was busy, as yet, in performing that -little domestic ballet of the cat with the mouse, in -the case of a most submissive youth of the neighborhood.</p> - -<p class='c005'>All this time our parlor-furniture, though of that -granitic formation I have indicated, began to show -marks of that decay to which things sublunary are -liable. I cannot say that I dislike this look in a -room. Take a fine, ample, hospitable apartment, -where all things, freely and generously used, softly -and indefinably grow old together, there is a sort of -mellow tone and keeping which pleases my eye. -What if the seams of the great inviting arm-chair, -where so many friends have sat and lounged, do grow -white? What, in fact, if some easy couch has an undeniable -hole worn in its friendly cover? I regard -with tenderness even these mortal weaknesses of -these servants and witnesses of our good times and -social fellowship. No vulgar touch wore them; they -may be called, rather, the marks and indentations -which the glittering in and out of the tide of social -happiness has worn in the rocks of our strand. I -would no more disturb the gradual toning-down and -aging of a well-used set of furniture by smart improvements -than I would have a modern dauber paint in -emendations in a fine old picture.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So we men reason; but women do not always -think as we do. There is a virulent demon of housekeeping, -not wholly cast out in the best of them, and -which often breaks out in unguarded moments. In -fact, Miss Marianne, being on the lookout for furniture -wherewith to begin a new establishment, and -Jenny, who had accompanied her in her peregrinations, -had more than once thrown out little disparaging -remarks on the time-worn appearance of our -establishment, suggesting comparison with those of -more modern-furnished rooms.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is positively scandalous, the way our furniture -looks,” I one day heard one of them declaring to her -mother; “and this old rag of a carpet!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>My feelings were hurt, not the less so that I knew -that the large cloth which covered the middle of the -floor, and which the women call a bocking, had been -bought and nailed down there, after a solemn family-counsel, -as the best means of concealing the too evident -darns which years of good cheer had made needful -in our stanch old household friend, the three-ply -carpet, made in those days when to be a three-ply was -a pledge of continuance and service.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Well, it was a joyous and bustling day, when, after -one of those domestic whirlwinds which the women -are fond of denominating house-cleaning, the new -Brussels carpet was at length brought in and nailed -down, and its beauty praised from mouth to mouth. -Our old friends called in and admired, and all seemed -to be well, except that I had that light and delicate -presage of changes to come which indefinitely brooded -over me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The first premonitory symptom was the look of -apprehensive suspicion with which the female senate -regarded the genial sunbeams that had always glorified -our bow-window.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“This house ought to have inside blinds,” said -Marianne, with all the confident decision of youth, -“this carpet will be ruined, if the sun is allowed to -come in like that.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And that dirty little canary must really be hung -in the kitchen,” said Jenny; “he always did make -such a litter, scattering his seed-chippings about; and -he never takes his bath without flirting out some -water. And, mamma, it appears to me it will never -do to have the plants here. Plants are always either -leaking through the pots upon the carpet, or scattering -bits of blossoms and dead leaves, or some accident -upsets or breaks a pot. It was no matter, you -know, when we had the old carpet; but this we really -want to have kept nice.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mamma stood her ground for the plants,—darlings -of her heart for many a year,—but temporized, -and showed that disposition towards compromise -which is most inviting to aggression.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I confess I trembled; for, of all radicals on earth, -none are to be compared to females that have once -in hand a course of domestic innovation and reform. -The sacred fire, the divine <i>furor</i>, burns in their bosoms, -they become perfect Pythonesses, and every -chair they sit on assumes the magic properties of the -tripod. Hence the dismay that lodges in the bosoms -of us males at the fateful spring and autumn seasons, -denominated house-cleaning. Who can say whither -the awful gods, the prophetic fates, may drive our -fair household divinities; what sins of ours may be -brought to light; what indulgences and compliances, -which uninspired woman has granted in her ordinary -mortal hours, may be torn from us? He who has -been allowed to keep a pair of pet slippers in a concealed -corner, and by the fireside indulged with a -chair which he might, <i>ad libitum</i>, fill with all sorts of -pamphlets and miscellaneous literature, suddenly finds -himself reformed out of knowledge, his pamphlets -tucked away into pigeon-holes and corners, and his -slippers put in their place in the hall, with, perhaps, a -brisk insinuation about the shocking dust and disorder -that men will tolerate.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The fact was, that the very first night after the -advent of the new carpet I had a prophetic dream. -Among our treasures of art was a little etching, by an -English artist-friend, the subject of which was the -gambols of the household fairies in a baronial library -after the household were in bed. The little people -are represented in every attitude of frolic enjoyment. -Some escalade the great arm-chair, and look down -from its top as from a domestic Mont Blanc; some -climb about the bellows; some scale the shaft of the -shovel; while some, forming in magic ring, dance -festively on the yet glowing hearth. Tiny troops -promenade the writing-table. One perches himself -quaintly on the top of the inkstand, and holds colloquy -with another who sits cross-legged on a paper-weight, -while a companion looks down on them from -the top of the sand-box. It was an ingenious little -device, and gave me the idea, which I often expressed -to my wife, that much of the peculiar feeling of security, -composure, and enjoyment which seems to be -the atmosphere of some rooms and houses came from -the unsuspected presence of these little people, the -household fairies, so that the belief in their existence -became a solemn article of faith with me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Accordingly, that evening, after the installation of -the carpet, when my wife and daughters had gone to -bed, as I sat with my slippered feet before the last -coals of the fire, I fell asleep in my chair, and, lo! -my own parlor presented to my eye a scene of busy -life. The little people in green were tripping to -and fro, but in great confusion. Evidently something -was wrong among them; for they were fussing and -chattering with each other, as if preparatory to a general -movement. In the region of the bow-window I -observed a tribe of them standing with tiny valises -and carpet-bags in their hands, as though about to -depart on a journey. On my writing-table another set -stood around my inkstand and pen-rack, who, pointing -to those on the floor, seemed to debate some -question among themselves; while others of them -appeared to be collecting and packing away in tiny -trunks certain fairy treasures, preparatory to a general -departure. When I looked at the social hearth, at my -wife’s sofa and work-basket, I saw similar appearances -of dissatisfaction and confusion. It was evident -that the household fairies were discussing the -question of a general and simultaneous removal. I -groaned in spirit, and, stretching out my hand, began -a conciliatory address, when whisk went the whole -scene from before my eyes, and I awaked to behold -the form of my wife asking me if I were ill or had -had the nightmare that I groaned so. I told her -my dream, and we laughed at it together.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We must give way to the girls a little,” she said. -“It is natural, you know, that they should wish us to -appear a little as other people do. The fact is, our -parlor is somewhat dilapidated; think how many years -we have lived in it without an article of new furniture.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I hate new furniture,” I remarked, in the bitterness -of my soul. “I hate anything new.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>My wife answered me discreetly, according to approved -principles of diplomacy. I was right. She -sympathized with me. At the same time, it was not -necessary, she remarked, that we should keep a hole -in our sofa-cover and arm-chair; there would certainly -be no harm in sending them to the upholsterer’s to -be new-covered; she didn’t much mind, for her part, -moving her plants to the south back-room, and the -bird would do well enough in the kitchen: I had -often complained of him for singing vociferously when -I was reading aloud.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So our sofa went to the upholsterer’s; but the upholsterer -was struck with such horror at its clumsy, -antiquated, unfashionable appearance, that he felt -bound to make representations to my wife and daughters: -positively, it would be better for them to get a -new one, of a tempting pattern, which he showed them, -than to try to do anything with that. With a stitch or -so here and there it might do for a basement dining-room; -but, for a parlor, he gave it as his disinterested -opinion,—he must say, if the case were his own, he -should get, etc., etc. In short, we had a new sofa and -new chairs, and the plants and the birds were banished, -and some dark green blinds were put up to -exclude the sun from the parlor, and the blessed luminary -was allowed there only at rare intervals, when my -wife and daughters were out shopping, and I acted -out my uncivilized male instincts by pulling up every -shade and vivifying the apartment as in days of old.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But this was not the worst of it. The new furniture -and new carpet formed an opposition party in the -room. I believe in my heart that for every little -household fairy that went out with the dear old things -there came in a tribe of discontented brownies with -the new ones. These little wretches were always -twitching at the gowns of my wife and daughters, jogging -their elbows, and suggesting odious comparisons -between the smart new articles and what remained of -the old ones. They disparaged my writing-table in -the corner; they disparaged the old-fashioned lounge -in the other corner, which had been the maternal -throne for years; they disparaged the work-table, the -work-basket, with constant suggestions of how such -things as these would look in certain well-kept parlors -where new-fashioned furniture of the same sort as -ours existed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We don’t have any parlor,” said Jenny, one day. -“Our parlor has always been a sort of log-cabin,—library, -study, nursery, greenhouse, all combined. We -never have had things like other people.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, and this open fire makes such a dust; and -this carpet is one that shows every speck of dust; it -keeps one always on the watch.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I wonder why papa never had a study to himself; -I’m sure I should think he would like it better than -sitting here among us all. Now there’s the great -south-room off the dining-room; if he would only -move his things there, and have his open fire, we -could then close up the fireplace, and put lounges in -the recesses, and mamma could have her things in the -nursery,—and then we should have a parlor fit to be -seen.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I overheard all this, though I pretended not to,—the -little busy chits supposing me entirely buried in -the recesses of a German book over which I was -poring.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There are certain crises in a man’s life when the -female element in his household asserts itself in dominant -forms that seem to threaten to overwhelm him. -The fair creatures, who in most matters have depended -on his judgment, evidently look upon him at these -seasons as only a forlorn, incapable male creature, to -be cajoled and flattered and persuaded out of his -native blindness and absurdity into the fairy-land of -their wishes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course, mamma,” said the busy voices, “men -can’t understand such things. What <i>can</i> men know of -housekeeping, and how things ought to look? Papa -never goes into company; he don’t know and don’t -care how the world is doing, and don’t see that nobody -now is living as we do.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aha, my little mistresses, are you there?” I -thought; and I mentally resolved on opposing a -great force of what our politicians call <i>backbone</i> to -this pretty domestic conspiracy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“When you get my writing-table out of this corner, -my pretty dears, I’d thank you to let me know it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Thus spake I in my blindness, fool that I was. -Jupiter might as soon keep awake, when Juno came -in best bib and tucker, and with the <i>cestus</i> of Venus, -to get him to sleep. Poor Slender might as well hope -to get the better of pretty Mistress Anne Page, as one -of us clumsy-footed men might endeavor to escape -from the tangled labyrinth of female wiles.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In short, in less than a year it was all done, without -any quarrel, any noise, any violence,—done, I scarce -knew when or how, but with the utmost deference to -my wishes, the most amiable hopes that I would not -put myself out, the most sincere protestations that, if -I liked it better as it was, my goddesses would give -up and acquiesce. In fact, I seemed to do it of myself, -constrained thereto by what the Emperor Napoleon -has so happily called the logic of events,—that -old, well-known logic by which the man who has once -said A must say B, and he who has said B must say -the whole alphabet. In a year, we had a parlor with -two lounges in decorous recesses, a fashionable sofa, -and six chairs and a looking-glass, and a grate always -shut up, and a hole in the floor which kept the parlor -warm, and great, heavy curtains that kept out all the -light that was not already excluded by the green -shades.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was as proper and orderly a parlor as those of -our most fashionable neighbors; and when our friends -called, we took them stumbling into its darkened solitude, -and opened a faint crack in one of the window-shades, -and came down in our best clothes, and talked -with them there. Our old friends rebelled at this, -and asked what they had done to be treated so, and -complained so bitterly that gradually we let them into -the secret that there was a great south-room which I -had taken for my study, where we all sat, where the -old carpet was down, where the sun shone in at the -great window, where my wife’s plants flourished and -the canary-bird sang, and my wife had her sofa in the -corner, and the old brass andirons glistened and the -wood-fire crackled,—in short, a room to which all the -household fairies had emigrated.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When they once had found <i>that</i> out, it was difficult -to get any of them to sit in our parlor. I had purposely -christened the new room <i>my study</i>, that I might -stand on my rights as master of ceremonies there, -though I opened wide arms of welcome to any who -chose to come. So, then, it would often come to pass, -that, when we were sitting round the fire in my study -of an evening, the girls would say,—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Come, what do we always stay here for? Why -don’t we ever sit in the parlor?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And then there would be manifested among guests -and family-friends a general unwillingness to move.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“O, hang it, girls!” would Arthur say; “the parlor -is well enough, all right; let it stay as it is, and let -a fellow stay where he can do as he pleases and feels -at home”; and to this view of the matter would -respond divers of the nice young bachelors who were -Arthur’s and Tom’s sworn friends.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In fact, nobody wanted to stay in our parlor now. -It was a cold, correct, accomplished fact; the household -fairies had left it,—and when the fairies leave a -room, nobody ever feels at home in it. No pictures, -curtains, no wealth of mirrors, no elegance of lounges, -can in the least make up for their absence. They are -a capricious little set; there are rooms where they will -<i>not</i> stay, and rooms where they <i>will</i>; but no one can -ever have a good time without them.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch02' class='c007'>II.<br /> <br />HOME-KEEPING <i>vs.</i> HOUSE-KEEPING.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_675 c011'>I AM a frank, open-hearted man, as, perhaps, you -have by this time perceived, and you will not, -therefore, be surprised to know that I read my last -article on the carpet to my wife and the girls before -I sent it to the “Atlantic,” and we had a hearty laugh -over it together. My wife and the girls, in fact, felt -that they could afford to laugh, for they had carried -their point, their reproach among women was taken -away, they had become like other folks. Like other -folks they had a parlor, an undeniable best parlor, -shut up and darkened, with all proper carpets, curtains, -lounges, and marble-topped tables, too good for -human nature’s daily food; and being sustained by -this consciousness, they cheerfully went on receiving -their friends in the study, and having good times in -the old free-and-easy way; for did not everybody -know that this room was not their best? and if the -furniture was old-fashioned and a little the worse for -antiquity, was it not certain that they had better, which -they could use, if they would?</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And supposing we wanted to give a party,” said -Jenny, “how nicely our parlor would light up! Not -that we ever do give parties, but if we should,—and -for a wedding-reception, you know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I felt the force of the necessity; it was evident -that the four or five hundred extra which we had -expended was no more than such solemn possibilities -required.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now, papa thinks we have been foolish,” said -Marianne, “and he has his own way of making a -good story of it; but, after all, I desire to know if -people are never to get a new carpet. Must we keep -the old one till it actually wears to tatters?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>This is a specimen of the <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> -which our fair antagonists of the other sex are fond -of employing. They strip what we say of all delicate -shadings and illusory phrases, and reduce it to some -bare question of fact, with which they make a home-thrust -at us.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, that’s it; are people <i>never</i> to get a new carpet?” -echoed Jenny.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dears,” I replied, “it is a fact that to introduce -anything new into an apartment hallowed by many -home-associations, where all things have grown old -together, requires as much care and adroitness as -for an architect to restore an arch or niche in a fine -old ruin. The fault of our carpet was that it was in -another style from everything in our room, and made -everything in it look dilapidated. Its colors, material, -and air belonged to another manner of life, and were -a constant plea for alterations; and you see it actually -drove out and expelled the whole furniture of the -room, and I am not sure yet that it may not entail on -us the necessity of refurnishing the whole house.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear!” said my wife, in a tone of remonstrance; -but Jane and Marianne laughed and colored.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Confess, now,” said I, looking at them, “have -you not had secret designs on the hall- and stair-carpet?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now, papa, how could you know it? I only said -to Marianne that to have Brussels in the parlor and -that old mean-looking ingrain carpet in the hall did -not seem exactly the thing; and, in fact, you know, -mamma, Messrs. Ketchem & Co. showed us such a -lovely pattern, designed to harmonize with our parlor-carpet.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I know it, girls,” said my wife; “but you know -I said at once that such an expense was not to be -thought of.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now, girls,” said I, “let me tell you a story I -heard once of a very sensible old New-England minister, -who lived, as our country ministers generally do, -rather near to the bone, but still quite contentedly. It -was in the days when knee-breeches and long stockings -were worn, and this good man was offered a -present of a very nice pair of black silk hose. He -declined, saying, he ‘could not afford to wear them.’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘Not afford it?’ said the friend; ‘why, I <i>give</i> -them to you.’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘Exactly; but it will cost me not less than two -hundred dollars to take them, and I cannot do it.’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘How is that?’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘Why, in the first place, I shall no sooner put -them on than my wife will say, “My dear, you must -have a new pair of knee-breeches,” and I shall get -them. Then my wife will say, “My dear, how -shabby your coat is! You must have a new one,” -and I shall get a new coat. Then she will say, -“Now, my dear, that hat will never do,” and then -I shall have a new hat; and then I shall say, “My -dear, it will never do for me to be so fine and you to -wear your old gown,” and so my wife will get a new -gown; and then the new gown will require a new -shawl and a new bonnet; all of which we shall not -feel the need of, if I don’t take this pair of silk stockings, -for, as long as we don’t see them, our old things -seem very well suited to each other.’”</p> - -<p class='c005'>The girls laughed at this story, and I then added, -in my most determined manner,—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But I must warn you, girls, that I have compromised -to the utmost extent of my power, and that I -intend to plant myself on the old stair-carpet in determined -resistance. I have no mind to be forbidden -the use of the front-stairs, or condemned to get up -into my bedroom by a private ladder, as I should be -immediately, if there were a new carpet down.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, papa!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Would it not be so? Can the sun shine in the -parlor now for fear of fading the carpet? Can we -keep a fire there for fear of making dust, or use the -lounges and sofas for fear of wearing them out? If -you got a new entry- and stair-carpet, as I said, I -should have to be at the expense of another staircase -to get up to our bedroom.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“O no, papa,” said Jane, innocently; “there are -very pretty druggets, now, for covering stair-carpets, -so that they can be used without hurting them.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Put one over the old carpet, then,” said I, “and -our acquaintance will never know but it is a new -one.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>All the female senate laughed at this proposal, and -said it sounded just like a man.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said I, standing up resolutely for my sex, -“a man’s ideas on woman’s matters may be worth -some attention. I flatter myself that an intelligent, -educated man doesn’t think upon and observe with -interest any particular subject for years of his life -without gaining some ideas respecting it that are good -for something; at all events, I have written another -article for the ‘Atlantic,’ which I will read to you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, wait one minute, papa, till we get our work,” -said the girls, who, to say the truth, always exhibit a -flattering interest in anything their papa writes, and -who have the good taste never to interrupt his readings -with any conversations in an undertone on cross-stitch -and floss-silks, as the manner of some is. Hence -the little feminine bustle of arranging all these matters -beforehand. Jane, or Jenny, as I call her in my -good-natured moods, put on a fresh clear stick of -hickory, of that species denominated shagbark, which -is full of most charming slivers, burning with such a -clear flame, and emitting such a delicious perfume -in burning, that I would not change it with the millionnaire -who kept up his fire with cinnamon.</p> - -<p class='c005'>You must know, my dear Mr. Atlantic, and you, -my confidential friends of the reading public, that -there is a certain magic or spiritualism which I have -the knack of in regard to these mine articles, in virtue -of which my wife and daughters never hear or -see the little personalities respecting <i>them</i> which form -parts of my papers. By a peculiar arrangement which -I have made with the elves of the inkstand and the -familiar spirits of the quill, a sort of glamour falls -on their eyes and ears when I am reading, or when -they read the parts personal to themselves; otherwise -their sense of feminine propriety would be shocked at -the free way in which they and their most internal -affairs are confidentially spoken of between me and -you, O loving readers.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Thus, in an undertone, I tell you that my little -Jenny, as she is zealously and systematically arranging -the fire, and trimly whisking every untidy particle -of ashes from the hearth, shows in every movement -of her little hands, in the cock of her head, in the -knowing, observing glance of her eye, and in all her -energetic movements, that her small person is endued -and made up of the very expressed essence of house-wifeliness,—she -is the very attar, not of roses, but of -housekeeping. Care-taking and thrift and neatness -are a nature to her; she is as dainty and delicate -in her person as a white cat, as everlastingly busy as a -bee; and all the most needful faculties of time, weight, -measure, and proportion ought to be fully developed -in her skull, if there is any truth in phrenology. Besides -all this, she has a sort of hard-grained little vein -of common sense, against which my fanciful conceptions -and poetical notions are apt to hit with just a -little sharp grating, if they are not well put. In fact, -this kind of woman needs carefully to be idealized in -the process of education, or she will stiffen and dry, -as she grows old, into a veritable household Pharisee, -a sort of domestic tyrant. She needs to be trained in -artistic values and artistic weights and measures, to -study all the arts and sciences of the beautiful, and -then she is charming. Most useful, most needful, -these little women: they have the centripetal force -which keeps all the domestic planets from gyrating -and frisking in unseemly orbits,—and properly trained, -they fill a house with the beauty of order, the harmony -and consistency of proportion, the melody of things -moving in time and tune, without violating the graceful -appearance of ease which Art requires.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So I had an eye to Jenny’s education in my article -which I unfolded and read, and which was entitled,</p> -<h3 class='c003'><span class='sc'>Home-keeping</span> <i>vs.</i> <span class='sc'>House-keeping.</span></h3> - -<p class='c012'>There are many women who know how to keep a -house, but there are but few that know how to keep -a <i>home</i>. To keep a house may seem a complicated -affair, but it is a thing that may be learned; it lies in -the region of the material, in the region of weight, -measure, color, and the positive forces of life. To -keep a home lies not merely in the sphere of all these, -but it takes in the intellectual, the social, the spiritual, -the immortal.</p> - -<p class='c013'>Here the hickory-stick broke in two, and the two -brands fell controversially out and apart on the hearth, -scattering the ashes and coals, and calling for Jenny -and the hearth-brush. Your wood-fire has this foible, -that it needs something to be done to it every five -minutes; but, after all, these little interruptions of -our bright-faced genius are like the piquant sallies of -a clever friend,—they do not strike us as unreasonable.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When Jenny had laid down her brush, she said,—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Seems to me, papa, you are beginning to soar -into metaphysics.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Everything in creation is metaphysical in its abstract -terms,” said I, with a look calculated to reduce -her to a respectful condition. “Everything has a -subjective and an objective mode of presentation.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There papa goes with subjective and objective!” -said Marianne. “For my part, I never can remember -which is which.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I remember,” said Jenny; “it’s what our old -nurse used to call internal and <i>out</i>-ternal,—I always -remember by that.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Come, my dears,” said my wife, “let your father -read”; so I went on as follows:—</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>I remember in my bachelor days going with my -boon companion, Bill Carberry, to look at the house -to which he was in a few weeks to introduce his bride. -Bill was a gallant, free-hearted, open-handed fellow, -the life of our whole set, and we felt that natural -aversion to losing him that bachelor friends would. -How could we tell under what strange aspects he -might look forth upon us, when once he had passed -into “that undiscovered country” of matrimony? But -Bill laughed to scorn our apprehensions.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’ll tell you what, Chris,” he said, as he sprang -cheerily up the steps and unlocked the door of his -future dwelling, “do you know what I chose this -house for? Because it’s a social-looking house. Look -there, now,” he said, as he ushered me into a pair of -parlors,—“look at those long south windows, the -sun lies there nearly all day long; see what a capital -corner there is for a lounging-chair; fancy us, Chris, -with our books or our paper, spread out loose and -easy, and Sophie gliding in and out like a sunbeam. -I’m getting poetical, you see. Then, did you ever -see a better, wider, airier dining-room? What capital -suppers and things we’ll have there! the nicest times,—everything -free and easy, you know,—just what -I’ve always wanted a house for. I tell you, Chris, -you and Tom Innis shall have latch-keys just like -mine, and there is a capital chamber there at the head -of the stairs, so that you can be free to come and go. -And here now’s the library,—fancy this full of books -and engravings from the ceiling to the floor; here you -shall come just as you please and ask no questions,—all -the same as if it were your own, you know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And Sophie, what will she say to all this?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, you know Sophie is a prime friend to both -of you, and a capital girl to keep things going. O, -Sophie ’ll make a house of this, you may depend!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>A day or two after, Bill dragged me stumbling over -boxes and through straw and wrappings to show me -the glories of the parlor-furniture,—with which he -seemed pleased as a child with a new toy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Look here,” he said; “see these chairs, garnet-colored -satin, with a pattern on each; well, the sofa’s -just like them, and the curtains to match, and the -carpets made for the floor with centre-pieces and -borders. I never saw anything more magnificent in -my life. Sophie’s governor furnishes the house, and -everything is to be A No. 1, and all that, you see. -Messrs. Curtain and Collamore are coming to make -the rooms up, and her mother is busy as a bee getting -us in order.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, Bill,” said I, “you are going to be lodged -like a prince. I hope you’ll be able to keep it up; -but law-business comes in rather slowly at first, old -fellow.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, you know it isn’t the way I should furnish, -if my capital was the one to cash the bills; but then, -you see, Sophie’s people do it, and let them,—a girl -doesn’t want to come down out of the style she has -always lived in.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said nothing, but had an oppressive presentiment -that social freedom would expire in that house, crushed -under a weight of upholstery.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But there came in due time the wedding and the -wedding-reception, and we all went to see Bill in his -new house splendidly lighted up and complete from -top to toe, and everybody said what a lucky fellow he -was; but that was about the end of it, so far as our -visiting was concerned. The running in, and dropping -in, and keeping latch-keys, and making informal -calls, that had been forespoken, seemed about as -likely as if Bill had lodged in the Tuileries.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Sophie, who had always been one of your snapping, -sparkling, busy sort of girls, began at once to -develop her womanhood, and show her principles, and -was as different from her former self as your careworn, -mousing old cat is from your rollicking, frisky kitten. -Not but that Sophie was a good girl. She had a capital -heart, a good, true womanly one, and was loving -and obliging; but still she was one of the desperately -painstaking, conscientious sort of women whose very -blood, as they grow older, is devoured with anxiety, -and she came of a race of women in whom housekeeping -was more than an art or a science,—it was, -so to speak, a religion. Sophie’s mother, aunts, and -grandmothers, for nameless generations back, were -known and celebrated housekeepers. They might -have been genuine descendants of the inhabitants of -that Hollandic town of Broeck, celebrated by Washington -Irving, where the cows’ tails are kept tied up -with unsullied blue ribbons, and the ends of the firewood -are painted white. He relates how a celebrated -preacher, visiting this town, found it impossible to -draw these housewives from their earthly views and -employments, until he took to preaching on the <i>neatness</i> -of the celestial city, the unsullied crystal of its -walls and the polish of its golden pavement, when the -faces of all the housewives were set Zionward at once.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now this solemn and earnest view of housekeeping -is onerous enough when a poor girl first enters on the -care of a moderately furnished house, where the articles -are not too expensive to be reasonably renewed -as time and use wear them; but it is infinitely worse -when a cataract of splendid furniture is heaped upon -her care,—when splendid crystals cut into her conscience, -and mirrors reflect her duties, and moth and -rust stand ever ready to devour and sully in every -room and passage-way.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Sophie was solemnly warned and instructed by all -the mothers and aunts,—she was warned of moths, -warned of cockroaches, warned of flies, warned of -dust; all the articles of furniture had their covers, -made of cold Holland linen, in which they looked -like bodies laid out,—even the curtain-tassels had -each its little shroud,—and bundles of receipts and -of rites and ceremonies necessary for the preservation -and purification and care of all these articles were -stuffed into the poor girl’s head, before guiltless of -cares as the feathers that floated above it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Poor Bill found very soon that his house and furniture -were to be kept at such an ideal point of perfection -that he needed another house to live in,—for, -poor fellow, he found the difference between having a -house and a home. It was only a year or two after -that my wife and I started our <i>menage</i> on very different -principles, and Bill would often drop in upon us, -wistfully lingering in the cosey arm-chair between my -writing-table and my wife’s sofa, and saying with a sigh -how confoundedly pleasant things looked there,—so -pleasant to have a bright, open fire, and geraniums -and roses and birds, and all that sort of thing, and to -dare to stretch out one’s legs and move without thinking -what one was going to hit. “Sophie is a good -girl!” he would say, “and wants to have everything -right, but you see they won’t let her. They’ve loaded -her with so many things that have to be kept in lavender, -that the poor girl is actually getting thin and -losing her health; and then, you see, there’s Aunt -Zeruah, she mounts guard at our house, and keeps up -such strict police-regulations that a fellow can’t do a -thing. The parlors are splendid, but so lonesome -and dismal!—not a ray of sunshine, in fact not a ray -of light, except when a visitor is calling, and then -they open a crack. They’re afraid of flies, and yet, -dear knows, they keep every looking-glass and picture-frame -muffled to its throat from March to December. -I’d like for curiosity to see what a fly would -do in our parlors!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said I, “can’t you have some little family -sitting-room, where you can make yourselves cosey?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Not a bit of it. Sophie and Aunt Zeruah have -fixed their throne up in our bedroom, and there they -sit all day long, except at calling-hours, and then -Sophie dresses herself and comes down. Aunt Zeruah -insists upon it that the way is to put the whole house -in order, and shut all the blinds, and sit in your bedroom, -and then, she says, nothing gets out of place; -and she tells poor Sophie the most hocus-pocus -stories about her grandmothers and aunts, who always -kept everything in their houses so that they could go -and lay their hands on it in the darkest night. I’ll -bet they could in our house. From end to end it is -kept looking as if we had shut it up and gone to -Europe,—not a book, not a paper, not a glove, or -any trace of a human being, in sight. The piano shut -tight, the bookcases shut and locked, the engravings -locked up, all the drawers and closets locked. Why, -if I want to take a fellow into the library, in the first -place it smells like a vault, and I have to unbarricade -windows, and unlock and rummage for half an hour -before I can get at anything; and I know Aunt Zeruah -is standing tiptoe at the door, ready to whip -everything back and lock up again. A fellow can’t -be social, or take any comfort in showing his books -and pictures that way. Then there’s our great, light -dining-room, with its sunny south windows,—Aunt -Zeruah got us out of that early in April, because she -said the flies would speck the frescos and get into -the china-closet, and we have been eating in a little -dingy den, with a window looking out on a back-alley, -ever since; and Aunt Zeruah says that now the dining-room -is always in perfect order, and that it is such a -care off Sophie’s mind that I ought to be willing to -eat down-cellar to the end of the chapter. Now, you -see, Chris, my position is a delicate one, because -Sophie’s folks all agree, that, if there is anything in -creation that is ignorant and dreadful and mustn’t be -allowed his way anywhere, it’s ‘a man.’ Why, you’d -think, to hear Aunt Zeruah talk, that we were all like -bulls in a china-shop, ready to toss and tear and rend, -if we are not kept down-cellar and chained; and she -worries Sophie, and Sophie’s mother comes in and -worries, and if I try to get anything done differently, -Sophie cries, and says she don’t know what to do, and -so I give it up. Now, if I want to ask a few of our -set in sociably to dinner, I can’t have them where we -eat down-cellar,—O, that would never do! Aunt -Zeruah and Sophie’s mother and the whole family -would think the family honor was forever ruined and -undone. We mustn’t ask them, unless we open the -dining-room, and have out all the best china, and get -the silver home from the bank; and if we do that, -Aunt Zeruah doesn’t sleep for a week beforehand, -getting ready for it, and for a week after, getting -things put away; and then she tells me, that, in Sophie’s -delicate state, it really is abominable for me to -increase her cares, and so I invite fellows to dine with -me at Delmonico’s, and then Sophie cries, and Sophie’s -mother says it doesn’t look respectable for a -family-man to be dining at public places; but, hang it, -a fellow wants a home somewhere!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>My wife soothed the chafed spirit, and spake comfortably -unto him, and told him that he knew there -was the old lounging-chair always ready for him at -our fireside. “And you know,” she said, “our things -are all so plain that we are never tempted to mount -any guard over them; our carpets are nothing, and -therefore we let the sun fade them, and live on the -sunshine and the flowers.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s it,” said Bill, bitterly. “Carpets fading—that’s -Aunt Zeruah’s monomania. These women -think that the great object of houses is to keep out -sunshine. What a fool I was, when I gloated over -the prospect of our sunny south windows! Why, -man, there are three distinct sets of fortifications -against the sunshine in those windows: first, outside -blinds; then, solid, folding, inside shutters; and, lastly, -heavy, thick, lined damask curtains, which loop -quite down to the floor. What’s the use of my pictures, -I desire to know? They are hung in that room, -and it’s a regular campaign to get light enough to see -what they are.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, at all events, you can light them up with gas -in the evening.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“In the evening! Why, do you know my wife -never wants to sit there in the evening? She says -she has so much sewing to do that she and Aunt -Zeruah must sit up in the bedroom, because it wouldn’t -do to bring work into the parlor. Didn’t you -know that? Don’t you know there mustn’t be such -a thing as a bit of real work ever seen in a parlor? -What if some threads should drop on the carpet? -Aunt Zeruah would have to open all the fortifications -next day, and search Jerusalem with candles to find -them. No; in the evening the gas is lighted at half-cock, -you know; and if I turn it up, and bring in my -newspapers and spread about me, and pull down some -books to read, I can feel the nervousness through the -chamber-floor. Aunt Zeruah looks in at eight, and at -a quarter past, and at half-past, and at nine, and at -ten, to see if I am done, so that she may fold up the -papers and put a book on them, and lock up the -books in their cases. Nobody ever comes in to spend -an evening. They used to try it when we were first -married, but I believe the uninhabited appearance of -our parlors discouraged them. Everybody has stopped -coming now, and Aunt Zeruah says ‘it is such a comfort, -for now the rooms are always in order. How -poor Mrs. Crowfield lives, with her house such a -thoroughfare, she is sure she can’t see. Sophie never -would have strength for it; but then, to be sure, some -folks a’n’t as particular as others. Sophie was brought -up in a family of <i>very</i> particular housekeepers.’”</p> - -<p class='c005'>My wife smiled, with that calm, easy, amused smile -that has brightened up her sofa for so many years.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Bill added, bitterly,—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course, I couldn’t say that I wished the whole -set and system of housekeeping women at the—what-’s-his-name? -because Sophie would have cried -for a week, and been utterly forlorn and disconsolate. -I know it’s not the poor girl’s fault; I try sometimes -to reason with her, but you can’t reason with the whole -of your wife’s family, to the third and fourth generation -backwards; but I’m sure it’s hurting her health,—wearing -her out. Why, you know Sophie used to -be the life of our set; and now she really seems -eaten up with care from morning to night, there are -so many things in the house that something dreadful -is happening to all the while, and the servants we get -are so clumsy. Why, when I sit with Sophie and -Aunt Zeruah, it’s nothing but a constant string of -complaints about the girls in the kitchen. We keep -changing our servants all the time, and they break -and destroy so that now we are turned out of the -use of all our things. We not only eat in the basement, -but all our pretty table-things are put away, -and we have all the cracked plates and cracked -tumblers and cracked teacups and old buck-handled -knives that can be raised out of chaos. I could use -these things and be merry, if I didn’t know we had -better ones; and I can’t help wondering whether there -isn’t some way that our table could be set to look -like a gentleman’s table; but Aunt Zeruah says that -‘it would cost thousands, and what difference does it -make as long as nobody sees it but us?’ You see, -there is no medium in her mind between china and -crystal and cracked earthen-ware. Well, I’m wondering -how all these laws of the Medes and Persians -are going to work when the children come along. -I’m in hopes the children will soften off the old -folks, and make the house more habitable.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Well, children did come, a good many of them, in -time. There was Tom, a broad-shouldered, chubby-cheeked, -active, hilarious son of mischief, born in the -very image of his father; and there was Charlie, and -Jim, and Louisa, and Sophie the second, and Frank,—and -a better, brighter, more joy-giving household, -as far as temperament and nature were concerned, -never existed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But their whole childhood was a long battle, children -<i>versus</i> furniture, and furniture always carried the -day. The first step of the housekeeping powers was -to choose the least agreeable and least available room -in the house for the children’s nursery, and to fit it up -with all the old, cracked, rickety furniture a neighboring -auction-shop could afford, and then to keep -them in it. Now everybody knows that to bring up -children to be upright, true, generous, and religious, -needs so much discipline, so much restraint and correction, -and so many rules and regulations, that it is -all that the parents can carry out, and all the children -can bear. There is only a certain amount of the vital -force for parents or children to use in this business of -education, and one must choose what it shall be used -for. The Aunt-Zeruah faction chose to use it for -keeping the house and furniture, and the children’s -education proceeded accordingly. The rules of right -and wrong of which they heard most frequently were -all of this sort: Naughty children were those who -went up the front-stairs, or sat on the best sofa, or -fingered any of the books in the library, or got out -one of the best teacups, or drank out of the cut-glass -goblets.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Why did they ever want to do it? If there ever -is a forbidden fruit in an Eden, will not our young -Adams and Eves risk soul and body to find out how -it tastes? Little Tom, the oldest boy, had the courage -and enterprise and perseverance of a Captain -Parry or Dr. Kane, and he used them all in voyages -of discovery to forbidden grounds. He stole -Aunt Zeruah’s keys, unlocked her cupboards and -closets, saw, handled, and tasted everything for himself, -and gloried in his sins.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Don’t you know, Tom,” said the nurse to him -once, “if you are so noisy and rude, you’ll disturb -your dear mamma? She’s sick, and she may die, if -you’re not careful.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Will she die?” says Tom, gravely.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, she <i>may</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then,” said Tom, turning on his heel,—“then -I’ll go up the front-stairs.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>As soon as ever the little rebel was old enough, he -was sent away to boarding-school, and then there was -never found a time when it was convenient to have -him come home again. He could not come in the -spring, for then they were house-cleaning, nor in the -autumn, because <i>then</i> they were house-cleaning; and -so he spent his vacations at school, unless, by good -luck, a companion who was so fortunate as to have -a home invited him there. His associations, associates, -habits, principles, were as little known to his -mother as if she had sent him to China. Aunt Zeruah -used to congratulate herself on the rest there was at -home, now he was gone, and say she was only living -in hopes of the time when Charlie and Jim would be -big enough to send away too; and meanwhile Charlie -and Jim, turned out of the charmed circle which should -hold growing boys to the father’s and mother’s side, -detesting the dingy, lonely play-room, used to run the -city streets, and hang round the railroad depots or -docks. Parents may depend upon it, that, if they -do not make an attractive resort for their boys, Satan -will. There are places enough, kept warm and light -and bright and merry, where boys can go whose -mothers’ parlors are too fine for them to sit in. There -are enough to be found to clap them on the back, and -tell them stories that their mothers must not hear, -and laugh when they compass with their little piping -voices the dreadful litanies of sin and shame. In -middle life, our poor Sophie, who as a girl was so -gay and frolicsome, so full of spirits, had dried and -sharpened into a hard-visaged, angular woman,—careful -and troubled about many things, and forgetful -that one thing is needful. One of the boys had -run away to sea; I believe he has never been heard -of. As to Tom, the oldest, he ran a career wild and -hard enough for a time, first at school and then in -college, and there came a time when he came home, -in the full might of six feet two, and almost broke his -mother’s heart with his assertions of his home rights -and privileges. Mothers who throw away the key of -their children’s hearts and childhood sometimes have -a sad retribution. As the children never were considered -when they were little and helpless, so they -do not consider when they are strong and powerful. -Tom spread wide desolation among the household -gods, lounging on the sofas, spitting tobacco-juice on -the carpets, scattering books and engravings hither -and thither, and throwing all the family traditions -into wild disorder, as he would never have done, had -not all his childish remembrances of them been embittered -by the association of restraint and privation. -He actually seemed to hate any appearance of luxury -or taste or order,—he was a perfect Philistine.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As for my friend Bill, from being the pleasantest -and most genial of fellows, he became a morose, -misanthropic man. Dr. Franklin has a significant -proverb,—“Silks and satins put out the kitchen-fire.” -Silks and satins—meaning by them the luxuries -of housekeeping—often put out not only the -parlor-fire, but that more sacred flame, the fire of -domestic love. It is the greatest possible misery -to a man and to his children to be <i>homeless</i>; and -many a man has a splendid house, but no home.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Papa,” said Jenny, “you ought to write and tell -what are your ideas of keeping a <i>home</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Girls, you have only to think how your mother -has brought you up.”</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>Nevertheless, I think, being so fortunate a husband, -I might reduce my wife’s system to an analysis, -and my next paper shall be,—</p> - -<p class='c005'><i>What is a Home, and how to keep it.</i></p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch03' class='c007'>III.<br /> <br />WHAT IS A HOME?</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_25_0_675 c011'>IT is among the sibylline secrets which lie mysteriously -between you and me, O reader, that -these papers, besides their public aspect, have a -private one proper to the bosom of mine own particular -family.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They are not merely an <i>ex post facto</i> protest in -regard to that carpet and parlor of celebrated memory, -but they are forth-looking towards other homes -that may yet arise near us.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For, among my other confidences, you may recollect -I stated to you that our Marianne was busy in -those interesting cares and details which relate to -the preparing and ordering of another dwelling.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now, when any such matter is going on in a family, -I have observed that every feminine instinct is in a -state of fluttering vitality,—every woman, old or -young, is alive with womanliness to the tips of her -fingers; and it becomes us of the other sex, however -consciously respected, to walk softly and put -forth our sentiments discreetly and with due reverence -for the mysterious powers that reign in the -feminine breast.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I had been too well advised to offer one word of -direct counsel on a subject where there were such -charming voices, so able to convict me of absurdity -at every turn. I had merely so arranged my affairs -as to put into the hands of my bankers, subject to -my wife’s order, the very modest marriage-portion -which I could place at my girl’s disposal; and Marianne -and Jenny, unused to the handling of money, -were incessant in their discussions with ever-patient -mamma as to what was to be done with it. I say -Marianne and Jenny, for, though the case undoubtedly -is Marianne’s, yet, like everything else in our -domestic proceedings, it seems to fall, somehow or -other, into Jenny’s hands, through the intensity and -liveliness of her domesticity of nature. Little Jenny -is so bright and wide-awake, and with so many active -plans and fancies touching anything in the housekeeping -world, that, though the youngest sister, and -second party in this affair, a stranger, hearkening to -the daily discussions, might listen a half-hour at a -time without finding out that it was not Jenny’s future -establishment that was in question. Marianne -is a soft, thoughtful, quiet girl, not given to many -words; and though, when you come fairly at it, you -will find, that, like most quiet girls, she has a will -five times as inflexible as one who talks more, yet -in all family counsels it is Jenny and mamma that -do the discussion, and her own little well-considered -“Yes,” or “No,” that finally settles each case.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I must add to this family <i>tableau</i> the portrait of -the excellent Bob Stephens, who figured as future -proprietor and householder in these consultations. -So far as the question of financial possibilities is -concerned, it is important to remark that Bob belongs -to the class of young Edmunds celebrated -by the poet:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Wisdom and worth were all he had.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>He is, in fact, an excellent-hearted and clever fellow, -with a world of agreeable talents, a good tenor -in a parlor-duet, a good actor at a charade, a lively, -off-hand conversationist, well up in all the current -literature of the day, and what is more, in my eyes, -a well-read lawyer, just admitted to the bar, and with -as fair business prospects as usually fall to the lot of -young aspirants in that profession.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Of course, he and my girl are duly and truly in -love, in all the proper moods and tenses; but as to -this work they have in hand of being householders, -managing fuel, rent, provision, taxes, gas- and water-rates, -they seem to my older eyes about as sagacious -as a pair of this year’s robins. Nevertheless, as the -robins of each year do somehow learn to build nests -as well as their ancestors, there is reason to hope as -much for each new pair of human creatures. But it is -one of the fatalities of our ill-jointed life that houses -are usually furnished for future homes by young people -in just this state of blissful ignorance of what -they are really wanted for, or what is likely to be -done with the things in them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now, to people of large incomes, with ready -wealth for the rectification of mistakes, it doesn’t -much matter how the <i>menage</i> is arranged at first; -they will, if they have good sense, soon rid themselves -of the little infelicities and absurdities of -their first arrangements, and bring their establishment -to meet their more instructed tastes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But to that greater class who have only a modest -investment for this first start in domestic life mistakes -are far more serious. I have known people -go on for years groaning under the weight of domestic -possessions they did not want, and pining in -vain for others which they did, simply from the fact -that all their first purchases were made in this time -of blissful ignorance.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I had been a quiet auditor to many animated discussions -among the young people as to what they -wanted, and were to get, in which the subject of -prudence and economy was discussed, with quotations -of advice thereon given in serious good faith -by various friends and relations who lived easily on -incomes four or five times larger than our own. Who -can show the ways of elegant economy more perfectly -than people thus at ease in their possessions? -From what serene heights do they instruct the inexperienced -beginners! Ten thousand a year gives -one leisure for reflection, and elegant leisure enables -one to view household economies dispassionately; -hence the unction with which these gifted -daughters of upper-air delight to exhort young neophytes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Depend upon it, my dear,” Aunt Sophia Easygo -had said, “it’s always the best economy to get the -best things. They cost more in the beginning, but -see how they last! These velvet carpets on my -floor have been in constant wear for ten years, and -look how they wear! I never have an ingrain carpet -in my house,—not even on the chambers. Velvet -and Brussels cost more to begin with, but then -they last. Then I cannot recommend the fashion -that is creeping in, of having plate instead of solid -silver. Plate wears off, and has to be renewed, -which comes to about the same thing in the end -as if you bought all solid at first. If I were beginning -as Marianne is, I should just set aside a thousand -dollars for my silver, and be content with a -few plain articles. She should buy all her furniture -at Messrs. David and Saul’s. People call them dear, -but their work will prove cheapest in the end, and -there is an air and style about their things that can -be told anywhere. Of course, you won’t go to any -extravagant lengths,—simplicity is a grace of itself.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>The waters of the family council were troubled, -when Jenny, flaming with enthusiasm, brought home -the report of this conversation. When my wife proceeded, -with her well-trained business knowledge, to -compare the prices of the simplest elegancies recommended -by Aunt Easygo with the sum-total to be -drawn on, faces lengthened perceptibly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How <i>are</i> people to go to housekeeping,” said -Jenny, “if everything costs so much?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>My wife quietly remarked, that we had had great -comfort in our own home,—had entertained unnumbered -friends, and had only ingrain carpets on our -chambers and a three-ply on our parlor, and she -doubted if any guest had ever thought of it,—if -the rooms had been a shade less pleasant; and as -to durability, Aunt Easygo had renewed her carpets -oftener than we. Such as ours were, they had -worn longer than hers.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, mamma, you know everything has gone on -since your day. Everybody must at least approach -a certain style now-a-days. One can’t furnish so far -behind other people.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>My wife answered in her quiet way, setting forth -her doctrine of a plain average to go through the -whole establishment, placing parlors, chambers, kitchen, -pantries, and the unseen depths of linen-closets in -harmonious relations of just proportion, and showed -by calm estimates how far the sum given could go -towards this result. <i>There</i> the limits were inexorable. -There is nothing so damping to the ardor of youthful -economies as the hard, positive logic of figures. It is -so delightful to think in some airy way that the things -we <i>like</i> best are the cheapest, and that a sort of rigorous -duty compels us to get them at any sacrifice. -There is no remedy for this illusion but to show by -the multiplication and addition tables what things are -and are not possible. My wife’s figures met Aunt -Easygo’s assertions, and there was a lull among the -high contracting parties for a season; nevertheless, I -could see Jenny was secretly uneasy. I began to hear -of journeys made to far places, here and there, where -expensive articles of luxury were selling at reduced -prices. Now a gilded mirror was discussed, and -now a velvet carpet which chance had brought down -temptingly near the sphere of financial possibility. I -thought of our parlor, and prayed the good fairies to -avert the advent of ill-assorted articles.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Pray keep common sense uppermost in the girls’ -heads, if you can,” said I to Mrs. Crowfield, “and -don’t let the poor little puss spend her money for -what she won’t care a button about by and by.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I shall try,” she said; “but you know Marianne -is inexperienced, and Jenny is so ardent and active, -and so confident, too. Then they both, I think, have -the impression that we are a little behind the age. -To say the truth, my dear, I think your papers afford -a good opportunity of dropping a thought now and -then in their minds. Jenny was asking last night -when you were going to write your next paper. The -girl has a bright, active mind, and thinks of what she -hears.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>So flattered, by the best of flatterers, I sat down -to write on my theme; and that evening, at firelight -time, I read to my little senate as follows:—</p> -<h3 class='c003'><span class='sc'>What is a Home, and how to keep it.</span></h3> - -<p class='c013'>I have shown that a dwelling, rented or owned by -a man, in which his own wife keeps house, is not -always, or of course, a home. What is it, then, that -makes a home? All men and women have the indefinite -knowledge of what they want and long for -when that word is spoken. “Home!” sighs the disconsolate -bachelor, tired of boarding-house fare and -buttonless shirts. “Home!” says the wanderer in -foreign lands, and thinks of mother’s love, of wife -and sister and child. Nay, the word has in it a higher -meaning, hallowed by religion; and when the Christian -would express the highest of his hopes for a -better life, he speaks of his <i>home</i> beyond the grave. -The word home has in it the elements of love, rest, -permanency, and liberty; but besides these it has in -it the idea of an education by which all that is purest -within us is developed into nobler forms, fit for a -higher life. The little child by the home-fireside was -taken on the Master’s knee when he would explain to -his disciples the mysteries of the kingdom.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Of so great dignity and worth is this holy and -sacred thing, that the power to create a <span class='small'>HOME</span> ought -to be ranked above all creative faculties. The sculptor -who brings out the breathing statue from cold -marble, the painter who warms the canvas into a -deathless glow of beauty, the architect who built cathedrals -and hung the world-like dome of St. Peter’s -in mid-air, is not to be compared, in sanctity and -worthiness, to the humblest artist, who, out of the -poor materials afforded by this shifting, changing, -selfish world, creates the secure Eden of a <i>home</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A true home should be called the noblest work of -art possible to human creatures, inasmuch as it is the -very image chosen to represent the last and highest -rest of the soul, the consummation of man’s blessedness.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Not without reason does the oldest Christian church -require of those entering on marriage the most solemn -review of all the past life, the confession and -repentance of every sin of thought, word, and deed, -and the reception of the holy sacrament; for thus the -man and woman who approach the august duty of -creating a home are reminded of the sanctity and -beauty of what they undertake.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In this art of home-making I have set down in my -mind certain first principles, like the axioms of Euclid, -and the first is,—</p> - -<p class='c005'><i>No home is possible without love.</i></p> - -<p class='c005'>All business marriages and marriages of convenience, -all mere culinary marriages and marriages of -mere animal passion, make the creation of a true -home impossible in the outset. Love is the jewelled -foundation of this New Jerusalem descending from -God out of heaven, and takes as many bright forms -as the amethyst, topaz, and sapphire of that mysterious -vision. In this range of creative art all things -are possible to him that loveth, but without love -nothing is possible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>We hear of most convenient marriages in foreign -lands, which may better be described as commercial -partnerships. The money on each side is counted; -there is enough between the parties to carry on the -firm, each having the appropriate sum allotted to -each. No love is pretended, but there is great politeness. -All is so legally and thoroughly arranged, -that there seems to be nothing left for future quarrels -to fasten on. Monsieur and Madame have each their -apartments, their carriages, their servants, their income, -their friends, their pursuits,—understand the -solemn vows of marriage to mean simply that they -are to treat each other with urbanity in those few -situations where the path of life must necessarily bring -them together.</p> - -<p class='c005'>We are sorry that such an idea of marriage should -be gaining foothold in America. It has its root in an -ignoble view of life,—an utter and pagan darkness -as to all that man and woman are called to do in that -highest relation where they act as one. It is a mean -and low contrivance on both sides, by which all the -grand work of home-building, all the noble pains and -heroic toils of home-education,—that education where -the parents learn more than they teach,—shall be (let -us use the expressive Yankee idiom) <i>shirked</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is a curious fact that in those countries where -this system of marriages is the general rule there is -no word corresponding to our English word <i>home</i>. In -many polite languages of Europe it would be impossible -neatly to translate the sentiment with which we -began this essay, that a man’s <i>house</i> is not always his -<i>home</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Let any one try to render the song, “Sweet Home,” -into French, and one finds how Anglo-Saxon is the -very genius of the word. The structure of life, in all -its relations, in countries where marriages are matter -of arrangement, and not of love, excludes the idea of -home.</p> - -<p class='c005'>How does life run in such countries? The girl is -recalled from her convent or boarding-school, and told -that her father has found a husband for her. No objection -on her part is contemplated or provided for; -none generally occurs, for the child is only too happy -to obtain the fine clothes and the liberty which she -has been taught come only with marriage. Be the -man handsome or homely, interesting or stupid, still -he brings these.</p> - -<p class='c005'>How intolerable such a marriage! we say, with the -close intimacies of Anglo-Saxon life in our minds. -They are not intolerable, because they are provided -for by arrangements which make it possible for each -to go his or her several way, seeing very little of the -other. The son or daughter, which in due time makes -its appearance in this <i>menage</i>, is sent out to nurse -in infancy, sent to boarding-school in youth, and in -maturity portioned and married, to repeat the same -process for another generation. Meanwhile, father -and mother keep a quiet establishment, and pursue -their several pleasures. Such is the system.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Houses built for this kind of life become mere sets -of reception-rooms, such as are the greater proportion -of apartments to let in Paris, where a hearty English -or American family, with their children about them, -could scarcely find room to establish themselves. -Individual character, it is true, does something to -modify this programme. There are charming homes -in France and Italy, where warm and noble natures, -thrown together, perhaps, by accident, or mated by -wise paternal choice, infuse warmth into the coldness -of the system under which they live. There are in -all states of society some of such domesticity of -nature that they will create a home around themselves -under any circumstances, however barren. Besides, -so kindly is human nature, that Love uninvited -before marriage, often becomes a guest after, and with -Love always comes a home.</p> - -<p class='c005'>My next axiom is,—</p> - -<p class='c005'><i>There can be no true home without liberty.</i></p> - -<p class='c005'>The very idea of home is of a retreat where we -shall be free to act out personal and individual tastes -and peculiarities, as we cannot do before the wide -world. We are to have our meals at what hour we -will, served in what style suits us. Our hours of -going and coming are to be as we please. Our favorite -haunts are to be here or there, our pictures and -books so disposed as seems to us good, and our -whole arrangements the expression, so far as our -means can compass it, of our own personal ideas of -what is pleasant and desirable in life. This element -of liberty, if we think of it, is the chief charm of -home. “Here I can do as I please,” is the thought -with which the tempest-tossed earth-pilgrim blesses -himself or herself, turning inward from the crowded -ways of the world. This thought blesses the man of -business, as he turns from his day’s care, and crosses -the sacred threshold. It is as restful to him as the -slippers and gown and easy-chair by the fireside. -Everybody understands him here. Everybody is well -content that he should take his ease in his own way. -Such is the case in the <i>ideal</i> home. That such is not -always the case in the real home comes often from -the mistakes in the house-furnishing. Much house-furnishing -is <i>too fine</i> for liberty.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In America there is no such thing as rank and -station which impose a sort of prescriptive style on -people of certain income. The consequence is that -all sorts of furniture and belongings, which in the Old -World have a recognized relation to certain possibilities -of income, and which require certain other accessories -to make them in good keeping, are thrown in -the way of all sorts of people.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Young people who cannot expect by any reasonable -possibility to keep more than two or three servants, if -they happen to have the means in the outset, furnish -a house with just such articles as in England would -suit an establishment of sixteen. We have seen -houses in England having two or three house-maids, -and tables served by a butler and two waiters, where -the furniture, carpets, china, crystal, and silver were -in one and the same style with some establishments -in America where the family was hard pressed to keep -three Irish servants.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This want of servants is the one thing that must -modify everything in American life; it is, and will long -continue to be, a leading feature in the life of a country -so rich in openings for man and woman that domestic -service can be only the stepping-stone to something -higher. Nevertheless, we Americans are great -travellers; we are sensitive, appreciative, fond of -novelty, apt to receive and incorporate into our own -life what seems fair and graceful in that of other people. -Our women’s wardrobes are made elaborate with -the thousand elegancies of French toilet,—our houses -filled with a thousand knick-knacks of which our plain -ancestors never dreamed. Cleopatra did not set sail -on the Nile in more state and beauty than that in -which our young American bride is often ushered into -her new home. Her wardrobe all gossamer lace and -quaint frill and crimp and embroidery, her house a -museum of elegant and costly gewgaws; and amid -the whole collection of elegancies and fragilities, she, -perhaps, the frailest.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then comes the tug of war. The young wife becomes -a mother, and while she is retired to her chamber, -blundering Biddy rusts the elegant knives, or -takes off the ivory handles by soaking in hot water,—the -silver is washed in greasy soap-suds, and refreshed -now and then with a thump, which cocks the -nose of the teapot awry, or makes the handle assume -an air of drunken defiance. The fragile China is -chipped here and there around its edges with those -minute gaps so vexatious to a woman’s soul; the -handles fly hither and thither in the wild confusion -of Biddy’s washing-day hurry, when cook wants her -to help hang out the clothes. Meanwhile, Bridget -sweeps the parlor with a hard broom, and shakes out -showers of ashes from the grate, forgetting to cover -the damask lounges, and they directly look as rusty -and time-worn as if they had come from an auction-store; -and all together unite in making such havoc -of the delicate ruffles and laces of the bridal outfit -and baby-<i>layette</i>, that, when the poor young wife comes -out of her chamber after her nurse has left her, and, -weakened and embarrassed with the demands of -the new-comer, begins to look once more into the -affairs of her little world, she is ready to sink with -vexation and discouragement. Poor little princess. -Her clothes are made as princesses wear them, her -baby’s clothes like a young duke’s, her house furnished -like a lord’s, and only Bridget and Biddy and -Polly to do the work of cook, scullery-maid, butler, -footman, laundress, nursery-maid, house-maid, and -lady’s maid. Such is the array that in the Old Country -would be deemed necessary to take care of an -establishment got up like hers. Everything in it is -<i>too fine</i>,—not too fine to be pretty, not in bad taste -in itself, but too fine for the situation, too fine for -comfort or liberty.</p> - -<p class='c005'>What ensues in a house so furnished? Too often -ceaseless fretting of the nerves, in the wife’s despairing, -conscientious efforts to keep things as they -should be. There is no freedom in a house where -things are too expensive and choice to be freely -handled and easily replaced. Life becomes a series -of petty embarrassments and restrictions, something -is always going wrong, and the man finds his fireside -oppressive,—the various articles of his parlor and -table seem like so many temper-traps and spring-guns, -menacing explosion and disaster.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There may be, indeed, the most perfect home-feeling, -the utmost coseyness and restfulness, in apartments -crusted with gilding, carpeted with velvet, and -upholstered with satin. I have seen such, where the -home-like look and air of free use was as genuine as -in a Western log-cabin; but this was in a range of -princely income that made all these things as easy to -be obtained or replaced as the most ordinary of our -domestic furniture. But so long as articles must be -shrouded from use, or used with fear and trembling, -because their cost is above the general level of our -means, we had better be without them, even though -the most lucky of accidents may put their possession -in our power.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But it is not merely by the effort to maintain too -much elegance that the sense of home-liberty is banished -from a house. It is sometimes expelled in -another way, with all painstaking and conscientious -strictness, by the worthiest and best of human beings, -the blessed followers of Saint Martha. Have we not -known them, the dear, worthy creatures, up before -daylight, causing most scrupulous lustrations of every -pane of glass and inch of paint in our parlors, in -consequence whereof every shutter and blind must -be kept closed for days to come, lest the flies should -speck the freshly washed windows and wainscoting? -Dear shade of Aunt Mehitabel, forgive our boldness? -Have we not been driven for days, in our youth, to -read our newspaper in the front veranda, in the -kitchen, out in the barn,—anywhere, in fact, where -sunshine could be found, because there was not a -room in the house that was not cleaned, shut up, -and darkened? Have we not shivered with cold, -all the glowering, gloomy month of May, because -the august front-parlor having undergone the spring-cleaning, -the andirons were snugly tied up in the -tissue-paper, and an elegant frill of the same material -was trembling before the mouth of the once -glowing fireplace? Even so, dear soul, full of loving-kindness -and hospitality as thou wast, yet ever -making our house seem like a tomb! And with -what patience wouldst thou sit sewing by a crack -in the shutters, an inch wide, rejoicing in thy immaculate -paint and clear glass! But was there ever -a thing of thy spotless and unsullied belongings -which a boy might use? How I trembled to touch -thy scoured tins, that hung in appalling brightness! -with what awe I asked for a basket to pick strawberries! -and where in the house could I find a place -to eat a piece of gingerbread? How like a ruffian, -a Tartar, a pirate, I always felt, when I entered thy -domains! and how, from day to day, I wondered at -the immeasurable depths of depravity which were -always leading me to upset something, or break or -tear or derange something, in thy exquisitely kept -premises! Somehow, the impression was burned -with overpowering force into my mind, that houses -and furniture, scrubbed floors, white curtains, bright -tins and brasses were the great, awful, permanent -facts of existence,—and that men and women, and -particularly children, were the meddlesome intruders -upon this divine order, every trace of whose inter-meddling -must be scrubbed out and obliterated in -the quickest way possible. It seemed evident to -me that houses would be far more perfect, if nobody -lived in them at all; but that, as men had -really and absurdly taken to living in them, they -must live as little as possible. My only idea of a -house was a place full of traps and pitfalls for boys, -a deadly temptation to sins which beset one every -moment; and when I read about a sailor’s free life -on the ocean, I felt an untold longing to go forth -and be free in like manner.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But a truce to these fancies, and back again to our -essay.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If liberty in a house is a comfort to a husband, it -is a necessity to children. When we say liberty, we -do not mean license. We do not mean that Master -Johnny be allowed to handle elegant volumes with -bread-and-butter fingers, or that little Miss be suffered -to drum on the piano, or practise line-drawing -with a pin on varnished furniture. Still it is essential -that the family-parlors be not too fine for the -family to sit in,—too fine for the ordinary accidents, -haps and mishaps, of reasonably well-trained children. -The elegance of the parlor where papa and mamma -sit and receive their friends should wear an inviting, -not a hostile and bristling, aspect to little people. -Its beauty and its order gradually form in the little -mind a love of beauty and order, and the insensible -carefulness of regard.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Nothing is worse for a child than to shut him up -in a room which he understands is his, <i>because</i> he is -disorderly,—where he is expected, of course, to maintain -and keep disorder. We have sometimes pitied -the poor little victims who show their faces longingly -at the doors of elegant parlors, and are forthwith collared -by the domestic police and consigned to some -attic-apartment, called a play-room, where chaos continually -reigns. It is a mistake to suppose, because -children derange a well-furnished apartment, that they -like confusion. Order and beauty are always pleasant -to them as to grown people, and disorder and defacement -are painful; but they know neither how to create -the one nor to prevent the other,—their little -lives are a series of experiments, often making disorder -by aiming at some new form of order. Yet, -for all this, I am not one of those who feel that -in a family everything should bend to the sway of -these little people. They are the worst of tyrants -in such houses,—still, where children are, though -the fact must not appear to them, <i>nothing must be -done without a wise thought of them</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Here, as in all high art, the old motto is in force, -“<i>Ars est celare artem</i>.” Children who are taught too -plainly by every anxious look and word of their parents, -by every family arrangement, by the impressment -of every chance guest into the service, that -their parents consider their education as the one -important matter in creation, are apt to grow up -fantastical, artificial, and hopelessly self-conscious. -The stars cannot stop in their courses, even for our -personal improvement, and the sooner children learn -this, the better. The great art is to organize a home -which shall move on with a strong, wide, generous -movement, where the little people shall act themselves -out as freely and impulsively as can consist -with the comfort of the whole, and where the anxious -watching and planning for them shall be kept -as secret from them as possible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is well that one of the sunniest and airiest rooms -in the house be the children’s nursery. It is good -philosophy, too, to furnish it attractively, even if the -sum expended lower the standard of parlor-luxuries. -It is well that the children’s chamber, which is to -act constantly on their impressible natures for years, -should command a better prospect, a sunnier aspect, -than one which serves for a day’s occupancy of the -transient guest. It is well that journeys should be -made or put off in view of the interests of the children,—that -guests should be invited with a view to -their improvement,—that some intimacies should be -chosen and some rejected on their account. But it -is <i>not</i> well that all this should, from infancy, be daily -talked out before the child, and he grow up in egotism -from moving in a sphere where everything from first -to last is calculated and arranged with reference to -himself. A little appearance of wholesome neglect -combined with real care and never-ceasing watchfulness -has often seemed to do wonders in this work -of setting human beings on their own feet for the -life-journey.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Education is the highest object of home, but education -in the widest sense,—education of the parents -no less than of the children. In a true home the -man and the woman receive, through their cares, -their watchings, their hospitality, their charity, the -last and highest finish that earth can put upon them. -From that they must pass upward, for earth can teach -them no more.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The home-education is incomplete, unless it include -the idea of hospitality and charity. Hospitality is a -Biblical and apostolic virtue, and not so often recommended -in Holy Writ without reason. Hospitality -is much neglected in America for the very reasons -touched upon above. We have received our ideas -of propriety and elegance of living from old countries, -where labor is cheap, where domestic service -is a well-understood, permanent occupation, adopted -cheerfully for life, and where of course there is such -a subdivision of labor as insures great thoroughness -in all its branches. We are ashamed or afraid to -conform honestly and hardily to a state of things -purely American. We have not yet accomplished -what our friend the Doctor calls “our weaning,” and -learned that dinners with circuitous courses and -divers other Continental and English refinements, -well enough in their way, cannot be accomplished -in families with two or three untrained servants, without -an expense of care and anxiety which makes them -heart-withering to the delicate wife, and too severe a -trial to occur often. America is the land of subdivided -fortunes, of a general average of wealth and -comfort, and there ought to be, therefore, an understanding -in the social basis far more simple than in -the Old World.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Many families of small fortunes know this,—they -are quietly living so,—but they have not the steadiness -to share their daily average living with a friend, -a traveller, or guest, just as the Arab shares his tent -and the Indian his bowl of succotash. They cannot -have company, they say. Why? Because it is such -a fuss to get out the best things, and then to put -them back again. But why get out the best things? -Why not give your friend, what he would like a thousand -times better, a bit of your average home-life, a -seat at any time at your board, a seat at your fire? -If he sees that there is a handle off your teacup, -and that there is a crack across one of your plates, -he only thinks, with a sigh of relief, “Well, mine aren’t -the only things that meet with accidents,” and he feels -nearer to you ever after; he will let you come to his -table and see the cracks in his teacups, and you will -condole with each other on the transient nature of -earthly possessions. If it become apparent in these -entirely undressed rehearsals that your children are -sometimes disorderly, and that your cook sometimes -overdoes the meat, and that your second girl sometimes -is awkward in waiting, or has forgotten a table -propriety, your friend only feels, “Ah, well, other -people have trials as well as I,” and he thinks, if you -come to see him, he shall feel, easy with you.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>Having company</i>” is an expense that may always -be felt; but easy daily hospitality, the plate always on -your table for a friend, is an expense that appears on -no account-book, and a pleasure that is daily and constant.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Under this head of hospitality, let us suppose a -case. A traveller comes from England; he comes in -good faith and good feeling to see how Americans -live. He merely wants to penetrate into the interior -of domestic life, to see what there is genuinely and -peculiarly American about it. Now here is Smilax, -who is living, in a small, neat way, on his salary from -the daily press. He remembers hospitalities received -from our traveller in England, and wants to return -them. He remembers, too, with dismay, a well-kept -establishment, the well-served table, the punctilious, -orderly servants. Smilax keeps two, a cook and -chambermaid, who divide the functions of his establishment -between them. What shall he do? Let him -say, in a fair, manly way, “My dear fellow, I’m delighted -to see you. I live in a small way, but I’ll do -my best for you, and Mrs. Smilax will be delighted. -Come and dine with us, so and so, and we’ll bring in -one or two friends.” So the man comes, and Mrs. -Smilax serves up such a dinner as lies within the -limits of her knowledge and the capacities of her -servants. All plain, good of its kind, unpretending, -without an attempt to do anything English or French,—to -do anything more than if she were furnishing a -gala-dinner for her father or returned brother. Show -him your house freely, just as it is, talk to him freely -of it, just as he in England showed you his larger -house and talked to you of his finer things. If the -man is a true man, he will thank you for such unpretending, -sincere welcome; if he is a man of straw, -then he is not worth wasting Mrs. Smilax’s health and -spirits for, in unavailing efforts to get up a foreign -dinner-party.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A man who has any heart in him values a genuine, -little bit of home more than anything else you can give -him. He can get French cooking at a restaurant; he -can buy expensive wines at first-class hotels, if he -wants them; but the traveller, though ever so rich and -ever so well-served at home, is, after all, nothing but -a man as you are, and he is craving something that -doesn’t seem like an hotel,—some bit of real, genuine -heart-life. Perhaps he would like better than -anything to show you the last photograph of his wife, -or to read to you the great, round-hand letter of his -ten-year-old which he has got to-day. He is ready to -cry when he thinks of it. In this mood he goes to -see you, hoping for something like home, and you -first receive him in a parlor opened only on state-occasions, -and that has been circumstantially and -exactly furnished, as the upholsterer assures you, as -every other parlor of the kind in the city is furnished. -You treat him to a dinner got up for the occasion, -with hired waiters,—a dinner which it has taken -Mrs. Smilax a week to prepare for, and will take her -a week to recover from,—for which the baby has -been snubbed and turned off, to his loud indignation, -and your young four-year-old sent to his aunts. Your -traveller eats your dinner, and finds it inferior, as a -work of art, to other dinners,—a poor imitation. He -goes away and criticises; you hear of it, and resolve -never to invite a foreigner again. But if you had -given him a little of your heart, a little home-warmth -and feeling,—if you had shown him your baby, and -let him romp with your four-year-old, and eat a genuine -dinner with you,—would he have been false to -that? Not so likely. He wanted something real and -human,—you gave him a bad dress-rehearsal, and -dress-rehearsals always provoke criticism.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Besides hospitality, there is, in a true home, a mission -of charity. It is a just law which regulates the -possession of great or beautiful works of art in the -Old World, that they shall in some sense be considered -the property of all who can appreciate. Fine -grounds have hours when the public may be admitted,—pictures -and statues may be shown to visitors; and -this is a noble charity. In the same manner the fortunate -individuals who have achieved the greatest of -all human works of art should employ it as a sacred -charity. How many, morally wearied, wandering, disabled, -are healed and comforted by the warmth of a -true home! When a mother has sent her son to the -temptations of a distant city, what news is so glad to -her heart as that he has found some quiet family -where he visits often and is made to feel <span class='small'>AT HOME</span>? -How many young men have good women saved from -temptation and shipwreck by drawing them often to -the sheltered corner by the fireside! The poor artist,—the -wandering genius who has lost his way in this -world, and stumbles like a child among hard realities,—the -many men and women who, while they have -houses, have no homes,—see from afar, in their distant, -bleak life-journey, the light of a true home-fire, -and, if made welcome there, warm their stiffened -limbs, and go forth stronger to their pilgrimage. Let -those who have accomplished this beautiful and perfect -work of divine art be liberal of its influence. Let -them not seek to bolt the doors and draw the curtains; -for they know not, and will never know till the -future life, of the good they may do by the ministration -of this great charity of home.</p> - -<p class='c005'>We have heard much lately of the restricted sphere -of woman. We have been told how many spirits -among women are of a wider, stronger, more heroic -mould than befits the mere routine of housekeeping. -It may be true that there are many women far too -great, too wise, too high, for mere housekeeping. -But where is the woman in any way too great or too -high, or too wise, to spend herself in creating a -home? What can any woman make diviner, higher, -better? From such homes go forth all heroisms, all -inspirations, all great deeds. Such mothers and such -homes have made the heroes and martyrs, faithful -unto death, who have given their precious lives to us -during these three years of our agony!</p> - -<p class='c005'>Homes are the work of art peculiar to the genius -of woman. Man <i>helps</i> in this work, but woman leads; -the hive is always in confusion without the <i>queen</i>-bee. -But what a woman must she be who does this work -perfectly! She comprehends all, she balances and -arranges all; all different tastes and temperaments -find in her their rest, and she can unite at one hearthstone -the most discordant elements. In her is order, -yet an order ever veiled and concealed by indulgence. -None are checked, reproved, abridged of privileges -by her love of system; for she knows that order was -made for the family, and not the family for order. -Quietly she takes on herself what all others refuse or -overlook. What the unwary disarrange she silently -rectifies. Everybody in her sphere breathes easy, -feels free; and the driest twig begins in her sunshine -to put out buds and blossoms. So quiet are her -operations and movements, that none sees that it is -she who holds all things in harmony; only, alas, -when she is gone, how many things suddenly appear -disordered, inharmonious, neglected! All these -threads have been smilingly held in her weak hand. -Alas, if that is no longer there!</p> - -<p class='c005'>Can any woman be such a housekeeper without -inspiration? No. In the words of the old church-service, -“Her soul must ever have affiance in God.” -The New Jerusalem of a perfect home cometh down -from God out of heaven. But to make such a home -is ambition high and worthy enough for <i>any</i> woman, -be she what she may.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One thing more. Right on the threshold of all perfection -lies <i>the cross</i> to be taken up. No one can go -over or around that cross in science or in art. Without -labor and self-denial neither Raphael nor Michel -Angelo nor Newton was made perfect. Nor can man -or woman create a true home who is not willing in the -outset to embrace life heroically, to encounter labor -and sacrifice. Only to such shall this divinest power -be given to create on earth that which is the nearest -image of heaven.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch04' class='c007'>IV.<br /> <br />THE ECONOMY OF THE BEAUTIFUL.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_675 c011'>TALKING to you in this way once a month, O -my confidential reader, there seems to be danger, -as in all intervals of friendship, that we shall not -readily be able to take up our strain of conversation -just where we left off. Suffer me, therefore, to remind -you that the month past left us seated at the fireside, -just as we had finished reading of what a home was, -and how to make one.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The fire had burned low, and great, solid hickory -coals were winking dreamily at us from out their fluffy -coats of white ashes,—just as if some household -sprite there were opening now one eye and then the -other, and looking in a sleepy, comfortable way at us.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The close of my piece, about the good house -mother, had seemed to tell on my little audience. -Marianne had nestled close to her mother, and laid -her head on her knee; and though Jenny sat up -straight as a pin, yet her ever-busy knitting was -dropped in her lap, and I saw the glint of a tear in -her quick, sparkling eye,—yes, actually a little bright bead -fell upon her work; whereupon she started up -actively, and declared that the fire wanted just one -more stick to make a blaze before bedtime; and then -there was such a raking among the coals, such an -adjusting of the andirons, such vigorous arrangement -of the wood, and such a brisk whisking of the hearth-brush, -that it was evident Jenny had something on -her mind.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When all was done, she sat down again and looked -straight into the blaze, which went dancing and crackling -up, casting glances and flecks of light on our -pictures and books, and making all the old, familiar -furniture seem full of life and motion.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I think that’s a good piece,” she said, decisively. -“I think those are things that should be thought -about.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now Jenny was the youngest of our flock, and -therefore, in a certain way, regarded by my wife and -me as perennially “the baby”; and these little, old-fashioned, -decisive ways of announcing her opinions -seemed so much a part of her nature, so peculiarly -“Jennyish,” as I used to say, that my wife and I only -exchanged amused glances over her head, when they -occurred.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In a general way, Jenny, standing in the full orb of -her feminine instincts like Diana in the moon, rather -looked down on all masculine views of women’s matters -as “<i>tolerabiles ineptiæ</i>”; but towards her papa she -had gracious turns of being patronizing to the last -degree; and one of these turns was evidently at its -flood-tide, as she proceeded to say,—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>I</i> think papa is right,—that keeping house and -having a home, and all that, is a very serious thing, -and that people go into it with very little thought -about it. I really think those things papa has been -saying there ought to be thought about.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Papa,” said Marianne, “I wish you would tell -me exactly how <i>you</i> would spend that money you -gave me for house-furnishing. I should like just your -views.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Precisely,” said Jenny, with eagerness; “because -it is just as papa says,—a sensible man, who has -thought, and had experience, can’t help having some -ideas, even about women’s affairs, that are worth -attending to. I think so, decidedly.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I acknowledged the compliment for my sex and -myself with my best bow.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But then, papa,” said Marianne, “I can’t help -feeling sorry that one can’t live in such a way as to -have beautiful things around one. I’m sorry they -must cost so much, and take so much care, for I am -made so that I really want them. I do so like to see -pretty things! I do like rich carpets and elegant -carved furniture, and fine china and cut-glass and -silver. I can’t bear mean, common-looking rooms. -I should so like to have my house look beautiful!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Your house ought not to look mean and common,—your -house ought to look beautiful,” I replied. “It -would be a sin and a shame to have it otherwise. No -house ought to be fitted up for a future home without -a strong and a leading reference to beauty in all its -arrangements. If I were a Greek, I should say that -the first household libation should be made to beauty; -but, being an old-fashioned Christian, I would say -that he who prepares a home with no eye to beauty -neglects the example of the great Father who has -filled our earth-home with such elaborate ornament.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But then, papa, there’s the money!” said Jenny, -shaking her little head wisely. “You men don’t think -of that. You want us girls, for instance, to be patterns -of economy, but we must always be wearing -fresh, nice things; you abhor soiled gloves and worn -shoes: and yet how is all this to be done without -money? And it’s just so in housekeeping. You sit -in your arm-chairs and conjure up visions of all sorts -of impossible things to be done; but when mamma -there takes out that little account-book, and figures -away on the cost of things, where do the visions go?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You are mistaken, my little dear, and you talk -just like a woman,”—(this was <i>my</i> only way of -revenging myself,)—“that is to say, you jump to -conclusions, without sufficient knowledge. I maintain -that in house-furnishing, as well as woman-furnishing, -there’s nothing so economical as beauty.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There’s one of papa’s paradoxes!” said Jenny.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said I, “that is my thesis, which I shall -nail up over the mantel-piece there, as Luther nailed -his to the church-door. It is time to rake up the fire -now; but to-morrow night I will give you a paper on -the Economy of the Beautiful.”</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>“Come, now we are to have papa’s paradox,” said -Jenny, as soon as the tea-things had been carried out.</p> - -<p class='c005'><i>Entre nous</i>, I must tell you that insensibly we had -fallen into the habit of taking our tea by my study-fire. -Tea, you know, is a mere nothing in itself, its -only merit being its social and poetic associations, its -warmth and fragrance,—and the more socially and -informally it can be dispensed, the more in keeping -with its airy and cheerful nature.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Our circle was enlightened this evening by the -cheery visage of Bob Stephens, seated, as of right, -close to Marianne’s work-basket.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You see, Bob,” said Jenny, “papa has undertaken -to prove that the most beautiful things are always the -cheapest.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m glad to hear that,” said Bob,—“for there’s -a carved antique bookcase and study-table that I have -my eye on, and if this can in any way be made to -appear—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“O, it won’t be made to appear,” said Jenny, settling -herself at her knitting, “only in some transcendental, -poetic sense, such as papa can always make -out. Papa is more than half a poet, and his truths -turn out to be figures of rhetoric, when one comes to -apply them to matters of fact.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now, Miss Jenny, please remember my subject -and thesis,” I replied,—“that in house-furnishing -there is nothing so economical as beauty; and I will -make it good against all comers, not by figures of -rhetoric, but by figures of arithmetic. I am going to -be very matter-of-fact and commonplace in my details, -and keep ever in view the addition-table. I will instance -a case which has occurred under my own observation.”</p> -<h3 class='c003'><span class='sc'>The Economy of the Beautiful.</span></h3> - -<p class='c013'>Two of the houses lately built on the new land in -Boston were bought by two friends, Philip and John. -Philip had plenty of money, and paid the cash down -for his house, without feeling the slightest vacancy -in his pocket. John, who was an active, rising young -man, just entering on a flourishing business, had expended -all his moderate savings for years in the -purchase of his dwelling, and still had a mortgage -remaining, which he hoped to clear off by his future -successes. Philip begins the work of furnishing as -people do with whom money is abundant, and who -have simply to go from shop to shop and order all -that suits their fancy and is considered ‘the thing’ in -good society. John begins to furnish with very little -money. He has a wife and two little ones, and he -wisely deems that to insure to them a well-built house, -in an open, airy situation, with conveniences for warming, -bathing, and healthy living, is a wise beginning in -life; but it leaves him little or nothing beyond.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Behold, then, Philip and his wife, well pleased, -going the rounds of shops and stores in fitting up -their new dwelling, and let us follow step by step. -To begin with the wall-paper. Imagine a front and -back parlor, with folding-doors, with two south windows -on the front, and two looking on a back court, -after the general manner of city houses. We will -suppose they require about thirty rolls of wall-paper. -Philip buys the heaviest French velvet, with gildings -and traceries, at four dollars a roll. This, by the time -it has been put on, with gold mouldings, according to -the most established taste of the best paper-hangers, -will bring the wall-paper of the two rooms to a figure -something like two hundred dollars. Now they proceed -to the carpet-stores, and there are thrown at -their feet by obsequious clerks velvets and Axminsters, -with flowery convolutions and medallion-centres, -as if the flower-gardens of the tropics were whirling -in waltzes, with graceful lines of arabesque,—roses, -callas, lilies, knotted, wreathed, twined, with blue and -crimson and golden ribbons, dazzling marvels of color -and tracery. There is no restraint in price,—four or -six dollars a yard, it is all the same to them,—and -soon a magic flower-garden blooms on the floors, at a -cost of five hundred dollars. A pair of elegant rugs, -at fifty dollars apiece, complete the inventory, and -bring our rooms to the mark of eight hundred dollars -for papering and carpeting alone. Now come the -great mantel-mirrors for four hundred more, and our -rooms progress. Then comes the upholsterer, and -measures our four windows, that he may skilfully barricade -them from air and sunshine. The fortifications -against heaven, thus prepared, cost, in the shape of -damask, cord, tassels, shades, laces, and cornices, -about two hundred dollars per window. To be sure, -they make the rooms close and sombre as the grave; -but they are of the most splendid stuffs; and if the -sun would only reflect, he would see, himself, how -foolish it was for him to try to force himself into a -window guarded by his betters. If there is anything -cheap and plebeian, it is sunshine and fresh air! Behold -us, then, with our two rooms papered, carpeted, -and curtained for two thousand dollars; and now are -to be put in them sofas, lounges, étagères, centre-tables, -screens, chairs of every pattern and device, -for which it is but moderate to allow a thousand more. -We have now two parlors furnished at an outlay of -three thousand dollars, without a single picture, a -single article of statuary, a single object of Art of any -kind, and without any light to see them by, if they -were there. We must say for our Boston upholsterers -and furniture-makers that such good taste generally -reigns in their establishments that rooms furnished at -hap-hazard from them cannot fail of a certain air of -good taste, so far as the individual things are concerned. -But the different articles we have supposed, -having been ordered without reference to one another -or the rooms, have, when brought together, no unity -of effect, and the general result is scattering and confused. -If asked how Philip’s parlors look, your reply -is, “O, the usual way of such parlors,—everything -that such people usually get,—medallion-carpets, -carved furniture, great mirrors, bronze mantel-ornaments, -and so on.” The only impression a stranger -receives, while waiting in the dim twilight of these -rooms, is that their owner is rich, and able to get -good, handsome things, such as all other rich people -get.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now our friend John, as often happens in America, -is moving in the same social circle with Philip, visiting -the same people,—his house is the twin of the one -Philip has been furnishing, and how shall he, with a -few hundred dollars, make his rooms even presentable -beside those which Philip has fitted up elegantly at -three thousand?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now for the economy of beauty. Our friend must -make his prayer to the Graces,—for, if they cannot -save him, nobody can. One thing John has to begin -with, that rare gift to man, a wife with the magic -cestus of Venus,—not around her waist, but, if such -a thing could be, in her finger-ends. All that she -touches falls at once into harmony and proportion. -Her eye for color and form is intuitive: let her arrange -a garret, with nothing but boxes, barrels, and cast-off -furniture in it, and ten to one she makes it seem the -most attractive place in the house. It is a veritable -“gift of good faërie,” this tact of beautifying and arranging, -that some women have,—and, on the present -occasion, it has a real, material value, that can be -estimated in dollars and cents. Come with us and -you can see the pair taking their survey of the yet -unfurnished parlors, as busy and happy as a couple -of bluebirds picking up the first sticks and straws for -their nest.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There are two sunny windows to begin with,” says -the good fairy, with an appreciative glance. “That -insures flowers all winter.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” says John; “I never would look at a house -without a good sunny exposure. Sunshine is the best -ornament of a house, and worth an extra thousand a -year.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now for our wall-paper,” says she. “Have you -looked at wall-papers, John?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes; we shall get very pretty ones for thirty-seven -cents a roll; all you want of a paper, you know, is -to make a ground-tint to throw out your pictures and -other matters, and to reflect a pleasant tone of light.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, John, you know Uncle James says that a -stone-color is the best,—but I can’t bear those cold -blue grays.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nor I,” says John. “If we must have gray, let -it at least be a gray suffused with gold or rose-color, -such as you see at evening in the clouds.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“So I think,” responds she; “but, better, I should -like a paper with a tone of buff,—something that -produces warm yellowish reflections, and will almost -make you think the sun is shining in cold gray weather; -and then there is nothing that lights up so cheerfully -in the evening. In short, John, I think the color -of a <i>zafferano</i> rose will be just about the shade we -want.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, I can find that, in good American paper, as -I said before, at from thirty-seven to forty cents a roll. -Then, our bordering: there’s an important question, -for that must determine the carpet, the chairs, and -everything else. Now what shall be the ground-tint -of our rooms?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There are only two to choose between,” says the -lady,—“green and marroon: which is the best for the -picture?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I think,” says John, looking above the mantel-piece, -as if he saw a picture there,—“I think a -border of marroon velvet, with marroon furniture, is -the best for the picture.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I think so too,” said she; “and then we will have -that lovely marroon and crimson carpet that I saw at -Lowe’s;—it is an ingrain, to be sure, but has a Brussels -pattern, a mossy, mixed figure, of different shades -of crimson; it has a good warm, strong color, and -when I come to cover the lounges and our two old -arm-chairs with marroon <i>rep</i>, it will make such a pretty -effect.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said John; “and then, you know, our picture -is so bright, it will light up the whole. Everything -depends on the picture.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now as to “the picture,” it has a story must be -told. John, having been all his life a worshipper -and adorer of beauty and beautiful things, had never -passed to or from his business without stopping at the -print-shop windows, and seeing a little of what was -there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>On one of these occasions he was smitten to the -heart with the beauty of an autumn landscape, where -the red maples and sumachs, the purple and crimson -oaks, all stood swathed and harmonized together in -the hazy Indian-summer atmosphere. There was a -great yellow chestnut-tree, on a distant hill, which -stood out so naturally that John instinctively felt his -fingers tingling for a basket, and his heels alive with -a desire to bound over on to the rustling hillside and -pick up the glossy brown nuts. Everything was there -of autumn, even to the golden-rod and purple asters -and scarlet creepers in the foreground.</p> - -<p class='c005'>John went in and inquired. It was by an unknown -French artist, without name or patrons, who had just -come to our shores to study our scenery, and this was -the first picture he had exposed for sale. John had -just been paid a quarter’s salary; he bethought him -of board-bill and washerwoman, sighed, and faintly -offered fifty dollars.</p> - -<p class='c005'>To his surprise he was taken up at once, and the -picture became his. John thought himself dreaming. -He examined his treasure over and over, and felt sure -that it was the work of no amateur beginner, but of a -trained hand and a true artist-soul. So he found his -way to the studio of the stranger, and apologized for -having got such a gem for so much less than its worth. -“It was all I <i>could</i> give, though,” he said; “and one -who paid four times as much could not value it more.” -And so John took one and another of his friends, with -longer purses than his own, to the studio of the modest -stranger; and now his pieces command their full -worth in the market, and he works with orders far -ahead of his ability to execute, giving to the canvas -the traits of American scenery as appreciated and felt -by the subtile delicacy of the French mind,—our -rural summer views, our autumn glories, and the -dreamy, misty delicacy of our snowy winter landscapes. -Whoso would know the truth of the same, -let him inquire for the modest studio of Morvillier, -at Maiden, scarce a bow-shot from our Boston.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This picture had always been the ruling star of -John’s house, his main dependence for brightening up -his bachelor-apartments; and when he came to the -task of furbishing those same rooms for a fair occupant, -the picture was still his mine of gold. For a -picture, painted by a real artist, who studies Nature -minutely and conscientiously, has something of the -charm of the good Mother herself,—something of her -faculty of putting on different aspects under different -lights. John and his wife had studied their picture at -all hours of the day: they had seen how it looked -when the morning sun came aslant the scarlet maples -and made a golden shimmer over the blue mountains, -how it looked toned down in the cool shadows of afternoon, -and how it warmed up in the sunset, and died -off mysteriously into the twilight; and now, when -larger parlors were to be furnished, the picture was -still the tower of strength, the rallying-point of their -hopes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you know, John,” said the wife, hesitating, “I -am really in doubt whether we shall not have to get -at least a few new chairs and a sofa for our parlors? -They are putting in such splendid things at the other -door that I am positively ashamed of ours; the fact -is, they look almost disreputable,—like a heap of -rubbish.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said John, laughing, “I don’t suppose all -together sent to an auction-room would bring us fifty -dollars, and yet, such as they are, they answer the -place of better things for us; and the fact is, Mary, -the hard impassable barrier in the case is, that there -really <i>is no money to get any more</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ah, well, then, if there isn’t, we must see what -we can do with these, and summon all the good fairies -to our aid,” said Mary. “There’s your little cabinet-maker, -John, will look over the things, and furbish -them up; there’s that broken arm of the chair must -be mended, and everything revarnished; then I have -found such a lovely <i>rep</i>, of just the richest shade of -marroon, inclining to crimson, and when we come to -cover the lounges and arm-chairs and sofas and ottomans -all alike, you know they will be quite another -thing.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Trust you for that, Mary! By the by, I’ve found -a nice little woman, who has worked on upholstery, -who will come in by the day, and be the hands that -shall execute the decrees of your taste.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, I am sure we shall get on capitally. Do you -know that I’m almost glad we can’t get new things? -It’s a sort of enterprise to see what we can do with -old ones.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now, you see, Mary,” said John, seating himself -on a lime-cask which the plasterers had left, and taking -out his memorandum-book, “you see, I’ve calculated -this thing all over; I’ve found a way by which -I can make our rooms beautiful and attractive without -a cent expended on new furniture.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, let’s hear.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, my way is short and simple. We must put -things into our rooms that people will look at, so that -they will forget to look at the furniture, and never -once trouble their heads about it. People never look -at furniture so long as there is anything else to look -at; just as Napoleon, when away on one of his expeditions, -being told that the French populace were -getting disaffected, wrote back, ‘Gild the <i>dome des -Invalides</i>,’ and so they gilded it, and the people, looking -at that, forgot everything else.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But I’m not clear yet,” said Mary, “what is coming -of this rhetoric.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, then, Mary, I’ll tell you. A suit of new -carved black-walnut furniture, severe in taste and -perfect in style, such as I should choose at David -and Saul’s, could not be got under three hundred dollars, -and I haven’t the three hundred to give. What, -then, shall we do? We must fall back on our resources; -we must look over our treasures. We have -our proof cast of the great glorious head of the Venus -di Milo; we have those six beautiful photographs of -Rome, that Brown brought to us; we have the great -German lithograph of the San Sisto Mother and Child, -and we have the two angel-heads, from the same; we -have that lovely golden twilight sketch of Heade’s; -we have some sea-photographs of Bradford’s; we have -an original pen-and-ink sketch by Billings; and then, -as before, we have ‘our picture.’ What has been the -use of our watching at the gates and waiting at the -doors of Beauty all our lives, if she hasn’t thrown us -out a crust now and then, so that we might have it for -time of need? Now, you see, Mary, we must make -the toilet of our rooms just as a pretty woman makes -hers when money runs low, and she sorts and freshens -her ribbons, and matches them to her hair and eyes, -and, with a bow here, and a bit of fringe there, and a -button somewhere else, dazzles us into thinking that -she has an infinity of beautiful attire. Our rooms are -new and pretty of themselves, to begin with; the tint -of the paper, and the rich coloring of the border, -corresponding with the furniture and carpets, will -make them seem prettier. And now for arrangement. -Take this front-room. I propose to fill those two -recesses each side of the fireplace with my books, in -their plain pine cases, just breast-high from the floor: -they are stained a good dark color, and nobody need -stick a pin in them to find out that they are not rosewood. -The top of these shelves on either side to be -covered with the same stuff as the furniture, finished -with a crimson fringe. On top of the shelves on one -side of the fireplace I shall set our noble Venus di -Milo, and I shall buy at Cicci’s the lovely Clytie, and -put it the other side. Then I shall get of Williams -and Everett two of their chromo-lithographs, which -give you all the style and charm of the best English -water-color school. I will have the lovely Bay of -Amalfi over my Venus, because she came from those -suns and skies of Southern Italy, and I will hang -Lake Como over my Clytie. Then, in the middle, -over the fireplace, shall be ‘our picture.’ Over each -door shall hang one of the lithographed angel-heads -of the San Sisto, to watch our going-out and coming-in; -and the glorious Mother and Child shall hang -opposite the Venus di Milo, to show how Greek and -Christian unite in giving the noblest type to womanhood. -And then, when we have all our sketches and -lithographs framed and hung here and there, and your -flowers blooming as they always do, and your ivies -wandering and rambling as they used to, and hanging -in the most graceful ways and places, and all those -little shells and ferns and vases, which you are always -conjuring with, tastefully arranged, I’ll venture to say -that our rooms will be not only pleasant, but beautiful, -and that people will oftener say, ‘How beautiful!’ -when they enter, than if we spent three times the -money on new furniture.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the course of a year after this conversation, one -and another of my acquaintances were often heard -speaking of John Merton’s house. “Such beautiful -rooms,—so charmingly furnished,—you must go and -see them. What does make them so much pleasanter -than those rooms in the other house, which have -everything in them that money can buy?” So said -the folk,—for nine people out of ten only feel the -effect of a room, and never analyze the causes from -which it flows: they know that certain rooms seem -dull and heavy and confused, but they don’t know -why; that certain others seem cheerful, airy, and -beautiful, but they know not why. The first exclamation, -on entering John’s parlors, was so often, -“How beautiful!” that it became rather a byword -in the family. Estimated by their mere money-value, -the articles in the rooms were of very trifling worth; -but as they stood arranged and combined, they had -all the effect of a lovely picture. Although the statuary -was only plaster, and the photographs and lithographs -such as were all within the compass of limited -means, yet every one of them was a good thing of its -own kind, or a good reminder of some of the greatest -works of Art. A good plaster cast is a daguerrotype, -so to speak, of a great statue, though it may be bought -for five or six dollars, while its original is not to be -had for any namable sum. A chromo-lithograph of -the best sort gives all the style and manner and effect -of Turner or Stanfield, or any of the best of modern -artists, though you buy it for five or ten dollars, and -though the original would command a thousand guineas. -The lithographs from Raphael’s immortal picture -give you the results of a whole age of artistic -culture, in a form within the compass of very humble -means. There is now selling for five dollars at Williams -and Everett’s a photograph of Cheney’s crayon -drawing of the San Sisto Madonna and Child, which -has the very spirit of the glorious original. Such a -picture, hung against the wall of a child’s room, would -train its eye from infancy; and yet how many will -freely spend five dollars in embroidery on its dress, -that say they cannot afford works of Art!</p> - -<p class='c005'>There was one advantage which John and his wife -found in the way in which they furnished their house, -that I have hinted at before: it gave freedom to their -children. Though their rooms were beautiful, it was -not with the tantalizing beauty of expensive and frail -knick-knacks. Pictures hung against the wall, and -statuary safely lodged on brackets, speak constantly -to the childish eye, but are out of the reach of childish -fingers, and are not upset by childish romps. They -are not like china and crystal, liable to be used and -abused by servants; they do not wear out; they are -not spoiled by dust, nor consumed by moths. The -beauty once there is always there; though the mother -be ill and in her chamber, she has no fears that she -shall find it all wrecked and shattered. And this style -of beauty, inexpensive as it is, compared with luxurious -furniture, is a means of cultivation. No child -is ever stimulated to draw or to read by an Axminster -carpet or a carved centre-table; but a room surrounded -with photographs and pictures and fine casts suggests -a thousand inquiries, stimulates the little eye and hand. -The child is found with its pencil, drawing; or he asks -for a book on Venice, or wants to hear the history of -the Roman Forum.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But I have made my article too long. I will write -another on the moral and intellectual effects of house-furnishing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I have proved my point, Miss Jenny, have I not? -<i>In house-furnishing, nothing is more economical than -beauty.</i>”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, papa,” said Jenny; “I give it up.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch05' class='c007'>V.<br /> <br />RAKING UP THE FIRE.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_675 c011'>WE have a custom at our house which we call -<i>raking up the fire</i>. That is to say, the last -half-hour before bedtime, we draw in, shoulder to -shoulder, around the last brands and embers of our -hearth, which we prick up and brighten, and dispose -for a few farewell flickers and glimmers. This is a -grand time for discussion. Then we talk over parties, -if the young people have been out of an evening,—a -book, if we have been reading one; we discuss and -analyze characters,—give our views on all subjects, -æsthetic, theological, and scientific, in a way most -wonderful to hear; and, in fact, we sometimes get so -engaged in our discussions that every spark of the fire -burns out, and we begin to feel ourselves shivering -around the shoulders, before we can remember that -it is bedtime.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So, after the reading of my last article, we had a -“raking-up talk,”—to wit, Jenny, Marianne, and I, -with Bob Stephens;—my wife, still busy at her work-basket, -sat at the table a little behind us. Jenny, of -course, opened the ball in her usual incisive manner.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But now, papa, after all you say in your piece -there, I cannot help feeling, that, if I had the taste -and the money too, it would be better than the taste -alone with no money. I like the nice arrangements -and the books and the drawings; but I think all these -would appear better still with really elegant furniture.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Who doubts that?” said I. “Give me a large -tub of gold coin to dip into, and the furnishing and -beautifying of a house is a simple affair. The same -taste that could make beauty out of cents and dimes -could make it more abundantly out of dollars and -eagles. But I have been speaking for those who have -not, and cannot get, riches, and who wish to have -agreeable houses; and I begin in the outset by saying -that beauty is a thing to be respected, reverenced, and -devoutly cared for,—and then I say that <span class='fss'>BEAUTY IS -CHEAP</span>, nay, to put it so that the shrewdest Yankee -will understand it, <span class='fss'>BEAUTY IS THE CHEAPEST THING -YOU CAN HAVE</span>, because in many ways it is a substitute -for expense. A few vases of flowers in a room, a -few blooming, well-kept plants, a few prints framed in -fanciful frames of cheap domestic fabric, a statuette, -a bracket, an engraving, a pencil-sketch, above all, a -few choice books,—all these arranged by a woman -who has the gift in her finger-ends often produce such -an illusion on the mind’s eye that one goes away without -once having noticed that the cushion of the arm-chair -was worn out, and that some veneering had -fallen off the centre-table.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I have a friend, a schoolmistress, who lives in -a poor little cottage enough, which, let alone of the -Graces, might seem mean and sordid, but a few flowerseeds -and a little weeding in the spring make it, all -summer, an object which everybody stops to look at. -Her æsthetic soul was at first greatly tried with the -water-barrel which stood under the eaves spout,—a -most necessary evil, since only thus could her scanty -supply of soft water for domestic purposes be secured. -One of the Graces, however, suggested to her a happy -thought. She planted a row of morning-glories round -the bottom of her barrel, and drove a row of tacks -around the top, and strung her water-butt with twine, -like a great harpsichord. A few weeks covered the -twine with blossoming plants, which every morning -were a mass of many-colored airy blooms, waving in -graceful sprays, and looking at themselves in the water. -The water-barrel, in fact, became a celebrated stroke -of ornamental gardening, which the neighbors came to -look at.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, but,” said Jenny, “everybody hasn’t mamma’s -faculty with flowers. Flowers will grow for some -people, and for some they won’t. Nobody can see -what mamma does so very much, but her plants always -look fresh and thriving and healthy,—her things blossom -just when she wants them, and do anything else -she wishes them to; and there are other people that -fume and fuss and try, and their things won’t do anything -at all. There’s Aunt Easygo has plant after -plant brought from the greenhouse, and hanging-baskets, -and all sorts of things; but her plants grow -yellow and drop their leaves, and her hanging-baskets -get dusty and poverty-stricken, while mamma’s go on -flourishing as heart could desire.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can tell you what your mother puts into her -plants,” said I,—“just what she has put into her -children, and all her other home-things,—her <i>heart</i>. -She <i>loves</i> them; she lives in them; she has in herself -a plant-life and a plant-sympathy. She feels for them -as if she herself were a plant; she anticipates their -wants,—always remembers them without an effort, -and so the care flows to them daily and hourly. She -hardly knows when she does the things that make -them grow,—but she gives them a minute a hundred -times a day. She moves this nearer the glass,—draws -that back,—detects some thief of a worm on one,—digs -at the root of another, to see why it droops,—washes -these leaves, and sprinkles those,—waters, -and refrains from watering, all with the habitual care -of love. Your mother herself doesn’t know why her -plants grow; it takes a philosopher and a writer for -the ‘Atlantic’ to tell her what the cause is.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Here I saw my wife laughing over her work-basket -as she answered,—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Girls, one of these days, <i>I</i> will write an article for -the ‘Atlantic,’ that your papa need not have <i>all</i> the -say to himself: however, I believe he has hit the nail -on the head this time.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course he has,” said Marianne. “But, mamma, -I am afraid to begin to depend much on plants -for the beauty of my rooms, for fear I should not have -your gift,—and of all forlorn and hopeless things in -a room, ill-kept plants are the most so.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I would not recommend,” said I, “a young house-keeper, -just beginning, to rest much for her home -ornament on plant-keeping, unless she has an experience -of her own love and talent in this line, which -makes her sure of success; for plants will not thrive, -if they are forgotten or overlooked, and only tended -in occasional intervals; and, as Marianne says, neglected -plants are the most forlorn of all things.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, papa,” said Marianne, anxiously, “there, in -those patent parlors of John’s that you wrote of, -flowers acted a great part.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The charm of those parlors of John’s may be -chemically analyzed,” I said. “In the first place, -there is sunshine, a thing that always affects the human -nerves of happiness. Why else is it that people -are always so glad to see the sun after a long storm? -Why? are bright days matters of such congratulation? -Sunshine fills a house with a thousand beautiful and -fanciful effects of light and shade,—with soft, luminous, -reflected radiances, that give picturesque effects -to the pictures, books, statuettes of an interior. John, -happily, had no money to buy brocatelle curtains,—and -besides this, he loved sunshine too much to buy -them, if he could. He had been enough with artists -to know that heavy damask curtains darken precisely -that part of the window where the light proper for -pictures and statuary should come in, namely, the upper -part. The fashionable system of curtains lights -only the legs of the chairs and the carpets, and leaves -all the upper portion of the room in shadow. John’s -windows have shades which can at pleasure be drawn -down from the top or up from the bottom, so that the -best light to be had may always be arranged for his -little interior.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, papa,” said Marianne, “in your chemical -analysis of John’s rooms, what is the next thing to -the sunshine?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The next,” said I, “is harmony of color. The -wall-paper, the furniture, the carpets, are of tints that -harmonize with one another. This is a grace in -rooms always, and one often neglected. The French -have an expressive phrase with reference to articles -which are out of accord,—they say that they swear -at each other. I have been in rooms where I seemed -to hear the wall-paper swearing at the carpet, and the -carpet swearing back at the wall-paper, and each article -of furniture swearing at the rest. These appointments -may all of them be of the most expensive kind, -but with such dis-harmony no arrangement can ever -produce anything but a vulgar and disagreeable effect. -On the other hand, I have been in rooms where all -the material was cheap, and the furniture poor, but -where, from some instinctive knowledge of the reciprocal -effect of colors, everything was harmonious, and -produced a sense of elegance.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I recollect once travelling on a Western canal -through a long stretch of wilderness, and stopping to -spend the night at an obscure settlement of a dozen -houses. We were directed to lodgings in a common -frame-house at a little distance, where, it seemed, the -only hotel was kept. When we entered the parlor, -we were struck with utter amazement at its prettiness, -which affected us before we began to ask ourselves -how it came to be pretty. It was, in fact, only one -of the miracles of harmonious color working with -very simple materials. Some woman had been busy -there, who had both eyes and fingers. The sofa, the -common wooden rocking-chairs, and some ottomans, -probably made of old soap-boxes, were all covered -with American nankeen of a soft yellowish-brown, -with a bordering of blue print. The window-shades, -the table-cover, and the piano-cloth, all repeated the -same colors, in the same cheap material. A simple -straw matting was laid over the floor, and, with a few -books, a vase of flowers, and one or two prints, the -room had a home-like, and even elegant air, that -struck us all the more forcibly from its contrast with -the usual tawdry, slovenly style of such parlors.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The means used for getting up this effect were -the most inexpensive possible,—simply the following-out, -in cheap material, a law of uniformity and harmony, -which always will produce beauty. In the -same manner, I have seen a room furnished, whose -effect was really gorgeous in color, where the only -materials used were Turkey-red cotton and a simple -ingrain carpet of corresponding color.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now, you girls have been busy lately in schemes -for buying a velvet carpet for the new parlor that is to -be, and the only points that have seemed to weigh in -the council were that it was velvet, that it was cheaper -than velvets usually are, and that it was a genteel -pattern.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now, papa,” said Jenny, “what ears you have. -We thought you were reading all the time!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I see what you are going to say,” said Marianne. -“You think that we have not once mentioned the -consideration which should determine the carpet,—whether -it will harmonize with our other things. But, -you see, papa, we don’t really know what our other -things are to be.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said Jenny, “and Aunt Easygo said it was -an unusually good chance to get a velvet carpet.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yet, good as the chance is, it costs just twice as -much as an ingrain.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, papa, it does.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And you are not sure that the effect of it, after -you get it down, will be as good as a well-chosen ingrain -one.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s true,” said Marianne, reflectively.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, then, papa,” said Jenny, “Aunt Easygo said -she never heard of such a bargain; only think, two -dollars a yard for a <i>velvet</i>!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And why is it two dollars a yard? Is the man a -personal friend, that he wishes to make you a present -of a dollar on the yard? or is there some reason why -it is undesirable?” said I.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, you know, papa, he said those large patterns -were not so salable.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To tell the truth,” said Marianne, “I never did -like the pattern exactly; as to uniformity of tint, it -might match with anything, for there’s every color of -the rainbow in it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You see, papa, it’s a gorgeous flower-pattern,” -said Jenny.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, Marianne, how many yards of this wonderfully -cheap carpet do you want?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We want sixty yards for both rooms,” said Jenny, -always primed with statistics.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That will be a hundred and twenty dollars,” I -said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said Jenny; “and we went over the figures -together, and thought we could make it out by economizing -in other things. Aunt Easygo said that the -carpet was half the battle,—that it gave the air to -everything else.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, Marianne, if you want a man’s advice in the -case, mine is at your service.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That is just what I want, papa.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, then, my dear, choose your wall-papers and -borderings, and, when they are up, choose an ingrain -carpet to harmonize with them, and adapt your furniture -to the same idea. The sixty dollars that you -save on your carpet spend on engravings, chromo-lithographs, -or photographs of some really <i>good</i> works -of Art, to adorn your walls.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Papa, I’ll do it,” said Marianne.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My little dear,” said I, “your papa may seem -to be a sleepy old book-worm, yet he has his eyes -open. Do you think I don’t know why my girls -have the credit of being the best-dressed girls on -the street?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“O papa!” cried out both girls in a breath.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Fact, that!” said Bob, with energy, pulling at his -mustache. “Everybody talks about your dress, and -wonders how you make it out.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said I, “I presume you do not go into a -shop and buy a yard of ribbon because it is selling at -half-price, and put it on without considering complexion, -eyes, hair, and shade of the dress, do you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course we don’t!” chimed in the duo, with -energy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course you don’t. Haven’t I seen you mincing -down-stairs, with all your colors harmonized, -even to your gloves and gaiters? Now, a room must -be dressed as carefully as a lady.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, I’m convinced,” said Jenny, “that papa -knows how to make rooms prettier than Aunt Easygo; -but then she said this was <i>cheap</i>, because it would outlast -two common carpets.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, as you pay double price,” said I, “I don’t -see that. Besides, I would rather, in the course of -twenty years, have two nice, fresh ingrain carpets, of -just the color and pattern that suited my rooms, than -labor along with one ill-chosen velvet that harmonized -with nothing.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I give it up,” said Jenny; “I give it up.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now, understand me,” said I; “I am not traducing -velvet or Brussels or Axminster. I admit that -more beautiful effects can be found in those goods than -in the humbler fabrics of the carpet-rooms. Nothing -would delight me more than to put an unlimited credit -to Marianne’s account, and let her work out the problems -of harmonious color in velvet and damask. All -I have to say is, that certain unities of color, certain -general arrangements, will secure very nearly as good -general effects in either material. A library with a -neat, mossy green carpet on the floor, harmonizing -with wall-paper and furniture, looks generally as well, -whether the mossy green is made in Brussels or in -ingrain. In the carpet-stores, these two materials -stand side by side in the very same pattern, and one -is often as good for the purpose as the other. A lady -of my acquaintance, some years since, employed an -artist to decorate her parlors. The walls being frescoed -and tinted to suit his ideal, he immediately -issued his decree that her splendid velvet carpets -must be sent to auction, and others bought of certain -colors, harmonizing with the walls. Unable to find -exactly the color and pattern he wanted, he at last -had the carpets woven in a neighboring factory, where, -as yet, they had only the art of weaving ingrains. -Thus was the material sacrificed at once to the harmony.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I remarked, in passing, that this was before Bigelow’s -mechanical genius had unlocked for America the -higher secrets of carpet-weaving, and made it possible -to have one’s desires accomplished in Brussels or velvet. -In those days, English carpet-weavers did not -send to America for their looms, as they now do.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But now to return to my analysis of John’s rooms.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Another thing which goes a great way towards -giving them their agreeable air is the books in them. -Some people are fond of treating books as others do -children. One room in the house is selected, and -every book driven into it and kept there. Yet nothing -makes a room so home-like, so companionable, and -gives it such an air of refinement, as the presence of -books. They change the aspect of a parlor from that -of a mere reception-room, where visitors perch for a -transient call, and give it the air of a room where one -feels like taking off one’s things to stay. It gives the -appearance of permanence and repose and quiet fellowship; -and next to pictures on the walls, the many-colored -bindings and gildings of books are the most -agreeable adornment of a room.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then, Marianne,” said Bob, “we have something -to start with, at all events. There are my English -Classics and English Poets, and my uniform editions -of Scott and Thackeray and Macaulay and Prescott -and Irving and Longfellow and Lowell and Hawthorne -and Holmes and a host more. We really have something -pretty there.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You are a lucky girl,” I said, “to have so much -secured. A girl brought up in a house full of books, -always able to turn to this or that author and look for -any passage or poem when she thinks of it, doesn’t -know what a blank a house without books might be.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said Marianne, “mamma and I were counting -over my treasures the other day. Do you know, I -have one really fine old engraving, that Bob says is -quite a genuine thing; and then there is that pencil-sketch -that poor Schöne made for me the month -before he died,—it is truly artistic.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And I have a couple of capital things of Landseer’s,” -said Bob.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There’s no danger that your rooms will not be -pretty,” said I, “now you are fairly on the right track.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, papa,” said Marianne, “I am troubled about -one thing. My love of beauty runs into everything. -I want pretty things for my table,—and yet, as you -say, servants are so careless, one cannot use such -things freely without great waste.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“For my part,” said my wife, “I believe in best -china, to be kept carefully on an upper-shelf, and taken -down for high-days and holidays; it may be a superstition, -but I believe in it. It must never be taken -out except when the mistress herself can see that it is -safely cared for. My mother always washed her china -herself; and it was a very pretty social ceremony, -after tea was over, while she sat among us washing -her pretty cups, and wiping them on a fine damask -towel.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“With all my heart,” said I; “have your best china, -and venerate it,—it is one of the loveliest of domestic -superstitions; only do not make it a bar to hospitality, -and shrink from having a friend to tea with you, unless -you feel equal to getting up to the high shelf where -you keep it, getting it down, washing, and putting it -up again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But in serving a table, I say, as I said of a house, -beauty is a necessity, and beauty is cheap. Because -you cannot afford beauty in one form, it does not follow -that you cannot have it in another. Because one -cannot afford to keep up a perennial supply of delicate -china and crystal, subject to the accidents of raw, -untrained servants, it does not follow that the every-day -table need present a sordid assortment of articles -chosen simply for cheapness, while the whole capacity -of the purse is given to the set forever locked away -for state-occasions.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“A table-service, all of simple white, of graceful -forms, even though not of china, if arranged with care, -with snowy, well-kept table-linen, clear glasses, and -bright American plate in place of solid silver, may be -made to look inviting; add a glass of flowers every -day, and your table may look pretty;—and it is far -more important that it should look pretty for the -family every day than for company once in two -weeks.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I tell my girls,” said my wife, “as the result of -my experience, you may have your pretty china and -your lovely fanciful articles for the table only so long -as you can take all the care of them yourselves. As -soon as you get tired of doing this, and put them into -the hands of the trustiest servants, some good, well-meaning -creature is sure to break her heart and your -own and your very pet darling china pitcher all in one -and the same minute; and then her frantic despair -leaves you not even the relief of scolding.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I have become perfectly sure,” said I, “that there -are spiteful little brownies, intent on seducing good -women to sin, who mount guard over the special idols -of the china-closet. If you hear a crash, and a loud -Irish wail from the inner depths, you never think -of its being a yellow pie-plate, or that dreadful one-handled -tureen that you have been wishing were -broken these five years; no, indeed,—it is sure to -be the lovely painted china bowl, wreathed with morning-glories -and sweet-peas, or the engraved glass goblet, -with quaint old-English initials. China sacrificed -must be a great means of saintship to women. Pope, -I think, puts it as the crowning grace of his perfect -woman, that she is</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c015'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘Mistress of herself, though china fall.’”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c013'>“I ought to be a saint by this time, then,” said -mamma; “for in the course of my days I have lost -so many idols by breakage, and peculiar accidents that -seemed by a special fatality to befall my prettiest and -most irreplaceable things, that in fact it has come to -be a superstitious feeling now with which I regard -anything particularly pretty of a breakable nature.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said Marianne, “unless one has a great -deal of money, it seems to me that the investment in -these pretty fragilities is rather a poor one.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yet,” said I, “the principle of beauty is never so -captivating as when it presides over the hour of daily -meals. I would have the room where they are served -one of the pleasantest and sunniest in the house. I -would have its coloring cheerful, and there should be -companionable pictures and engravings on the walls. -Of all things, I dislike a room that seems to be kept -like a restaurant, merely to eat in. I like to see in a -dining-room something that betokens a pleasant sitting-room -at other hours. I like there some books, a -comfortable sofa or lounge, and all that should make -it cosey and inviting. The custom in some families, -of adopting for the daily meals one of the two parlors -which a city-house furnishes has often seemed to me -a particularly happy one. You take your meals, then, -in an agreeable place, surrounded by the little pleasant -arrangements of your daily sitting-room; and after -the meal, if the lady of the house does the honors of -her own pretty china herself, the office may be a pleasant -and social one.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But in regard to your table-service I have my -advice at hand. Invest in pretty table-linen, in delicate -napkins, have your vase of flowers, and be guided -by the eye of taste in the choice and arrangement of -even the every-day table-articles, and have no ugly -things when you can have pretty ones by taking a -little thought. If you are sore tempted with lovely -china and crystal, too fragile to last, too expensive to -be renewed, turn away to a print-shop and comfort -yourself by hanging around the walls of your dining-room -beauty that will not break or fade, that will meet -your eye from year to year, though plates, tumblers, -and tea-sets successively vanish. There is my advice -for you, Marianne.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>At the same time, let me say, in parenthesis, that -my wife, whose weakness is china, informed me that -night, when we were by ourselves, that she was ordering -secretly a tea-set as a bridal gift for Marianne, -every cup of which was to be exquisitely painted with -the wild-flowers of America, from designs of her own,—a -thing, by the by, that can now be very nicely executed -in our country, as one may find by looking in at -our friend Briggs’s on School Street. “It will last her -all her life,” she said, “and always be such a pleasure -to look at,—and a pretty tea-table is such a pretty -sight!” So spoke Mrs. Crowfield, “unweaned from -china by a thousand falls.” She spoke even with tears -in her eyes. Verily, these women are harps of a thousand -strings!</p> - -<p class='c005'>But to return to my subject.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Finally and lastly,” I said, “in my analysis and -explication of the agreeableness of those same parlors, -comes the crowning grace,—their <i>homeliness</i>. By -homeliness I mean not ugliness, as the word is apt to -be used, but the air that is given to a room by being -<i>really</i> at home in it. Not the most skilful arrangement -can impart this charm.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is said that a king of France once remarked,—‘My -son, you must seem to love your people.’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘Father, how shall I <i>seem</i> to love them?’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘My son, you <i>must</i> love them.’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“So to make rooms <i>seem</i> home-like you must be at -home in them. Human light and warmth are so wanting -in some rooms, it is so evident that they are never -used, that you can never be at ease there. In vain -the house-maid is taught to wheel the sofa and turn -chair towards chair; in vain it is attempted to imitate -a negligent arrangement of the centre-table.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Books that have really been read and laid down, -chairs that have really been moved here and there in -the animation of social contact, have a sort of human -vitality in them; and a room in which people really -live and enjoy is as different from a shut-up apartment -as a live woman from a wax image.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Even rooms furnished without taste often become -charming from this one grace, that they seem to let -you into the home-life and home-current. You seem -to understand in a moment that you are taken into -the family, and are moving in its inner circles, and -not revolving at a distance in some outer court of the -gentiles.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How many people do we call on from year to year -and know no more of their feelings, habits, tastes, -family ideas and ways, than if they lived in Kamtschatka! -And why? Because the room which they call a -front-parlor is made expressly so that you never shall -know. They sit in a back-room,—work, talk, read, -perhaps. After the servant has let you in and opened -a crack of the shutters, and while you sit waiting for -them to change their dress and come in, you speculate -as to what they may be doing. From some distant -region, the laugh of a child, the song of a canary-bird, -reaches you, and then a door claps hastily to. Do -they love plants? Do they write letters, sew, embroider, -crochet? Do they ever romp and frolic? -What books do they read? Do they sketch or paint? -Of all these possibilities the mute and muffled room -says nothing. A sofa and six chairs, two ottomans -fresh from the upholsterer’s, a Brussels carpet, a centre-table -with four gilt Books of Beauty on it, a mantel-clock -from Paris, and two bronze vases,—all these -tell you only in frigid tones, ‘This is the best room,’—only -that, and nothing more,—and soon <i>she</i> trips -in in her best clothes, and apologizes for keeping you -waiting, asks how your mother is, and you remark that -it is a pleasant day,—and thus the acquaintance progresses -from year to year. One hour in the little back-room, -where the plants and canary-bird and children -are, might have made you fast friends for life; but as -it is, you care no more for them than for the gilt clock -on the mantel.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And now, girls,” said I, pulling a paper out of my -pocket, “you must know that your father is getting -to be famous by means of these ‘House and Home -Papers.’ Here is a letter I have just received:—</p> - -<p class='c012'>“‘<span class='sc'>Most Excellent Mr. Crowfield</span>,—Your -thoughts have lighted into our family-circle, and -echoed from our fireside. We all feel the force of -them, and are delighted with the felicity of your treatment -of the topic you have chosen. You have taken -hold of a subject that lies deep in our hearts, in a -genial, temperate, and convincing spirit. All must -acknowledge the power of your sentiments upon their -imaginations;—if they could only trust to them in -actual life! There is the rub.</p> - -<p class='c016'>“‘Omitting further upon these points, there is a -special feature of your articles upon which we wish -to address you. You seem as yet (we do not know, -of course, what you may hereafter do) to speak only -of homes whose conduct depends upon the help of -servants. Now your principles apply, as some of us -well conceive, to nearly all classes of society; yet -most people, to take an impressive hint, must have -their portraits drawn out more exactly. We therefore -hope that you will give a reasonable share of your -attention to us who do not employ servants, so that -you may ease us of some of <i>our</i> burdens, which, in -spite of common sense, we dare not throw off. For -instance, we have company,—a friend from afar, (perhaps -wealthy,) or a minister, or some other man of -note. What do we do? Sit down and receive our -visitor with all good-will and the freedom of a home? -No; we (the lady of the house) flutter about to clear -up things, apologizing about this, that, and the other -condition of unpreparedness, and, having settled the -visitor in the parlor, set about marshalling the elements -of a grand dinner or supper, such as no person -but a gourmand wants to sit down to, when at home -and comfortable; and in getting up this meal, clearing -away, and washing the dishes, we use up a good half -of the time which our guest spends with us. We have -spread ourselves, and shown him what we could do; -but what a paltry, heart-sickening achievement! Now, -good Mr. Crowfield, thou friend of the robbed and -despairing, wilt thou not descend into our purgatorial -circle, and tell the world what thou hast seen there of -doleful remembrance? Tell us how we, who must do -and desire to do our own work, can show forth in our -homes a homely, yet genial hospitality, and entertain -our guests without making a fuss and hurly-burly, and -seeming to be anxious for their sake about many -things, and spending too much time getting meals, -as if eating were the chief social pleasure. <i>Won’t</i> you -do this, Mr. Crowfield?</p> -<p class='c017'>“‘Yours beseechingly,</p> -<p class='c018'>“R. H. A.’”</p> - -<p class='c013'>“That’s a good letter,” said Jenny.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To be sure it is,” said I.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And shall you answer it, papa?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“In the very next ‘Atlantic,’ you may be sure I -shall. The class that do their own work are the -strongest, the most numerous, and, taking one thing -with another, quite as well cultivated a class as any -other. They are the anomaly of our country,—the -distinctive feature of the new society that we are -building up here; and if we are to accomplish our -national destiny, that class must increase rather than -diminish. I shall certainly do my best to answer the -very sensible and pregnant questions of that letter.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Here Marianne shivered and drew up a shawl, and -Jenny gaped; my wife folded up the garment in -which she had set the last stitch, and the clock -struck twelve.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Bob gave a low whistle. “Who knew it was so -late?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We have talked the fire fairly out,” said Jenny.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch06' class='c007'>VI.<br /> <br />THE LADY WHO DOES HER OWN WORK.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_675 c011'>“MY dear Chris,” said my wife, “isn’t it time -to be writing the next ‘House and Home -Paper’?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I was lying back in my study-chair, with my heels -luxuriously propped on an ottoman, reading for the -two-hundredth time Hawthorne’s “Mosses from an -Old Manse,” or his “Twice-Told Tales,” I forget -which,—I only know that these books constitute -my cloud-land, where I love to sail away in dreamy -quietude, forgetting the war, the price of coal and -flour, the rates of exchange, and the rise and fall of -gold. What do all these things matter, as seen from -those enchanted gardens in Padua where the weird -Rappaccini tends his enchanted plants, and his gorgeous -daughter fills us with the light and magic of -her presence, and saddens us with the shadowy allegoric -mystery of her preternatural destiny? But my -wife represents the positive forces of time, place, and -number in our family, and, having also a chronological -head, she knows the day of the month, and therefore -gently reminded me that by inevitable dates the -time drew near for preparing my—which is it now, -May or June number?</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, my dear, you are right,” I said, as by an exertion -I came head-uppermost, and laid down the -fascinating volume. “Let me see, what was I to -write about?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, you remember you were to answer that letter -from the lady who does her own work.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Enough!” said I, seizing the pen with alacrity; -“you have hit the exact phrase:—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘The <i>lady</i> who <i>does her own work</i>.’”</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>America is the only country where such a title is -possible,—the only country where there is a class of -women who may be described as <i>ladies</i> who do their -own work. By a lady we mean a woman of education, -cultivation, and refinement, of liberal tastes and -ideas, who, without any very material additions or -changes, would be recognized as a lady in any circle -of the Old World or the New.</p> - -<p class='c005'>What I have said is, that the existence of such a -class is a fact peculiar to American society, a clear, -plain result of the new principles involved in the doctrine -of universal equality.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When the colonists first came to this country, of -however mixed ingredients their ranks might have -been composed, and however imbued with the spirit -of feudal and aristocratic ideas, the discipline of the -wilderness soon brought them to a democratic level; -the gentleman felled the wood for his log-cabin side -by side with the ploughman, and thews and sinews -rose in the market. “A man was deemed honorable -in proportion as he lifted his hand upon the high -trees of the forest.” So in the interior domestic -circle. Mistress and maid, living in a log-cabin together, -became companions, and sometimes the maid, -as the more accomplished and stronger, took precedence -of the mistress. It became natural and unavoidable -that children should begin to work as early -as they were capable of it. The result was a generation -of intelligent people brought up to labor from -necessity, but turning on the problem of labor the -acuteness of a disciplined brain. The mistress, out-done -in sinews and muscles by her maid, kept her -superiority by skill and contrivance. If she could -not lift a pail of water, she could invent methods -which made lifting the pail unnecessary,—if she -could not take a hundred steps without weariness, -she could make twenty answer the purpose of a hundred.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Slavery, it is true, was to some extent introduced -into New England, but it never suited the genius of -the people, never struck deep root, or spread so as to -choke the good seed of self-helpfulness. Many were -opposed to it from conscientious principle,—many -from far-sighted thrift, and from a love of thoroughness -and well-doing which despised the rude, unskilled -work of barbarians. People, having once felt -the thorough neatness and beauty of execution which -came of free, educated, and thoughtful labor, could -not tolerate the clumsiness of slavery. Thus it came -to pass that for many years the rural population of -New England, as a general rule, did their own work, -both out doors and in. If there were a black man or -black woman or bound girl, they were emphatically -only the <i>helps</i>, following humbly the steps of master -and mistress, and used by them as instruments of -lightening certain portions of their toil. The master -and mistress with their children were the head -workers.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Great merriment has been excited in the Old Country, -because years ago the first English travellers -found that the class of persons by them denominated -servants were in America denominated <i>help</i> or helpers. -But the term was the very best exponent of the -state of society. There were few servants, in the -European sense of the word; there was a society of -educated workers, where all were practically equal, -and where, if there was a deficiency in one family -and an excess in another, a <i>helper</i>, not a servant, was -hired. Mrs. Browne, who has six sons and no daughters, -enters into agreement with Mrs. Jones, who has -six daughters and no sons. She borrows a daughter, -and pays her good wages to help in her domestic toil, -and sends a son to help the labors of Mr. Jones. -These two young people go into the families in which -they are to be employed in all respects as equals and -companions, and so the work of the community is -equalized. Hence arose, and for many years continued, -a state of society more nearly solving than -any other ever did the problem of combining the -highest culture of the mind with the highest culture -of the muscles and the physical faculties.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then were to be seen families of daughters, handsome, -strong females, rising each day to their in-door -work with cheerful alertness,—one to sweep the -room, another to make the fire, while a third prepared -the breakfast for the father and brothers who were -going out to manly labor; and they chatted meanwhile -of books, studies, embroidery, discussed the last -new poem, or some historical topic started by graver -reading, or perhaps a rural ball that was to come off -the next week. They spun with the book tied to -the distaff; they wove; they did all manner of fine -needlework; they made lace, painted flowers, and, in -short, in the boundless consciousness of activity, invention, -and perfect health, set themselves to any -work they had ever read or thought of. A bride in -those days was married with sheets and table-cloths -of her own weaving, with counterpanes and toilet-covers -wrought in divers embroidery by her own and -her sisters’ hands. The amount of fancy-work done -in our days by girls who have nothing else to do will -not equal what was done by these, who performed besides, -among them, the whole work of the family.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For many years these habits of life characterized -the majority of our rural towns. They still exist -among a class respectable in numbers and position, -though perhaps not as happy in perfect self-satisfaction -and a conviction of the dignity and desirableness -of its lot as in former days. Human nature is above -all things—lazy. Every one confesses in the abstract -that exertion which brings out all the powers -of body and mind is the best thing for us all; but -practically most people do all they can to get rid of -it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than -circumstances drive him to do. Even I would not -write this article, were not the publication-day hard -on my heels. I should read Hawthorne and Emerson -and Holmes, and dream in my arm-chair, and -project in the clouds those lovely unwritten stories -that curl and veer and change like mist-wreaths in the -sun. So, also, however dignified, however invigorating, -however really desirable are habits of life involving -daily physical toil, there is a constant evil demon -at every one’s elbow, seducing him to evade it, or to -bear its weight with sullen, discontented murmurs.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I will venture to say that there are at least, to speak -very moderately, a hundred houses where these humble -lines will be read and discussed, where there are -no servants except the ladies of the household. I -will venture to say, also, that these households, many -of them, are not inferior in the air of cultivation and -refined elegance to many which are conducted by the -ministration of domestics. I will venture to assert, -furthermore, that these same ladies who live thus find -quite as much time for reading, letter-writing, drawing, -embroidery, and fancy-work as the women of -families otherwise arranged. I am quite certain that -they would be found on an average to be in the enjoyment -of better health, and more of that sense of -capability and vitality which gives one confidence in -one’s ability to look into life and meet it with cheerful -courage, than three quarters of the women who -keep servants,—and that on the whole their domestic -establishment is regulated more exactly to their -mind, their food prepared and served more to their -taste. And yet, with all this, I will <i>not</i> venture to -assert that they are satisfied with this way of living, -and that they would not change it forthwith, if they -could. They have a secret feeling all the while that -they are being abused, that they are working harder -than they ought to, and that women who live in their -houses like boarders, who have only to speak and it is -done, are the truly enviable ones. One after another -of their associates, as opportunity offers and means -increase, deserts the ranks, and commits her domestic -affairs to the hands of hired servants. Self-respect -takes the alarm. Is it altogether genteel to live as -we do? To be sure, we are accustomed to it; we -have it all systematized and arranged; the work of -our own hands suits us better than any we can hire; -in fact, when we do hire, we are discontented and uncomfortable,—for -who will do for us what we will do -for ourselves? But when we have company! there’s -the rub, to get out all our best things and put them -back,—to cook the meals and wash the dishes in-gloriously,—and -to make all appear as if we didn’t -do it, and had servants like other people.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There, after all, is the rub. A want of hardy self-respect,—an -unwillingness to face with dignity the -actual facts and necessities of our situation in life,—this, -after all, is the worst and most dangerous feature -of the case. It is the same sort of pride which makes -Smilax think he must hire a waiter in white gloves, -and get up a circuitous dinner-party on English principles, -to entertain a friend from England. Because -the friend in England lives in such and such a style, -he must make believe for a day that he lives so too, -when in fact it is a whirlwind in his domestic establishment -equal to a removal or a fire, and threatens the -total extinction of Mrs. Smilax. Now there are two -principles of hospitality that people are very apt to -overlook. One is, that their guests like to be made -at home, and treated with confidence; and another is, -that people are always interested in the details of a -way of life that is new to them. The Englishman -comes to America as weary of his old, easy, family-coach -life as you can be of yours; he wants to see -something new under the sun,—something American; -and forthwith we all bestir ourselves to give him -something as near as we can fancy exactly like what -he is already tired of. So city-people come to the -country, not to sit in the best parlor, and to see the -nearest imitation of city-life, but to lie on the hay-mow, -to swing in the barn, to form intimacy with the -pigs, chickens, and ducks, and to eat baked potatoes -exactly on the critical moment when they are done, -from the oven of the cooking-stove,—and we remark, -<i>en passant</i>, that nobody has ever truly eaten a baked -potato, unless he has seized it at that precise and fortunate -moment.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I fancy you now, my friends, whom I have in my -eye. You are three happy women together. You are -all so well that you know not how it feels to be sick. -You are used to early rising, and would not lie in bed, -if you could. Long years of practice have made you -familiar with the shortest, neatest, most expeditious -method of doing every household office, so that really -for the greater part of the time in your house there -seems to a looker-on to be nothing to do. You rise -in the morning and despatch your husband, father, -and brothers to the farm or wood-lot; you go sociably -about chatting with each other, while you skim the -milk, make the butter, turn the cheeses. The forenoon -is long; it’s ten to one that all the so-called -morning work is over, and you have leisure for an -hour’s sewing or reading before it is time to start the -dinner preparations. By two o’clock your house-work -is done, and you have the long afternoon for books, -needlework, or drawing,—for perhaps there is among -you one with a gift at her pencil. Perhaps one of you -reads aloud while the others sew, and you manage in -that way to keep up with a great deal of reading. I -see on your book-shelves Prescott, Macaulay, Irving, -besides the lighter fry of poems and novels, and, if -I mistake not, the friendly covers of the “Atlantic.” -When you have company, you invite Mrs. Smith or -Brown or Jones to tea; you have no trouble; they -come early, with their knitting or sewing; your particular -crony sits with you by your polished stove while you -watch the baking of those light biscuits and tea-rusks -for which you are so famous, and Mrs. Somebody else -chats with your sister, who is spreading the table -with your best china in the best room. When tea is -over, there is plenty of volunteering to help you wash -your pretty India teacups, and get them back into the -cupboard. There is no special fatigue or exertion in -all this, though you have taken down the best things -and put them back, because you have done all without -anxiety or effort, among those who would do precisely -the same, if you were their visitors.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But now comes down pretty Mrs. Simmons and her -pretty daughter to spend a week with you, and forthwith -you are troubled. Your youngest, Fanny, visited -them in New York last fall, and tells you of their cook -and chambermaid, and the servant in white gloves that -waits on table. You say in your soul, “What shall we -do? they never can be contented to live as we do; -how shall we manage?” And now you long for servants.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This is the very time that you should know that -Mrs. Simmons is tired to death of her fine establishment, -and weighed down with the task of keeping the -peace among her servants. She is a quiet soul, dearly -loving her ease, and hating strife; and yet last week -she had five quarrels to settle between her invaluable -cook and the other members of her staff, because -invaluable cook, on the strength of knowing how to get -up state-dinners and to manage all sorts of mysteries -which her mistress knows nothing about, asserts the -usual right of spoiled favorites to insult all her neighbors -with impunity, and rule with a rod of iron over -the whole house. Anything that is not in the least -like her own home and ways of living will be a blessed -relief and change to Mrs. Simmons. Your clean, quiet -house, your delicate cookery, your cheerful morning -tasks, if you will let her follow you about, and sit -and talk with you while you are at your work, will -all seem a pleasant contrast to her own life. Of -course, if it came to the case of offering to change -lots in life, she would not do it; but very likely she -<i>thinks</i> she would, and sighs over and pities herself, -and thinks sentimentally how fortunate you are, how -snugly and securely you live, and wishes she were as -untrammelled and independent as you. And she is -more than half right; for, with her helpless habits, -her utter ignorance of the simplest facts concerning -the reciprocal relations of milk, eggs, butter, saleratus, -soda, and yeast, she is completely the victim and slave -of the person she pretends to rule.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Only imagine some of the frequent scenes and rehearsals -in her family. After many trials, she at last -engages a seamstress who promises to prove a perfect -treasure,—neat, dapper, nimble, skilful, and spirited. -The very soul of Mrs. Simmons rejoices in heaven. -Illusive bliss! The new-comer proves to be no favorite -with Madam Cook, and the domestic fates evolve -the catastrophe, as follows. First, low murmur of -distant thunder in the kitchen; then a day or two of -sulky silence, in which the atmosphere seems heavy -with an approaching storm. At last comes the climax. -The parlor-door flies open during breakfast. Enter -seamstress, in tears, followed by Mrs. Cook with a -face swollen and red with wrath, who tersely introduces -the subject-matter of the drama in a voice trembling -with rage.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Would you be plased, Ma’am, to suit yerself with -another cook? Me week will be up next Tuesday, -and I want to be going.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, Bridget, what’s the matter?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Matter enough, Ma’am! I niver could live with -them Cork girls in a house, nor I won’t; them as likes -the Cork girls is welcome for all me; but it’s not for -the likes of me to live with them, and she been in the -kitchen a-upsettin’ of me gravies with her flat-irons -and things.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Here bursts in the seamstress with a whirlwind of -denial, and the altercation wages fast and furious, and -poor, little, delicate Mrs. Simmons stands like a kitten -in a thunder-storm in the midst of a regular Irish row.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Cook, of course, is sure of her victory. She knows -that a great dinner is to come off Wednesday, and -that her mistress has not the smallest idea how to -manage it, and that, therefore, whatever happens, she -must be conciliated.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Swelling with secret indignation at the tyrant, poor -Mrs. Simmons dismisses her seamstress with longing -looks. She suited her mistress exactly, but she didn’t -suit cook!</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now, if Mrs. Simmons had been brought up in early -life with the experience that <i>you</i> have, she would be -mistress in her own house. She would quietly say -to Madam Cook, “If my family arrangements do not -suit you, you can leave. I can see to the dinner -myself.” And she <i>could</i> do it. Her well-trained muscles -would not break down under a little extra work; -her skill, adroitness, and perfect familiarity with everything -that is to be done would enable her at once to -make cooks of any bright girls of good capacity who -might still be in her establishment; and, above all, -she would feel herself mistress in her own house. -This is what would come of an experience in doing -her own work as you do. She who can at once put -her own trained hand to the machine in any spot -where a hand is needed never comes to be the slave -of a coarse, vulgar Irishwoman.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So, also, in forming a judgment of what is to be -expected of servants in a given time, and what ought -to be expected of a given amount of provisions, poor -Mrs. Simmons is absolutely at sea. If even for one -six months in her life she had been a practical cook, -and had really had the charge of the larder, she would -not now be haunted, as she constantly is, by an indefinite -apprehension of an immense wastefulness, perhaps -of the disappearance of provisions through secret channels -of relationship and favoritism. She certainly -could not be made to believe in the absolute necessity -of so many pounds of sugar, quarts of milk, and dozens -of eggs, not to mention spices and wine, as are -daily required for the accomplishment of Madam -Cook’s purposes. But though now she does suspect -and apprehend, she cannot speak with certainty. She -cannot say, “<i>I</i> have made these things. I know -exactly what they require. I have done this and that -myself, and know it can be done, and done well, in a -certain time.” It is said that women who have been -accustomed to doing their own work become hard -mistresses. They are certainly more sure of the -ground they stand on,—they are less open to imposition,—they -can speak and act in their own houses -more as those “having authority,” and therefore are -less afraid to exact what is justly their due, and less -willing to endure impertinence and unfaithfulness. -Their general error lies in expecting that any servant -ever will do as well for them as they will do for themselves, -and that an untrained, undisciplined human -being ever <i>can</i> do house-work, or any other work, with -the neatness and perfection that a person of trained -intelligence can. It has been remarked in our armies -that the men of cultivation, though bred in delicate -and refined spheres, can bear up under the hardships -of camp-life better and longer than rough laborers. -The reason is, that an educated mind knows how to -use and save its body, to work it and spare it, as an -uneducated mind cannot; and so the college-bred -youth brings himself safely through fatigues which -kill the unreflective laborer. Cultivated, intelligent -women, who are brought up to do the work of their -own families, are labor-saving institutions. They make -the head save the wear of the muscles. By forethought, -contrivance, system, and arrangement, they -lessen the amount to be done, and do it with less -expense of time and strength than others. The old -New-England motto, <i>Get your work done up in the -forenoon</i>, applied to an amount of work which would -keep a common Irish servant toiling from daylight to -sunset.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A lady living in one of our obscure New England -towns, where there were no servants to be hired, at -last by sending to a distant city succeeded in procuring -a raw Irish maid-of-all-work, a creature of immense -bone and muscle, but of heavy, unawakened brain. -In one fortnight she established such a reign of Chaos -and old Night in the kitchen and through the house, -that her mistress, a delicate woman, encumbered with -the care of young children, began seriously to think -that she made more work each day than she performed, -and dismissed her. What was now to be -done? Fortunately, the daughter of a neighboring -farmer was going to be married in six months, and -wanted a little ready money for her <i>trousseau</i>. The -lady was informed that Miss So-and-so would come -to her, not as a servant, but as hired “help.” She -was fain to accept any help with gladness. Forthwith -came into the family-circle a tall, well-dressed young -person, grave, unobtrusive, self-respecting, yet not in -the least presuming, who sat at the family-table and -observed all its decorums with the modest self-possession -of a lady. The new-comer took a survey of the -labors of a family of ten members, including four or -five young children, and, looking, seemed at once to -throw them into system, matured her plans, arranged -her hours of washing, ironing, baking, cleaning, rose -early, moved deftly, and in a single day the slatternly -and littered kitchen assumed that neat, orderly appearance -that so often strikes one in New England -farm-houses. The work seemed to be all gone. Everything -was nicely washed, brightened, put in place, -and stayed in place; the floors, when cleaned, remained -clean; the work was always done, and not -doing; and every afternoon the young lady sat neatly -dressed in her own apartment, either quietly writing -letters to her betrothed, or sewing on her bridal outfit -Such is the result of employing those who have been -brought up to do their own work. That tall, fine-looking -girl, for aught we know, may yet be mistress of a -fine house on Fifth Avenue; and if she is, she will, -we fear, prove rather an exacting mistress to Irish -Biddy and Bridget; but <i>she</i> will never be threatened -by her cook and chambermaid, after the first one or -two have tried the experiment.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>Having written thus far on my article, I laid it -aside till evening, when, as usual, I was saluted by -the inquiry, “Has papa been writing anything to-day?” -and then followed loud petitions to hear it; -and so I read as far, reader, as you have.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, papa,” said Jenny, “what are you meaning -to make out there? Do you really think it would be -best for us all to try to go back to that old style of -living you describe? After all, you have shown only -the dark side of an establishment with servants, and -the bright side of the other way of living. Mamma -does not have such trouble with her servants; matters -have always gone smoothly in our family; and if we -are not such wonderful girls as those you describe, -yet we may make pretty good housekeepers on the -modern system, after all.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You don’t know all the troubles your mamma has -had in your day,” said my wife. “I have often, in the -course of my family-history, seen the day when I have -heartily wished for the strength and ability to manage -my household matters as my grandmother of notable -memory managed hers. But I fear that those remarkable -women of the olden times are like the ancient -painted glass,—the art of making them is lost; my -mother was less than her mother, and I am less than -my mother.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And Marianne and I come out entirely at the -little end of the horn,” said Jenny, laughing; “yet I -wash the breakfast-cups and dust the parlors, and have -always fancied myself a notable housekeeper.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is just as I told you,” I said. “Human nature -is always the same. Nobody ever is or does more -than circumstances force him to be and do. Those -remarkable women of old were made by circumstances. -There were, comparatively speaking, no servants to be -had, and so children were trained to habits of industry -and mechanical adroitness from the cradle, and -every household process was reduced to the very minimum -of labor. Every step required in a process was -counted, every movement calculated; and she who took -ten steps, when one would do, lost her reputation for -‘faculty.’ Certainly such an early drill was of use in -developing the health and the bodily powers, as well -as in giving precision to the practical mental faculties. -All household economies were arranged with equal -niceness in those thoughtful minds. A trained housekeeper -knew just how many sticks of hickory of a -certain size were required to heat her oven, and how -many of each different kind of wood. She knew by -a sort of intuition just what kinds of food would yield -the most palatable nutriment with the least outlay of -accessories in cooking. She knew to a minute the -time when each article must go into and be withdrawn -from her oven; and if she could only lie in her chamber -and direct, she could guide an intelligent child -through the processes with mathematical certainty. It -is impossible, however, that anything but early training -and long experience can produce these results, -and it is earnestly to be wished that the grandmothers -of New England had only written down their experiences -for our children; they would have been a mine -of maxims and traditions, better than any other traditions -of the elders which we know of.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“One thing I know,” said Marianne,—“and that -is, I wish I had been brought up so, and knew all that -I should, and had all the strength and adroitness that -those women had. I should not dread to begin housekeeping, -as I now do. I should feel myself independent. -I should feel that I knew how to direct my -servants, and what it was reasonable and proper to -expect of them; and then, as you say, I shouldn’t -be dependent on all their whims and caprices of temper. -I dread those household storms, of all things.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Silently pondering these anxieties of the young -expectant housekeeper, I resumed my pen, and concluded -my paper as follows.</p> - -<p class='c012'>In this country, our democratic institutions have -removed the superincumbent pressure which in the -Old World confines the servants to a regular orbit. -They come here feeling that this is somehow a land -of liberty, and with very dim and confused notions of -what liberty is. They are for the most part the raw, -untrained Irish peasantry, and the wonder is, that, -with all the unreasoning heats and prejudices of the -Celtic blood, all the necessary ignorance and rawness, -there should be the measure of comfort and success -there is in our domestic arrangements. But, so long -as things are so, there will be constant changes and -interruptions in every domestic establishment, and -constantly recurring interregnums when the mistress -must put her own hand to the work, whether the hand -be a trained or an untrained one. As matters now -are, the young housekeeper takes life at the hardest. -She has very little strength,—no experience to teach -her how to save her strength. She knows nothing -experimentally of the simplest processes necessary to -keep her family comfortably fed and clothed; and she -has a way of looking at all these things which makes -them particularly hard and distasteful to her. She -does not escape being obliged to do house-work at -intervals, but she does it in a weak, blundering, confused -way, that makes it twice as hard and disagreeable -as it need be.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Now what I have to say is, that, if every young -woman learned to do house-work and cultivated her -practical faculties in early life, she would, in the first -place, be much more likely to keep her servants, and, -in the second place, if she lost them temporarily, would -avoid all that wear and tear of the nervous system -which comes from constant ill-success in those departments -on which family health and temper mainly -depend. This is one of the peculiarities of our American -life which require a peculiar training. Why not -face it sensibly?</p> - -<p class='c016'>The second thing I have to say is, that our land is -now full of motorpathic institutions to which women -are sent at great expense to have hired operators -stretch and exercise their inactive muscles. They lie -for hours to have their feet twigged, their arms flexed, -and all the different muscles of the body worked for -them, because they are so flaccid and torpid that the -powers of life do not go on. Would it not be quite -as cheerful and less expensive a process, if young -girls from early life developed the muscles in sweeping, -dusting, ironing, rubbing furniture, and all the -multiplied domestic processes which our grandmothers -knew of? A woman who did all these, and diversified -the intervals with spinning on the great and -little wheel, never came to need the gymnastics of -Dio Lewis or of the Swedish motorpathist, which -really are a necessity now. Does it not seem poor -economy to pay servants for letting our muscles grow -feeble, and then to pay operators to exercise them for -us? I will venture to say that our grandmothers in -a week went over every movement that any gymnast -has invented, and went over them to some productive -purpose too.</p> - -<p class='c016'>Lastly, my paper will not have been in vain, if those -ladies who have learned and practise the invaluable -accomplishment of doing their own work will know -their own happiness and dignity, and properly value -their great acquisition, even though it may have been -forced upon them by circumstances.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch07' class='c007'>VII.<br /> <br />WHAT CAN BE GOT IN AMERICA.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_675 c011'>WHILE I was preparing my article for the “Atlantic,” -our friend Bob Stephens burst in upon -us, in some considerable heat, with a newspaper in his -hand.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, girls, your time is come now! You women -have been preaching heroism and sacrifice to us,—‘so -splendid to go forth and suffer and die for our -country,’—and now comes the test of feminine patriotism.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, what’s the matter now?” said Jenny, running -eagerly to look over his shoulder at the paper.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No more foreign goods,” said he, waving it aloft,—“no -more gold shipped to Europe for silks, laces, -jewels, kid gloves, and what-not. Here it is,—great -movement, headed by senators’ and generals’ wives, -Mrs. General Butler, Mrs. John P. Hale, Mrs. Henry -Wilson, and so on, a long string of them, to buy no -more imported articles during the war.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But I don’t see how it <i>can</i> be done,” said Jenny.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why,” said I, “do you suppose that ‘nothing to -wear’ is made in America?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, dear Mr. Crowfield,” said Miss Featherstone, -a nice girl, who was just then one of our family-circle, -“there is not, positively, much that is really fit to -use or wear made in America,—<i>is</i> there now? Just -think; how is Marianne to furnish her house here -without French papers and English carpets?—those -American papers are so very ordinary, and as to -American carpets, everybody knows their colors don’t -hold; and then, as to dress, a lady must have gloves, -you know,—and everybody knows no such things are -made in America as gloves.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I think,” I said, “that I have heard of certain -fair ladies wishing that they were men, that they -might show with what alacrity they would sacrifice -everything on the altar of their country: life and limb -would be nothing; they would glory in wounds and -bruises, they would enjoy losing a right arm, they -wouldn’t mind limping about on a lame leg the rest -of their lives, <i>if they were John or Peter</i>, if only they -might serve their dear country.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said Bob, “that’s female patriotism! Girls -are always ready to jump off from precipices, or throw -themselves into abysses, but as to wearing an unfashionable -hat or thread gloves, that they can’t do,—not -even for their dear country. No matter whether -there’s any money left to pay for the war or not, the -dear souls must have twenty yards of silk in a dress,—it’s -the fashion, you know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now, isn’t he too bad?” said Marianne. “As if -we’d ever been asked to make these sacrifices and -refused! I think I have seen women ready to give -up dress and fashion and everything else, for a good -cause.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“For that matter,” said I, “the history of all wars -has shown women ready to sacrifice what is most -intimately feminine in times of peril to their country. -The women of Carthage not only gave up their jewels -in the siege of their city, but, in the last extremity, -cut off their hair for bow-strings. The women of -Hungary and Poland, in their country’s need, sold -their jewels and plate and wore ornaments of iron and -lead. In the time of our own Revolution, our women -dressed in plain homespun and drank herb-tea,—and -certainly nothing is more feminine than a cup of tea. -And in this very struggle, the women of the Southern -States have cut up their carpets for blankets, have -borne the most humiliating retrenchments and privations -of all kinds without a murmur. So let us -exonerate the female sex of want of patriotism, at any -rate.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Certainly,” said my wife; “and if our Northern -women have not retrenched and made sacrifices, it -has been because it has not been impressed on them -that there is any particular call for it. Everything has -seemed to be so prosperous and plentiful in the Northern -States, money has been so abundant and easy to -come by, that it has really been difficult to realize that -a dreadful and destructive war was raging. Only occasionally, -after a great battle, when the lists of the -killed and wounded have been sent through the country, -have we felt that we were making a sacrifice. The -women who have spent such sums for laces and jewels -and silks have not had it set clearly before them why -they should not do so. The money has been placed -freely in their hands, and the temptation before their -eyes.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said Jenny, “I am quite sure that there are -hundreds who have been buying foreign goods, who -would not do it, if they could see any connection -between their not doing it and the salvation of the -country; but when I go to buy a pair of gloves, I naturally -want the best pair I can find, the pair that will -last the longest and look the best, and these always -happen to be French gloves.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then,” said Miss Featherstone, “I never could -clearly see why people should confine their patronage -and encouragement to works of their own country. -I’m sure the poor manufacturers of England have -shown the very noblest spirit with relation to our -cause, and so have the silk-weavers and artisans of -France,—at least, so I have heard; why should we -not give them a fair share of encouragement, particularly -when they make things that we are not in circumstances -to make, have not the means to make?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Those are certainly sensible questions,” I replied, -“and ought to meet a fair answer, and I should say, -that, were our country in a fair ordinary state of prosperity, -there would be no reason why our wealth should -not flow out for the encouragement of well-directed -industry in any part of the world; from this point of -view we might look on the whole world as our country, -and cheerfully assist in developing its wealth and -resources. But our country is now in the situation of -a private family whose means are absorbed by an expensive -sickness, involving the life of its head; just -now it is all we can do to keep the family together, -all our means are swallowed up by our own domestic -wants, we have nothing to give for the encouragement -of other families, we must exist ourselves, we must -get through this crisis and hold our own, and that we -may do it all the family expenses must be kept within -ourselves as far as possible. If we drain off all the -gold of the country to send to Europe to encourage -her worthy artisans, we produce high prices and distress -among equally worthy ones at home, and we -lessen the amount of our resources for maintaining -the great struggle for national existence. The same -amount of money which we pay for foreign luxuries, -if passed into the hands of our own manufacturers -and producers, becomes available for the increasing -expenses of the war.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, papa,” said Jenny, “I understood that a -great part of our Governmental income was derived -from the duties on foreign goods, and so I inferred -that the more foreign goods were imported the better -it would be.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, suppose,” said I, “that for every hundred -thousand dollars we send out of the country we pay -the Government ten thousand; that is about what our -gain as a nation would be;—we send our gold abroad -in a great stream, and give our Government a little -driblet.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, but,” said Miss Featherstone, “<i>what can be -got in America</i>? Hardly anything, I believe, except -common calicoes.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Begging your pardon, my dear lady,” said I, -“there is where you and multitudes of others are -greatly mistaken. Your partiality for foreign things -has kept you ignorant of what you have at home. -Now I am not blaming the love of foreign things; it -is not peculiar to us Americans; all nations have it. -It is a part of the poetry of our nature to love what -comes from afar, and reminds us of lands distant and -different from our own. The English belles seek after -French laces; the French beauty enumerates English -laces among her rarities; and the French dandy piques -himself upon an English tailor. We Americans are -great travellers, and few people travel, I fancy, with -more real enjoyment than we; our domestic establishments, -as compared with those of the Old World, are -less cumbrous and stately, and so our money is commonly -in hand as pocket-money, to be spent freely -and gayly in our tours abroad.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We have such bright and pleasant times in every -country that we conceive a kindliness for its belongings. -To send to Paris for our dresses and our shoes -and our gloves may not be a mere bit of foppery, but -a reminder of the bright, pleasant hours we have spent -in that city of Boulevards and fountains. Hence it -comes, in a way not very blamable, that many people -have been so engrossed with what can be got from -abroad that they have neglected to inquire what can -be found at home; they have supposed, of course, that -to get a decent watch they must send to Geneva or to -London,—that to get thoroughly good carpets they -must have the English manufacture,—that a really -tasteful wall-paper could be found only in Paris,—and -that flannels and broadcloths could come only -from France, Great Britain, or Germany.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, isn’t it so?” said Miss Featherstone. “I -certainly have always thought so; I never heard of -American watches, I’m sure.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then,” said I, “I’m sure you can’t have read an -article that you should have read on the Waltham -watches, written by our friend George W. Curtis, in -the “Atlantic” for January of last year. I must refer -you to that to learn that we make in America watches -superior to those of Switzerland or England, bringing -into the service machinery and modes of workmanship -unequalled for delicacy and precision; as I said -before, you must get the article and read it, and if -some sunny day you could make a trip to Waltham, -and see the establishment, it would greatly assist your -comprehension.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then, as to men’s clothing,” said Bob, “I know -to my entire satisfaction that many of the most popular -cloths for men’s wear are actually American fabrics -baptized with French and English names to make -them sell.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Which shows,” said I, “the use of a general community -movement to employ American goods. It will -change the fashion. The demand will create the supply. -When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for -American instead of French and English fabrics, they -will be surprised to find what nice American articles -there are. The work of our own hands will no more -be forced to skulk into the market under French and -English names, and we shall see, what is really true, -that an American gentleman need not look beyond -his own country for a wardrobe befitting him. I am -positive that we need not seek broadcloth or other -woollen goods from foreign lands,—that <i>better</i> hats -are made in America than in Europe, and better boots -and shoes; and I should be glad to send an American -gentleman to the World’s Fair dressed from top to toe -in American manufactures, with an American watch -in his pocket, and see if he would suffer in comparison -with the gentlemen of any other country.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then, as to house-furnishing,” began my wife, -“American carpets are getting to be every way equal -to the English.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said I, “and what is more, the Brussels -carpets of England are woven on looms invented by -an American, and bought of him. Our countryman, -Bigelow, went to England to study carpet-weaving in -the English looms,—supposing that all arts were generously -open for the instruction of learners. He was -denied the opportunity of studying the machinery and -watching the processes by a short-sighted jealousy. -He immediately sat down with a yard of carpeting, -and, patiently unravelling it, thread by thread, combined -and calculated till he invented the machinery -on which the best carpets of the Old and New World -are woven. No pains which such ingenuity and energy -can render effective are spared to make our fabrics -equal those of the British market, and we need only -to be disabused of the old prejudice, and to keep up -with the movement of our own country, and find out -our own resources. The fact is, every year improves -our fabrics. Our mechanics, our manufacturers, are -working with an energy, a zeal, and a skill that carry -things forward faster than anybody dreams of; and -nobody can predicate the character of American articles, -in any department, now, by their character even -five years ago.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, as to wall-papers,” said Miss Featherstone, -“there you must confess the French are and must be -unequalled.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I do not confess any such thing,” said I, hardily. -“I grant you that in that department of paper-hangings -which exhibits floral decoration the French designs -and execution are and must be for some time to come -far ahead of all the world,—their drawing of flowers, -vines, and foliage has the accuracy of botanical studies -and the grace of finished works of art, and we cannot -as yet pretend in America to do anything equal to it. -But for satin finish, and for a variety of exquisite tints -of plain colors, American papers equal any in the -world; our gilt papers even surpass in the heaviness -and polish of the gilding those of foreign countries; -and we have also gorgeous velvets. All I have to say -is, let people who are furnishing houses inquire for -articles of American manufacture, and they will be -surprised at what they will see. We need go no -farther than our Cambridge glass-works to see that -the most dainty devices of cut-glass, crystal, ground -and engraved glass of every color and pattern, may be -had of American workmanship, every way equal to -the best European make, and for half the price. And -American painting on china is so well executed both -in Boston and New York, that deficiencies in the finest -French or English sets can be made up in a style not -distinguishable from the original, as one may easily -see by calling on our worthy next neighbor, Briggs, who -holds the opposite corner to our “Atlantic Monthly.” -No porcelain, it is true, is yet made in America, -these decorative arts being exercised on articles imported -from Europe. Our tables must, therefore, per -force, be largely indebted to foreign lands for years -to come. Exclusive of this item, however, I believe -it would require very little self-denial to paper, carpet, -and furnish a house entirely from the manufactures -of America. I cannot help saying one word here in -favor of the cabinet-makers of Boston. There is so -much severity of taste, such a style and manner about -the best made Boston furniture, as raises it really quite -into the region of the fine arts. Our artisans have -studied foreign models with judicious eyes, and so -transferred to our country the spirit of what is best -worth imitating, that one has no need to import furniture -from Europe.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said Miss Featherstone, “there is one -point you cannot make out,—gloves; certainly the -French have the monopoly of that article.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I am not going to ruin my cause by asserting too -much,” said I. “I haven’t been with nicely dressed -women so many years not to speak with proper respect -of Alexander’s gloves,—and I confess, honestly, that -to forego them must be a fair, square sacrifice to -patriotism. But then, on the other hand, it is nevertheless -true that gloves have long been made in -America and surreptitiously brought into market as -French. I have lately heard that very nice kid gloves -are made at Watertown and in Philadelphia. I have -only heard of them, and not seen. A loud demand -might bring forth an unexpected supply from these -and other sources. If the women of America were -bent on having gloves made in their own country, how -long would it be before apparatus and factories would -spring into being? Look at the hoop-skirt factories,—women -wanted hoop-skirts,—would have them or -die,—and forthwith factories arose, and hoop-skirts -became as the dust of the earth for abundance.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said Miss Featherstone, “and, to say the -truth, the American hoop-skirts are the only ones fit -to wear. When we were living on the Champs Élysées, -I remember we searched high and low for something -like them, and finally had to send home to -America for some.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said I, “that shows what I said. Let -there be only a hearty call for an article, and it will -come. These spirits of the vasty deep are not so -very far off, after all, as we may imagine, and women’s -unions and leagues will lead to inquiries and demands -which will as infallibly bring supplies as a vacuum will -create a draught of air.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, at least, there are no ribbons made in America,” -said Miss Featherstone.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Pardon, my lady, there is a ribbon-factory now in -operation in Boston, and ribbons of every color are -made in New York; there is also in the vicinity of -Boston a factory which makes Roman scarfs. This -shows that the faculty of weaving ribbons is not wanting -to us Americans, and a zealous patronage would -increase the supply.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then, as for a thousand and one little feminine -needs, I believe our manufacturers can supply them. -The Portsmouth Steam Company makes white spool-cotton -equal to any in England, and colored spool-cotton, -of every shade and variety, such as is not made -either in England or France. Pins are well made in -America; so are hooks and eyes, and a variety of -buttons. Straw bonnets of American manufacture are -also extensively in market, and quite as pretty ones as -the double-priced ones which are imported.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“As to silks and satins, I am not going to pretend -that they are to be found here. It is true, there are -silk manufactories, like that of the Cheneys in Connecticut, -where very pretty foulard dress-silks are -made, together with sewing-silk enough to supply a -large demand. Enough has been done to show that -silks might be made in America; but at present, as -compared with Europe, we claim neither silks nor -thread laces among our manufactures.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But what then? These are not necessaries of life. -Ladies can be very tastefully dressed in other fabrics -besides silks. There are many pretty American dress-goods -which the leaders of fashion might make fashionable; -and certainly no leader of fashion could wish -to dress for a nobler object than to aid her country in -deadly peril.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is not a life-pledge, not a total abstinence, that -is asked,—only a temporary expedient to meet a -stringent crisis. We only ask a preference for American -goods where they can be found. Surely, women -whose exertions in Sanitary Fairs have created an era -in the history of the world will not shrink from so -small a sacrifice for so obvious a good.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Here is something in which every individual woman -can help. Every woman who goes into a shop -and asks for American goods renders an appreciable -aid to our cause. She expresses her opinion and her -patriotism; and her voice forms a part of that demand -which shall arouse and develop the resources of her -country. We shall learn to know our own country. -We shall learn to respect our own powers,—and -every branch of useful labor will spring and flourish -under our well-directed efforts. We shall come out -of our great contest, not bedraggled, ragged, and -poverty-stricken, but developed, instructed, and rich. -Then will we gladly join with other nations in the -free interchange of manufactures, and gratify our eye -and taste with what is foreign, while we can in turn -send abroad our own productions in equal ratio.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Upon my word,” said Miss Featherstone, “I -should think it was the Fourth of July,—but I yield -the point. I am convinced; and henceforth you will -see me among the most stringent of the leaguers.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Right!” said I.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And, fair lady-reader, let me hope you will say the -same. You can do something for your country,—it -lies right in your hand. Go to the shops, determined -on supplying your family and yourself with American -goods. Insist on having them; raise the question of -origin over every article shown to you. In the Revolutionary -times, some of the leading matrons of New -England gave parties where the ladies were dressed in -homespun and drank sage-tea. Fashion makes all -things beautiful, and you, my charming and accomplished -friend, can create beauty by creating fashion. -What makes the beauty of half the Cashmere shawls? -Not anything in the shawls themselves, for they often -look coarse and dingy and barbarous. It is the association -with style and fashion. Fair lady, give style -and fashion to the products of your own country,—resolve -that the money in your hand shall go to your -brave brothers, to your co-Americans, now straining -every nerve to uphold the nation, and cause it to -stand high in the earth. What are you without your -country? As Americans you can hope for no rank -but the rank of your native land, no badge of nobility -but her beautiful stars. It rests with this conflict to -decide whether those stars shall be badges of nobility -to you and your children in all lands. Women of -America, your country expects every woman to do her -duty!</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch08' class='c007'>VIII.<br /> <br />ECONOMY.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_675 c011'>“THE fact is,” said Jenny, as she twirled a little -hat on her hand, which she had been making -over, with nobody knows what of bows and pompons, -and other matters for which the women have curious -names,—“the fact is, American women and girls -must learn to economize; it isn’t merely restricting -one’s self to American goods, it is general economy, -that is required. Now here’s this hat,—costs me -only three dollars, all told; and Sophie Page bought -an English one this morning at Madame Meyer’s for -which she gave fifteen. And I really don’t think hers -has more of an air than mine. I made this over, you -see, with things I had in the house, bought nothing -but the ribbon, and paid for altering and pressing, -and there you see what a stylish hat I have!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Lovely! admirable!” said Miss Featherstone. -“Upon my word, Jenny, you ought to marry a poor -parson; you would be quite thrown away upon a rich -man.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Let me see,” said I. “I want to admire intelligently. -That isn’t the hat you were wearing yesterday?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“O no, papa! This is just done. The one I wore -yesterday was my waterfall-hat, with the green feather; -this, you see, is an oriole.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“A what?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“An oriole. Papa, how can you expect to learn -about these things?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And that plain little black one, with the stiff crop -of scarlet feathers sticking straight up?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s my jockey, papa, with a plume <i>en militaire</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And did the waterfall and the jockey cost anything?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“They were very, very cheap, papa, all things -considered. Miss Featherstone will remember that -the waterfall was a great bargain, and I had the feather -from last year; and as to the jockey, that was made -out of my last year’s white one, dyed over. You know, -papa, I always take care of my things, and they last -from year to year.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I do assure you, Mr. Crowfield,” said Miss Featherstone, -“I never saw such little economists as your -daughters; it is perfectly wonderful what they contrive -to dress on. How they manage to do it I’m sure I -can’t see. I never could, I’m convinced.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said Jenny, “I’ve bought but just one new -hat. I only wish you could sit in church where we -do, and see those Miss Fielders. Marianne and I -have counted six new hats apiece of those girls’,—<i>new</i>, -you know, just out of the milliner’s shop; and -last Sunday they came out in such lovely puffed tulle -bonnets! Weren’t they lovely, Marianne? And next -Sunday, I don’t doubt, there’ll be something else.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said Miss Featherstone,—“their father, -they say, has made a million dollars lately on Government -contracts.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“For my part,” said Jenny, “I think such extravagance, -at such a time as this, is shameful.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you know,” said I, “that I’m quite sure the -Misses Fielder think they are practising rigorous economy?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Papa! Now there you are with your paradoxes! -How can you say so?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I shouldn’t be afraid to bet a pair of gloves, -now,” said I, “that Miss Fielder thinks herself half -ready for translation, because she has bought only six -new hats and a tulle bonnet so far in the season. If -it were not for her dear bleeding country, she would -have had thirty-six, like the Misses Sibthorpe. If we -were admitted to the secret councils of the Fielders, -doubtless we should perceive what temptations they -daily resist; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadful they -suffer themselves to be, because they feel it important -now, in this crisis, to practise economy; how they -abuse the Sibthorpes, who have a new hat every time -they drive out, and never think of wearing one more -than two or three times; how virtuous and self-denying -they feel, when they think of the puffed tulle, for -which they only gave eighteen dollars, when Madame -Caradori showed them those lovely ones, like the -Misses Sibthorpe’s, for forty-five; and how they go -home descanting on virgin simplicity, and resolving -that they will not allow themselves to be swept into -the vortex of extravagance, whatever other people -may do.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you know,” said Miss Featherstone, “I believe -your papa is right? I was calling on the oldest -Miss Fielder the other day, and she told me that she -positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but -that she really did feel the necessity of economy. -‘Perhaps we might afford to spend more than some -others,’ she said; ‘but it’s so much better to give the -money to the Sanitary Commission!’”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Furthermore,” said I, “I am going to put forth -another paradox, and say that very likely there are -some people looking on my girls, and commenting -on them for extravagance in having three hats, even -though made over, and contrived from last year’s -stock.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“They can’t know anything about it, then,” said -Jenny, decisively; “for, certainly, nobody can be -decent, and invest less in millinery than Marianne -and I do.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“When I was a young lady,” said my wife, “a well-dressed -girl got her a new bonnet in the spring, and -another in the fall;—that was the extent of her purchases -in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of last -year, did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. -My father was accounted well-to-do, but I had no -more, and wanted no more. I also bought myself, -every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a light -pair, and wore them through the summer, and another -two through the winter; one or two pair of white kids, -carefully cleaned, carried me through all my parties. -Hats had not been heard of, and the great necessity -which requires two or three new ones every spring -and fall had not arisen. Yet I was reckoned a well-appearing -girl, who dressed liberally. Now, a young -lady who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat, and a -jockey, must still be troubled with anxious cares for -her spring and fall and summer and winter bonnets,—all -the variety will not take the place of them. -Gloves are bought by the dozen; and as to dresses, -there seems to be no limit to the quantity of material -and trimming that may be expended upon them. -When I was a young lady, seventy-five dollars a year -was considered by careful parents a liberal allowance -for a daughter’s wardrobe. I had a hundred, and was -reckoned rich; and I sometimes used a part to make -up the deficiencies in the allowance of Sarah Evans, -my particular friend, whose father gave her only fifty. -We all thought that a very scant allowance; yet she -generally made a very pretty and genteel appearance, -with the help of occasional presents from friends.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How could a girl dress for fifty dollars?” said -Marianne.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, -which, with different sortings of ribbons, served -her for all dress-occasions. A silk, in those days, -took only ten yards in the making, and one dark silk -was considered a reasonable allowance to a lady’s -wardrobe. Once made, it stood for something,—always -worn carefully, it lasted for years. One or two -calico morning-dresses, and a merino for winter wear, -completed the list. Then, as to collars, capes, cuffs, -etc., we all did our own embroidering, and very pretty -things we wore, too. Girls looked as prettily then as -they do now, when four or five hundred dollars a year -is insufficient to clothe them.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, mamma, you know our allowance isn’t anything -like that,—it is quite a slender one, though not -so small as yours was,” said Marianne. “Don’t you -think the customs of society make a difference? Do -you think, as things are, we could go back and dress -for the sum you did?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You cannot,” said my wife, “without a greater -sacrifice of feeling than I wish to impose on you. -Still, though I don’t see how to help it, I cannot but -think that the requirements of fashion are becoming -needlessly extravagant, particularly in regard to the -dress of women. It seems to me, it is making the -support of families so burdensome that young men -are discouraged from marriage. A young man, in a -moderately good business, might cheerfully undertake -the world with a wife who could make herself pretty -and attractive for seventy-five dollars a year, when he -might sigh in vain for one who positively could not -get through, and be decent, on four hundred. Women, -too, are getting to be so attached to the trappings and -accessories of life, that they cannot think of marriage -without an amount of fortune which few young men -possess.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You are talking in very low numbers about the -dress of women,” said Miss Featherstone. “I do -assure you that it is the easiest thing in the world for -a girl to make away with a thousand dollars a year, -and not have so much to show for it either as Marianne -and Jenny.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To be sure,” said I. “Only establish certain formulas -of expectation, and it is the easiest thing in the -world. For instance, in your mother’s day girls talked -of a pair of gloves,—now they talk of a pack; then -it was a bonnet summer and winter,—now it is a bonnet -spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and hats like -monthly roses,—a new blossom every few weeks.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And then,” said my wife, “every device of the -toilet is immediately taken up and varied and improved -on, so as to impose an almost monthly necessity -for novelty. The jackets of May are outshone by -the jackets of June; the buttons of June are antiquated -in July; the trimmings of July are <i>passées</i> by -September; side-combs, back-combs, puffs, rats, and -all sorts of such matters, are in a distracted race of -improvement; every article of feminine toilet is on -the move towards perfection. It seems to me that an -infinity of money must be spent in these trifles, by -those who make the least pretension to keep in the -fashion.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, papa,” said Jenny, “after all, it’s just the -way things always have been since the world began. -You know the Bible says, ‘Can a maid forget her -ornaments?’ It’s clear she can’t. You see, it’s a -law of Nature; and you remember all that long chapter -in the Bible that we had read in church last Sunday, -about the curls and veils and tinkling ornaments -and crimping-pins, and all that of those wicked daughters -of Zion in old times. Women always have been -too much given to dress, and they always will be.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The thing is,” said Marianne, “how can any -woman, I, for example, know what is too much or -too little? In mamma’s day, it seems, a girl could -keep her place in society, by hard economy, and -spend only fifty dollars a year on her dress. Mamma -found a hundred dollars ample. I have more -than that, and find myself quite straitened to keep -myself looking well. I don’t want to live for dress, -to give all my time and thoughts to it; I don’t wish -to be extravagant; and yet I wish to be lady-like; it -annoys and makes me unhappy not to be fresh and -neat and nice; shabbiness and seediness are my aversion. -I don’t see where the fault is. Can one individual -resist the whole current of society? It certainly -is not strictly necessary for us girls to have half -the things we do. We might, I suppose, live without -many of them, and, as mamma says, look just as well, -because girls did so before these things were invented. -Now, I confess, I flatter myself, generally, that I am -a pattern of good management and economy, because -I get so much less than other girls I associate -with. I wish you could see Miss Thorne’s fall dresses -that she showed me last year when she was visiting -here. She had six gowns, and no one of them could -have cost less than seventy or eighty dollars, and -some of them must have been even more expensive; -and yet I don’t doubt that this fall she will feel that -she must have just as many more. She runs through -and wears out these expensive things, with all their -velvet and thread lace, just as I wear my commonest -ones; and at the end of the season they are really -gone,—spotted, stained, frayed, the lace all pulled -to pieces,—nothing left to save or make over. I -feel as if Jenny and I were patterns of economy, -when I see such things. I really don’t know what -economy is. What is it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There is the same difficulty in my housekeeping,” -said my wife. “I think I am an economist. I mean -to be one. All our expenses are on a modest scale, -and yet I can see much that really is not strictly -necessary; but if I compare myself with some of my -neighbors, I feel as if I were hardly respectable. -There is no subject on which all the world are censuring -one another so much as this. Hardly any one -but thinks her neighbors extravagant in some one or -more particulars, and takes for granted that she herself -is an economist.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’ll venture to say,” said I, “that there isn’t a -woman of my acquaintance that does not think she -is an economist.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Papa is turned against us women, like all the rest -of them,” said Jenny. “I wonder if it isn’t just so -with the men?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said Marianne, “it’s the fashion to talk as -if all the extravagance of the country was perpetrated -by women. For my part, I think young men are just -as extravagant. Look at the sums they spend for -cigars and meerschaums,—an expense which hasn’t -even the pretence of usefulness in any way; it’s a -purely selfish, nonsensical indulgence. When a girl -spends money in making herself look pretty, she contributes -something to the agreeableness of society; -but a man’s cigars and pipes are neither ornamental -nor useful.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then look at their dress,” said Jenny; “they are -to the full as fussy and particular about it as girls; -they have as many fine, invisible points of fashion, -and their fashions change quite as often; and they -have just as many knick-knacks, with their studs and -their sleeve-buttons and waistcoat-buttons, their scarfs -and scarf-pins, their watch-chains and seals and seal-rings, -and nobody knows what. Then they often -waste and throw away more than women, because -they are not good judges of material, nor saving in -what they buy, and have no knowledge of how things -should be cared for, altered, or mended. If their cap -is a little too tight, they cut the lining with a pen-knife, -or slit holes in a new shirt-collar, because it -does not exactly fit to their mind. For my part, I -think men are naturally twice as wasteful as women. -A pretty thing, to be sure, to have all the waste of the -country laid to us!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You are right, child,” said I; “women are by -nature, as compared with men, the care-taking and -saving part of creation,—the authors and conservators -of economy. As a general rule, man earns and -woman saves and applies. The wastefulness of woman -is commonly the fault of man.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t see into that,” said Bob Stephens.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“In this way. Economy is the science of proportion. -Whether a particular purchase is extravagant -depends mainly on the income it is taken from. Suppose -a woman has a hundred and fifty a year for her -dress, and gives fifty dollars for a bonnet; she gives -a third of her income;—it is a horrible extravagance, -while for the woman whose income is ten thousand it -may be no extravagance at all. The poor clergyman’s -wife, when she gives five dollars for a bonnet, -may be giving as much, in proportion to her income, -as the woman who gives fifty. Now the difficulty -with the greater part of women is, that the men who -make the money and hold it give them no kind of -standard by which to measure their expenses. Most -women and girls are in this matter entirely at sea, -without chart or compass. They don’t know in the -least what they have to spend. Husbands and fathers -often pride themselves about not saying a word -on business-matters to their wives and daughters. -They don’t wish them to understand them, or to -inquire into them, or to make remarks or suggestions -concerning them. ‘I want you to have everything -that is suitable and proper,’ says Jones to his wife, -‘but don’t be extravagant.’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘But, my dear,’ says Mrs. Jones, ‘what is suitable -and proper depends very much on our means; if you -could allow me any specific sum for dress and housekeeping, -I could tell better.’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘Nonsense, Susan! I can’t do that,—it’s too -much trouble. Get what you need, and avoid foolish -extravagances; that’s all I ask.’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“By and by Mrs. Jones’s bills are sent in, in an -evil hour, when Jones has heavy notes to meet, and -then comes a domestic storm.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘I shall just be ruined, Madam, if that’s the way -you are going on. I can’t afford to dress you and the -girls in the style you have set up;—look at this milliner’s -bill!’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘I assure you,’ says Mrs. Jones, ‘we haven’t got -any more than the Stebbinses,—nor so much.’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“‘Don’t you know that the Stebbinses are worth -five times as much as ever I was?’</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, Mrs. Jones did not know it;—how should -she, when her husband makes it a rule never to speak -of his business to her, and she has not the remotest -idea of his income?</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Thus multitudes of good conscientious women -and girls are extravagant from pure ignorance. The -male provider allows bills to be run up in his name, -and they have no earthly means of judging whether -they are spending too much or too little, except the -semi-annual hurricane which attends the coming in -of these bills.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The first essential in the practice of economy is a -knowledge of one’s income, and the man who refuses -to accord to his wife and children this information has -never any right to accuse them of extravagance, because -he himself deprives them of that standard of -comparison which is an indispensable requisite in -economy. As early as possible in the education of -children they should pass from that state of irresponsible -waiting to be provided for by parents, and be -trusted with the spending of some fixed allowance, -that they may learn prices and values, and have some -notion of what money is actually worth and what it -will bring. The simple fact of the possession of a -fixed and definite income often suddenly transforms -a giddy, extravagant girl into a care-taking, prudent -little woman. Her allowance is her own; she begins -to plan upon it,—to add, subtract, multiply, divide, -and do numberless sums in her little head. She no -longer buys everything she fancies; she deliberates, -weighs, compares. And now there is room for self-denial -and generosity to come in. She can do without -this article; she can furbish up some older possession -to do duty a little longer, and give this money -to some friend poorer than she; and ten to one the -girl whose bills last year were four or five hundred -finds herself bringing through this year creditably on -a hundred and fifty. To be sure, she goes without -numerous things which she used to have. From the -stand-point of a fixed income she sees that these are -impossible, and no more wants them than the green -cheese of the moon. She learns to make her own -taste and skill take the place of expensive purchases. -She refits her hats and bonnets, retrims her dresses, -and in a thousand busy, earnest, happy little ways, sets -herself to make the most of her small income.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“So the woman who has her definite allowance for -housekeeping finds at once a hundred questions set -at rest. Before, it was not clear to her why she should -not ‘go and do likewise’ in relation to every purchase -made by her next neighbor. Now, there is a clear -logic of proportion. Certain things are evidently not -to be thought of, though next neighbors do have -them; and we must resign ourselves to find some -other way of living.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear,” said my wife, “I think there is a peculiar -temptation in a life organized as ours is in -America. There are here no settled classes, with -similar ratios of income. Mixed together in the -same society, going to the same parties, and blended -in daily neighborly intercourse, are families of the -most opposite extremes in point of fortune. In England -there is a very well-understood expression, that -people should not dress or live above their station; -in America none will admit that they have any particular -station, or that they can live above it. The -principle of democratic equality unites in society people -of the most diverse positions and means.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Here, for instance, is a family like Dr. Selden’s, -an old and highly respected one, with an income of -only two or three thousand,—yet they are people -universally sought for in society, and mingle in all the -intercourse of life with merchant-millionnaires whose -incomes are from ten to thirty thousand. Their sons -and daughters go to the same schools, the same parties, -and are thus constantly meeting upon terms of -social equality.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now it seems to me that our danger does not lie -in the great and evident expenses of our richer friends. -We do not expect to have pineries, graperies, equipages, -horses, diamonds,—we say openly and of -course that we do not. Still, our expenses are constantly -increased by the proximity of these things, -unless we understand ourselves better than most people -do. We don’t of course, expect to get a fifteen-hundred-dollar -Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we -begin to look at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble -about the hook. We don’t expect sets of diamonds, -but a diamond ring, a pair of solitaire diamond earrings, -begins to be speculated about among the young -people as among possibilities. We don’t expect to -carpet our house with Axminster and hang our windows -with damask, but at least we must have Brussels -and brocatelle,—it <i>would not do</i> not to. And -so we go on getting hundreds of things that we -don’t need, that have no real value except that they -soothe our self-love,—and for these inferior articles -we pay a higher proportion of our income than our -rich neighbor does for his better ones. Nothing is -uglier than low-priced Cashmere shawls; and yet a -young man just entering business will spend an eighth -of a year’s income to put one on his wife, and when -he has put it there it only serves as a constant source -of disquiet,—for now that the door is opened, and -Cashmere shawls are possible, she is consumed with -envy at the superior ones constantly sported around -her. So also with point-lace, velvet dresses, and hundreds -of things of that sort, which belong to a certain -rate of income, and are absurd below it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And yet, mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that -velvet, point-lace, and Cashmere were the cheapest -finery that could be bought, because they lasted a -lifetime.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aunt Easygo speaks from an income of ten thousand -a year; they may be cheap for her rate of living,—but -for us, for example, by no magic of numbers -can it be made to appear that it is cheaper to have -the greatest bargain in the world in Cashmere, lace, -and diamonds, than not to have them at all. I never -had a diamond, never wore a piece of point-lace, -never had a velvet dress, and have been perfectly -happy, and just as much respected as if I had. Who -ever thought of objecting to me for not having them? -Nobody, as I ever heard.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Certainly not, mamma,” said Marianne.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The thing I have always said to you girls is, that -you were not to expect to live like richer people, not -to begin to try, not to think or inquire about certain -rates of expenditure, or take the first step in certain -directions. We have moved on all our life after a -very antiquated and old-fashioned mode. We have -had our little old-fashioned house, our little old-fashioned -ways.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Except the parlor-carpet, and what came of it, my -dear,” said I, mischievously.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, except the parlor-carpet,” said my wife, with -a conscious twinkle, “and the things that came of it; -there was a concession there, but one can’t be wise -always.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>We</i> talked mamma into that,” said Jenny.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But one thing is certain,” said my wife,—“that, -though I have had an antiquated, plain house, and -plain furniture, and plain dress, and not the beginning -of a thing such as many of my neighbors have -possessed, I have spent more money than many of -them for real comforts. While I had young children, -I kept more and better servants than many women -who wore Cashmeres and diamonds. I thought it -better to pay extra wages to a really good, trusty -woman who lived with me from year to year, and -relieved me of some of my heaviest family-cares, -than to have ever so much lace locked away in my -drawers. We always were able to go into the country -to spend our summers, and to keep a good family-horse -and carriage for daily driving,—by which means -we afforded, as a family, very poor patronage to the -medical profession. Then we built our house, and -while we left out a great many expensive common-places -that other people think they must have, we -put in a profusion of bathing accommodations such -as very few people think of having. There never -was a time when we did not feel able to afford to -do what was necessary to preserve or to restore -health; and for this I always drew on the surplus -fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeeping -and dressing.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Your mother has had,” said I, “what is the great -want in America, perfect independence of mind to go -her own way without regard to the way others go. I -think there is, for some reason, more false shame -among Americans about economy than among Europeans. -‘I cannot afford it’ is more seldom heard -among us. A young man beginning life, whose income -may be from five to eight hundred a year, -thinks it elegant and gallant to affect a careless air -about money, especially among ladies,—to hand it -out freely, and put back his change without counting -it,—to wear a watch-chain and studs and shirt-fronts -like those of some young millionnaire. None but the -most expensive tailors, shoemakers, and hatters will -do for him; and then he grumbles at the dearness of -living, and declares that he cannot get along on his -salary. The same is true of young girls, and of married -men and women too,—the whole of them are -ashamed of economy. The cares that wear out life -and health in many households are of a nature that -cannot be cast on God, or met by any promise from -the Bible,—it is not care for ‘food convenient,’ or -for comfortable raiment, but care to keep up false appearances, -and to stretch a narrow income over the -space that can be covered only by a wider one.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The poor widow in her narrow lodgings, with her -monthly rent staring her hourly in the face, and her -bread and meat and candles and meal all to be paid -for on delivery or not obtained at all, may find comfort -in the good old Book, reading of that other -widow whose wasting measure of oil and last failing -handful of meal were of such account before her -Father in heaven that a prophet was sent to recruit -them; and when customers do not pay, or wages are -cut down, she can enter into her chamber, and when -she hath shut her door, present to her Father in -heaven His sure promise that with the fowls of the -air she shall be fed and with the lilies of the field she -shall be clothed: but what promises are there for her -who is racking her brains on the ways and means to -provide as sumptuous an entertainment of oysters and -Champagne at her next party as her richer neighbor, -or to compass that great bargain which shall give her -a point-lace set almost as handsome as that of Mrs. -Crœsus, who has ten times her income?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, papa,” said Marianne, with a twinge of that -exacting sensitiveness by which the child is characterized, -“I think I am an economist, thanks to you and -mamma, so far as knowing just what my income is, -and keeping within it; but that does not satisfy me, -and it seems that isn’t all of economy;—the question -that haunts me is, Might I not make my little all -do more and better than I do?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There,” said I, “you have hit the broader and -deeper signification of economy, which is, in fact, the -science of <i>comparative values</i>. In its highest sense, -economy is a just judgment of the comparative value -of things,—money only the means of enabling one -to express that value. This is the reason why the -whole matter is so full of difficulty,—why every one -criticises his neighbor in this regard. Human beings -are so various, the necessities of each are so different, -they are made comfortable or uncomfortable by such -opposite means, that the spending of other people’s -incomes must of necessity often look unwise from -our stand-point. For this reason multitudes of people -who cannot be accused of exceeding their incomes -often seem to others to be spending them foolishly -and extravagantly.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But is there no standard of value?” said Marianne.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There are certain things upon which there is a -pretty general agreement, verbally, at least, among -mankind. For instance, it is generally agreed that -<i>health</i> is an indispensable good,—that money is well -spent that secures it, and worse than ill spent that -ruins it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“With this standard in mind, how much money is -wasted even by people who do not exceed their income! -Here a man builds a house, and pays, in -the first place, ten thousand more than he need, for a -location in a fashionable part of the city, though the -air will be closer and the chances of health less; he -spends three or four thousand more on a stone front, -on marble mantles imported from Italy, on plate-glass -windows, plated hinges, and a thousand nice points -of finish, and has perhaps but one bath-room for a -whole household, and that so connected with his -own apartment that nobody but himself and his wife -can use it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Another man buys a lot in an open, airy situation, -which fashion has not made expensive, and builds -without a stone front, marble mantels, or plate glass -windows, but has a perfect system of ventilation -through his house, and bathing-rooms in every story, -so that the children and guests may all, without inconvenience, -enjoy the luxury of abundant water.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The first spends for fashion and show, the second -for health and comfort.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Here is a man that will buy his wife a diamond -bracelet and a lace shawl, and take her yearly to -Washington to show off her beauty in ball-dresses, -who yet will not let her pay wages which will command -any but the poorest and most inefficient domestic -service. The woman is worn out, her life made a -desert by exhaustion consequent on a futile attempt to -keep up a showy establishment with only half the -hands needed for the purpose. Another family will -give brilliant parties, have a gay season every year at -the first hotels at Newport, and not be able to afford -the wife a fire in her chamber in midwinter, or the -servants enough food to keep them from constantly -deserting. The damp, mouldy, dingy cellar-kitchen, -the cold, windy, desolate attic, devoid of any comfort, -where the domestics are doomed to pass their whole -time, are witnesses to what such families consider -economy. Economy in the view of some is undisguised -slipshod slovenliness in the home-circle for -the sake of fine clothes to be shown abroad; it is -undisguised hard selfishness to servants and dependants, -counting their every approach to comfort a -needless waste,—grudging the Roman-Catholic cook -her cup of tea at dinner on Friday, when she must -not eat meat,—and murmuring that a cracked, second-hand -looking-glass must be got for the servants -room: what business have they to want to know how -they look?</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Some families will employ the cheapest physician, -without regard to his ability to kill or cure; some will -treat diseases in their incipiency with quack medicines, -bought cheap, hoping thereby to fend off the -doctor’s bill. Some women seem to be pursued by an -evil demon of economy, which, like an <i>ignis fatuus</i> in -a bog, delights constantly to tumble them over into -the mire of expense. They are dismayed at the quantity -of sugar in the recipe for preserves, leave out a -quarter, and the whole ferments and is spoiled. They -cannot by any means be induced at any one time to -buy enough silk to make a dress, and the dress finally, -after many convulsions and alterations, must be thrown -by altogether, as too scanty. They get poor needles, -poor thread, poor sugar, poor raisins, poor tea, poor -coal. One wonders, in looking at their blackened, -smouldering grates, in a freezing day, what the fire is -there at all for,—it certainly warms nobody. The -only thing they seem likely to be lavish in is funeral -expenses, which come in the wake of leaky shoes and -imperfect clothing. These funeral expenses at last -swallow all, since nobody can dispute an undertaker’s -bill. One pities these joyless beings. Economy, instead -of a rational act of the judgment, is a morbid -monomania, eating the pleasure out of life, and haunting -them to the grave.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Some people’s ideas of economy seem to run simply -in the line of eating. Their flour is of an extra -brand, their meat the first cut; the delicacies of every -season, in their dearest stages, come home to their -table with an apologetic smile,—‘It was scandalously -dear, my love, but I thought we must just treat -ourselves.’ And yet these people cannot afford to -buy books, and pictures they regard as an unthought-of -extravagance. Trudging home with fifty dollars’ -worth of delicacies on his arm, Smith meets Jones -who is exulting with a bag of crackers under one arm -and a choice little bit of an oil painting under the -other, which he thinks a bargain at fifty dollars. ‘<i>I</i> -can’t afford to buy pictures,’ Smith says to his spouse, -‘and I don’t know how Jones and his wife manage.’ -Jones and his wife will live on bread and milk for a -month, and she will turn her best gown the third time, -but they will have their picture, and they are happy. -Jones’s picture remains, and Smith’s fifty dollars’ worth -of oysters and canned fruit to-morrow will be gone -forever. Of all modes of spending money, the swallowing -of expensive dainties brings the least return. -There is one step lower than this,—the consuming -of luxuries that are injurious to the health. If all the -money spent on tobacco and liquors could be spent -in books and pictures, I predict that nobody’s health -would be a whit less sound, and houses would be -vastly more attractive. There is enough money spent -in smoking, drinking, and over-eating to give every -family in the community a good library, to hang every-body’s -parlor-walls with lovely pictures, to set up in -every house a conservatory which should bloom all -winter with choice flowers, to furnish every dwelling -with ample bathing and warming accommodations, -even down to the dwellings of the poor; and in the -millennium I believe this is the way things are to be.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“In these times of peril and suffering, if the inquiry -arises, How shall there be retrenchment? I answer, -First and foremost retrench things needless, doubtful, -and positively hurtful, as rum, tobacco, and all the -meerschaums of divers colors that do accompany the -same. Second, retrench all eating not necessary to -health and comfort. A French family would live in -luxury on the leavings that are constantly coming from -the tables of those who call themselves in middling -circumstances. There are superstitions of the table -that ought to be broken through. Why must you -always have cake in your closet? why need you feel -undone to entertain a guest with no cake on your tea-table? -Do without it a year, and ask yourselves if -you or your children, or any one else, have suffered -materially in consequence.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why is it imperative that you should have two or -three courses at every meal? Try the experiment of -having but one, and that a very good one, and see if -any great amount of suffering ensues. Why must -social intercourse so largely consist in eating? In -Paris there is a very pretty custom. Each family has -one evening in the week when it stays at home and -receives friends. Tea, with a little bread and butter -and cake, served in the most informal way, is the -only refreshment. The rooms are full, busy, bright,—everything -as easy and joyous as if a monstrous -supper, with piles of jelly and mountains of cake -were waiting to give the company a nightmare at the -close.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Said a lady, pointing to a gentleman and his wife -in a social circle of this kind, ‘I ought to know them -well,—I have seen them every week for twenty years.’ -It is certainly pleasant and confirmative of social enjoyment -for friends to eat together; but a little enjoyed -in this way answers the purpose as well as a great -deal, and better too.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, papa,” said Marianne, “in the matter of -dress now,—how much ought one to spend just to -look as others do?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I will tell you what I saw the other night, girls, -in the parlor of one of our hotels. Two middle-aged -Quaker ladies came gliding in, with calm, cheerful -faces, and lustrous dove-colored silks. By their conversation -I found that they belonged to that class of -women among the Friends who devote themselves to -travelling on missions of benevolence. They had just -completed a tour of all the hospitals for wounded soldiers -in the country, where they had been carrying -comforts, arranging, advising, and soothing by their -cheerful, gentle presence. They were now engaged -on another mission, to the lost and erring of their own -sex; night after night, guarded by a policeman, they -had ventured after midnight into the dance-houses -where girls are being led to ruin, and with gentle -words of tender, motherly counsel sought to win them -from their fatal ways,—telling them where they might -go the next day to find friends who would open to -them an asylum and aid them to seek a better life.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“As I looked upon these women, dressed with such -modest purity, I began secretly to think that the -Apostle was not wrong, when he spoke of women -adorning themselves with the <i>ornament</i> of a meek -and quiet spirit; for the habitual gentleness of their -expression, the calmness and purity of the lines in -their faces, the delicacy and simplicity of their apparel, -seemed of themselves a rare and peculiar beauty. -I could not help thinking that fashionable bonnets, -flowing lace sleeves, and dresses elaborately trimmed -could not have improved even their outward appearance. -Doubtless, their simple wardrobe needed but -a small trunk in travelling from place to place, and -hindered but little their prayers and ministrations.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now, it is true, all women are not called to such -a life as this; but might not all women take a leaf at -least from their book? I submit the inquiry humbly. -It seems to me that there are many who go monthly -to the sacrament, and receive it with sincere devotion, -and who give thanks each time sincerely that they are -thus made ‘members incorporate in the mystical body -of Christ,’ who have never thought of this membership -as meaning that they should share Christ’s sacrifices -for lost souls, or abridge themselves of one ornament -or encounter one inconvenience for the sake of those -wandering sheep for whom he died. Certainly there -is a higher economy which we need to learn,—that -which makes all things subservient to the spiritual and -immortal, and that not merely to the good of our own -souls and those of our family, but of all who are knit -with us in the great bonds of human brotherhood.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There have been from time to time, among well-meaning -Christian people, retrenchment societies on -high moral grounds, which have failed for want of -knowledge how to manage the complicated question -of necessaries and luxuries. These words have a signification -in the case of different people as varied as -the varieties of human habit and constitution. It is a -department impossible to be bound by external rules; -but none the less should every high-minded Christian -soul in this matter have a law unto itself. It may -safely be laid down as a general rule, that no income, -however large or however small, should be unblessed -by the divine touch of self-sacrifice. Something for -the poor, the sorrowing, the hungry, the tempted, and -the weak should be taken from <i>what is our own</i> at the -expense of some personal sacrifice, or we suffer more -morally than the brother from whom we withdraw it. -Even the Lord of all, when dwelling among men, out -of that slender private purse which he accepted for -his little family of chosen ones, had ever something -reserved to give to the poor. It is easy to say, ‘It -is but a drop in the bucket. I cannot remove the -great mass of misery in the world. What little I could -save or give does nothing.’ It does this, if no more,—it -prevents one soul, and that soul your own, from -drying and hardening into utter selfishness and insensibility; -it enables you to say I have done something; -taken one atom from the great heap of sins and miseries -and placed it on the side of good.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The Sisters of Charity and the Friends, each with -their different costume of plainness and self-denial, -and other noble-hearted women of no particular outward -order, but kindred in spirit, have shown to -womanhood, on the battle-field and in the hospital, -a more excellent way,—a beauty and nobility before -which all the common graces and ornaments of the -sex fade, appeal like dim candles by the pure, eternal -stars.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch09' class='c007'>IX.<br /> <br />SERVANTS.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_675 c011'>IN the course of my papers various domestic revolutions -have occurred. Our Marianne has gone -from us with a new name to a new life, and a modest -little establishment not many squares off claims about -as much of my wife’s and Jenny’s busy thoughts as -those of the proper mistress.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Marianne, as I always foresaw, is a careful and -somewhat anxious housekeeper. Her tastes are fastidious; -she is made for exactitude: the smallest -departures from the straight line appear to her shocking -deviations. She had always lived in a house -where everything had been formed to quiet and order -under the ever-present care and touch of her mother; -nor had she ever participated in these cares more than -to do a little dusting of the parlor ornaments, or wash -the best china, or make sponge-cake or chocolate-caramels. -Certain conditions of life had always appeared -so to be matters of course that she had never -conceived of a house without them. It never occurred -to her that such bread and biscuit as she saw at the -home-table would not always and of course appear at -every table,—that the silver would not always be as -bright, the glass as clear, the salt as fine and smooth, -the plates and dishes as nicely arranged as she had -always seen them, apparently without the thought or -care of any one,—for my wife is one of those housekeepers -whose touch is so fine that no one feels it. -She is never heard scolding or reproving,—never -entertains her company with her recipes for cookery -or the faults of her servants. She is so unconcerned -about receiving her own personal share of credit for -the good appearance of her establishment, that even -the children of the house have not supposed that there -is any particular will of hers in the matter,—it all -seems the natural consequence of having very good -servants.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One phenomenon they had never seriously reflected -on,—that, under all the changes of the domestic cabinet -which are so apt to occur in American households, -the same coffee, the same bread and biscuit, the same -nicely prepared dishes and neatly laid table always -gladdened their eyes; and from this they inferred only -that good servants were more abundant than most -people had supposed. They were somewhat surprised -when these marvels were wrought by professedly green -hands, but were given to suppose that these green -hands must have had some remarkable quickness or -aptitude for acquiring. That sparkling jelly, well-flavored -ice-creams, clear soups, and delicate biscuits -could be made by a raw Irish girl, fresh from her -native Erin, seemed to them a proof of the genius of -the race; and my wife, who never felt it important to -attain to the reputation of a cook, quietly let it pass.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For some time, therefore, after the inauguration of -the new household, there was trouble in the camp. -Sour bread had appeared on the table,—bitter, acrid -coffee had shocked and astonished the palate,—lint -had been observed on tumblers, and the spoons had -sometimes dingy streaks on the brightness of their -first bridal polish,—beds were detected made shockingly -awry,—and Marianne came burning with indignation -to her mother.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Such a little family as we have, and two strong -girls,” said she,—“everything ought to be perfect; -there is really nothing to do. Think of a whole batch -of bread absolutely sour! and when I gave that away, -then this morning another exactly like it! and when I -talked to cook about it, she said she had lived in -this and that family, and her bread had always been -praised as equal to the baker’s!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t doubt she is right,” said I. “Many families -never have anything but sour bread from one end -of the year to the other, eating it unperceiving, and -with good cheer; and they buy also sour bread of the -baker, with like approbation,—lightness being in -their estimation the only virtue necessary in the article.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Could you not correct her fault?” suggested my -wife.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I have done all I can. I told her we could not -have such bread, that it was dreadful; Bob says it -would give him the dyspepsia in a week; and then -she went and made exactly the same;—it seems to -me mere wilfulness.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But,” said I, “suppose, instead of such general -directions, you should analyze her proceedings and -find out just where she makes her mistake,—is the -root of the trouble in the yeast, or in the time she -begins it, letting it rise too long?—the time, you -know, should vary so much with the temperature of -the weather.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“As to that,” said Marianne, “I know nothing. I -never noticed; it never was my business to make -bread; it always seemed quite a simple process, mixing -yeast and flour and kneading it; and our bread at -home was always good.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It seems, then, my dear, that you have come to -your profession without even having studied it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>My wife smiled, and said,—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You know, Marianne, I proposed to you to be our -family bread-maker for one month of the year before -you married.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, mamma, I remember; but I was like other -girls; I thought there was no need of it. I never -liked to do such things; perhaps I had better have -done it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You certainly had,” said I; “for the first business -of a housekeeper in America is that of a teacher. -She can have a good table only by having practical -knowledge, and tact in imparting it. If she understands -her business practically and experimentally, -her eye detects at once the weak spot; it requires -only a little tact, some patience, some clearness in -giving directions, and all comes right. I venture to -say that your mother would have exactly such bread -as always appears on our table, and have it by the -hands of your cook, because she could detect and -explain to her exactly her error.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you know,” said my wife, “what yeast she -uses?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I believe,” said Marianne, “it’s a kind she makes -herself. I think I heard her say so. I know she -makes a great fuss about it, and rather values herself -upon it. She is evidently accustomed to being -praised for her bread, and feels mortified and angry, -and I don’t know how to manage her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said I, “if you carry your watch to a -watchmaker, and undertake to show him how to -regulate the machinery, he laughs and goes on his -own way; but if a brother-machinist makes suggestions, -he listens respectfully. So, when a woman who -knows nothing of woman’s work undertakes to instruct -one who knows more than she does, she makes -no impression; but a woman who has been trained -experimentally, and shows she understands the matter -thoroughly, is listened to with respect.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I think,” said my wife, “that your Bridget is worth -teaching. She is honest, well-principled, and tidy. -She has good recommendations from excellent families, -whose ideas of good bread it appears differ from -ours; and with a little good-nature, tact, and patience, -she will come into your ways.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But the coffee, mamma,—you would not imagine -it to be from the same bag with your own, so dark -and so bitter; what do you suppose she has done -to it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Simply this,” said my wife. “She has let the -berries stay a few moments too long over the fire,—they -are burnt, instead of being roasted; and there -are people who think it essential to good coffee that -it should look black, and have a strong, bitter flavor. -A very little change in the preparing will alter this.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now,” said I, “Marianne, if you want my advice, -I’ll give it to you gratis:—Make your own bread for -one month. Simple as the process seems, I think it -will take as long as that to give you a thorough knowledge -of all the possibilities in the case; but after that -you will never need to make any more,—you will be -able to command good bread by the aid of all sorts -of servants; you will, in other words, be a thoroughly -prepared teacher.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I did not think,” said Marianne, “that so simple -a thing required so much attention.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is simple,” said my wife, “and yet requires a -delicate care and watchfulness. There are fifty ways -to spoil good bread; there are a hundred little things -to be considered and allowed for that require accurate -observation and experience. The same process that -will raise good bread in cold weather will make sour -bread in the heat of summer; different qualities of -flour require variations in treatment, as also different -sorts and conditions of yeast; and when all is done, -the baking presents another series of possibilities -which require exact attention.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“So it appears,” said Marianne, gayly, “that I must -begin to study my profession at the eleventh hour.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Better late than never,” said I. “But there is -this advantage on your side: a well-trained mind, -accustomed to reflect, analyze, and generalize, has an -advantage over uncultured minds even of double experience. -Poor as your cook is, she now knows more -of her business than you do. After a very brief -period of attention and experiment, you will not only -know more than she does, but you will convince her -that you do, which is quite as much to the purpose.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“In the same manner,” said my wife, “you will -have to give lessons to your other girl on the washing -of silver and the making of beds. Good servants do -not often come to us; they must be <i>made</i> by patience -and training; and if a girl has a good disposition and -a reasonable degree of handiness, and the housekeeper -understands her profession, she may make a -good servant out of an indifferent one. Some of my -best girls have been those who came to me directly -from the ship, with no preparation but docility and -some natural quickness. The hardest cases to be -managed are not of those who have been taught nothing, -but of those who have been taught wrongly,—who -come to you self-opinionated, with ways which -are distasteful to you, and contrary to the genius of -your housekeeping. Such require that their mistress -shall understand at least so much of the actual conduct -of affairs as to prove to the servant that there are -better ways than those in which she has hitherto been -trained.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Don’t you think, mamma,” said Marianne, “that -there has been a sort of reaction against woman’s -work in our day? So much has been said of the -higher sphere of woman, and so much has been done -to find some better work for her, that insensibly, I -think, almost everybody begins to feel that it is rather -degrading for a woman in good society to be much -tied down to family affairs.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Especially,” said my wife, “since in these Woman’s-Rights -Conventions there is so much indignation -expressed at those who would confine her ideas -to the kitchen and nursery.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There is reason in all things,” said I. “Woman’s-Rights -Conventions are a protest against many former -absurd, unreasonable ideas,—the mere physical and -culinary idea of womanhood as connected only with -puddings and shirt-buttons, the unjust and unequal -burdens which the laws of harsher ages had cast upon -the sex. Many of the women connected with these -movements are as superior in everything properly -womanly as they are in exceptional talent and culture. -There is no manner of doubt that the sphere -of woman is properly to be enlarged, and that republican -governments in particular are to be saved -from corruption and failure only by allowing to woman -this enlarged sphere. Every woman has rights as a -human being first, which belong to no sex, and -ought to be as freely conceded to her as if she were -a man,—and first and foremost, the great right of -doing anything which God and Nature evidently have -fitted her to excel in. If she be made a natural -orator, like Miss Dickenson, or an astronomer, like -Mrs. Somerville, or a singer, like Grisi, let not the -technical rules of womanhood be thrown in the way -of her free use of her powers. Nor can there be -any reason shown why a woman’s vote in the state -should not be received with as much respect as in -the family. A state is but an association of families, -and laws relate to the rights and immunities which -touch woman’s most private and immediate wants -and dearest hopes; and there is no reason why sister, -wife, and mother should be more powerless in the -state than in the home. Nor does it make a woman -unwomanly to express an opinion by dropping a slip -of paper into a box, more than to express that same -opinion by conversation. In fact, there is no doubt, -that, in all matters relating to the interests of education, -temperance, and religion, the state would be a -material gainer by receiving the votes of women.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, having said all this, I must admit, <i>per contra</i>, -not only a great deal of crude, disagreeable talk in -these conventions, but a too great tendency of the -age to make the education of women anti-domestic. -It seems as if the world never could advance, except -like ships under a head-wind, tacking and going too -far, now in this direction, and now in the opposite. -Our common-school system now rejects sewing from -the education of girls, which very properly used -to occupy many hours daily in school a generation -ago. The daughters of laborers and artisans are -put through algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and the -higher mathematics, to the entire neglect of that -learning which belongs distinctively to woman. A -girl cannot keep pace with her class, if she gives -any time to domestic matters; and accordingly she -is excused from them all during the whole term of -her education. The boy of a family, at an early age, -is put to a trade, or the labors of a farm; the father -becomes impatient of his support, and requires of -him to care for himself. Hence an interrupted education,—learning -coming by snatches in the winter -months or in the intervals of work. As the result, -the females in our country towns are commonly, in -mental culture, vastly in advance of the males of -the same household; but with this comes a physical -delicacy, the result of an exclusive use of the brain -and a neglect of the muscular system, with great -inefficiency in practical domestic duties. The race -of strong, hardy, cheerful girls, that used to grow up -in country places, and made the bright, neat, New -England kitchens of old times,—the girls that could -wash, iron, brew, bake, harness a horse and drive him, -no less than braid straw, embroider, draw, paint, and -read innumerable books,—this race of women, pride -of olden time, is daily lessening; and in their stead -come the fragile, easily fatigued, languid girls of a -modern age, drilled in book-learning, ignorant of -common things. The great danger of all this, and -of the evils that come from it, is that society by and -by will turn as blindly against female intellectual -culture as it now advocates it, and, having worked -disproportionately one way, will work disproportionately -in the opposite direction.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The fact is,” said my wife, “that domestic service -is the great problem of life here in America; the -happiness of families, their thrift, well-being, and -comfort, are more affected by this than by any one -thing else. Our girls, as they have been brought -up, cannot perform the labor of their own families, -as in those simpler, old-fashioned days you tell of; -and what is worse, they have no practical skill with -which to instruct servants, and servants come to us, -as a class, raw and untrained; so what is to be done? -In the present state of prices, the board of a domestic -costs double her wages, and the waste she makes is -a more serious matter still. Suppose you give us an -article upon this subject in your ‘House and Home -Papers.’ You could not have a better one.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>So I sat down, and wrote thus on</p> -<h3 class='c003'><span class='sc'>Servants and Service.</span></h3> - -<p class='c013'>Many of the domestic evils in America originate -in the fact, that, while society here is professedly -based on new principles which ought to make social -life in every respect different from the life of the -Old World, yet these principles have never been so -thought out and applied as to give consistency and -harmony to our daily relations. America starts with -a political organization based on a declaration of the -primitive freedom and equality of all men. Every -human being, according to this principle, stands on -the same natural level with every other, and has the -same chance to rise according to the degree of power -or capacity given by the Creator. All our civil institutions -are designed to preserve this equality, as -far as possible, from generation to generation: there -is no entailed property, there are no hereditary titles, -no monopolies, no privileged classes,—all are to be -as free to rise and fall as the waves of the sea.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The condition of domestic service, however, still -retains about it something of the influences from -feudal times, and from the near presence of slavery -in neighboring States. All English literature, all the -literature of the world, describes domestic service in -the old feudal spirit and with the old feudal language, -which regarded the master as belonging to a privileged -class and the servant to an inferior one. There -is not a play, not a poem, not a novel, not a history, -that does not present this view. The master’s rights, -like the rights of kings, were supposed to rest in his -being born in a superior rank. The good servant -was one who, from childhood, had learned “to order -himself lowly and reverently to all his betters.” When -New England brought to these shores the theory of -democracy, she brought, in the persons of the first -pilgrims, the habits of thought and of action formed -in aristocratic communities. Winthrop’s Journal, and -all the old records of the earlier colonists, show -households where masters and mistresses stood on -the “right divine” of the privileged classes, howsoever -they might have risen up against authorities -themselves.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The first consequence of this state of things was -a universal rejection of domestic service in all classes -of American-born society. For a generation or two, -there was, indeed, a sort of interchange of family -strength,—sons and daughters engaging in the service -of neighboring families, in default of a sufficient -working-force of their own, but always on conditions -of strict equality. The assistant was to share the -table, the family sitting-room, and every honor and -attention that might be claimed by son or daughter. -When families increased in refinement and education -so as to make these conditions of close intimacy -with more uncultured neighbors disagreeable, they -had to choose between such intimacies and the performance -of their own domestic toil. No wages -could induce a son or daughter of New England to -take the condition of a servant on terms which they -thought applicable to that of a slave. The slightest -hint of a separate table was resented as an insult; -not to enter the front-door, and not to sit in the front-parlor -on state-occasions, was bitterly commented on -as a personal indignity.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The well-taught, self-respecting daughters of farmers, -the class most valuable in domestic service, gradually -retired from it. They preferred any other employment, -however laborious. Beyond all doubt, the -labors of a well-regulated family are more healthy, -more cheerful, more interesting, because less monotonous, -than the mechanical toils of a factory; yet -the girls of New England, with one consent, preferred -the factory, and left the whole business of domestic -service to a foreign population; and they did it mainly -because they would not take positions in families as -an inferior laboring-class by the side of others of -their own age who assumed as their prerogative to -live without labor.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can’t let you have one of my daughters,” said -an energetic matron to her neighbor from the city, -who was seeking for a servant in her summer vacation; -“if you hadn’t daughters of your own, maybe -I would; but my girls ain’t going to work so that your -girls may live in idleness.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was vain to offer money. “We don’t need your -money, ma’am, we can support ourselves in other -ways; my girls can braid straw, and bind shoes, but -they ain’t going to be slaves to anybody.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the Irish and German servants who took the -place of Americans in families, there was, to begin -with, the tradition of education in favor of a higher -class; but even the foreign population became more -or less infected with the spirit of democracy. They -came to this country with vague notions of freedom -and equality, and in ignorant and uncultivated people -such ideas are often more unreasonable for being -vague. They did not, indeed, claim a seat at the -table and in the parlor, but they repudiated many -of those habits of respect and courtesy which belonged -to their former condition, and asserted their -own will and way in the round, unvarnished phrase -which they supposed to be their right as republican -citizens. Life became a sort of domestic wrangle and -struggle between the employers, who secretly confessed -their weakness, but endeavored openly to assume the -air and bearing of authority, and the employed, who -knew their power and insisted on their privileges. -From this cause domestic service in America has -had less of mutual kindliness than in old countries. -Its terms have been so ill understood and defined -that both parties have assumed the defensive; and -a common topic of conversation in American female -society has often been the general servile war which -in one form or another was going on in their different -families,—a war as interminable as would be a struggle -between aristocracy and common people, undefined -by any bill of rights or constitution, and therefore -opening fields for endless disputes. In England, -the class who go to service <i>are</i> a class, and service is -a profession; the distance between them and their -employers is so marked and defined, and all the customs -and requirements of the position are so perfectly -understood, that the master or mistress has no fear of -being compromised by condescension, and no need of -the external voice or air of authority. The higher up -in the social scale one goes, the more courteous seems -to become the intercourse of master and servant; the -more perfect and real the power, the more is it veiled -in outward expression,—commands are phrased as -requests, and gentleness of voice and manner covers -an authority which no one would think of offending -without trembling.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But in America all is undefined. In the first place, -there is no class who mean to make domestic service a -profession to live and die in. It is universally an expedient, -a stepping-stone to something higher; your -best servants always have something else in view as -soon as they have laid by a little money; some form of -independence which shall give them a home of their -own is constantly in mind. Families look forward to -the buying of landed homesteads, and the scattered -brothers and sisters work awhile in domestic service -to gain the common fund for the purpose; your seamstress -intends to become a dress-maker, and take in -work at her own house; your cook is pondering a -marriage with the baker, which shall transfer her toils -from your cooking-stove to her own. Young women -are eagerly rushing into every other employment, till -female trades and callings are all overstocked. We -are continually harrowed with tales of the sufferings -of distressed needle-women, of the exactions and extortions -practised on the frail sex in the many branches -of labor and trade at which they try their hands; and -yet women will encounter all these chances of ruin -and starvation rather than make up their minds to -permanent domestic service. Now what is the matter -with domestic service? One would think, on the -face of it, that a calling which gives a settled home, a -comfortable room, rent-free, with fire and lights, good -board and lodging, and steady, well-paid wages, would -certainly offer more attractions than the making of -shirts for tenpence, with all the risks of providing -one’s own sustenance and shelter.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I think it is mainly from the want of a definite idea -of the true position of a servant under our democratic -institutions that domestic service is so shunned and -avoided in America, that it is the very last thing which -an intelligent young woman will look to for a living. -It is more the want of personal respect toward those -in that position than the labors incident to it which -repels our people from it. Many would be willing to -perform these labors, but they are not willing to place -themselves in a situation where their self-respect is -hourly wounded by <i>the implication of a degree of inferiority -which does not follow any kind of labor or service -in this country but that of the family</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There exists in the minds of employers an unsuspected -spirit of superiority, which is stimulated into -an active form by the resistance which democracy inspires -in the working-class. Many families think of -servants only as a necessary evil, their wages as exactions, -and all that is allowed them as so much taken -from the family; and they seek in every way to get -from them as much and to give them as little as possible. -Their rooms are the neglected, ill-furnished, -incommodious ones,—and the kitchen is the most -cheerless and comfortless place in the house. Other -families, more good-natured and liberal, provide their -domestics with more suitable accommodations, and -are more indulgent; but there is still a latent spirit -of something like contempt for the position. That -they treat their servants with so much consideration -seems to them a merit entitling them to the most -prostrate gratitude; and they are constantly disappointed -and shocked at that want of sense of inferiority -on the part of these people which leads them -to appropriate pleasant rooms, good furniture, and -good living as mere matters of common justice.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It seems to be a constant surprise to some employers -that servants should insist on having the same -human wants as themselves. Ladies who yawn in their -elegantly furnished parlors, among books and pictures, -if they have not company, parties, or opera to diversify -the evening, seem astonished and half indignant that -cook and chambermaid are more disposed to go out -for an evening gossip than to sit on hard chairs in the -kitchen where they have been toiling all day. The -pretty chambermaid’s anxieties about her dress, the -time she spends at her small and not very clear mirror, -are sneeringly noticed by those whose toilet-cares -take up serious hours; and the question has never -apparently occurred to them why a serving-maid -should not want to look pretty as well as her mistress. -She is a woman as well as they, with all a -woman’s wants and weaknesses; and her dress is as -much to her as theirs to them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A vast deal of trouble among servants arises from -impertinent interferences and petty tyrannical exactions -on the part of employers. Now the authority of -the master and mistress of a house in regard to their -domestics extends simply to the things they have contracted -to do and the hours during which they have -contracted to serve; otherwise than this, they have no -more right to interfere with them in the disposal of -their time than with any mechanic whom they employ. -They have, indeed, a right to regulate the hours of -their own household, and servants can choose between -conformity to these hours and the loss of their -situation; but, within reasonable limits, their right to -come and go at their own discretion, in their own time, -should be unquestioned.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If employers are troubled by the fondness of their -servants for dancing, evening company, and late hours, -the proper mode of proceeding is to make these matters -a subject of distinct contract in hiring. The more -strictly and perfectly the business matters of the first -engagement of domestics are conducted, the more -likelihood there is of mutual quiet and satisfaction in -the relation. It is quite competent to every housekeeper -to say what practices are or are not consistent -with the rules of her family, and what will be inconsistent -with the service for which she agrees to pay. -It is much better to regulate such affairs by cool contract -in the outset than by warm altercations and -protracted domestic battles.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As to the terms of social intercourse it seems somehow -to be settled in the minds of many employers -that their servants owe them and their family more -respect than they and the family owe to the servants. -But do they? What is the relation of servant to employer -in a democratic country? Precisely that of a -person who for money performs any kind of service -for you. The carpenter comes into your house to -put up a set of shelves,—the cook comes into your -kitchen to cook your dinner. You never think that -the carpenter owes you any more respect than you -owe to him because he is in your house doing your -behests; he is your fellow-citizen, you treat him with -respect, you expect to be treated with respect by him. -You have a claim on him that he shall do your work -according to your directions,—no more. Now I apprehend -that there is a very common notion as to the -position and rights of servants which is quite different -from this. Is it not a common feeling that a servant -is one who may be treated with a degree of freedom -by every member of the family which he or she may -not return? Do not people feel at liberty to question -servants about their private affairs, to comment on -their dress and appearance, in a manner which they -would feel to be an impertinence, if reciprocated? -Do they not feel at liberty to express dissatisfaction -with their performances in rude and unceremonious -terms, to reprove them in the presence of company, -while yet they require that the dissatisfaction of servants -shall be expressed only in terms of respect? -A woman would not feel herself at liberty to talk to -her milliner or her dressmaker in language as devoid -of consideration as she will employ towards her cook -or chambermaid. Yet both are rendering her a service -which she pays for in money, and one is no more -made her inferior thereby than the other. Both have -an equal right to be treated with courtesy. The master -and mistress of a house have a right to require -respectful treatment from all whom their roof shelters, -but they have no more right to exact it of servants -than of every guest and every child, and they themselves -owe it as much to servants as to guests.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In order that servants may be treated with respect -and courtesy, it is not necessary, as in simpler patriarchal -days, that they sit at the family-table. Your -carpenter or plumber does not feel hurt that you do -not ask him to dine with you, nor your milliner and -mantua-maker that you do not exchange ceremonious -calls and invite them to your parties. It is well-understood -that your relations with them are of a mere -business character. They never take it as an assumption -of superiority on your part that you do not admit -them to relations of private intimacy. There may be -the most perfect respect and esteem and even friendship -between them and you, notwithstanding. So it -may be in the case of servants. It is easy to make -any person understand that there are quite other reasons -than the assumption of personal superiority for -not wishing to admit servants to the family privacy. -It was not, in fact, to sit in the parlor or at the table, -in themselves considered, that was the thing aimed at -by New England girls,—these were valued only as -signs that they were deemed worthy of respect and -consideration, and, where freely conceded, were often -in point of fact declined.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Let servants feel, in their treatment by their employers, -and in the atmosphere of the family, that their -position is held to be a respectable one, let them feel -in the mistress of the family the charm of unvarying -consideration and good manners, let their work-rooms -be made convenient and comfortable, and their private -apartments bear some reasonable comparison in -point of agreeableness to those of other members of -the family, and domestic service will be more frequently -sought by a superior and self-respecting class. -There are families in which such a state of things prevails; -and such families, amid the many causes which -unite to make the tenure of service uncertain, have -generally been able to keep good permanent servants.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There is an extreme into which kindly disposed -people often run with regard to servants, which may -be mentioned here. They make pets of them. They -give extravagant wages and indiscreet indulgences, -and, through indolence and easiness of temper, tolerate -neglect of duty. Many of the complaints of -the ingratitude of servants come from those who have -spoiled them in this way; while many of the longest -and most harmonious domestic unions have sprung -from a simple, quiet course of Christian justice and -benevolence, a recognition of servants as fellow-beings -and fellow-Christians, and a doing to them as we would -in like circumstances that they should do to us.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The mistresses of American families, whether they -like it or not, have the duties of missionaries imposed -upon them by that class from which our supply of -domestic servants is drawn. They may as well accept -the position cheerfully, and, as one raw, untrained -hand after another passes through their family, and -is instructed by them in the mysteries of good housekeeping, -comfort themselves with the reflection that -they are doing something to form good wives and -mothers for the Republic.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The complaints made of Irish girls are numerous -and loud; the failings of green Erin, alas! are but -too open and manifest; yet, in arrest of judgment, let -us move this consideration: let us imagine our own -daughters between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four, -untaught and inexperienced in domestic affairs -as they commonly are, shipped to a foreign shore to -seek service in families. It may be questioned whether -as a whole they would do much better. The girls that -fill our families and do our house-work are often of -the age of our own daughters, standing for themselves, -without mothers to guide them, in a foreign country, -not only bravely supporting themselves, but sending -home in every ship remittances to impoverished friends -left behind. If our daughters did as much for us, -should we not be proud of their energy and heroism?</p> - -<p class='c005'>When we go into the houses of our country, we find -a majority of well-kept, well-ordered, and even elegant -establishments where the only hands employed are -those of the daughters of Erin. True, American women -have been their instructors, and many a weary -hour of care have they had in the discharge of this -office; but the result on the whole is beautiful and -good, and the end of it, doubtless, will be peace.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In speaking of the office of the American mistress -as being a missionary one, we are far from recommending -any controversial interference with the religious -faith of our servants. It is far better to incite them -to be good Christians in their own way than to run -the risk of shaking their faith in all religion by pointing -out to them the errors of that in which they have -been educated. The general purity of life and propriety -of demeanor of so many thousands of undefended -young girls cast yearly upon our shores, with -no home but their church, and no shield but their -religion, are a sufficient proof that this religion exerts -an influence over them not to be lightly trifled with. -But there is a real unity even in opposite Christian -forms; and the Roman Catholic servant and the Protestant -mistress, if alike possessed by the spirit of -Christ, and striving to conform to the Golden Rule, -cannot help being one in heart, though one go to -mass and the other to meeting.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Finally, the bitter baptism through which we are -passing, the life-blood dearer than our own which is -drenching distant fields, should remind us of the preciousness -of distinctive American ideas. They who -would seek in their foolish pride to establish the pomp -of liveried servants in America are doing that which -is simply absurd. A servant can never in our country -be the mere appendage to another man, to be marked -like a sheep with the color of his owner; he must be -a fellow-citizen, with an established position of his -own, free to make contracts, free to come and go, and -having in his sphere titles to consideration and respect -just as definite as those of any trade or profession -whatever.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Moreover, we cannot in this country maintain to -any great extent large retinues of servants. Even -with ample fortunes they are forbidden by the general -character of society here, which makes them cumbrous -and difficult to manage. Every mistress of a -family knows that her cares increase with every additional -servant. Two keep the peace with each other -and their employer; three begin a possible discord, -which possibility increases with four, and becomes -certain with five or six. Trained housekeepers, such -as regulate the complicated establishments of the Old -World, form a class that are not, and from the nature -of the case never will be, found in any great numbers -in this country. All such women, as a general thing, -are keeping, and prefer to keep, houses of their own.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A moderate style of housekeeping, small, compact, -and simple domestic establishments, must necessarily -be the general order of life in America. So many -openings of profit are to be found in this country, that -domestic service necessarily wants the permanence -which forms so agreeable a feature of it in the Old -World.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This being the case, it should be an object in America -to exclude from the labors of the family all that -can, with greater advantage, be executed out of it -by combined labor.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Formerly, in New England, soap and candles were -to be made in each separate family; now, comparatively -few take this toil upon them. We buy soap of -the soap-maker, and candles of the candle-factor. This -principle might be extended much further. In France -no family makes its own bread, and better bread cannot -be eaten than what can be bought at the appropriate -shops. No family does its own washing, the -family’s linen is all sent to women who, making this -their sole profession, get it up with a care and nicety -which can seldom be equalled in any family.</p> - -<p class='c005'>How would it simplify the burdens of the American -housekeeper to have washing and ironing day expunged -from her calendar! How much more neatly -and compactly could the whole domestic system be -arranged! If all the money that each separate family -spends on the outfit and accommodations for washing -and ironing, on fuel, soap, starch, and the other et -ceteras, were united in a fund to create a laundry for -every dozen families, one or two good women could -do in first rate style what now is very indifferently -done by the disturbance and disarrangement of all -other domestic processes in these families. Whoever -sets neighborhood laundries on foot will do much to -solve the American housekeeper’s hardest problem.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Finally, American women must not try with three -servants to carry on life in the style which in the Old -World requires sixteen,—they must thoroughly understand, -and be prepared <i>to teach</i>, every branch of -housekeeping,—they must study to make domestic -service desirable, by treating their servants in a way -to lead them to respect themselves and to feel themselves -respected,—and there will gradually be evolved -from the present confusion a solution of the domestic -problem which shall be adapted to the life of a new -and growing world.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch10' class='c007'>X.<br /> <br />COOKERY.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_675 c011'>MY wife and I were sitting at the open bow-window -of my study, watching the tuft of bright -red leaves on our favorite maple, which warned us that -summer was over. I was solacing myself, like all the -world in our days, with reading the “Schönberg Cotta -Family,” when my wife made her voice heard through -the enchanted distance, and dispersed the pretty vision -of German cottage-life.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Chris!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, my dear.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you know the day of the month?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Now my wife knows this is a thing that I never do -know, that I can’t know, and, in fact, that there is no -need I should trouble myself about, since she always -knows, and what is more, always tells me. In fact, -the question, when asked by her, meant more than -met the ear. It was a delicate way of admonishing -me that another paper for the “Atlantic” ought to be -in train; and so I answered, not to the external form, -but to the internal intention.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, you see, my dear, I haven’t made up my -mind what my next paper shall be about.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Suppose, then, you let me give you a subject.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Sovereign lady, speak on! Your slave hears!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, then, take <i>Cookery</i>. It may seem a vulgar -subject, but I think more of health and happiness depends -on that than on any other one thing. You may -make houses enchantingly beautiful, hang them with -pictures, have them clean and airy and convenient; -but if the stomach is fed with sour bread and burnt -coffee, it will raise such rebellions that the eyes will -see no beauty anywhere. Now in the little tour that -you and I have been taking this summer, I have been -thinking of the great abundance of splendid material -we have in America, compared with the poor cooking. -How often, in our stoppings, we have sat down to tables -loaded with material, originally of the very best -kind, which had been so spoiled in the treatment that -there was really nothing to eat! Green biscuits with -acrid spots of alkali,—sour yeast-bread,—meat slowly -simmered in fat till it seemed like grease itself; and -slowly congealing in cold grease,—and above all, that -unpardonable enormity, strong butter! How often I -have longed to show people what might have been -done with the raw material out of which all these monstrosities -were concocted!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear,” said I, “you are driving me upon delicate -ground. Would you have your husband appear -in public with that most opprobrious badge of the domestic -furies, a dishcloth pinned to his coat-tail? It is -coming to exactly the point I have always predicted, -Mrs. Crowfield: you must write yourself. I always -told you that you could write far better than I, if you -would only try. Only sit down and write as you -sometimes talk to me, and I might hang up my pen -by the side of ‘Uncle Ned’s’ fiddle and bow.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“O, nonsense!” said my wife. “I never could -write. I know what ought to be said, and I could -<i>say</i> it to any one; but my ideas freeze in the pen, -cramp in my fingers, and make my brain seem like -heavy bread. I was born for extemporary speaking. -Besides, I think the best things on all subjects in this -world of ours are said, not by the practical workers, -but by the careful observers.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Mrs. Crowfield, that remark is as good as if I had -made it myself,” said I. “It is true that I have been -all my life a speculator and observer in all domestic -matters, having them so confidentially under my eye -in our own household; and so, if I write on a pure -woman’s matter, it must be understood that I am only -your pen and mouth-piece,—only giving tangible form -to wisdom which I have derived from you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>So down I sat and scribbled, while my sovereign -lady quietly stitched by my side. And here I tell my -reader that I write on such a subject under protest,—declaring -again my conviction, that, if my wife only -believed in herself as firmly as I do, she would write -so that nobody would ever want to listen to me again.</p> -<h3 class='c003'><span class='sc'>Cookery.</span></h3> - -<p class='c013'>We in America have the raw material of provision -in greater abundance than any other nation. There -is no country where an ample, well-furnished table is -more easily spread, and for that reason, perhaps, none -where the bounties of Providence are more generally -neglected. I do not mean to say that the traveller -through the length and breadth of our land could not, -on the whole, find an average of comfortable subsistence; -yet, considering that our resources are greater -than those of any other civilized people, our results -are comparatively poorer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is said, that, a list of the summer vegetables which -are exhibited on New York hotel-tables being shown -to a French <i>artiste</i>, he declared that to serve such a -dinner properly would take till midnight. I recollect -how I was once struck with our national plenteousness, -on returning from a Continental tour, and going -directly from the ship to a New York hotel, in the -bounteous season of autumn. For months I had been -habituated to my neat little bits of chop or poultry -garnished with the inevitable cauliflower or potato, -which seemed to be the sole possibility after the reign -of green-peas was over; now I sat down all at once to -a carnival of vegetables: ripe, juicy tomatoes, raw or -cooked; cucumbers in brittle slices; rich, yellow -sweet-potatoes; broad Lima-beans, and beans of -other and various names; tempting ears of Indian-corn -steaming in enormous piles, and great smoking -tureens of the savory succotash, an Indian gift to the -table for which civilization need not blush; sliced egg-plant -in delicate fritters; and marrow-squashes, of -creamy pulp and sweetness: a rich variety, embarrassing -to the appetite, and perplexing to the choice. -Verily, the thought has often impressed itself on my -mind that the vegetarian doctrine preached in America -left a man quite as much as he had capacity to eat -or enjoy, and that in the midst of such tantalizing -abundance he really lost the apology which elsewhere -bears him out in preying upon his less gifted and accomplished -animal neighbors.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But with all this, the American table, taken as a -whole, is inferior to that of England or France. It -presents a fine abundance of material, carelessly and -poorly treated. The management of food is nowhere -in the world, perhaps, more slovenly and wasteful. -Everything betokens that want of care that waits on -abundance; there are great capabilities and poor execution. -A tourist through England can seldom fail, -at the quietest country-inn, of finding himself served -with the essentials of English table-comfort,—his -mutton-chop done to a turn, his steaming little private -apparatus for concocting his own tea, his choice pot -of marmalade or slice of cold ham, and his delicate -rolls and creamy butter, all served with care and neatness. -In France, one never asks in vain for delicious -<i>café-au-lait</i>, good bread and butter, a nice omelet, or -some savory little portion of meat with a French name. -But to a tourist taking like chance in American country-fare, -what is the prospect? What is the coffee? -what the tea? and the meat? and above all, the butter?</p> - -<p class='c005'>In lecturing on cookery, as on house-building, I -divide the subject into not four, but five, grand elements: -first, Bread; second, Butter; third, Meat; -fourth, Vegetables; and fifth, Tea,—by which I mean, -generically, all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served -out in teacups, whether they be called tea, coffee, -chocolate, broma, or what-not.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I affirm, that, if these five departments are all perfect, -the great ends of domestic cookery are answered, -so far as the comfort and well-being of life are concerned. -I am aware that there exists another department, -which is often regarded by culinary amateurs -and young aspirants as the higher branch and very -collegiate course of practical cookery; to wit, Confectionery, -by which I mean to designate all pleasing -and complicated compounds of sweets and spices, -devised not for health and nourishment, and strongly -suspected of interfering with both,—mere tolerated -gratifications of the palate, which we eat, not with -the expectation of being benefited, but only with the -hope of not being injured by them. In this large department -rank all sort of cakes, pies, preserves, ices, -etc. I shall have a word or two to say under this -head before I have done. I only remark now, that in -my tours about the country I have often had a virulent -ill-will excited towards these works of culinary supererogation, -because I thought their excellence was attained -by treading under foot and disregarding the -five grand essentials. I have sat at many a table garnished -with three or four kinds of well-made cake, -compounded with citron and spices and all imaginable -good things, where the meat was tough and greasy, -the bread some hot preparation of flour, lard, saleratus, -and acid, and the butter unutterably detestable. At -such tables I have thought, that, if the mistress of -the feast had given the care, time, and labor to preparing -the simple items of bread, butter, and meat, that -she evidently had given to the preparation of these -extras, the lot of a traveller might be much more comfortable. -Evidently, she never had thought of these -common articles as constituting a good table. So -long as she had puff pastry, rich black cake, clear -jelly, and preserves, she seemed to consider that such -unimportant matters as bread, butter, and meat could -take care of themselves. It is the same inattention -to common things as that which leads people to build -houses with stone fronts and window-caps and expensive -front-door trimmings, without bathing-rooms or -fireplaces or ventilators.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Those who go into the country looking for summer -board in farm-houses know perfectly well that a table -where the butter is always fresh, the tea and coffee of -the best kinds and well made, and the meats properly -kept, dressed, and served, is the one table of a hundred, -the fabulous enchanted island. It seems impossible -to get the idea into the minds of people that -what is called common food, carefully prepared, becomes, -in virtue of that very care and attention, a delicacy, -superseding the necessity of artificially compounded -dainties.</p> - -<p class='c005'>To begin, then, with the very foundation of a good -table,—<i>Bread</i>: What ought it to be? It should be -light, sweet, and tender.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This matter of lightness is the distinctive line between -savage and civilized bread. The savage mixes -simple flour and water into balls of paste, which he -throws into boiling water, and which come out solid, -glutinous masses, of which his common saying is, -“Man eat dis, he no die,”—which a facetious traveller -who was obliged to subsist on it interpreted to -mean, “Dis no kill you, nothing will.” In short, it -requires the stomach of a wild animal or of a savage -to digest this primitive form of bread, and of course -more or less attention in all civilized modes of bread-making -is given to producing lightness. By lightness -is meant simply that the particles are to be separated -from each other by little holes or air-cells; and all the -different methods of making light bread are neither -more nor less than the formation in bread of these air-cells.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So far as we know, there are four practicable methods -of aerating bread; namely, by fermentation,—by -effervescence of an acid and an alkali,—by aerated -egg, or egg which has been filled with air by the process -of beating,—and lastly, by pressure of some -gaseous substance into the paste, by a process much -resembling the impregnation of water in a soda-fountain. -All these have one and the same object,—to -give us the cooked particles of our flour separated by -such permanent air-cells as will enable the stomach -more readily to digest them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A very common mode of aerating bread, in America, -is by the effervescence of an acid and an alkali -in the flour. The carbonic acid gas thus formed -produces minute air-cells in the bread, or, as the cook -says, makes it light. When this process is performed -with exact attention to chemical laws, so that the acid -and alkali completely neutralize each other, leaving -no overplus of either, the result is often very palatable. -The difficulty is, that this is a happy conjunction -of circumstances which seldom occurs. The -acid most commonly employed is that of sour milk, -and, as milk has many degrees of sourness, the rule -of a certain quantity of alkali to the pint must necessarily -produce very different results at different times. -As an actual fact, where this mode of making bread -prevails, as we lament to say it does to a great extent -in this country, one finds five cases of failure to one -of success. It is a woful thing that the daughters -of New England have abandoned the old respectable -mode of yeast-brewing and bread-raising for this specious -substitute, so easily made, and so seldom well -made. The green, clammy, acrid substance, called -biscuit, which many of our worthy republicans are -obliged to eat in these days, is wholly unworthy of -the men and women of the Republic. Good patriots -ought not to be put off in that way,—they deserve -better fare.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As an occasional variety, as a household convenience -for obtaining bread or biscuit at a moment’s -notice, the process of effervescence may be retained; -but we earnestly entreat American housekeepers, in -Scriptural language, to stand in the way and ask -for the old paths, and return to the good yeast-bread -of their sainted grandmothers.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If acid and alkali must be used, by all means let -them be mixed in due proportions. No cook should -be left to guess and judge for herself about this matter. -There is an article, called “Preston’s Infallible -Yeast-Powder,” which is made by chemical rule, and -produces very perfect results. The use of this obviates -the worst dangers in making bread by effervescence.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Of all processes of aeration in bread-making, the -oldest and most time-honored is by fermentation. -That this was known in the days of our Saviour is -evident from the forcible simile in which he compares -the silent permeating force of truth in human society -to the very familiar household process of raising bread -by a little yeast.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There is, however, one species of yeast, much used -in some parts of the country, against which I have to -enter my protest. It is called salt-risings, or milk-risings, -and is made by mixing flour, milk, and a -little salt together, and leaving them to ferment. The -bread thus produced is often very attractive, when -new and made with great care. It is white and delicate, -with fine, even air-cells. It has, however, when -kept, some characteristics which remind us of the -terms in which our old-English Bible describes the -effect of keeping the manna of the ancient Israelites, -which we are informed, in words more explicit than -agreeable, “stank, and bred worms.” If salt-rising -bread does not fulfil the whole of this unpleasant -description, it certainly does emphatically a part of -it. The smell which it has in baking, and when more -than a day old, suggests the inquiry, whether it is the -saccharine or the putrid fermentation with which it is -raised. Whoever breaks a piece of it after a day or -two will often see minute filaments or clammy strings -drawing out from the fragments, which, with the unmistakable -smell, will cause him to pause before -consummating a nearer acquaintance.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The fermentation of flour by means of brewer’s or -distiller’s yeast produces, if rightly managed, results -far more palatable and wholesome. The only requisites -for success in it are, first, good materials, and, -second, great care in a few small things. There are -certain low-priced or damaged kinds of flour which -can never by any kind of domestic chemistry be made -into good bread; and to those persons whose stomachs -forbid them to eat gummy, glutinous paste, under -the name of bread, there is no economy in buying -these poor brands, even at half the price of good flour.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But good flour and good yeast being supposed, with -a temperature favorable to the development of fermentation, -the whole success of the process depends on -the thorough diffusion of the proper proportion of -yeast through the whole mass, and on stopping the -subsequent fermentation at the precise and fortunate -point. The true housewife makes her bread the sovereign -of her kitchen,—its behests must be attended -to in all critical points and moments, no matter what -else be postponed. She who attends to her bread -when she has done this, and arranged that, and performed -the other, very often finds that the forces of -nature will not wait for her. The snowy mass, perfectly -mixed, kneaded with care and strength, rises -in its beautiful perfection till the moment comes for -fixing the air-cells by baking. A few minutes now, -and the acetous fermentation will begin, and the whole -result be spoiled. Many bread-makers pass in utter -carelessness over this sacred and mysterious boundary. -Their oven has cake in it, or they are skimming -jelly, or attending to some other of the so-called -higher branches of cookery, while the bread is quickly -passing into the acetous stage. At last, when they -are ready to attend to it, they find that it has been -going its own way,—it is so sour that the pungent -smell is plainly perceptible. Now the saleratus-bottle -is handed down, and a quantity of the dissolved alkali -mixed with the paste,—an expedient sometimes making -itself too manifest by greenish streaks or small -acrid spots in the bread. As the result, we have a -beautiful article spoiled,—bread without sweetness, -if not absolutely sour.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the view of many, lightness is the only property -required in this article. The delicate, refined sweetness -which exists in carefully kneaded bread, baked -just before it passes to the extreme point of fermentation, -is something of which they have no conception; -and thus they will even regard this process of spoiling -the paste by the acetous fermentation, and then rectifying -that acid by effervescence with an alkali, as -something positively meritorious. How else can they -value and relish bakers’ loaves, such as some are, -drugged with ammonia and other disagreeable things, -light indeed, so light that they seem to have neither -weight nor substance, but with no more sweetness or -taste than so much white cotton?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Some persons prepare bread for the oven by simply -mixing it in the mass, without kneading, pouring it -into pans, and suffering it to rise there. The air-cells -in bread thus prepared are coarse and uneven; the -bread is as inferior in delicacy and nicety to that -which is well kneaded as a raw Irish servant to a -perfectly educated and refined lady. The process of -kneading seems to impart an evenness to the minute -air-cells, a fineness of texture, and a tenderness and -pliability to the whole substance, that can be gained -in no other way.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The divine principle of beauty has its reign over -bread as well as over all other things; it has its laws -of æsthetics; and that bread which is so prepared -that it can be formed into separate and well-proportioned -loaves, each one carefully worked and moulded, -will develop the most beautiful results. After -being moulded, the loaves should stand a little while, -just long enough to allow the fermentation going on -in them to expand each little air-cell to the point at -which it stood before it was worked down, and then -they should be immediately put into the oven.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Many a good thing, however, is spoiled in the oven. -We cannot but regret, for the sake of bread, that our -old steady brick ovens have been almost universally -superseded by those of ranges and cooking-stoves, -which are infinite in their caprices, and forbid all -general rules. One thing, however, may be borne in -mind as a principle,—that the excellence of bread in -all its varieties, plain or sweetened, depends on the -perfection of its air-cells, whether produced by yeast, -egg, or effervescence; that one of the objects of baking -is to fix these air-cells, and that the quicker this can -be done through the whole mass, the better will the -result be. When cake or bread is made heavy by -baking too quickly, it is because the immediate formation -of the top crust hinders the exhaling of the -moisture in the centre, and prevents the air-cells from -cooking. The weight also of the crust pressing down -on the doughy air-cells below destroys them, producing -that horror of good cooks, a heavy streak. -The problem in baking, then, is the quick application -of heat rather below than above the loaf, and its -steady continuance till all the air-cells are thoroughly -dried into permanent consistency. Every housewife -must watch her own oven to know how this can be -best accomplished.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Bread-making can be cultivated to any extent as a -fine art,—and the various kinds of biscuit, tea-rusks, -twists, rolls, into which bread may be made, are much -better worth a housekeeper’s ambition than the getting-up -of rich and expensive cake or confections. -There are also varieties of material which are rich -in good effects. Unbolted flour, altogether more -wholesome than the fine wheat, and when properly -prepared more palatable,—rye-flour and corn-meal, -each affording a thousand attractive possibilities,—each -and all of these come under the general laws -of bread-stuffs, and are worth a careful attention.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A peculiarity of our American table, particularly -in the Southern and Western States, is the constant -exhibition of various preparations of hot bread. In -many families of the South and West, bread in loaves -to be eaten cold is an article quite unknown. The -effect of this kind of diet upon the health has formed -a frequent subject of remark among travellers; but -only those know the full mischiefs of it who have -been compelled to sojourn for a length of time in -families where it is maintained. The unknown horrors -of dyspepsia from bad bread are a topic over -which we willingly draw a veil.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>Next to Bread comes <i>Butter</i>,—on which we have -to say, that, when we remember what butter is in -civilized Europe, and compare it with what it is in -America, we wonder at the forbearance and lenity -of travellers in their strictures on our national commissariat.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Butter, in England, France, and Italy, is simply -solidified cream, with all the sweetness of the cream -in its taste, freshly churned each day, and unadulterated -by salt. At the present moment, when salt -is five cents a pound and butter fifty, we Americans -are paying, I should judge from the taste, for about -one pound of salt to every ten of butter, and those -of us who have eaten the butter of France and England -do this with rueful recollections.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There is, it is true, an article of butter made in the -American style with salt, which, in its own kind and -way, has a merit not inferior to that of England and -France. Many prefer it, and it certainly takes a rank -equally respectable with the other. It is yellow, hard, -and worked so perfectly free from every particle of -buttermilk that it might make the voyage of the world -without spoiling. It is salted, but salted with care -and delicacy, so that it may be a question whether -even a fastidious Englishman might not prefer its -golden solidity to the white, creamy freshness of his -own. Now I am not for universal imitation of foreign -customs, and where I find this butter made perfectly, -I call it our American style, and am not ashamed -of it. I only regret that this article is the exception, -and not the rule, on our tables. When I reflect -on the possibilities which beset the delicate -stomach in this line, I do not wonder that my venerated -friend Dr. Mussey used to close his counsels -to invalids with the direction, “And don’t eat grease -on your bread.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>America must, I think, have the credit of manufacturing -and putting into market more bad butter -than all that is made in all the rest of the world together. -The varieties of bad tastes and smells which -prevail in it are quite a study. This has a cheesy -taste, that a mouldy,—this is flavored with cabbage, -and that again with turnip, and another has the strong -sharp savor of rancid animal fat. These varieties, I -presume, come from the practice of churning only at -long intervals, and keeping the cream meanwhile in -unventilated cellars or dairies, the air of which is -loaded with the effluvia of vegetable substances. No -domestic articles are so sympathetic as those of the -milk tribe: they readily take on the smell and taste -of any neighboring substance, and hence the infinite -variety of flavors on which one mournfully muses who -has late in autumn to taste twenty firkins of butter in -hopes of finding one which will simply not be intolerable -on his winter table.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A matter for despair as regards bad butter is that -at the tables where it is used it stands sentinel at the -door to bar your way to every other kind of food. -You turn from your dreadful half-slice of bread, which -fills your mouth with bitterness, to your beefsteak, -which proves virulent with the same poison; you -think to take refuge in vegetable diet, and find the -butter in the string-beans, and polluting the innocence -of early peas,—it is in the corn, in the succotash, in -the squash,—the beets swim in it, the onions have -it poured over them. Hungry and miserable, you -think to solace yourself at the dessert,—but the -pastry is cursed, the cake is acrid with the same -plague. You are ready to howl with despair, and -your misery is great upon you,—especially if this is -a table where you have taken board for three months -with your delicate wife and four small children. Your -case is dreadful,—and it is hopeless, because long -usage and habit have rendered your host perfectly -incapable of discovering what is the matter. “Don’t -like the butter, Sir? I assure you I paid an extra -price for it, and it’s the very best in the market. I -looked over as many as a hundred tubs, and picked -out this one.” You are dumb, but not less despairing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Yet the process of making good butter is a very -simple one. To keep the cream in a perfectly pure, -cool atmosphere, to churn while it is yet sweet, to -work out the buttermilk thoroughly, and to add salt -with such discretion as not to ruin the fine, delicate -flavor of the fresh cream,—all this is quite simple, -so simple that one wonders at thousands and millions -of pounds of butter yearly manufactured which are -merely a hobgoblin-bewitchment of cream into foul -and loathsome poisons.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>The third head of my discourse is that of <i>Meat</i>, -of which America furnishes, in the gross material, -enough to spread our tables royally, were it well -cared for and served.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The faults in the meat generally furnished to us -are, first, that it is too new. A beefsteak, which three -or four days of keeping might render practicable, is -served up to us palpitating with freshness, with all the -toughness of animal muscle yet warm. In the Western -country, the traveller, on approaching an hotel -is often saluted by the last shrieks of the chickens -which half an hour afterward are presented to him -<i>à la</i> spread-eagle for his dinner. The example of -the Father of the Faithful, most wholesome to be -followed in so many respects, is imitated only in the -celerity with which the young calf, tender and good, -was transformed into an edible dish for hospitable -purposes. But what might be good housekeeping in -a nomadic Emir, in days when refrigerators were yet -in the future, ought not to be so closely imitated as -it often is in our own land.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the next place, there is a woful lack of nicety in -the butcher’s work of cutting and preparing meat. -Who that remembers the neatly trimmed mutton-chop -of an English inn, or the artistic little circle of lamb-chop -fried in bread-crumbs coiled around a tempting -centre of spinach which can always be found in -France, can recognize any family-resemblance to these -dapper civilized preparations in those coarse, roughly -hacked strips of bone, gristle, and meat which are -commonly called mutton-chop in America? There -seems to be a large dish of something resembling -meat, in which each fragment has about two or three -edible morsels, the rest being composed of dry and -burnt skin, fat, and ragged bone.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Is it not time that civilization should learn to demand -somewhat more care and nicety in the modes -of preparing what is to be cooked and eaten? Might -not some of the refinement and trimness which characterize -the preparations of the European market be -with advantage introduced into our own? The housekeeper -who wishes to garnish her table with some -of those nice things is stopped in the outset by the -butcher. Except in our large cities, where some foreign -travel may have created the demand, it seems -impossible to get much in this line that is properly -prepared.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I am aware, that, if this is urged on the score of -æsthetics, the ready reply will be, “O, we can’t give -time here in America to go into niceties and French -whim-whams!” But the French mode of doing almost -all practical things is based on that true philosophy -and utilitarian good sense which characterize that -seemingly thoughtless people. Nowhere is economy -a more careful study, and their market is artistically -arranged to this end. The rule is so to cut their -meats that no portion designed to be cooked in a -certain manner shall have wasteful appendages which -that mode of cooking will spoil. The French soup-kettle -stands ever ready to receive the bones, the -thin fibrous flaps, the sinewy and gristly portions, -which are so often included in our roasts or broilings, -which fill our plates with unsightly <i>débris</i>, and -finally make an amount of blank waste for which we -pay our butcher the same price that we pay for what -we have eaten.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The dead waste of our clumsy, coarse way of cutting -meats is immense. For example, at the beginning -of the present season, the part of a lamb denominated -leg and loin, or hind-quarter, sold for thirty -cents a pound. Now this includes, besides the thick, -fleshy portions, a quantity of bone, sinew, and thin -fibrous substance, constituting full one third of the -whole weight. If we put it into the oven entire, in -the usual manner, we have the thin parts overdone, -and the skinny and fibrous parts utterly dried up, by -the application of the amount of heat necessary to -cook the thick portion. Supposing the joint to weigh -six pounds, at thirty cents, and that one third of the -weight is so treated as to become perfectly useless, -we throw away sixty cents. Of a piece of beef at -twenty-five cents a pound, fifty cents’ worth is often -lost in bone, fat, and burnt skin.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The fact is, this way of selling and cooking meat -in large, gross portions is of English origin, and belongs -to a country where all the customs of society -spring from a class who have no particular occasion -for economy. The practice of minute and delicate -division comes from a nation which acknowledges -the need of economy, and has made it a study. A -quarter of lamb in this mode of division would be -sold in three nicely prepared portions. The thick -part would be sold by itself, for a neat, compact -little roast; the rib-bones would be artistically separated, -and all the edible matters scraped away would -form those delicate dishes of lamb-chop, which, fried -in bread-crumbs to a golden brown, are so ornamental -and so palatable a side-dish; the trimmings -which remain after this division would be destined -to the soup-kettle or stew-pan. In a French market -is a little portion for every purse, and the far-famed -and delicately flavored soups and stews which have -arisen out of French economy are a study worth a -housekeeper’s attention. Not one atom of food is -wasted in the French modes of preparation; even -tough animal cartilages and sinews, instead of appearing -burned and blackened in company with the roast -meat to which they happen to be related, are treated -according to their own laws, and come out either in -savory soups, or those fine, clear meat-jellies which -form a garnish no less agreeable to the eye than palatable -to the taste.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Whether this careful, economical, practical style of -meat-cooking can ever to any great extent be introduced -into our kitchens now is a question. Our -butchers are against it; our servants are wedded to -the old wholesale wasteful ways, which seem to them -easier because they are accustomed to them. A cook -who will keep and properly tend a soup-kettle which -shall receive and utilize all that the coarse preparations -of the butcher would require her to trim away, who -understands the art of making the most of all these -remains, is a treasure scarcely to be hoped for. If -such things are to be done, it must be primarily through -the educated brain of cultivated women who do not -scorn to turn their culture and refinement upon domestic -problems.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When meats have been properly divided, so that -each portion can receive its own appropriate style of -treatment, next comes the consideration of the modes -of cooking. These may be divided into two great -general classes: those where it is desired to keep the -juices within the meat, as in baking, broiling, and frying,—and -those whose object is to extract the juice -and dissolve the fibre, as in the making of soups and -stews. In the first class of operations, the process -must be as rapid as may consist with the thorough -cooking of all the particles. In this branch of cookery, -doing quickly is doing well. The fire must be -brisk, the attention alert. The introduction of cooking-stoves -offers to careless domestics facilities for -gradually drying-up meats, and despoiling them of all -flavor and nutriment,—facilities which appear to be -very generally laid hold of. They have almost banished -the genuine, old-fashioned roast-meat from our -tables, and left in its stead dried meats with their -most precious and nutritive juices evaporated. How -few cooks, unassisted, are competent to the simple -process of broiling a beefsteak or mutton-chop! how -very generally one has to choose between these meats -gradually dried away, or burned on the outside and -raw within! Yet in England these articles <i>never</i> come -on table done amiss; their perfect cooking is as absolute -a certainty as the rising of the sun.</p> - -<p class='c005'>No one of these rapid processes of cooking, however, -is so generally abused as frying. The frying-pan has -awful sins to answer for. What untold horrors of dyspepsia -have arisen from its smoky depths, like the -ghosts from witches’ caldrons! The fizzle, of frying -meat is as a warning knell on many an ear, saying, -“Touch not, taste not, if you would not burn and -writhe!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Yet those who have travelled abroad remember -that some of the lightest, most palatable, and most -digestible preparations of meat have come from this -dangerous source. But we fancy quite other rites and -ceremonies inaugurated the process, and quite other -hands performed its offices, than those known to our -kitchens. Probably the delicate <i>côtelettes</i> of France -are not flopped down into half-melted grease, there -gradually to warm and soak and fizzle, while Biddy -goes in and out on her other ministrations, till finally, -when thoroughly saturated, and dinner-hour impends, -she bethinks herself, and crowds the fire below to a -roaring heat, and finishes the process by a smart burn, -involving the kitchen and surrounding precincts in -volumes of Stygian gloom.</p> - -<p class='c005'>From such preparations has arisen the very current -medical opinion that fried meats are indigestible. -They are indigestible, if they are greasy; -but French cooks have taught us that a thing has -no more need to be greasy because emerging from -grease than Venus had to be salt because she rose -from the sea.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There are two ways of frying employed by the French -cook. One is, to immerse the article to be cooked in -<i>boiling</i> fat, with an emphasis on the present participle,—and -the philosophical principle is, so immediately -to crisp every pore, at the first moment or two of immersion, -as effectually to seal the interior against -the intrusion of greasy particles; it can then remain -as long as may be necessary thoroughly to cook it, -without imbibing any more of the boiling fluid than if -it were inclosed in an egg-shell. The other method is -to rub a perfectly smooth iron surface with just enough -of some oily substance to prevent the meat from adhering, -and cook it with a quick heat, as cakes are -baked on a griddle. In both these cases there must -be the most rapid application of heat that can be made -without burning, and by the adroitness shown in working -out this problem the skill of the cook is tested. -Any one whose cook attains this important secret will -find fried things quite as digestible and often more -palatable than any other.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the second department of meat-cookery, to wit, -the slow and gradual application of heat for the softening -and dissolution of its fibre and the extraction -of its juices, common cooks are equally untrained. -Where is the so-called cook who understands how to -prepare soups and stews? These are precisely the -articles in which a French kitchen excels. The soup-kettle, -made with a double bottom, to prevent burning, -is a permanent, ever-present institution, and the -coarsest and most impracticable meats distilled through -that alembic come out again in soups, jellies, or savory -stews. The toughest cartilage, even the bones, -being first cracked, are here made to give forth their -hidden virtues, and to rise in delicate and appetizing -forms. One great law governs all these preparations: -the application of heat must be gradual, steady, long -protracted, never reaching the point of active boiling. -Hours of quiet simmering dissolve all dissoluble parts, -soften the sternest fibre, and unlock every minute cell -in which Nature has stored away her treasures of nourishment. -This careful and protracted application of -heat and the skilful use of flavors constitute the two -main points in all those nice preparations of meat for -which the French have so many names,—processes -by which a delicacy can be imparted to the coarsest -and cheapest food superior to that of the finest articles -under less philosophic treatment.</p> - -<p class='c005'>French soups and stews are a study,—and they -would not be an unprofitable one to any person who -wishes to live with comfort and even elegance on small -means.</p> - -<p class='c005'>John Bull looks down from the sublime of ten thousand -a year on French kickshaws, as he calls them:—“Give -me my meat cooked so I may know what it -is!” An ox roasted whole is dear to John’s soul, and -his kitchen-arrangements are Titanic. What magnificent -rounds and sirloins of beef, revolving on self-regulating -spits, with a rich click of satisfaction, before -grates piled with roaring fires! Let us do justice -to the royal cheer. Nowhere are the charms of -pure, unadulterated animal food set forth in more -imposing style. For John is rich, and what does he -care for odds and ends and parings? Has he not all -the beasts of the forest, and the cattle on a thousand -hills? What does he want of economy? But his -brother Jean has not ten thousand pounds a year,—nothing -like it; but he makes up for the slenderness -of his purse by boundless fertility of invention and delicacy -of practice. John began sneering at Jean’s -soups and ragouts, but all John’s modern sons and -daughters send to Jean for their cooks, and the sirloins -of England rise up and do obeisance to this -Joseph with a white apron who comes to rule in their -kitchens.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There is no animal fibre that will not yield itself -up to long-continued, steady heat. But the difficulty -with almost any of the common servants who call -themselves cooks is, that they have not the smallest -notion of the philosophy of the application of heat. -Such a one will complacently tell you concerning -certain meats, that the harder you boil them the -harder they grow,—an obvious fact, which, under -her mode of treatment, by an indiscriminate galloping -boil, has frequently come under her personal -observation. If you tell her that such meat must -stand for six hours in a heat just below the boiling-point, -she will probably answer, “Yes, Ma’am,” and -go on her own way. Or she will let it stand till it -burns to the bottom of the kettle,—a most common -termination of the experiment. The only way to -make sure of the matter is either to import a French -kettle, or to fit into an ordinary kettle a false bottom, -such as any tinman may make, that shall leave a -space of an inch or two between the meat and the -fire. This kettle may be maintained as a constant -<i>habitué</i> of the range, and into it the cook may be -instructed to throw all the fibrous trimmings of meat, -all the gristle, tendons, and bones, having previously -broken up these last with a mallet.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Such a kettle will furnish the basis for clear, rich -soups or other palatable dishes. Clear soup consists -of the dissolved juices of the meat and gelatine of -the bones, cleared from the fat and fibrous portions -by straining when cold. The grease, which rises to -the top of the fluid, may thus be easily removed. In -a stew, on the contrary, you boil down this soup till -it permeates the fibre which long exposure to heat -has softened. All that remains, after the proper -preparation of the fibre and juices, is the flavoring, -and it is in this, particularly, that French soups -excel those of America and England and all the -world.</p> - -<p class='c005'>English and American soups are often heavy and -hot with spices. There are appreciable tastes in -them. They burn your mouth with cayenne or clove -or allspice. You can tell at once what is in them, -oftentimes to your sorrow. But a French soup has -a flavor which one recognizes at once as delicious, -yet not to be characterized as due to any single -condiment; it is the just blending of many things. -The same remark applies to all their stews, ragouts, -and other delicate preparations. No cook will ever -study these flavors; but perhaps many cooks’ mistresses -may, and thus be able to impart delicacy -and comfort to economy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As to those things called hashes, commonly manufactured -by unwatched, untaught cooks, out of the -remains of yesterday’s repast, let us not dwell too -closely on their memory,—compounds of meat, gristle, -skin, fat, and burnt fibre, with a handful of -pepper and salt flung at them, dredged with lumpy -flour, watered from the spout of the tea-kettle, and -left to simmer at the cook’s convenience while she -is otherwise occupied. Such are the best performances -a housekeeper can hope for from an untrained -cook.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But the cunningly devised minces, the artful preparations -choicely flavored, which may be made of -yesterday’s repast,—by these is the true domestic -artist known. No cook untaught by an educated -brain ever makes these, and yet economy is a great -gainer by them.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>As regards the department of <i>Vegetables</i>, their number -and variety in America are so great that a table -might almost be furnished by these alone. Generally -speaking, their cooking is a more simple art, and -therefore more likely to be found satisfactorily performed, -than that of meats. If only they are not -drenched with rancid butter, their own native excellence -makes itself known in most of the ordinary -modes of preparation.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There is, however, one exception.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Our stanch old friend, the potato, is to other vegetables -what bread is on the table. Like bread, it is -held as a sort of <i>sine-qua-non</i>; like that, it may be -made invariably palatable by a little care in a few -plain particulars, through neglect of which it often -becomes intolerable. The soggy, waxy, indigestible -viand that often appears in the potato-dish is a down-right -sacrifice of the better nature of this vegetable.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The potato, nutritive and harmless as it appears, -belongs to a family suspected of very dangerous traits. -It is a family-connection of the deadly-nightshade and -other ill-reputed gentry, and sometimes shows strange -proclivities to evil,—now breaking out uproariously, -as in the noted potato-rot, and now more covertly, -in various evil affections. For this reason scientific -directors bid us beware of the water in which potatoes -are boiled,—into which, it appears, the evil -principle is drawn off; and they caution us not to -shred them into stews without previously suffering -the slices to lie for an hour or so in salt and water. -These cautions are worth attention.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The most usual modes of preparing the potato for -the table are by roasting or boiling. These processes -are so simple that it is commonly supposed every -cook understands them without special directions; -and yet there is scarcely an uninstructed cook who -can boil or roast a potato.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A good roasted potato is a delicacy worth a dozen -compositions of the cook-book; yet when we ask for -it, what burnt, shrivelled abortions are presented to -us! Biddy rushes to her potato-basket and pours -out two dozen of different sizes, some having in them -three times the amount of matter of others. These -being washed, she tumbles them into her oven at a -leisure interval, and there lets them lie till it is time -to serve breakfast, whenever that may be. As a -result, if the largest are cooked, the smallest are -presented in cinders, and the intermediate sizes are -withered and watery. Nothing is so utterly ruined -by a few moments of overdoing. That which at the -right moment was plump with mealy richness, a quarter -of an hour later shrivels and becomes watery,—and -it is in this state that roast potatoes are most -frequently served.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the same manner we have seen boiled potatoes -from an untaught cook coming upon the table like -lumps of yellow wax,—and the same article, the day -after, under the directions of a skilful mistress, appearing -in snowy balls of powdery lightness. In the -one case, they were thrown in their skins into water -and suffered to soak or boil, as the case might be, at -the cook’s leisure, and after they were boiled to stand -in the water till she was ready to peel them. In the -other case, the potatoes being first peeled were boiled -as quickly as possible in salted water, which the moment -they were done was drained off, and then they -were gently shaken for a minute or two over the fire -to dry them still more thoroughly. We have never -yet seen the potato so depraved and given over to -evil that could not be reclaimed by this mode of -treatment.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As to fried potatoes, who that remembers the crisp, -golden slices of the French restaurant, thin as wafers -and light as snow-flakes, does not speak respectfully -of them? What cousinship with these have those -coarse, greasy masses of sliced potato, wholly soggy -and partly burnt, to which we are treated under the -name of fried potatoes <i>à la</i> America? In our cities -the restaurants are introducing the French article to -great acceptance, and to the vindication of the fair -fame of this queen of vegetables.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>Finally, I arrive at the last great head of my -subject, to wit, <span class='sc'>Tea</span>,—meaning thereby, as before -observed, what our Hibernian friend did in the inquiry, -“Will y’r Honor take ‘tay tay’ or coffee -tay?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I am not about to enter into the merits of the -great tea-and-coffee controversy, or say whether these -substances are or are not wholesome. I treat of -them as actual existences, and speak only of the -modes of making the most of them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The French coffee is reputed the best in the world; -and a thousand voices have asked, What is it about -the French coffee?</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the first place, then, the French coffee is coffee, -and not chiccory, or rye, or beans, or peas. In the -second place, it is freshly roasted, whenever made,—roasted -with great care and evenness in a little revolving -cylinder which makes part of the furniture of every -kitchen, and which keeps in the aroma of the berry. -It is never overdone, so as to destroy the coffee-flavor, -which is in nine cases out of ten the fault of the coffee -we meet with. Then it is ground, and placed in a -coffee-pot with a filter, through which it percolates in -clear drops, the coffee-pot standing on a heated stove to -maintain the temperature. The nose of the coffee-pot -is stopped up to prevent the escape of the aroma during -this process. The extract thus obtained is a perfectly -clear, dark fluid, known as <i>café noir</i>, or black coffee. -It is black only because of its strength, being in fact -almost the very essential oil of coffee. A table-spoonful -of this in boiled milk would make what is ordinarily -called a strong cup of coffee. The boiled milk -is prepared with no less care. It must be fresh and -new, not merely warmed or even brought to the boiling-point, -but slowly simmered till it attains a thick, -creamy richness. The coffee mixed with this, and -sweetened with that sparkling beet-root sugar which -ornaments a French table, is the celebrated <i>café-au-lait</i>, -the name of which has gone round the world.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As we look to France for the best coffee, so we -must look to England for the perfection of tea. The -tea-kettle is as much an English institution as aristocracy -or the Prayer-Book; and when one wants to -know exactly how tea should be made, one has only -to ask how a fine old English housekeeper makes it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The first article of her faith is that the water must -not merely be hot, not merely <i>have boiled</i> a few moments -since, but be actually <i>boiling</i> at the moment it -touches the tea. Hence, though servants in England -are vastly better trained than with us, this delicate -mystery is seldom left to their hands. Tea-making -belongs to the drawing-room, and high-born ladies -preside at “the bubbling and loud-hissing urn,” and -see that all due rites and solemnities are properly -performed,—that the cups are hot, and that the infused -tea waits the exact time before the libations -commence. O, ye dear old English tea-tables, resorts -of the kindest-hearted hospitality in the world! we -still cherish your memory, even though you do not -say pleasant things of us there. One of these days -you will think better of us. Of late, the introduction -of English breakfast-tea has raised a new sect among -the tea-drinkers, reversing some of the old canons. -Breakfast-tea must be boiled! Unlike the delicate -article of olden time, which required only a momentary -infusion to develop its richness, this requires a -longer and severer treatment to bring out its strength,—thus -confusing all the established usages, and -throwing the work into the hands of the cook in the -kitchen.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The faults of tea, as too commonly found at our -hotels and boarding-houses, are that it is made in -every way the reverse of what it should be. The -water is hot, perhaps but not boiling; the tea has -a general flat, stale, smoky taste, devoid of life or -spirit; and it is served, usually, with thin milk, instead -of cream. Cream is as essential to the richness of -tea as of coffee. We could wish that the English -fashion might generally prevail, of giving the traveller -his own kettle of boiling water and his own tea-chest, -and letting him make tea for himself. At all events, -he would then be sure of one merit in his tea,—it -would be hot, a very simple and obvious virtue, but -one very seldom obtained.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Chocolate is a French and Spanish article, and one -seldom served on American tables. We, in America, -however, make an article every way equal to any -which can be imported from Paris, and he who buys -Baker’s best vanilla-chocolate may rest assured that -no foreign land can furnish anything better. A very -rich and delicious beverage may be made by dissolving -this in milk slowly boiled down after the French -fashion.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>I have now gone over all the ground I laid out, -as comprising the great first principles of cookery; -and I would here modestly offer the opinion that a -table where all these principles are carefully observed -would need few dainties. The struggle after so-called -delicacies comes from the poorness of common things. -Perfect bread and butter would soon drive cake out -of the field; it has done so in many families. Nevertheless, -I have a word to say under the head of <i>Confectionery</i>, -meaning by this the whole range of ornamental -cookery,—or pastry, ices, jellies, preserves, -etc. The art of making all these very perfectly is far -better understood in America than the art of common -cooking.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There are more women who know how to make -good cake than good bread,—more who can furnish -you with a good ice-cream than a well-cooked mutton-chop; -a fair charlotte-russe is easier to come by than -a perfect cup of coffee, and you shall find a sparkling -jelly to your dessert where you sighed in vain for so -simple a luxury as a well-cooked potato.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Our fair countrywomen might rest upon their laurels -in these higher fields, and turn their great energy and -ingenuity to the study of essentials. To do common -things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than -to do uncommon things respectably. We Americans -in many things as yet have been a little inclined to -begin making our shirt at the ruffle; but, nevertheless, -when we set about it, we can make the shirt -as nicely as anybody,—it needs only that we turn -our attention to it, resolved, that, ruffle or no ruffle, -the shirt we will have.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I have also a few words to say as to the prevalent -ideas in respect to French cookery. Having heard -much of it, with no very distinct idea what it is, our -people have somehow fallen into the notion that its -forte lies in high spicing,—and so, when our cooks -put a great abundance of clove, mace, nutmeg, and -cinnamon into their preparations, they fancy that they -are growing up to be French cooks. But the fact is, -that the Americans and English are far more given -to spicing than the French. Spices in our made -dishes are abundant, and their taste is strongly pronounced. -In living a year in France I forgot the -taste of nutmeg, clove, and allspice, which had met -me in so many dishes in America.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The thing may be briefly defined. The English -and Americans deal in <i>spices</i>, the French in <i>flavors</i>,—flavors -many and subtile, imitating often in their delicacy -those subtile blendings which Nature produces -in high-flavored fruits. The recipes of our cookery-books -are most of them of English origin, coming -down from the times of our phlegmatic ancestors, -when the solid, burly, beefy growth of the foggy island -required the heat of fiery condiments, and could -digest heavy sweets. Witness the national recipe for -plum-pudding, which may be rendered,—Take a -pound of every indigestible substance you can think -of, boil into a cannon-ball, and serve in flaming -brandy. So of the Christmas mince-pie and many -other national dishes. But in America, owing to our -brighter skies and more fervid climate, we have developed -an acute, nervous delicacy of temperament -far more akin to that of France than of England.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Half of the recipes in our cook-books are mere -murder to such constitutions and stomachs as we -grow here. We require to ponder these things, and -think how we in our climate and under our circumstances -ought to live, and in doing so, we may, -without accusation of foreign foppery, take some -leaves from many foreign books.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>But Christopher has prosed long enough. I must -now read this to my wife, and see what she says.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch11' class='c007'>XI.<br /> <br />OUR HOUSE.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_675 c011'>OUR gallant Bob Stephens, into whose life-boat -our Marianne has been received, has lately -taken the mania of house-building into his head. Bob -is somewhat fastidious, difficult to please, fond of -domesticities and individualities; and such a man -never can fit himself into a house built by another, -and accordingly house-building has always been his -favorite mental recreation. During all his courtship -as much time was taken up in planning a future house -as if he had money to build one; and all Marianne’s -patterns, and the backs of half their letters, were -scrawled with ground-plans and elevations. But latterly -this chronic disposition has been quickened into -an acute form by the falling-in of some few thousands -to their domestic treasury,—left as the sole residuum -of a painstaking old aunt, who took it into -her head to make a will in Bob’s favor, leaving, among -other good things, a nice little bit of land in a rural -district half an hour’s railroad-ride from Boston.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So now ground-plans thicken, and my wife is being -consulted morning, noon, and night; and I never -come into the room without finding their heads close -together over a paper, and hearing Bob expatiate on -his favorite idea of a library. He appears to have -got so far as this, that the ceiling is to be of carved -oak, with ribs running to a boss over head, and -finished mediævally with ultramarine blue and gilding,—and -then away he goes sketching Gothic patterns -of book-shelves which require only experienced carvers, -and the wherewithal to pay them, to be the -divinest things in the world.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Marianne is exercised about china-closets and pantries, -and about a bedroom on the ground-floor,—for, -like all other women of our days, she expects not -to have strength enough to run up-stairs oftener than -once or twice a week; and my wife, who is a native -genius in this line, and has planned in her time dozens -of houses for acquaintances, wherein they are at -this moment living happily, goes over every day with -her pencil and ruler the work of rearranging the plans, -according as the ideas of the young couple veer and -vary.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One day Bob is importuned to give two feet off -from his library for a closet in the bedroom,—but -resists like a Trojan. The next morning, being mollified -by private domestic supplications, Bob yields, -and my wife rubs out the lines of yesterday, two feet -come off the library, and a closet is constructed. But -now the parlor proves too narrow,—the parlor-wall -must be moved two feet into the hall. Bob declares -this will spoil the symmetry of the latter; and if there -is anything he wants, it is a wide, generous, ample hall -to step into when you open the front-door.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, then,” says Marianne, “let’s put two feet -more into the width of the house.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Can’t on account of the expense, you see,” says -Bob. “You see every additional foot of outside wall -necessitates so many more bricks, so much more flooring, -so much more roofing, etc.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And my wife, with thoughtful brow, looks over the -plans, and considers how two feet more are to be got -into the parlor without moving any of the walls.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I say,” says Bob, bending over her shoulder, -“here, take your two feet in the parlor, and put two -more feet on to the other side of the hall-stairs”; -and he dashes heavily with his pencil.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“O, Bob!” exclaims Marianne, “there are the -kitchen-pantries! you ruin them,—and no place for -the cellar-stairs!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Hang the pantries and cellar-stairs!” says Bob. -“Mother must find a place for them somewhere else. -I say the house must be roomy and cheerful, and pantries -and those things may take care of themselves; -they can be put <i>somewhere</i> well enough. No fear -but you will find a place for them somewhere. What -do you women always want such a great enormous -kitchen for?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is not any larger than is necessary,” said my -wife, thoughtfully; “nothing is gained by taking off -from it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What if you should put it all down into a basement,” -suggests Bob, “and so get it all out of sight -together?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Never if it can be helped,” said my wife. “Basement-kitchens -are necessary evils, only to be tolerated -in cities where land is too dear to afford any other.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>So goes the discussion till the trio agree to sleep -over it. The next morning an inspiration visits my -wife’s pillow. She is up and seizes plans and paper, -and before six o’clock has enlarged the parlor very -cleverly, by throwing out a bow-window. So waxes -and wanes the prospective house, innocently battered -down and rebuilt with India-rubber and black-lead. -Doors are cut out to-night, and walled up to-morrow; -windows knocked out here and put in there, as some observer -suggests possibilities of too much or too little -draught. Now all seems finished, when, lo, a discovery! -There is no fireplace nor stove-flue in my lady’s bedroom, -and can be none without moving the bathing-room. -Pencil and India-rubber are busy again, and for -a while the whole house seems to threaten to fall to -pieces with the confusion of the moving; the bath-room -wanders like a ghost, now invading a closet, now threatening -the tranquillity of the parlor, till at last it is -laid by some unheard-of calculations of my wife’s, -and sinks to rest in a place so much better that every -body wonders it never was thought of before.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Papa,” said Jenny, “it appears to me people -don’t exactly know what they want when they build; -why don’t you write a paper on house-building?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I have thought of it,” said I, with the air of a man -called to settle some great reform. “It must be entirely -because Christopher has not written that our -young people and mamma are tangling themselves -daily in webs which are untangled the next day.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You see,” said Jenny, “they have only just so -much money, and they want everything they can think -of under the sun. There’s Bob been studying architectural -antiquities, and nobody knows what, and -sketching all sorts of curly-whorlies; and Marianne has -her notions about a parlor and boudoir and china-closets -and bedroom-closets; and Bob wants a baronial -hall; and mamma stands out for linen-closets and -bathing-rooms and all that; and so among them all it -will just end in getting them head over ears in debt.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>The thing struck me as not improbable.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t know, Jenny, whether my writing an article -is going to prevent all this; but as my time in the -‘Atlantic’ is coming round, I may as well write on -what I am obliged to think of, and so I will give a -paper on the subject to enliven our next evening’s -session.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>So that evening, when Bob and Marianne had -dropped in as usual, and while the customary work -of drawing and rubbing-out was going on at Mrs. -Crowfield’s sofa, I produced my paper and read as -follows:—</p> - -<p class='c005'>OUR HOUSE.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There is a place called “Our House,” which everybody -knows of. The sailor talks of it in his dreams -at sea. The wounded soldier, turning in his uneasy -hospital-bed, brightens at the word; it is like the -dropping of cool water in the desert, like the touch -of cool fingers on a burning brow. “Our house,” he -says feebly, and the light comes back into his dim -eyes,—for all homely charities, all fond thoughts, all -purities, all that man loves on earth or hopes for in -heaven, rise with the word.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Our house” may be in any style of architecture, -low or high. It may be the brown old farm-house, -with its tall well-sweep; or the one-story gambrel-roofed -cottage; or the large, square, white house, with green -blinds, under the wind-swung elms of a century; or -it may be the log-cabin of the wilderness, with its one -room,—still there is a spell in the memory of it beyond -all conjurations. Its stone and brick and mortar -are like no other; its very clapboards and shingles -are dear to us, powerful to bring back the memories -of early days, and all that is sacred in home-love.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>“Papa is getting quite sentimental,” whispered Jenny, -loud enough for me to hear. I shook my head at -her impressively, and went on undaunted.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>There is no one fact of our human existence that -has a stronger influence upon us than the house we -dwell in,—especially that in which our earlier and -more impressible years are spent. The building and -arrangement of a house influence the health, the comfort, -the morals, the religion. There have been houses -built so devoid of all consideration for the occupants, -so rambling and hap-hazard in the disposal of rooms, -so sunless and cheerless and wholly without snugness -or privacy, as to make it seem impossible to live a -joyous, generous, rational, religious family-life in them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There are, we shame to say, in our cities <i>things</i> -called houses, built and rented by people who walk -erect and have the general air and manner of civilized -and Christianized men, which are so inhuman in their -building that they can only be called snares and traps -for souls,—places where children cannot well escape -growing up filthy and impure,—places where to form -a home is impossible, and to live a decent, Christian -life would require miraculous strength.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A celebrated British philanthropist, who had devoted -much study to the dwellings of the poor, gave -it as his opinion that temperance-societies were a -hopeless undertaking in London, unless these dwellings -underwent a transformation. They were so -squalid, so dark, so comfortless, so constantly pressing -upon the senses foulness, pain, and inconvenience, -that it was only by being drugged with gin and -opium that their miserable inhabitants could find heart -to drag on life from day to day. He had himself tried -the experiment of reforming a drunkard by taking him -from one of these loathsome dens, and enabling him -to rent a tenement in a block of model lodging-houses -which had been built under his supervision. The -young man had been a designer of figures for prints; -he was of a delicate frame, and a nervous, susceptible -temperament. Shut in one miserable room with his -wife and little children, without the possibility of pure -air, with only filthy, fetid water to drink, with the -noise of other miserable families resounding through -the thin partitions, what possibility was there of doing -anything except by the help of stimulants, which for -a brief hour lifted him above the perception of these -miseries? Changed at once to a neat flat, where, for -the same rent as his former den, he had three good -rooms, with water for drinking, house-service, and -bathing freely supplied, and the blessed sunshine and -air coming in through windows well arranged for ventilation, -he became in a few weeks a new man. In -the charms of the little spot which he could call home, -its quiet, its order, his former talent came back to him, -and he found strength, in pure air and pure water and -those purer thoughts of which they are the emblems, -to abandon burning and stupefying stimulants.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The influence of dwelling-houses for good or for -evil—their influence on the brain, the nerves, and, -through these, on the heart and life—is one of those -things that cannot be enough pondered by those who -build houses to sell or rent.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Something more generous ought to inspire a man -than merely the percentage which he can get for his -money. He who would build houses should think -a little on the subject. He should reflect what houses -are for,—what they may be made to do for human -beings. The great majority of houses in cities are -not built by the indwellers themselves,—they are -built <i>for</i> them by those who invest their money in -this way, with little other thought than the percentage -which the investment will return.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For persons of ample fortune there are, indeed, -palatial residences, with all that wealth can do to -render life delightful. But in that class of houses -which must be the lot of the large majority, those -which must be chosen by young men in the beginning -of life, when means are comparatively restricted, -there is yet wide room for thought and the judicious -application of money.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In looking over houses to be rented by persons of -moderate means, one cannot help longing to build,—one -sees so many ways in which the same sum which -built an inconvenient and unpleasant house might -have been made to build a delightful one.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s so!” said Bob, with emphasis. “Don’t -you remember, Marianne, how many dismal, commonplace, -shabby houses we trailed through?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said Marianne. “You remember those -houses with such little squeezed rooms and that flourishing -staircase, with the colored-glass china-closet window, -and no butler’s sink?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said Bob; “and those astonishing, abominable -stone abortions that adorned the door-steps. -People do lay out a deal of money to make houses -look ugly, it must be confessed.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“One would willingly,” said Marianne, “dispense -with frightful stone ornaments in front, and with heavy -mouldings inside, which are of no possible use or -beauty, and with showy plaster cornices and centre-pieces -in the parlor-ceilings, and even with marble -mantels, for the luxury of hot and cold water in each -chamber, and a couple of comfortable bath-rooms. -Then, the disposition of windows and doors is so -wholly without regard to convenience! How often -we find rooms, meant for bedrooms, where really there -is no good place for either bed or dressing-table!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Here my wife looked up, having just finished redrawing -the plans to the latest alteration.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these -reforming days,” she observed, “would be to have -women architects. The mischief with houses built -to rent is that they are all mere male contrivances. -No woman would ever plan chambers where there -is no earthly place to set a bed except against a window -or door, or waste the room in entries that might -be made into closets. I don’t see, for my part, <i>apropos</i> -to the modern movement for opening new professions -to the female sex, why there should not be -well-educated female architects. The planning and -arrangement of houses, and the laying-out of grounds, -are a fair subject of womanly knowledge and taste. -It is the teaching of Nature. What would anybody -think of a bluebird’s nest that had been built entirely -by Mr. Blue, without the help of his wife?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear,” said I, “you must positively send a -paper on this subject to the next Woman’s-Rights -Convention.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I am of Sojourner Truth’s opinion,” said my wife,—“that -the best way to prove the propriety of one’s -doing anything is to go and <i>do it</i>. A woman who -should have energy to go through the preparatory -studies and set to work in this field would, I am sure, -soon find employment.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If she did as well as you would do, my dear,” said -I. “There are plenty of young women in our Boston -high-schools who are going through higher fields of -mathematics than are required by the architect, and -the schools for design show the flexibility and fertility -of the female pencil. The thing appears to me -altogether more feasible than many other openings -which have been suggested to woman.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said Jenny, “isn’t papa ever to go on -with his paper?”</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>I continued:—</p> - -<p class='c005'>What ought “our house” to be? Could any other -question be asked admitting in its details of such -varied answers,—answers various as the means, the -character, and situation of different individuals? But -there are great wants pertaining to every human being, -into which all lesser ones run. There are things in a -house that every one, high or low, rich or poor, ought, -according to his means, to seek. I think I shall class -them according to the elemental division of the old -philosophers,—Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. These -form the groundwork of this <i>need-be</i>,—the <i>sine-qua-nons</i> -of a house.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>“Fire, air, earth, and water! I don’t understand,” -said Jenny.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Wait a little till you do, then,” said I. “I will -try to make my meaning plain.”</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>The first object of a house is shelter from the elements. -This object is effected by a tent or wigwam -which keeps off rain and wind. The first disadvantage -of this shelter is, that the vital air which you take -into your lungs, and on the purity of which depends -the purity of blood and brain and nerve, is vitiated. -In the wigwam or tent you are constantly taking in -poison, more or less active, with every inspiration. -Napoleon had his army sleep without tents. He -stated, that from experience, he found it more healthy, -and wonderful have been the instances of delicate persons -gaining constantly in vigor from being obliged, -in the midst of hardships, to sleep constantly in the -open air. Now the first problem in house-building is -to combine the advantage of shelter with the fresh -elasticity of out-door air. I am not going to give here -a treatise on ventilation, but merely to say, in general -terms, that the first object of a house-builder or contriver -should be to make a healthy house; and the first -requisite of a healthy house is a pure, sweet, elastic air.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I am in favor, therefore, of those plans of house-building -which have wide central spaces, whether -halls or courts, into which all the rooms open, and -which necessarily preserve a body of fresh air for the -use of them all. In hot climates this is the object -of the central court which cuts into the body of the -house, with its fountain and flowers, and its galleries, -into which the various apartments open. When people -are restricted for space, and cannot afford to give -up wide central portions of the house for the mere -purposes of passage, this central hall can be made -a pleasant sitting-room. With tables, chairs, bookcases, -and sofas comfortably disposed, this ample -central room above and below is, in many respects, -the most agreeable lounging-room of the house; while -the parlors below and the chambers above, opening -upon it, form agreeable withdrawing-rooms for purposes -of greater privacy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is customary with many persons to sleep with -bedroom windows open,—a very imperfect and often -dangerous mode of procuring that supply of fresh air -which a sleeping-room requires. In a house constructed -in the manner indicated, windows might be -freely left open in these central halls, producing there -a constant movement of air, and the doors of the bedrooms -placed ajar, when a very slight opening in the -windows would create a free circulation through the -apartments.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the planning of a house, thought should be had -as to the general disposition of the windows, and the -quarters from which favoring breezes may be expected -should be carefully considered. Windows should be -so arranged that draughts of air can be thrown quite -through and across the house. How often have we -seen pale mothers and drooping babes fanning and -panting during some of our hot days on the sunny -side of a house, while the breeze that should have -cooled them beat in vain against a dead wall! One -longs sometimes to knock holes through partitions, -and let in the air of heaven.</p> - -<p class='c005'>No other gift of God, so precious, so inspiring, is -treated with such utter irreverence and contempt in -the calculations of us mortals as this same air of -heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if one had a preacher -who understood the subject, might do more to repress -sin than the most orthodox discourse to show when -and how and why sin came. A minister gets up in -a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air almost -makes the candles burn blue, and bewails the deadness -of the church,—the church the while, drugged -by the poisoned air, growing sleepier and sleepier, -though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Little Jim, who, fresh from his afternoon’s ramble -in the fields, last evening said his prayers dutifully, -and lay down to sleep in a most Christian frame, this -morning sits up in bed with his hair bristling with -crossness, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won’t -say his prayers,—that he don’t want to be good. -The simple difference is, that the child, having slept -in a close box of a room, his brain all night fed by -poison, is in a mild state of moral insanity. Delicate -women remark that it takes them till eleven or -twelve o’clock to get up their strength in the morning. -Query,—Do they sleep with closed windows and -doors, and with heavy bed-curtains?</p> - -<p class='c005'>The houses built by our ancestors were better ventilated -in certain respects than modern ones, with all -their improvements. The great central chimney, with -its open fireplaces in the different rooms, created a -constant current which carried off foul and vitiated -air. In these days, how common is it to provide -rooms with only a flue for a stove! This flue is kept -shut in summer, and in winter opened only to admit -a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of -the air quite as fast as the occupants breathe it away. -The sealing-up of fireplaces and introduction of air-tight -stoves may, doubtless, be a saving of fuel: it -saves, too, more than that; in thousands and thousands -of cases it has saved people from all further -human wants, and put an end forever to any needs -short of the six feet of narrow earth which are man’s -only inalienable property. In other words, since the -invention of air-tight stoves, thousands have died of -slow poison. It is a terrible thing to reflect upon, -that our northern winters last from November to -May, six long months, in which many families confine -themselves to one room, of which every window-crack -has been carefully calked to make it air-tight, where -an air-tight stove keeps the atmosphere at a temperature -between eighty and ninety, and the inmates sitting -there with all their winter clothes on become -enervated both by the heat and by the poisoned air, -for which there is no escape but the occasional opening -of a door.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is no wonder that the first result of all this is -such a delicacy of skin and lungs that about half the -inmates are obliged to give up going into the open -air during the six cold months, because they invariably -catch cold, if they do so. It is no wonder that -the cold caught about the first of December has by -the first of March become a fixed consumption, and -that the opening of the spring, which ought to bring -life and health, in so many cases brings death.</p> - -<p class='c005'>We hear of the lean condition in which the poor -bears emerge from their six-months’ wintering, during -which they subsist on the fat which they have acquired -the previous summer. Even so in our long winters, -multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily -waning strength which they acquired in the season -when windows and doors were open, and fresh air -was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of spring -fever and spring biliousness, and have thousands of -nostrums for clearing the blood in the spring. All -these things are the pantings and palpitations of a -system run down under slow poison, unable to get -a step farther. Better, far better, the old houses of -the olden time, with their great roaring fires, and their -bedrooms where the snow came in and the wintry -winds whistled. Then, to be sure, you froze your -back while you burned your face, your water froze -nightly in your pitcher, your breath congealed in ice-wreaths -on the blankets, and you could write your -name on the pretty snow-wreath that had sifted in -through the window-cracks. But you woke full of life -and vigor,—you looked out into whirling snow-storms -without a shiver, and thought nothing of plunging -through drifts as high as your head on your daily way -to school. You jingled in sleighs, you snowballed, -you lived in snow like a snow-bird, and your blood -coursed and tingled, in full tide of good, merry, real -life, through your veins,—none of the slow-creeping, -black blood which clogs the brain and lies like a -weight on the vital wheels!</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Mercy upon us, papa!” said Jenny, “I hope we -need not go back to such houses!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, my dear,” I replied. “I only said that such -houses were better than those which are all winter -closed by double windows and burnt-out air-tight -stoves.”</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>The perfect house is one in which there is a constant -escape of every foul and vitiated particle of air -through one opening, while a constant supply of fresh -out-door air is admitted by another. In winter, this -out-door air must pass through some process by which -it is brought up to a temperate warmth.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Take a single room, and suppose on one side a current -of out-door air which has been warmed by passing -through the air-chamber of a modern furnace. Its -temperature need not be above sixty-five,—it answers -breathing purposes better at that. On the other side -of the room let there be an open wood-or coal-fire. -One cannot conceive the purposes of warmth and -ventilation more perfectly combined.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Suppose a house with a great central hall, into -which a current of fresh, temperately warmed air is -continually pouring. Each chamber opening upon -this hall has a chimney up whose flue the rarefied air -is constantly passing, drawing up with it all the foul -and poisonous gases. That house is well ventilated, -and in a way that need bring no dangerous draughts -upon the most delicate invalid. For the better securing -of privacy in sleeping-rooms, we have seen two -doors employed, one of which is made with slats, like -a window-blind, so that air is freely transmitted without -exposing the interior.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When we speak of fresh air, we insist on the full -rigor of the term. It must not be the air of a cellar, -heavily laden with the poisonous nitrogen of turnips -and cabbages, but good, fresh, out-door air from a cold-air -pipe, so placed as not to get the lower stratum -near the ground, where heavy damps and exhalations -collect, but high up, in just the clearest and most elastic -region.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The conclusion of the whole matter is, that as all of -man’s and woman’s peace and comfort, all their love, -all their amiability, all their religion, have got to come -to them, while they live in this world, through the -medium of the brain,—and as black, uncleansed -blood acts on the brain as a poison, and as no other -than black, uncleansed blood can be got by the lungs -out of impure air,—the first object of the man who -builds a house is to secure a pure and healthy atmosphere -therein.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Therefore, in allotting expenses, set this down as a -<i>must-be</i>: “Our house must have fresh air,—everywhere, -at all times, winter and summer.” Whether -we have stone facings or no,—whether our parlor has -cornices or marble mantles or no,—whether our -doors are machine-made or hand-made. All our fixtures -shall be of the plainest and simplest, but we -will have fresh air. We will open our door with a -latch and string, if we cannot afford lock and knob -and fresh air too,—but in our house we will live -cleanly and Christianly. We will no more breathe -the foul air rejected from a neighbor’s lungs than -we will use a neighbor’s tooth-brush and hair-brush. -Such is the first essential of “our house,”—the -first great element of human health and happiness,—<span class='sc'>Air</span>.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>“I say, Marianne,” said Bob, “have we got fireplaces -in our chambers?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Mamma took care of that,” said Marianne.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You may be quite sure,” said I, “if your mother -has had a hand in planning your house, that the ventilation -is cared for.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It must be confessed that Bob’s principal idea in a -house had been a Gothic library, and his mind had -labored more on the possibility of adapting some favorite -bits from the baronial antiquities to modern -needs than on anything so terrestrial as air. Therefore -he awoke as from a dream, and taking two or -three monstrous inhalations, he seized the plans and -began looking over them with new energy. Meanwhile -I went on with my prelection.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>The second great vital element for which provision -must be made in “our house” is <span class='sc'>Fire</span>. By which I -do not mean merely artificial fire, but fire in all its -extent and branches,—the heavenly fire which God -sends us daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as -well as the mimic fires by which we warm our dwellings, -cook our food, and light our nightly darkness.</p> - -<p class='c005'>To begin, then, with heavenly fire or sunshine. If -God’s gift of vital air is neglected and undervalued, -His gift of sunshine appears to be hated. There are -many houses where not a cent has been expended on -ventilation, but where hundreds of dollars have been -freely lavished to keep out the sunshine. The chamber, -truly, is tight as a box,—it has no fireplace, not -even a ventilator opening into the stove-flue; but, oh, -joy and gladness! it has outside blinds and inside -folding-shutters, so that in the brightest of days we -may create there a darkness that may be felt. To -observe the generality of New-England houses, a -spectator might imagine they were planned for the -torrid zone, where the great object is to keep out a -furnace-draught of burning air.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But let us look over the months of our calendar. -In which of them do we not need fires on our hearths? -We will venture to say that from October to June all -families, whether they actually have it or not, would -be the more comfortable for a morning and evening -fire. For eight months in the year the weather varies -on the scale of cool, cold, colder, and freezing; and -for all the four other months what is the number of -days that really require the torrid-zone system of -shutting up houses? We all know that extreme heat -is the exception, and not the rule.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Yet let anybody travel, as I did last year, through -the valley of the Connecticut, and observe the houses. -All clean and white and neat and well-to-do, with -their turfy yards and their breezy great elms,—but -all shut up from basement to attic, as if the inmates -had all sold out and gone to China. Not a window-blind -open above or below. Is the house inhabited? -No,—yes,—there is a faint stream of blue smoke -from the kitchen-chimney, and half a window-blind -open in some distant back-part of the house. They -are living there in the dim shadows, bleaching like -potato-sprouts in the cellar.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>“I can tell you why they do it, papa,” said Jenny,—“It’s -the flies, and flies are certainly worthy to be -one of the plagues of Egypt. I can’t myself blame -people that shut up their rooms and darken their -houses in fly-time,—do you, mamma?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Not in extreme cases; though I think there is but -a short season when this is necessary; yet the habit -of shutting up lasts the year round, and gives to New-England -villages that dead, silent, cold, uninhabited -look which is so peculiar.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The one fact that a traveller would gather in passing -through our villages would be this,” said I, “that -the people live in their houses and in the dark. -Rarely do you see doors and windows open, people -sitting at them, chairs in the yard, and signs that the -inhabitants are living out-of-doors.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said Jenny, “I have told you why, for I -have been at Uncle Peter’s in summer, and aunt does -her spring-cleaning in May, and then she shuts all the -blinds and drops all the curtains, and the house stays -clean till October. That’s the whole of it. If she -had all her windows open, there would be paint and -windows to be cleaned every week; and who is to -do it? For my part, I can’t much blame her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said I, “I have my doubts about the sovereign -efficacy of living in the dark, even if the great -object of existence were to be rid of flies. I remember, -during this same journey, stopping for a day or -two at a country boarding-house which was dark as -Egypt from cellar to garret. The long, dim, gloomy -dining-room was first closed by outside blinds, and -then by impenetrable paper curtains, notwithstanding -which it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive. You -found where the cake-plate was by the buzz which your -hand made, if you chanced to reach in that direction. -It was disagreeable, because in the darkness flies -could not always be distinguished from huckleberries; -and I couldn’t help wishing, that, since we must have -the flies, we might at last have the light and air to -console us under them. People darken their rooms -and shut up every avenue of out-door enjoyment, and -sit and think of nothing but flies; in fact, flies are all -they have left. No wonder they become morbid on -the subject.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, now, papa talks just like a man, doesn’t -he?” said Jenny. “He hasn’t the responsibility of -keeping things clean. I wonder what he would do, -if he were a housekeeper.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do? I will tell you. I would do the best I -could. I would shut my eyes on fly-specks, and -open them on the beauties of Nature. I would let -the cheerful sun in all day long, in all but the few -summer days when coolness is the one thing needful: -those days may be soon numbered every year. I -would make a calculation in the spring how much it -would cost to hire a woman to keep my windows -and paint clean, and I would do with one less gown -and have her; and when I had spent all I could afford -on cleaning windows and paint, I would harden my -heart and turn off my eyes, and enjoy my sunshine, -and my fresh air, my breezes, and all that can be seen -through the picture-windows of an open, airy house, -and snap my fingers at the flies. There you have it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Papa’s hobby is sunshine,” said Marianne.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why shouldn’t it be? Was God mistaken, when -He made the sun? Did He make him for us to hold -a life’s battle with? Is that vital power which reddens -the cheek of the peach and pours sweetness through -the fruits and flowers of no use to us? Look at -plants that grow without sun,—wan, pale, long-visaged, -holding feeble, imploring hands of supplication -towards the light. Can human beings afford to throw -away a vitalizing force so pungent, so exhilarating? -You remember the experiment of a prison, where -one row of cells had daily sunshine, and the others -none. With the same regimen, the same cleanliness, -the same care, the inmates of the sunless cells were -visited with sickness and death in double measure. -Our whole population in New England are groaning -and suffering under afflictions, the result of a depressed -vitality,—neuralgia, with a new ache for every day -of the year, rheumatism, consumption, general debility; -for all these a thousand nostrums are daily -advertised, and money enough is spent on them to -equip an army, while we are fighting against, wasting, -and throwing away with both hands that blessed -influence which comes nearest to pure vitality of anything -God has given.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Who is it that the Bible describes as a sun, arising -with healing in his wings? Surely, that sunshine -which is the chosen type and image of His love must -be healing through all the recesses of our daily life, -drying damp and mould, defending from moth and -rust, sweetening ill smells, clearing from the nerves -the vapors of melancholy, making life cheery. If I -did not know Him, I should certainly adore and worship -the sun, the most blessed and beautiful image of -Him among things visible! In the land of Egypt, in -the day of God’s wrath, there was darkness, but in the -land of Goshen there was light. I am a Goshenite, -and mean to walk in the light, and forswear the works -of darkness. But to proceed with our reading.”</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>“Our house” shall be set on a southeast line, so -that there shall not be a sunless room in it, and windows -shall be so arranged that it can be traversed and -transpierced through and through with those bright -shafts of light which come straight from God.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Our house” shall not be blockaded with a dank, -dripping mass of shrubbery set plumb against the windows, -keeping out light and air. There shall be room -all round it for breezes to sweep, and sunshine to -sweeten and dry and vivify; and I would warn all -good souls who begin life by setting out two little evergreen-trees -within a foot of each of their front-windows, -that these trees will grow and increase till their front-rooms -will be brooded over by a sombre, stifling -shadow fit only for ravens to croak in.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One would think, by the way some people hasten to -convert a very narrow front-yard into a dismal jungle, -that the only danger of our New England climate was -sunstroke. Ah, in those drizzling months which form -at least one half of our life here, what sullen, censorious, -uncomfortable, unhealthy thoughts are bred of -living in dark, chilly rooms, behind such dripping -thickets? Our neighbors’ faults assume a deeper hue,—life -seems a dismal thing,—our very religion grows -mouldy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>My idea of a house is, that, as far as is consistent -with shelter and reasonable privacy, it should give you -on first entering an open, breezy, out-door freshness of -sensation. Every window should be a picture; sun -and trees and clouds and green grass should seem -never to be far from us. “Our house” may shade but -not darken us. “Our house” shall have bow-windows, -many, sunny, and airy,—not for the purpose of being -cleaned and shut up, but to be open and enjoyed. -There shall be long verandahs above and below, where -invalids may walk dry-shod, and enjoy open-air recreation -in wettest weather. In short, I will try to have -“our house” combine as far as possible the sunny, joyous, -fresh life of a gypsy in the fields and woods with -the quiet and neatness and comfort and shelter of a -roof, rooms, floors, and carpets.</p> - -<p class='c005'>After heavenly fire, I have a word to say of earthly, -artificial fires. Furnaces, whether of hot water, steam, -or hot air, are all healthy and admirable provisions for -warming our houses during the eight or nine months -of our year that we must have artificial heat, if only, -as I have said, fireplaces keep up a current of ventilation.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The kitchen-range with its water-back I humbly salute. -It is a great throbbing heart, and sends its warm -tides of cleansing, comforting fluid all through the -house. One could wish that this friendly dragon could -be in some way moderated in his appetite for coal,—he -does consume without mercy, it must be confessed,—but -then great is the work he has to do. At any -hour of day or night, in the most distant part of your -house, you have but to turn a stop-cock and your red -dragon sends you hot water for your needs; your -washing-day becomes a mere play-day; your pantry -has its ever-ready supply; and then, by a little judicious -care in arranging apartments and economizing -heat, a range may make two or three chambers comfortable -in winter weather. A range with a water-back -is among the <i>must-bes</i> in “our house.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then, as to the evening light,—I know nothing as -yet better than gas, where it can be had. I would -certainly not have a house without it. The great objection -to it is the danger of its escape through imperfect -fixtures. But it must not do this; a fluid that kills -a tree or a plant with one breath must certainly be a -dangerous ingredient in the atmosphere, and if admitted -into houses, must be introduced with every safeguard.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There are families living in the country who make -their own gas by a very simple process. This is worth -an inquiry from those who build. There are also contrivances -now advertised, with good testimonials, of -domestic machines for generating gas, said to be -perfectly safe, simple to be managed, and producing a -light superior to that of the city gas-works. This -also is worth an inquiry when “our house” is to be -in the country.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>And now I come to the next great vital element for -which “our house” must provide,—<span class='sc'>Water</span>. “Water, -water, everywhere,”—it must be plentiful, it must be -easy to get at, it must be pure. Our ancestors had -some excellent ideas in home-living and house-building. -Their houses were, generally speaking, very sensibly -contrived,—roomy, airy, and comfortable; but -in their water-arrangements they had little mercy or -womankind. The well was out in the yard; and in -winter one must flounder through snow and bring up -the ice-bound bucket, before one could fill the tea-kettle -for breakfast. For a sovereign princess of the -republic this was hardly respectful or respectable. -Wells have come somewhat nearer in modern times; -but the idea of a constant supply of fresh water by the -simple turning of a stop-cock has not yet visited the -great body of our houses. Were we free to build -“our house” just as we wish it, there should be a -bath-room to every two or three inmates, and the hot -and cold water should circulate to every chamber.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Among our <i>must-bes</i>, we would lay by a generous -sum for plumbing. Let us have our bath-rooms, and -our arrangements for cleanliness and health in kitchen -and pantry; and afterwards let the quality of our -lumber and the style of our finishings be according to -the sum we have left. The power to command a -warm bath in a house at any hour of day or night is -better in bringing up a family of children than any -amount of ready medicine. In three-quarters of -childish ailments the warm bath is an almost immediate -remedy. Bad colds, incipient fevers, rheumatisms, -convulsions, neuralgias innumerable, are -washed off in their first beginnings, and run down the -lead pipes into oblivion. Have, then, O friend, all -the water in your house that you can afford, and enlarge -your ideas of the worth of it, that you <i>may</i> afford -a great deal. A bathing-room is nothing to you that -requires an hour of lifting and fire-making to prepare -it for use. The apparatus is too cumbrous,—you do -not turn to it. But when your chamber opens upon -a neat, quiet little nook, and you have only to turn -your stop-cocks and all is ready, your remedy is at -hand, you use it constantly. You are waked in the -night by a scream, and find little Tom sitting up, wild -with burning fever. In three minutes he is in the -bath, quieted and comfortable; you get him back, -cooled and tranquil, to his little crib, and in the morning -he wakes as if nothing had happened.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Why should not so invaluable and simple a remedy -for disease, such a preservative of health, such a comfort, -such a stimulus, be considered as much a matter-of-course -in a house as a kitchen-chimney? At -least there should be one bath-room always in order, -so arranged that all the family can have access to it, -if one cannot afford the luxury of many.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A house in which water is universally and skilfully -distributed is so much easier to take care of as almost -to verify the saying of a friend, that his house was so -contrived that it did its own work: one had better do -without carpets on the floors, without stuffed sofas and -rocking-chairs, and secure this.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, papa,” said Marianne, “you have made out -all your four elements in your house, except one. I -can’t imagine what you want of <i>earth</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I thought,” said Jenny, “that the less of our common -mother we had in our houses, the better housekeepers -we were.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dears,” said I, “we philosophers must give -an occasional dip into the mystical, and say something -apparently absurd for the purpose of explaining that -we mean nothing in particular by it. It gives common -people an idea of our sagacity, to find how clear -we come out of our apparent contradictions and absurdities. -Listen.”</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>For the fourth requisite of “our house,” <span class='sc'>Earth</span>, let -me point you to your mother’s plant-window, and beg -you to remember the fact that through our long, dreary -winters we are never a month without flowers, and the -vivid interest which always attaches to growing things. -The perfect house, as I conceive it, is to combine as -many of the advantages of living out of doors as may -be consistent with warmth and shelter, and one of -these is the sympathy with green and growing things. -Plants are nearer in their relations to human health -and vigor than is often imagined. The cheerfulness -that well-kept plants impart to a room comes not -merely from gratification of the eye,—there is a -healthful exhalation from them, they are a corrective -of the impurities of the atmosphere. Plants, too, are -valuable as tests of the vitality of the atmosphere; -their drooping and failure convey to us information -that something is amiss with it. A lady once told me -that she could never raise plants in her parlors on -account of the gas and anthracite coal. I answered, -“Are you not afraid to live and bring up your children -in an atmosphere which blights your plants?” If the -gas escapes from the pipes, and the red-hot anthracite -coal or the red-hot air-tight stove burns out all the -vital part of the air, so that healthy plants in a few -days wither and begin to drop their leaves, it is a sign -that the air must be looked to and reformed. It is a -fatal augury for a room that plants cannot be made -to thrive in it. Plants should not turn pale, be long-jointed, -long-leaved, and spindling; and where they -grow in this way, we may be certain that there is a -want of vitality for human beings. But where plants -appear as they do in the open air, with vigorous, stocky -growth, and short-stemmed, deep-green leaves, we may -believe the conditions of that atmosphere are healthy -for human lungs.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It is pleasant to see how the custom of plant-growing -has spread through our country. In how many -farm-house windows do we see petunias and nasturtiums -vivid with bloom while snows are whirling without, -and how much brightness have those cheap enjoyments -shed on the lives of those who cared for -them! We do not believe there is a human being -who would not become a passionate lover of plants, -if circumstances once made it imperative to tend upon -and watch the growth of one. The history of Picciola -for substance has been lived over and over by many -a man and woman who once did not know that there -was a particle of plant-love in their souls. But to the -proper care of plants in pots there are many hindrances -and drawbacks. The dust chokes the little -pores of their green lungs, and they require constant -showering; and to carry all one’s plants to a sink or -porch for this purpose is a labor which many will not -endure. Consequently plants often do not get a showering -once a month! We should try to imitate more -closely the action of Mother Nature, who washes -every green child of hers nightly with dews, which lie -glittering on its leaves till morning.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, there it is!” said Jenny. “I think I could -manage with plants, if it were not for this eternal -showering and washing they seem to require to keep -them fresh. They are always tempting one to spatter -the carpet and surrounding furniture, which are not -equally benefited by the libation.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is partly for that very reason,” I replied, “that -the plan of ‘our house’ provides for the introduction -of Mother Earth, as you will see.”</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>A perfect house, according to my idea, should always -include in it a little compartment where plants -can be kept, can be watered, can be defended from -the dust, and have the sunshine and all the conditions -of growth.</p> - -<p class='c005'>People have generally supposed a conservatory to -be one of the last trappings of wealth,—something -not to be thought of for those in modest circumstances. -But is this so? You have a bow-window in your parlor. -Leave out the flooring, fill the space with rich -earth, close it from the parlor by glass doors, and you -have room for enough plants and flowers to keep you -gay and happy all winter. If on the south side, where -the sunbeams have power, it requires no heat but that -which warms the parlor; and the comfort of it is incalculable, -and the expense a mere trifle greater than -that of the bow-window alone.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In larger houses a larger space might be appropriated -in this way. We will not call it a conservatory, -because that name suggests ideas of gardeners, -and mysteries of culture and rare plants, which -bring all sorts of care and expense in their train. -We would rather call it a greenery, a room floored -with earth, with glass sides to admit the sun,—and -let it open on as many other rooms of the house as -possible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Why should not the dining-room and parlor be all -winter connected by a spot of green and flowers, with -plants, mosses, and ferns for the shadowy portions, -and such simple blooms as petunias and nasturtiums -garlanding the sunny portion near the windows? -If near the water-works, this greenery might be enlivened -by the play of a fountain, whose constant -spray would give that softness to the air which is -so often burned away by the dry heat of the furnace.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>“And do you really think, papa, that houses built -in this way are a practical result to be aimed at?” -said Jenny. “To me it seems like a dream of the -Alhambra.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yet I happen to have seen real people in our day -living in just such a house,” said I. “I could point -you, this very hour, to a cottage, which in style of -building is the plainest possible, which unites many -of the best ideas of a true house. My dear, can -you sketch the ground plan of that house we saw in -Brighton?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Here it is,” said my wife, after a few dashes with -her pencil,—“an inexpensive house, yet one of the -pleasantest I ever saw.”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i303.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p><i>c</i>, China-closet. <i>p</i>, Passage. <i>d</i>,<br />Kitchen-closet.</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“This cottage, which might, at the rate of prices -before the war, have been built for five thousand dollars, -has many of the requirements which I seek for -a house. It has two stories, and a tier of very pleasant -attic-rooms, two bathing-rooms, and the water -carried into each story. The parlor and dining-room -both look into a little bower, where a fountain is ever -playing into a little marble basin, and which all the -year through has its green and bloom. It is heated -simply from the furnace by a register, like any other -room of the house, and requires no more care than a -delicate woman could easily give. The brightness and -cheerfulness it brings during our long, dreary winters is -incredible.”</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>But one caution is necessary in all such appendages. -The earth must be thoroughly underdrained to prevent -the vapors of stagnant water, and have a large admixture -of broken charcoal to obviate the consequences -of vegetable decomposition. Great care must be taken -that there be no leaves left to fall and decay on the -ground, since vegetable exhalations poison the air. -With these precautions such a plot will soften and -purify the air of a house.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Where the means do not allow even so small a conservatory, -a recessed window might be fitted with a -deep box, which should have a drain-pipe at the bottom, -and a thick layer of broken charcoal and gravel, -with a mixture of fine wood-soil and sand, for the top -stratum. Here ivies may be planted, which will run -and twine and strike their little tendrils here and there, -and give the room in time the aspect of a bower; the -various greenhouse nasturtiums will make winter gorgeous -with blossoms. In windows unblest by sunshine—and, -alas, such are many!—one can cultivate -ferns and mosses; the winter-growing ferns, of which -there are many varieties, can be mixed with mosses -and woodland flowers.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Early in February, when the cheerless frosts of winter -seem most wearisome, the common blue violet, wood-anemone, -hepatica, or rock-columbine, if planted in -this way, will begin to bloom. The common partridge-berry, -with its brilliant scarlet fruit and dark green -leaves, will also grow finely in such situations, and -have a beautiful effect. These things require daily -showering to keep them fresh, and the moisture arising -from them will soften and freshen the too dry air -of heated winter rooms.</p> - -<hr class='c014' /> - -<p class='c005'>Thus I have been through my four essential elements -in house-building,—air, fire, water, and earth. -I would provide for these before anything else. After -they are secured, I would gratify my taste and fancy -as far as possible in other ways. I quite agree with -Bob in hating commonplace houses, and longing for -some little bit of architectural effect; and I grieve -profoundly that every step in that direction must -cost so much. I have also a taste for niceness of -finish. I have no objection to silver-plated door-locks -and hinges, none to windows which are an -entire plate of clear glass. I congratulate neighbors -who are so fortunate as to be able to get them; and -after I have put all the essentials into a house, I would -have these too, if I had the means.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But if all my wood-work were to be without groove -or moulding, if my mantels were to be of simple wood, -if my doors were all to be machine-made, and my -lumber of the second quality, I would have my bath-rooms, -my conservatory, my sunny bow-windows, and -my perfect ventilation; and my house would then -be so pleasant, and every one in it in such a cheerful -mood, that it would verily seem to be ceiled with -cedar.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Speaking of ceiling with cedar, I have one thing -more to say. We Americans have a country abounding -in beautiful timber, of whose beauties we know -nothing, on account of the pernicious and stupid habit -of covering it with white paint.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The celebrated zebra-wood with its golden stripes -cannot exceed in quaint beauty the grain of unpainted -chestnut, prepared simply with a coat or two of oil. -The butternut has a rich golden brown, the very darling -color of painters,—a shade so rich, and grain so -beautiful, that it is of itself as charming to look at as -a rich picture. The black-walnut, with its heavy depth -of tone, works in well as an adjunct; and as to oak, -what can we say enough of its quaint and many shadings? -Even common pine, which has been considered -not decent to look upon till hastily shrouded -in a friendly blanket of white paint, has, when oiled -and varnished, the beauty of satin-wood. The second -quality of pine, which has what are called <i>shakes</i> in it, -under this mode of treatment often shows clouds and -veins equal in beauty to the choicest woods. The -cost of such a finish is greatly less than that of the old -method; and it saves those days and weeks of cleaning -which are demanded by white paint, while its general -tone is softer and more harmonious. Experiments in -color may be tried in the combination of these woods, -which at small expense produce the most charming -effects.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As to paper-hangings, we are proud to say that our -American manufacturers now furnish all that can be -desired. There are some branches of design where -artistic, ingenious France must still excel us; but -whoso has a house to fit up, let him first look at -what his own country has to show, and he will be -astonished.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There is one topic in house-building on which I -would add a few words. The difficulty of procuring -and keeping good servants, which must long be one -of our chief domestic troubles, warns us so to arrange -our houses that we shall need as few as possible. -There is the greatest conceivable difference in the -planning and building of houses as to the amount of -work which will be necessary to keep them in respectable -condition. Some houses require a perfect staff -of house-maids;—there are plated hinges to be -rubbed, paint to be cleaned, with intricacies of moulding -and carving which daily consume hours of dusting -to preserve them from a slovenly look. Simple -finish, unpainted wood, a general distribution of water -through the dwelling, will enable a very large house to -be cared for by one pair of hands, and yet maintain -a creditable appearance.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In kitchens one servant may perform the work of -two by a close packing of all the conveniences for -cooking and such arrangements as shall save time and -steps. Washing-day may be divested of its terrors by -suitable provisions for water, hot and cold, by wringers, -which save at once the strength of the linen and -of the laundress, and by drying-closets connected with -ranges, where articles can in a few moments be perfectly -dried. These, with the use of a small mangle, -such as is now common in America, reduce the labors -of the laundry one half.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There are many more things which might be said -of “our house,” and Christopher may, perhaps, find -some other opportunity to say them. For the present -his pen is tired and ceaseth.</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ch12' class='c007'>XII.<br /> <br />HOME RELIGION.</h2> -</div> -<p class='drop-capa0_3_0_675 c011'>IT was Sunday evening, and our little circle were -convened by my study-fireside, where a crackling -hickory fire proclaimed the fall of the year to be -coming on, and cold weather impending. Sunday -evenings, my married boys and girls are fond of coming -home and gathering round the old hearthstone, -and “making believe” that they are children again. -We get out the old-fashioned music-books, and sing -old hymns to very old tunes, and my wife and her -matron daughters talk about the babies in the intervals; -and we discourse of the sermon, and of the -choir, and all the general outworks of good pious -things which Sunday suggests.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Papa,” said Marianne, “you are closing up your -House and Home Papers, are you not?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,—I am come to the last one, for this year -at least.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear,” said my wife, “there is one subject -you haven’t touched on yet; you ought not to close -the year without it; no house and home can be complete -without Religion: you should write a paper on -Home Religion.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>My wife, as you may have seen in these papers, -is an old-fashioned woman, something of a conservative. -I am, I confess, rather given to progress and -speculation; but I feel always as if I were going on -in these ways with a string round my waist, and my -wife’s hand steadily pulling me back into the old -paths. My wife is a steady, Bible-reading, Sabbath-keeping -woman, cherishing the memory of her fathers, -and loving to do as they did,—believing, for the most -part, that the paths well beaten by righteous feet are -safest, even though much walking therein has worn -away the grass and flowers. Nevertheless, she has an -indulgent ear for all that gives promise of bettering -anybody or anything, and therefore is not severe on -any new methods that may arise in our progressive -days of accomplishing old good objects.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There must be a home religion,” said my wife.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I believe in home religion,” said Bob Stephens,—“but -not in the outward show of it. The best sort -of religion is that which one keeps at the bottom of -his heart, and which goes up thence quietly through -all his actions, and not the kind that comes through -a certain routine of forms and ceremonies. Do you -suppose family prayers, now, and a blessing at meals, -make people any better?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Depend upon it, Robert,” said my wife,—she -always calls him Robert on Sunday evenings,—“depend -upon it, we are not so very much wiser than our -fathers were, that we need depart from their good old -ways. Of course I would have religion in the heart, -and spreading quietly through the life; but does this -interfere with those outward, daily acts of respect and -duty which we owe to our Creator? It is too much -the slang of our day to decry forms, and to exalt -the excellency of the spirit in opposition to them; but -tell me, are you satisfied with friendship that has none -of the outward forms of friendship, or love that has -none of the outward forms of love? Are you satisfied -of the existence of a sentiment that has no outward -mode of expression? Even the old heathen had their -pieties; they would not begin a feast without a libation -to their divinities, and there was a shrine in every -well-regulated house for household gods.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The trouble with all these things,” said Bob, “is -that they get to be mere forms. I never could see -that family worship amounted to much more in most -families.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The outward expression of all good things is apt -to degenerate into mere form,” said I. “The outward -expression of social good feeling becomes a mere -form; but for that reason must we meet each other like -oxen? not say, ‘Good morning,’ or ‘Good evening,’ -or ‘I am happy to see you’? Must we never use -any of the forms of mutual good-will, except in those -moments when we are excited by a real, present emotion? -What would become of society? Forms are, -so to speak, a daguerrotype of a past good feeling, -meant to take and keep the impression of it when it -is gone. Our best and most inspired moments are -crystallized in them; and even when the spirit that -created them is gone, they help to bring it back. -Every one must be conscious that the use of the -forms of social benevolence, even towards those who -are personally unpleasant to us, tends to ameliorate -prejudices. We see a man entering our door who is a -weary bore, but we use with him those forms of civility -which society prescribes, and feel far kinder to -him than if we had shut the door in his face, and said, -‘Go along, you tiresome fellow!’ Now why does -not this very obvious philosophy apply to better and -higher feelings? The forms of religion are as much -more necessary than the forms of politeness and social -good-will as religion is more important than all other -things.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Besides,” said my wife, “a form of worship, kept -up from year to year in a family,—the assembling -of parents and children for a few sacred moments -each day, though it may be a form many times, -especially in the gay and thoughtless hours of life,—often -becomes invested with deep sacredness in times -of trouble, or in those crises that rouse our deeper -feelings. In sickness, in bereavement, in separation, -the daily prayer at home has a sacred and healing -power. Then we remember the scattered and wandering -ones; and the scattered and wandering think -tenderly of that hour when they know they are remembered. -I know, when I was a young girl, I was often -thoughtless and careless about family-prayers; but -now that my father and mother are gone forever, -there is nothing I recall more often. I remember the -great old Family Bible, the hymn-book, the chair where -father used to sit. I see him as he looked bending -over that Bible more than in any other way; and -expressions and sentences in his prayers which fell -unheeded on my ears in those days have often come -back to me like comforting angels. We are not aware -of the influence things are having on us till we have -left them far behind in years. When we have summered -and wintered them, and look back on them from -changed times and other days, we find that they were -making their mark upon us, though we knew it not.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I have often admired,” said I, “the stateliness -and regularity of family worship in good old families -in England,—the servants, guests, and children all -assembled,—the reading of the Scriptures and the -daily prayers by the master or mistress of the family, -ending with the united repetition of the Lord’s Prayer -by all.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No such assemblage is possible in our country,” -said Bob. “Our servants are for the most part Roman -Catholics, and forbidden by their religion to join -with us in acts of worship.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The greater the pity,” said I. “It is a pity that -all Christians who can conscientiously repeat the -Apostles’ Creed and the Lord’s Prayer together should -for any reason be forbidden to do so. It would do -more to harmonize our families, and promote good -feeling between masters and servants, to meet once a -day on the religious ground common to both, than -many sermons on reciprocal duties.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But while the case is so,” said Marianne, “we -can’t help it. Our servants cannot unite with us; our -daily prayers are something forbidden to them.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We cannot in this country,” said I, “give to family -prayer that solemn stateliness which it has in a -country where religion is a civil institution, and masters -and servants, as a matter of course, belong to -one church. Our prayers must resemble more a private -interview with a father than a solemn act of -homage to a king. They must be more intimate -and domestic. The hour of family devotion should -be the children’s hour,—held dear as the interval -when the busy father drops his business and cares, -and, like Jesus of old, takes the little ones in his -arms and blesses them. The child should remember -it as the time when the father always seemed most -accessible and loving. The old family worship of -New England lacked this character of domesticity and -intimacy,—it was stately and formal, distant and -cold; but whatever were its defects, I cannot think -it an improvement to leave it out altogether, as too -many good sort of people in our day are doing. There -may be practical religion where its outward daily -forms are omitted, but there is assuredly no more of it -for the omission. No man loves God and his neighbor -<i>less</i>, is a <i>less</i> honest and good man, for daily prayers -in his household,—the chances are quite the other -way; and if the spirit of love rules the family hour, -it may prove the source and spring of all that is -good through the day. It seems to be a solemn duty -in the parents thus to make the Invisible Fatherhood -real to their children, who can receive this idea -at first only through outward forms and observances. -The little one thus learns that his father has a Father -in heaven, and that the earthly life he is living is only -a sacrament and emblem,—a type of the eternal -life which infolds it, and of more lasting relations there. -Whether, therefore, it be the silent grace and silent -prayer of the Friends, or the form of prayer of ritual -churches, or the extemporaneous outpouring of those -whose habits and taste lead them to extempore prayer,—in -one of these ways there should be daily outward -and visible acts of worship in every family.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, now,” said Bob, “about this old question -of Sunday-keeping, Marianne and I are much divided. -I am always for doing something that she thinks isn’t -the thing.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, you see,” said Marianne, “Bob is always -talking against our old Puritan fathers, and saying all -manner of hard things about them. He seems to -think that all their ways and doings must of course -have been absurd. For my part, I don’t think we are -in any danger of being too strict about anything. It -appears to me that in this country there is a general -tendency to let all sorts of old forms and observances -float down-stream, and yet nobody seems quite to have -made up his mind what shall come next.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The fact is,” said I, “that we realize very fully -all the objections and difficulties of the experiments -in living that we have tried; but the difficulties in -others that we are intending to try have not yet -come to light. The Puritan Sabbath had great and -very obvious evils. Its wearisome restraints and over-strictness -cast a gloom on religion, and arrayed against -the day itself the active prejudices that now are undermining -it and threatening its extinction. But it had -great merits and virtues, and produced effects on -society that we cannot well afford to dispense with. -The clearing of a whole day from all possibilities of -labor and amusement necessarily produced a grave -and thoughtful people; and a democratic republic -can be carried on by no other. In lands which have -Sabbaths of mere amusement, mere gala-days, republics -rise and fall as fast as children’s card-houses; -and the reason is, they are built by those whose political -and religious education has been childish. The -common people of Europe have been sedulously nursed -on amusements by the reigning powers, to keep them -from meddling with serious matters; their religion has -been sensuous and sentimental, and their Sabbaths -thoughtless holidays. The common people of New -England are educated to think, to reason, to examine -all questions of politics and religion for themselves; -and one deeply thoughtful day every week baptizes -and strengthens their reflective and reasoning faculties. -The Sunday schools of Paris are whirligigs -where Young France rides round and round on little -hobby-horses till his brain spins even faster than Nature -made it to spin; and when he grows up, his political -experiments are as whirligig as his Sunday education. -If I were to choose between the Sabbath of -France and the old Puritan Sabbath, I should hold -up both hands for the latter, with all its objectionable -features.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said my wife, “cannot we contrive to retain -all that is really valuable of the Sabbath, and to -ameliorate and smooth away what is forbidding?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That is the problem of our day,” said I. “We do -not want the Sabbath of Continental Europe: it does -not suit democratic institutions; it cannot be made -even a quiet or a safe day, except by means of that ever-present -armed police that exists there. If the Sabbath -of America is simply to be a universal loafing, picnicking, -dining-out day, as it is now with all our foreign -population, we shall need what they have in Europe, -the gendarmes at every turn, to protect the fruit on our -trees and the melons in our fields. People who live -a little out from great cities see enough, and more than -enough, of this sort of Sabbath-keeping, with our loose -American police.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The fact is, our system of government was organized -to go by moral influences as much as mills by -water, and Sunday was the great day for concentrating -these influences and bringing them to bear; and -we might just as well break down all the dams and let -out all the water of the Lowell mills, and expect still -to work the looms, as to expect to work our laws and -constitution with European notions of religion.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is true the Puritan Sabbath had its disagreeable -points. So have the laws of Nature. They are of a -most uncomfortable sternness and rigidity; yet for all -that, we would hardly join in a petition to have them -repealed, or made wavering and uncertain for human -convenience. We can bend to them in a thousand -ways, and live very comfortably under them.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But,” said Bob, “Sabbath-keeping is the iron rod -of bigots; they don’t allow a man any liberty of his -own. One says it’s wicked to write a letter Sunday; -another holds that you must read no book but -the Bible; and a third is scandalized, if you take a -walk, ever so quietly, in the fields. There are all sorts -of quips and turns. We may fasten things with pins -of a Sunday, but it’s wicked to fasten with needle and -thread, and so on, and so on; and each one, planting -himself on his own individual mode of keeping Sunday, -points his guns and frowns severely over the battlements -on his neighbors whose opinions and practice -are different from his.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yet,” said I, “Sabbath-days are expressly mentioned -by Saint Paul as among those things concerning -which no man should judge another. It seems -to me that the error as regards the Puritan Sabbath -was in representing it, not as a gift from God to man, -but as a tribute of man to God. Hence all these hagglings -and nice questions and exactions to the uttermost -farthing. The holy time must be weighed and -measured. It must begin at twelve o’clock of one -night, and end at twelve o’clock of another; and -from beginning to end, the mind must be kept in a -state of tension by the effort not to think any of its -usual thoughts or do any of its usual works. The fact -is, that the metaphysical, defining, hair-splitting mind -of New England, turning its whole powers on this -one bit of ritual, this one only day of divine service, -which was left of all the feasts and fasts of the old -churches, made of it a thing straighter and stricter than -ever the old Jews dreamed of.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The old Jewish Sabbath entered only into the -physical region, merely enjoining cessation from physical -toil. ‘Thou shalt not <i>labor</i> nor do any <i>work</i>,’ covered -the whole ground. In other respects than this it -was a joyful festival, resembling, in the mode of keeping -it, the Christmas of the modern Church. It was -a day of social hilarity,—the Jewish law strictly forbidding -mourning and gloom during festivals. The -people were commanded on feast-days to rejoice -before the Lord their God with all their might. We -fancy there were no houses where children were afraid -to laugh, where the voice of social cheerfulness quavered -away in terror lest it should awake a wrathful -God. The Jewish Sabbath was instituted, in the absence -of printing, of books, and of all the advantages -of literature, to be the great means of preserving -sacred history,—a day cleared from all possibility -of other employment than social and family -communion, when the heads of families and the elders -of tribes might instruct the young in those religious -traditions which have thus come down to us.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The Christian Sabbath is meant to supply the -same moral need in that improved and higher state of -society which Christianity introduced. Thus it was -changed from the day representing the creation of -the world to the resurrection-day of Him who came -to make all things new. The Jewish Sabbath was -buried with Christ in the sepulchre, and arose with -Him, not a Jewish, but a Christian festival, still holding -in itself that provision for man’s needs which the -old institution possessed, but with a wider and more -generous freedom of application. It was given to the -Christian world as a day of rest, of refreshment, of -hope and joy,—and of worship. The manner of -making it such a day was left open and free to the -needs and convenience of the varying circumstances -and characters of those for whose benefit it was instituted.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said Bob, “don’t you think there is a deal -of nonsense about Sabbath-keeping?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There is a deal of nonsense about everything -human beings have to deal with,” said I.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And,” said Marianne, “how to find out what is -nonsense?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“By clear conceptions,” said I, “of what the day -is for. I should define the Sabbath as a divine and -fatherly gift to man,—a day expressly set apart for -the cultivation of his moral nature. Its object is not -merely physical rest and recreation, but moral improvement. -The former are proper to the day only -so far as they are subservient to the latter. The -whole human race have the conscious need of being -made better, purer, and more spiritual; the whole -human race have one common danger of sinking to a -mere animal life under the pressure of labor or in the -dissipations of pleasure; and of the whole human race -the proverb holds good, that what may be done any -time is done at no time. Hence the Heavenly Father -appoints one day as a special season for the culture of -man’s highest faculties. Accordingly, whatever ways -and practices interfere with the purpose of the Sabbath -as a day of worship and moral culture should -be avoided; and all family arrangements for the day -should be made with reference thereto.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Cold dinners on Sunday, for example,” said Bob. -“Marianne holds these as prime articles of faith.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,—they doubtless are most worthy and merciful, -in giving to the poor cook one day she may call -her own, and rest from the heat of range and cooking-stove. -For the same reason, I would suspend as far as -possible all travelling, and all public labor, on Sunday. -The hundreds of hands that these things require to -carry them on are the hands of human beings, whose -right to this merciful pause of rest is as clear as their -humanity. Let them have their day to look upward.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But the little ones,” said my oldest matron daughter, -who had not as yet spoken,—“they are the problem. -Oh, this weary labor of making children keep -Sunday! If I try it, I have no rest at all myself. If -I must talk to them or read to them to keep them -from play, my Sabbath becomes my hardest working-day.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And, pray, what commandment of the Bible ever -said children should not play on Sunday?” said I. -“We are forbidden to work, and we see the reason -why; but lambs frisk and robins sing on Sunday; -and little children, who are as yet more than half -animals, must not be made to keep the day in the -manner proper to our more developed faculties. As -much cheerful, attractive religious instruction as they -can bear without weariness may be given, and then -they may simply be restrained from disturbing others. -Say to the little one,—‘This day we have noble and -beautiful things to think of that interest us deeply; -you are a child; you cannot read and think and enjoy -such things as much as we can; you may play softly -and quietly, and remember not to make a disturbance.’ -I would take a child to public worship at least once of -a Sunday; it forms a good habit in him. If the sermon -be long and unintelligible, there are the little -Sabbath-school books in every child’s hands; and while -the grown people are getting what they understand, -who shall forbid a child’s getting what is suited to -him in a way that interests him and disturbs nobody? -The Sabbath school is the child’s church; and happily -it is yearly becoming a more and more attractive institution. -I approve the custom of those who beautify -the Sabbath school-room with plants, flowers, and -pictures, thus making it an attractive place to the -childish eye. The more this custom prevails, the -more charming in after years will be the memories -of Sunday.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is most especially to be desired that the whole -air and aspect of the day should be one of cheerfulness. -Even the new dresses, new bonnets, and -new shoes, in which children delight of a Sunday, -should not be despised. They have their value in -marking the day as a festival; and it is better for -the child to long for Sunday for the sake of his little -new shoes than that he should hate and dread it as -a period of wearisome restraint. All the latitude -should be given to children that can be, consistently -with fixing in their minds the idea of a sacred season. -I would rather that the atmosphere of the day -should resemble that of a weekly Thanksgiving than -that it should make its mark on the tender mind -only by the memory of deprivations and restrictions.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said Bob, “here’s Marianne always breaking -her heart about my reading on Sunday. Now I -hold that what is bad on Sunday is bad on Monday,—and -what is good on Monday is good on Sunday.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We cannot abridge other people’s liberty,” said I. -“The generous, confiding spirit of Christianity has -imposed not a single restriction upon us in reference -to Sunday. The day is put at our disposal as a good -Father hands a piece of money to his child:—‘There -it is; take it and spend it well.’ The child knows -from his father’s character what he means by spending -it well; but he is left free to use his own judgment -as to the mode.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If a man conscientiously feels that reading of this -or that description is the best for him as regards his -moral training and improvement, let him pursue it, -and let no man judge him. It is difficult, with the -varying temperaments of men, to decide what are or -are not religious books. One man is more religiously -impressed by the reading of history or astronomy than -he would be by reading a sermon. There may be -overwrought and wearied states of the brain and -nerves which require and make proper the diversions -of light literature; and if so, let it be used. The -mind must have its recreations as well as the body.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But for children and young people,” said my -daughter,—“would you let them read novels on -Sunday?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That is exactly like asking, Would you let them -talk with people on Sunday? Now people are different; -it depends, therefore, on who they are. Some -are trifling and flighty, some are positively bad-principled, -some are altogether good in their influence. -So of the class of books called novels. Some are -merely frivolous, some are absolutely noxious and -dangerous, others again are written with a strong -moral and religious purpose, and, being vivid and -interesting, produce far more religious effect on the -mind than dull treatises and sermons. The parables -of Christ sufficiently establish the point that there is -no inherent objection to the use of fiction in teaching -religious truth. Good religious fiction, thoughtfully -read, may be quite as profitable as any other reading.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But don’t you think,” said Marianne, “that there -is danger in too much fiction?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” said I. “But the chief danger of all that -class of reading is its <i>easiness</i>, and the indolent, careless -mental habits it induces. A great deal of the reading -of young people on all days is really reading to no -purpose, its object being merely present amusement. -It is a listless yielding of the mind to be washed over -by a stream which leaves no fertilizing properties, and -carries away by constant wear the good soil of thought -I should try to establish a barrier against this kind of -reading, not only on Sunday, but on Monday, on Tuesday, -and on all days. Instead, therefore, of objecting -to any particular class of books for Sunday reading, -I should say in general, that reading merely for -pastime, without any moral aim, is the thing to be -guarded against. That which inspires no thought, -no purpose, which steals away all our strength and -energy, and makes the Sabbath a day of dreams, is -the reading I would object to.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“So of music. I do not see the propriety of -confining one’s self to technical sacred music. Any -grave, solemn, thoughtful, or pathetic music has a -proper relation to our higher spiritual nature, whether -it be printed in a church service-book or on secular -sheets. On me, for example, Beethoven’s Sonatas -have a far more deeply religious influence than much -that has religious names and words. Music is to be -judged of by its effects.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” said Bob, “if Sunday is given for our own -individual improvement, I for one should not go to -church. I think I get a great deal more good in staying -at home and reading.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There are two considerations to be taken into -account in reference to this matter of church-going,” -I replied. “One relates to our duty as members of -society in keeping up the influence of the Sabbath, -and causing it to be respected in the community; the -other, to the proper disposition of our time for our -own moral improvement. As members of the community, -we should go to church, and do all in our -power to support the outward ordinances of religion. -If a conscientious man makes up his mind that Sunday -is a day for outward acts of worship and reverence, -he should do his own part as an individual -towards sustaining these observances. Even though -he may have such mental and moral resources that -as an individual he could gain much more in solitude -than in a congregation, still he owes to the congregation -the influence of his presence and sympathy. -But I have never yet seen the man, however finely -gifted morally and intellectually, whom I thought in -the long run a gainer in either of these respects by -the neglect of public worship. I have seen many -who in their pride kept aloof from the sympathies -and communion of their brethren, who lost strength -morally, and deteriorated in ways that made themselves -painfully felt. Sunday is apt in such cases to -degenerate into a day of mere mental idleness and -reverie, or to become a sort of waste-paper box for -scraps, odds and ends of secular affairs.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“As to those very good people—and many such -there are—who go straight on with the work of life on -Sunday, on the plea that “to labor is to pray,” I simply -think they are mistaken. In the first place, to -labor is <i>not</i> the same thing as to pray. It may sometimes -be as good a thing to do, and in some cases -even a better thing; but it is not the same thing. A -man might as well never write a letter to his wife on -the plea that making money for her is writing to her. -It may possibly be quite as great a proof of love to -work for a wife as to write to her, but few wives would -not say that both were not better than either alone. -Furthermore, there is no doubt that the intervention -of one day of spiritual rest and aspiration so refreshes -a man’s whole nature, and oils the many wheels of -existence, that he who allows himself a weekly Sabbath -does more work in the course of his life for the -omission of work on that day.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“A young student in a French college, where the -examinations are rigidly severe, found by experience -that he succeeded best in his examination by -allowing one day of entire rest just before it. His -brain and nervous system refreshed in this way carried -him through the work better than if taxed to the -last moment. There are men transacting a large -and complicated business who can testify to the same -influence from the repose of the Sabbath.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I believe those Christian people who from conscience -and principle turn their thoughts most entirely -out of the current of worldly cares on Sunday fulfil -unconsciously a great law of health; and that, whether -their moral nature be thereby advanced or not, their -brain will work more healthfully and actively for it -even in physical and worldly matters. It is because -the Sabbath thus harmonizes the physical and moral -laws of our being, that the injunction concerning it is -placed among the ten great commandments, each of -which represents some one of the immutable needs of -humanity.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There is yet another point of family religion that -ought to be thought of,” said my wife: “I mean the -customs of mourning. If there is anything that ought -to distinguish Christian families from Pagans, it should -be their way of looking at and meeting those inevitable -events that must from time to time break the -family chain. It seems to be the peculiarity of Christianity -to shed hope on such events. And yet it -seems to me as if it were the very intention of many -of the customs of society to add tenfold to their gloom -and horror,—such swathings of black crape, such -funereal mufflings of every pleasant object, such darkening -of rooms, and such seclusion from society and -giving up to bitter thoughts and lamentation. How -can little children that look on such things believe -that there is a particle of truth in all they hear about -the joyous and comforting doctrines which the Bible -holds forth for such times?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That subject is a difficult one,” I rejoined. “Nature -seems to indicate a propriety in some outward -expressions of grief when we lose our friends. All -nations agree in these demonstrations. In a certain -degree they are soothing to sorrow; they are the -language of external life made to correspond to the -internal. Wearing mourning has its advantages. It -is a protection to the feelings of the wearer, for -whom it procures sympathetic and tender consideration; -it saves grief from many a hard jostle in the -ways of life; it prevents the necessity of many a trying -explanation, and is the ready apology for many -an omission of those tasks to which sorrow is unequal. -For all these reasons I never could join the crusade -which some seem disposed to wage against it. -Mourning, however, ought not to be continued for -years. Its uses are more for the first few months -of sorrow, when it serves the mourner as a safeguard -from intrusion, insuring quiet and leisure, in which -to reunite the broken threads of life, and to gather -strength for a return to its duties. But to wear -mourning garments and forego society for two or three -years after the loss of any friend, however dear, I -cannot but regard as a morbid, unhealthy nursing of -sorrow, unworthy of a Christian.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And yet,” said my wife, “to such an unhealthy -degree does this custom prevail, that I have actually -known young girls who have never worn any other -dress than mourning, and consequently never been -into society, during the entire period of their girlhood. -First, the death of a father necessitated three years -of funereal garments and abandonment of social relations; -then the death of a brother added two years -more; and before that mourning was well ended, another -of a wide circle of relatives being taken, the -habitual seclusion was still protracted. What must a -child think of the Christian doctrine of life and death, -who has never seen life except through black crape? -We profess to believe in a better life to which the -departed good are called,—to believe in the shortness -of our separation, the certainty of reunion, and that -all these events are arranged in all their relations by -an infinite tenderness which cannot err. Surely, Christian -funerals too often seem to say that affliction -“cometh of the dust,” and not from above.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But,” said Bob, “after all, death is a horror; you -can make nothing less of it. You can’t smooth it -over, nor dress it with flowers; it is what Nature shudders -at.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is precisely for this reason,” said I, “that Christians -should avoid those customs which aggravate -and intensify this natural dread. Why overpower the -senses with doleful and funereal images in the hour of -weakness and bereavement, when the soul needs all -her force to rise above the gloom of earth, and -to realize the mysteries of faith? Why shut the -friendly sunshine from the mourner’s room? Why -muffle in a white shroud every picture that speaks a -cheerful household word to the eye? Why make a -house look stiff and ghastly and cold as a corpse? In -some of our cities, on the occurrence of a death in -the family, all the shutters on the street are closed -and tied with black crape, and so remain for months. -What an oppressive gloom must this bring on a house! -how like the very shadow of death! It is enlisting the -nerves and the senses against our religion, and making -more difficult the great duty of returning to life and -its interests. I would have flowers and sunshine in -the deserted rooms, and make them symbolical of -the cheerful mansions above, to which our beloved -ones are gone. Home ought to be so religiously -cheerful, so penetrated by the life of love and hope -and Christian faith, that the other world may be -made real by it. Our home life should be a type -of the higher life. Our home should be so sanctified, -its joys and its sorrows so baptized and hallowed, -that it shall not be sacrilegious to think -of heaven as a higher form of the same thing,—a -Father’s house in the better country, whose mansions -are many, whose love is perfect, whose joy is -eternal.”</p> -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div><span class="blackletter"><span class='large'>Standard and Popular Library Books</span></span></div> - <div class='c000'>SELECTED FROM THE CATALOGUE OF</div> - <div class='c000'><span class='large'>HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY.</span></div> - <div class='c000'>─────</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'><b>Brooks Adams.</b> The Emancipation of Massachusetts, crown -8vo.</p> -<p class='c002'><b>John Adams and Abigail Adams.</b> Familiar Letters of, -during the Revolution, 12mo, $2.00.</p> -<p class='c002'><b>Oscar Fay Adams.</b> Handbook of English Authors, 16mo, -75 cents; Handbook of American Authors, 16mo, 75 cents.</p> -<p class='c002'><b>Louis Agassiz.</b> Methods of Study in Natural History, -Illustrated, 12mo, $1.50; Geological Sketches, Series I. and II., -12mo, each, $1.50; A Journey in Brazil, Illustrated, 12mo, $2.50; Life -and Letters, edited by his wife, 2 vols. 12mo, $4.00; Life and Works, -6 vols. $10.00.</p> -<p class='c002'><b>Anne A. 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