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Title: Household Papers and Stories

Author: Harriet Beecher Stowe

Release Date: February 8, 2010 [EBook #31217]

Language: English

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THE WRITINGSOFHARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Riverside Edition

_WITH BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTIONSPORTRAITS, AND OTHERILLUSTRATIONS_

IN SIXTEEN VOLUMESVOLUME VIII

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN & CO

[Illustration: Portrait of Mrs. Stowe]

HOUSEHOLD PAPERSAND STORIES



BYHARRIET BEECHER STOWE

[Illustration: Mrs. Stowe's Hartford Home]

BOSTON AND NEW YORKHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANYThe Riverside Press, Cambridge1896

Copyright, 1868,By TICKNOR & FIELDS.

Copyright, 1864, 1892, 1896,By HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

Copyright, 1896,By HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.

_All rights reserved._

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE vii

HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS

I. The Ravages of a Carpet 1II. Homekeeping vs. Housekeeping 16III. What is a Home? 33IV. The Economy of the Beautiful 54V. Raking Up the Fire 69VI. The Lady who does her own Work 85VII. What can be got in America 101VIII. Economy 112IX. Servants 133X. Cookery 153XI. Our House 182XII. Home Religion 212

THE CHIMNEY-CORNERI. What will You do with Her? or, The Woman Question 231II. Woman's Sphere 249III. A Family Talk on Reconstruction 274IV. Is Woman a Worker? 300V. The Transition 316VI. Bodily Religion: A Sermon on Good Health 330VII. How shall we entertain our Company? 347VIII. How shall we be Amused? 362IX. Dress, or Who makes the Fashions 374



X. What are the Sources of Beauty in Dress? 395XI. The Cathedral 412XII. The New Year 425XIII. The Noble Army of Martyrs 438

OUR SECOND GIRL 449

A SCHOLAR'S ADVENTURES IN THE COUNTRY 473

TRIALS OF A HOUSEKEEPER 487

The frontispiece is from a photograph of Mrs. Stowe taken in 1884. Thevignette of Mrs. Stowe's later Hartford home is from a drawing byCharles Copeland.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Mrs. Stowe had early and very practical acquaintance with the art ofhousekeeping. It strikes one at first as a little incongruous that anauthor who devoted her great powers to stirring the conscience of a

nation should from time to time, and at one period especially, giveher mind to the ordering of family life, but a moment's considerationwill show that the same woman was earnestly at the bottom of eacheffort. In a letter to the late Lord Denman, written in 1853, Mrs.Stowe, speaking of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, said: "I wrote what I didbecause, as a woman, as a mother, I was oppressed and heartbroken withthe sorrows and injustice which I saw, and because, as a Christian, Ifelt the dishonor to Christianity." Not under the stress of passionateemotion, yet largely from a sense of real responsibility as a woman, amother, and a Christian, she occupied herself with those concerns ofevery-day life which so distinctly appeal to a woman's mind. How toorder a household, how to administer that little kingdom over which awoman rules, and, above all, how to make family life stable, pure, and

conservative of the highest happiness, these were the questions whichshe asked herself constantly, and which she tried to solve, not onlyincidentally in her fiction, but directly in her essays, and in thatfield of one tenth fiction and nine tenths didacticism, whichconstitutes most of the present volume.

_A Scholar's Adventures in the Country_ and _Trials of a Housekeeper_ appeared in the miscellany to which she gave the name of _TheMayflower_, and reflect humorously the Cincinnati experiences whichagain are playfully recounted in letters published in her son's _Life_. The former, contributed in 1850 to _The National Era_, wasdrawn pretty closely from the experiments of Professor Stowe. It isnoticeable that in this paper and in _Our Second Girl_, which was

contributed to _The Atlantic Monthly_ for January, 1868, the authorposes as the masculine member of the household, as if this assumptiongave her some advantage in the point of view. At any rate, she adoptedthe same rôle when she came more deliberately to survey a wide fieldin a series of articles.

_The House_ and _Home Papers_ were contributed first to _The AtlanticMonthly_, and afterward published in book form as the production ofone Christopher Crowfield, though there was not the slightest attemptotherwise at disguising the authorship. The immediate occasion of the



papers was no doubt the removal of the Stowes from Andover and theirestablishment in Hartford, an event which took place shortly beforethe papers began to appear in _The Atlantic_. The years which followedduring the first Hartford residence saw also a marriage in the familyand new problems of daily life constantly presenting themselves, sothat a similar series appeared in the same magazine, purporting to befrom the same householder, entitled _The Chimney Corner_. This series,indeed, entered rather more seriously into questions of socialmorality, and deepened in feeling as it proceeded. The eleventhsection is a warm appreciation of the woman who figured so largely inMrs. Stowe's early life, and the last two papers rose, as the readerwill see, to the height of national memories. Mrs. Fields haspreserved for us, in her _Days with Mrs. Stowe_, a striking record ofthe mingling of the great and the near in this writer's mind. Theperiod of which she writes is that in which _The Chimney Corner_ series was drawing to a close:--

"In the autumn of 1864 she wrote: 'I feel I need to write in thesedays, to keep me from thinking of things that make me dizzy and blind,and fill my eyes with tears, so that I cannot see the paper. I meansuch things as are being done where our heroes are dying as Shaw died.It is not wise that all our literature should run in a rut cut throughour hearts and red with our blood. I feel the need of a little gentlehousehold merriment and talk of common things, to indulge which I have

devised the following.'"Notwithstanding her view of the need, and her skillfully devisedplans to meet it, she soon sent another epistle, showing howimpossible it was to stem the current of her thought:--

"'_November 29, 1864._

"'MY DEAR FRIEND,--

"'I have sent my New Year's article, the result of one of thosepeculiar experiences which sometimes occur to us writers. I hadplanned an article, gay, sprightly, wholly domestic; but as I

began and sketched the pleasant home and quiet fireside, anirresistible impulse _wrote for me_ what followed,--an offering ofsympathy to the suffering and agonized, whose homes have foreverbeen darkened. Many causes united at once to force on me thisvision, from which generally I shrink, but which sometimes willnot be denied,--will make itself felt.

"'Just before I went to New York two of my earliest andmost intimate friends lost their oldest sons, captains andmajors,--splendid fellows physically and morally, beautiful,brave, religious, uniting the courage of soldiers to thefaith of martyrs,--and when I went to Brooklyn it seemed asif I were hearing some such thing almost every day; and

Henry, in his profession as minister, has so many lettersfull of imploring anguish, the cry of hearts breaking that askhelp of him.'"...

HOUSEHOLD PAPERS AND STORIES

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 ofBrussels carpet which was spread out in flowery lengths on the floorof Messrs. Ketchem & Co.

"It's _so_ cheap!"

Milton says that the love of fame is the last infirmity of nobleminds. I think he had not rightly considered the subject. I believethat last infirmity is the love of getting things cheap! Understandme, now. I don't mean the love of getting cheap things, by which oneunderstands showy, trashy, ill-made, spurious articles, bearingcertain apparent resemblances to better things. All really sensiblepeople are quite superior to that sort of cheapness. But thosefortunate accidents, which put within the power of a man things reallygood and valuable for half or a third of their value, what mortalvirtue and resolution can withstand? My friend Brown has a genuine

Murillo, the joy of his heart and the light of his eyes, but he neverfails to tell you, as its crowning merit, how he bought it in SouthAmerica for just nothing,--how it hung smoky and deserted in the backof a counting-room, and was thrown in as a makeweight to bind abargain, and, upon being cleaned turned out a genuine Murillo; andthen he takes out his cigar, and calls your attention to the points init; he adjusts the curtain to let the sunlight fall just in the rightspot; he takes you to this and the other point of view; and all thistime you must confess that, in your mind as well as his, theconsideration that he got all this beauty for ten dollars adds lustreto the painting. Brown has paintings there for which he paid histhousands, and, being well advised, they are worth the thousands hepaid; but this ewe lamb that he got for nothing always gives him a

secret exaltation in his own eyes. He seems to have credited tohimself personally merit to the amount of what he should have paid forthe picture. Then there is Mrs. Croesus, at the party yesterdayevening, expatiating to my wife on the surprising cheapness of herpoint-lace set. "Got for just nothing at all, my dear!" and a circleof admiring listeners echoes the sound. "Did you ever hear anythinglike it? I never heard of such a thing in my life;" and away sailsMrs. Croesus as if she had a collar composed of all the cardinalvirtues. In fact, she is buoyed up with a secret sense of merit, sothat her satin slippers scarcely touch the carpet. Even I myself amfond of showing a first edition of "Paradise Lost" for which I gave ashilling in a London bookstall, and stating that I would not take ahundred 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 myface for approbation, and Marianne and Jenny are pouring into my ear arunning 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, andthis is"--



My wife here put her hand to her mouth and pronounced the incrediblesum in a whisper, with a species of sacred awe, common, as I haveobserved, to females in such interesting crises. In fact Mr. Ketchem,standing smiling and amiable by, remarked to me that really he hopedMrs. Crowfield would not name generally what she gave for the article,for positively it was so far below the usual rate of prices that hemight give offense to other customers; but this was the very last ofthe pattern, and they were anxious to close off the old stock, and wehad always traded with them, and he had a great respect for my wife'sfather, who had always traded with their firm, and so, when there wereany little bargains to be thrown in any one's way, why, he naturally,of course--And here Mr. Ketchem bowed gracefully over the yardstick tomy wife, and I consented.

Yes, I consented; but whenever I think of myself at that moment, Ialways am reminded, in a small way, of Adam taking the apple; and mywife, seated on that roll of carpet, has more than once suggested tomy mind the classic image of Pandora opening her unlucky box. In fact,from the moment I had blandly assented to Mr. Ketchem's remarks, andsaid to my wife, with a gentle air of dignity, "Well, my dear, sinceit suits you, I think you had better take it," there came a load on myprophetic soul which not all the fluttering and chattering of mydelighted girls and the more placid complacency of my wife couldentirely 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 thehouse and home into which this carpet was introduced.

My wife and I were somewhat advanced housekeepers, and our dwellingwas first furnished by her father, in the old-fashioned jog-trot dayswhen furniture was made with a view to its lasting from generation togeneration. Everything was strong and comfortable,--heavy mahogany,guiltless of the modern device of veneering, and hewed out with asquare solidity which had not an idea of change. It was, so to speak,a sort of granite foundation of the household structure. Then wecommenced housekeeping with the full idea that our house was a thing

to be lived in, and that furniture was made to be used. That mostsensible of women, Mrs. Crowfield, agreed fully with me that in ourhouse there was to be nothing too good for ourselves,--no room shut upin holiday attire to be enjoyed by strangers for three or four days inthe year, while we lived in holes and corners; no best parlor fromwhich we were to be excluded; no silver plate to be kept in the safein the bank, and brought home only in case of a grand festival, whileour 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 andsimple, she reflected back upon me in a thousand little glitters andtwinkles of her own; she made my crude conceptions come back to me insuch perfectly dazzling performances that I hardly recognized them. Mymind warms up when I think what a home that woman made of our housefrom the very first day she moved into it. The great, large, airyparlor, with its ample bow-window, when she had arranged it, seemed aperfect trap to catch sunbeams. There was none of that discouragingtrimness and newness that often repel a man's bachelor friends afterthe first call, and make them feel, "Oh, well, one cannot go in at



Crowfield's now, unless one is dressed; one might put them out." Thefirst thing our parlor said to any one was, that we were not people tobe put out, that we were widespread, easy-going, and jolly folk. Evenif Tom Brown brought in Ponto and his shooting-bag, there was nothingin that parlor to strike terror into man and dog; for it was writtenon the face of things that everybody there was to do just as he or shepleased. There were my books and my writing-table spread out with allits miscellaneous confusion of papers on one side of the fireplace,and there were my wife's great, ample sofa and work-table on theother; there I wrote my articles for the "North American;" and thereshe turned and ripped and altered her dresses; and there lay crochetand knitting and embroidery side by side with a weekly basket offamily mending, and in neighborly contiguity with the last book of theseason, which my wife turned over as she took her after-dinner loungeon the sofa. And in the bow-window were canaries always singing, and agreat stand of plants always fresh and blooming, and ivy which grewand clambered and twined about the pictures. Best of all, there was inour parlor that household altar, the blazing wood fire, whosewholesome, hearty crackle is the truest household inspiration. I quiteagree with one celebrated American author who holds that an openfireplace is an altar of patriotism. Would our Revolutionary fathershave gone barefooted and bleeding over snows to defend air-tightstoves and cooking-ranges? I trow not. It was the memory of the greatopen 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 keepup their courage, that made their hearts warm and bright with athousand reflected memories. Our neighbors said that it was delightfulto sit by our fire,--but then, for their part, they could not affordit, wood was so ruinously dear, and all that. Most of these peoplecould not, for the simple reason that they felt compelled, in order tomaintain the family dignity, to keep up a parlor with great pomp andcircumstance 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, mywife, like a well-conducted housekeeper, had the best of nursery

arrangements,--a room all warmed, lighted, and ventilated, andabounding in every proper resource of amusement to the rising race;but it was astonishing to see how, notwithstanding this, thecentripetal attraction drew every pair of little pattering feet to ourparlor.

"My dear, why don't you take your blocks upstairs?"

"I want to be where oo are," said with a piteous under lip, wasgenerally a most convincing answer.

Then, the small people could not be disabused of the idea that certainchief treasures of their own would be safer under papa's writing-table

or mamma's sofa than in the safest closet of their domains. Mywriting-table was dockyard for Arthur's new ship, and stable forlittle Tom's pepper-and-salt-colored pony, and carriage-house forCharley's new wagon, while whole armies of paper dolls kept house inthe recess behind mamma's sofa.

And then, in due time, came the tribe of pets who followed the littleones and rejoiced in the blaze of the firelight. The boys had asplendid Newfoundland, which, knowing our weakness, we warned themwith awful gravity was never to be a parlor dog; but somehow, what



with little beggings and pleadings on the part of Arthur and Tom, andthe piteous melancholy with which Rover would look through thewindow-panes when shut out from the blazing warmth into the dark, coldveranda, it at last came to pass that Rover gained a regular corner atthe hearth, a regular status in every family convocation. And thencame a little black-and-tan English terrier for the girls; and then afleecy poodle, who established himself on the corner of my wife'ssofa; and for each of these some little voice pleaded, and somelittle heart would be so near broken at any slight that my wife and Iresigned ourselves to live in a menagerie, the more so as we wereobliged to confess a lurking weakness towards these four-footedchildren ourselves.

So we grew and flourished together,--children, dogs, birds, flowers,and all; and although my wife often, in paroxysms of housewifelinessto which the best of women are subject, would declare that we neverwere fit to be seen, yet I comforted her with the reflection thatthere were few people whose friends seemed to consider them betterworth seeing, judging by the stream of visitors and loungers which wasalways setting towards our parlor. People seemed to find it good to bethere; they said it was somehow home-like and pleasant, and that therewas a kind of charm about it that made it easy to talk and easy tolive; and as my girls and boys grew up, there seemed always to be somemerry doing or other going on there. Arty and Tom brought home their

college friends, who straightway took root there and seemed to fancythemselves a part of us. We had no reception-rooms apart, where thegirls were to receive young gentlemen; all the courting and flirtingthat were to be done had for their arena the ample variety of surfacepresented by our parlor, which, with sofas and screens and lounges andrecesses, and writing and work tables, disposed here and there, andthe genuine _laisser aller_ of the whole mènage, 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 youngestwas busy, as yet, in performing that little domestic ballet of the catwith the mouse, in the case of a most submissive youth of theneighborhood.

All this time our parlor furniture, though of that granitic formationI have indicated, began to show marks of that decay to which thingssublunary are liable. I cannot say that I dislike this look in a room.Take a fine, ample, hospitable apartment, where all things, freelyand generously used, softly and indefinably grow old together, thereis a sort of mellow tone and keeping which pleases my eye. What if theseams of the great inviting armchair, where so many friends have satand lounged, do grow white? What, in fact, if some easy couch has anundeniable hole worn in its friendly cover? I regard with tendernesseven these mortal weaknesses of these servants and witnesses of ourgood times and social fellowship. No vulgar touch wore them; they maybe called, rather, the marks and indentations which the glittering inand 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 awell-used set of furniture by smart improvements than I would have amodern dauber paint in emendations in a fine old picture.

So we men reason, but women do not always think as we do. There isa virulent demon of housekeeping not wholly cast out in the best ofthem, and which often breaks out in unguarded moments. In fact MissMarianne, being on the lookout for furniture wherewith to begin anew establishment, and Jenny, who had accompanied her in herperegrinations, had more than once thrown out little disparaging



remarks on the time-worn appearance of our establishment, suggestingcomparison with those of more modern furnished rooms.

"It is positively scandalous, the way our furniture looks," I one dayheard one of them declaring to her mother; "and this old rag of acarpet!"

My feelings were hurt, not the less so that I knew that the largecloth which covered the middle of the floor, and which the women calla bocking, had been bought and nailed down there, after a solemnfamily council, as the best means of concealing the too evident darnswhich years of good cheer had made needful in our stanch oldhousehold friend, the three-ply carpet, made in those days when to bea three-ply was a pledge of continuance and service.

Well, it was a joyous and bustling day when, after one of thosedomestic whirlwinds which the women are fond of denominatinghouse-cleaning, the new Brussels carpet was at length brought in andnailed down, and its beauty praised from mouth to mouth. Our oldfriends called in and admired, and all seemed to be well, except thatI had that light and delicate presage of changes to come whichindefinitely brooded over me.

The first premonitory symptom was the look of apprehensive suspicion

with which the female senate regarded the genial sunbeams that hadalways glorified our bow-window.

"This house ought to have inside blinds," said Marianne, with all theconfident decision of youth; "this carpet will be ruined if that sunis 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 seedchippings about; and he never takes his bath without flirting out somewater. And, mamma, it appears to me it will never do to have theplants here. Plants are always either leaking through the pots uponthe carpet, or scattering bits of blossoms and dead leaves, or some

accident upsets or breaks a pot. It was no matter, you know, when wehad the old carpet; but this we really want to have kept nice."

Mamma stood her ground for the plants,--darlings of her heart for manya year,--but temporized, and showed that disposition towardscompromise which is most inviting to aggression.

I confess I trembled; for, of all radicals on earth, none are to becompared to females that have once in hand a course of domesticinnovation and reform. The sacred fire, the divine furor, burns intheir bosoms; they become perfect Pythonesses, and every chair theysit on assumes the magic properties of the tripod. Hence the dismaythat lodges in the bosoms of us males at the fateful spring and autumn

seasons denominated house-cleaning. Who can say whither the awfulgods, the prophetic fates, may drive our fair household divinities;what sins of ours may be brought to light; what indulgences andcompliances, which uninspired woman has granted in her ordinary mortalhours, may be torn from us? He who has been allowed to keep a pair ofpet slippers in a concealed corner, and by the fireside indulged witha chair which he might _ad libitum_ fill with all sorts of pamphletsand miscellaneous literature, suddenly finds himself reformed out ofknowledge, his pamphlets tucked away into pigeonholes and corners, andhis slippers put in their place in the hall, with, perhaps, a brisk



insinuation about the shocking dust and disorder that men willtolerate.

The fact was, that the very first night after the advent of the newcarpet I had a prophetic dream. Among our treasures of art was alittle etching, by an English artist friend, the subject of which wasthe gambols of the household fairies in a baronial library after thehousehold were in bed. The little people are represented in everyattitude of frolic enjoyment. Some escalade the great armchair, andlook down from its top as from a domestic Mont Blanc; some climb aboutthe bellows; some scale the shaft of the shovel; while some, formingin magic ring, dance festively on the yet glowing hearth. Tiny troopspromenade the writing-table. One perches himself quaintly on the topof the inkstand, and holds colloquy with another who sits cross-leggedon a paper weight, while a companion looks down on them from the topof the sandbox. It was an ingenious little device, and gave me theidea, which I often expressed to my wife, that much of the peculiarfeeling of security, composure, and enjoyment which seems to be theatmosphere of some rooms and houses came from the unsuspected presenceof these little people, the household fairies, so that the belief intheir existence became a solemn article of faith with me.

Accordingly, that evening, after the installation of the carpet, whenmy 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 littlepeople in green were tripping to and fro, but in great confusion.Evidently something was wrong among them; for they were fussing andchattering with each other, as if preparatory to a general movement.In the region of the bow-window I observed a tribe of them standingwith tiny valises and carpetbags in their hands, as though about todepart on a journey. On my writing-table another set stood around myinkstand and pen-rack, who, pointing to those on the floor, seemed todebate some question among themselves; while others of them appearedto be collecting and packing away in tiny trunks certain fairytreasures, preparatory to a general departure. When I looked at thesocial hearth, at my wife's sofa and work-basket, I saw similar

appearances of dissatisfaction and confusion. It was evident that thehousehold fairies were discussing the question of a general andsimultaneous removal. I groaned in spirit, and, stretching out myhand, began a conciliatory address, when whisk went the whole scenefrom before my eyes, and I awaked to behold the form of my wife askingme if I were ill, or had had the nightmare, that I groaned so. I toldher 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 peopledo. The fact is, our parlor is somewhat dilapidated; think how manyyears we have lived in it without an article of new furniture."

"I hate new furniture," I remarked, in the bitterness of my soul. "Ihate anything new."

My wife answered me discreetly, according to approved principles ofdiplomacy. I was right. She sympathized with me. At the same time, itwas not necessary, she remarked, that we should keep a hole in oursofa-cover and armchair,--there would certainly be no harm in sendingthem to the upholsterer's to be new-covered; she didn't much mind, forher part, moving her plants to the south back room; and the bird woulddo 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 struckwith such horror at its clumsy, antiquated, unfashionable appearancethat he felt bound to make representations to my wife and daughters:positively, it would be better for them to get a new one, of atempting pattern which he showed them, than to try to do anything withthat. With a stitch or so here and there it might do for a basementdining-room; but, for a parlor, he gave it as his disinterestedopinion,--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 andthe birds were banished, and some dark-green blinds were put up toexclude the sun from the parlor, and the blessed luminary was allowedthere only at rare intervals, when my wife and daughters were outshopping, and I acted out my uncivilized male instincts by pulling upevery shade and vivifying the apartment as in days of old.

But this was not the worst of it. The new furniture and new carpetformed an opposition party in the room. I believe in my heart that forevery little household fairy that went out with the dear old thingsthere came in a tribe of discontented brownies with the new ones.These little wretches were always twitching at the gowns of my wifeand daughters, jogging their elbows, and suggesting odious comparisonsbetween the smart new articles and what remained of the old ones. They

disparaged my writing-table in the corner; they disparaged theold-fashioned lounge in the other corner, which had been the maternalthrone for years; they disparaged the work-table, the work-basket,with constant suggestions of how such things as these would look incertain well-kept parlors where new-fashioned furniture of the samesort as ours existed.

"We don't have any parlor," said Jenny one day. "Our parlor has alwaysbeen a sort of log cabin,--library, study, nursery, greenhouse, allcombined. We never have had things like other people."

"Yes, and this open fire makes such a dust; and this carpet is onethat 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 shouldthink he would like it better than sitting here among us all. Nowthere's the great south room off the dining-room; if he would onlymove his things there and have his open fire, we could then close upthe fireplace and put lounges in the recesses, and mamma could haveher things in the nursery,--and then we should have a parlor fit to beseen."

I overheard all this, though I pretended not to,--the little busychits supposing me entirely buried in the recesses of a German bookover which I was poring.

There are certain crises in a man's life when the female element inhis household asserts itself in dominant forms that seem to threatento overwhelm him. The fair creatures, who in most matters havedepended on his judgment, evidently look upon him at these seasons asonly a forlorn, incapable male creature, to be cajoled and flatteredand persuaded out of his native blindness and absurdity into thefairyland of their wishes.

"Of course, mamma," said the busy voices, "men can't understand suchthings. 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 howthe world is doing, and don't see that nobody now is living as wedo."

"Aha, my little mistresses, are you there?" I thought; and I mentallyresolved on opposing a great force of what our politicians callbackbone 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 soonkeep awake when Juno came in best bib and tucker, and with the cestusof Venus, to get him to sleep. Poor Slender might as well hope to getthe better of pretty Mistress Anne Page as one of us clumsy-footed menmight 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 withthe utmost deference to my wishes, the most amiable hopes that I wouldnot put myself out, the most sincere protestations that, if I liked itbetter as it was, my goddesses would give up and acquiesce. In fact Iseemed to do it of myself, constrained thereto by what the EmperorNapoleon 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, andhe who has said B must say the whole alphabet. In a year we had aparlor with two lounges in decorous recesses, a fashionable sofa, andsix chairs and a looking-glass, and a grate always shut up, and a holein the floor which kept the parlor warm, and great, heavy curtainsthat kept out all the light that was not already excluded by the greenshades.

It was as proper and orderly a parlor as those of our most fashionableneighbors; and when our friends called, we took them stumbling intoits darkened solitude, and opened a faint crack in one of thewindow-shades, and came down in our best clothes and talked with themthere. Our old friends rebelled at this, and asked what they had done

to be treated so, and complained so bitterly that gradually we letthem into the secret that there was a great south room, which I hadtaken 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 plantsflourished, and the canary-bird sang, and my wife had her sofa in thecorner, and the old brass andirons glistened, and the wood firecrackled,--in short, a room to which all the household fairies hademigrated.

When they once had found that out, it was difficult to get any of themto sit in our parlor. I had purposely christened the new room mystudy, 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 thefire 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 theparlor?"

And then there would be manifested among guests and family friends ageneral unwillingness to move.

"Oh, 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 doas he pleases and feels at home;" and to this view of the matter wouldrespond divers of the nice young bachelors who were Arthur's and Tom'ssworn friends.

In fact nobody wanted to stay in our parlor now. It was a cold,correct, accomplished fact; the household fairies had left it,--andwhen the fairies leave a room, nobody ever feels at home in it. Nopictures, curtains, no wealth of mirrors, no elegance of lounges, canin the least make up for their absence. They are a capricious littleset; there are rooms where they will not stay, and rooms where theywill; but no one can ever have a good time without them.

II

HOMEKEEPING VERSUS HOUSEKEEPING

I am a frank-hearted man, as perhaps you have by this time perceived,and you will not, therefore, be surprised to know that I read my lastarticle 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 andthe girls, in fact, felt that they could afford to laugh, for they hadcarried their point, their reproach among women was taken away, theyhad become like other folks. Like other folks they had a parlor, anundeniable best parlor, shut up and darkened, with all proper carpets,curtains, lounges, and marble-topped tables, too good for humannature's daily food; and being sustained by this consciousness, theycheerfully went on receiving their friends in the study, and havinggood times in the old free-and-easy way; for did not everybody knowthat this room was not their best? and if the furniture wasold-fashioned and a little the worse for antiquity, was it not certainthat they had better, which they could use if they would?

"And supposing we wanted to give a party," said Jenny, "how nicely ourparlor would light up! Not that we ever do give parties, but if weshould,--and for a wedding-reception, you know."

I felt the force of the necessity; it was evident that the four orfive hundred extra which we had expended was no more than such solemnpossibilities required.

"Now, papa thinks we have been foolish," said Marianne, "and he hashis own way of making a good story of it; but, after all, I desire toknow if people are never to get a new carpet. Must we keep the old onetill it actually wears to tatters?"

This is a specimen of the _reductio ad absurdum_ which our fairantagonists of the other sex are fond of employing. They strip what wesay of all delicate shadings and illusory phrases, and reduce it tosome 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?" echoedJenny.

"My dears," I replied, "it is a fact that to introduce anything newinto an apartment hallowed by many home associations, where all things



have grown old together, requires as much care and adroitness as foran architect to restore an arch or niche in a fine old ruin. The faultof our carpet was that it was in another style from everything in ourroom, and made everything in it look dilapidated. Its colors,material, and air belonged to another manner of life, and were aconstant plea for alterations; and you see it actually drove out andexpelled the whole furniture of the room, and I am not sure yet thatit may not entail on us the necessity of refurnishing the wholehouse."

"My dear!" said my wife, in a tone of remonstrance; but Jane andMarianne laughed and colored.

"Confess, now," said I, looking at them; "have you not had secretdesigns on the hall and stair carpet?"

"Now, papa, how could you know it? I only said to Marianne that tohave Brussels in the parlor and that old mean-looking ingrain carpetin the hall did not seem exactly the thing; and in fact you know,mamma, Messrs. Ketchem & Co. showed us such a lovely pattern, designedto harmonize with our parlor carpet."

"I know it, girls," said my wife; "but you know I said at once thatsuch an expense was not to be thought of."

"Now, girls," said I, "let me tell you a story I heard once of a verysensible old New England minister, who lived, as our country ministersgenerally do, rather near to the bone, but still quite contentedly. Itwas in the days when knee-breeches and long stockings were worn, andthis good man was offered a present of a very nice pair of black silkhose. 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 totake them, and I cannot do it.'

"'How is that?'

"'Why, in the first place, I shall no sooner put them on than my wifewill say, "My dear, you must have a new pair of knee-breeches," and Ishall get them. Then my wife will say, "My dear, how shabby your coatis! You must have a new one," and I shall get a new coat. Then shewill say, "Now, my dear, that hat will never do," and then I shallhave a new hat; and then I shall say, "My dear, it will never do forme to be so fine and you to wear your old gown," and so my wife willget a new gown; and then the new gown will require a new shawl and anew bonnet; all of which we shall not feel the need of if I don't takethis pair of silk stockings, for, as long as we don't see them, ourold things seem very well suited to each other.'"

The girls laughed at this story, and I then added, in my mostdetermined manner,--

"But I must warn you, girls, that I have compromised to the utmostextent of my power, and that I intend to plant myself on the old staircarpet in determined resistance. I have no mind to be forbidden theuse of the front stairs, or condemned to get up into my bedroom by aprivate ladder, as I should be immediately if there were a new carpetdown."



"Why, papa!"

"Would it not be so? Can the sun shine in the parlor now for fear offading 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 gota new entry and stair carpet, as I said, I should have to be at theexpense of another staircase to get up to our bedroom."

"Oh no, papa," said Jane innocently; "there are very pretty druggetsnow for covering stair carpets, so that they can be used withouthurting them."

"Put one over the old carpet, then," said I, "and our acquaintancewill never know but it is a new one."

All the female senate laughed at this proposal, and said it soundedjust like a man.

"Well," said I, standing up resolutely for my sex, "a man's ideas onwoman's matters may be worth some attention. I flatter myself that anintelligent, educated man doesn't think upon and observe with interestany particular subject for years of his life without gaining someideas respecting it that are good for something; at all events, I have

written another article for the 'Atlantic,' which I will read toyou."

"Well, wait one minute, papa, till we get our work," said the girls,who, to say the truth, always exhibit a flattering interest inanything their papa writes, and who have the good taste never tointerrupt his readings with any conversations in an undertone oncross-stitch and floss-silks, as the manner of some is. Hence thelittle feminine bustle of arranging all these matters beforehand.Jane, or Jenny, as I call her in my good-natured moods, put on a freshclear stick of hickory, of that species denominated shagbark, which isfull of most charming slivers, burning with such a clear flame, andemitting such a delicious perfume in burning, that I would not change

it with the millionaire who kept up his fire with cinnamon.

You must know, my dear Mr. Atlantic, and you, my confidential friendsof the reading public, that there is a certain magic or spiritualismwhich I have the knack of in regard to these mine articles, in virtueof which my wife and daughters never hear or see the littlepersonalities respecting them which form parts of my papers. By apeculiar arrangement which I have made with the elves of the inkstandand the familiar spirits of the quill, a sort of glamour falls ontheir eyes and ears when I am reading, or when they read the partspersonal to themselves; otherwise their sense of feminine proprietywould be shocked at the free way in which they and their most internalaffairs are confidentially spoken of between me and you, O loving

readers.

Thus, in an undertone, I tell you that my little Jenny, as she iszealously and systematically arranging the fire, and trimly whiskingevery untidy particle of ashes from the hearth, shows in everymovement of her little hands, in the cock of her head, in the knowing,observing glance of her eye, and in all her energetic movements, thather small person is endued and made up of the very expressed essenceof housewifeliness,--she is the very attar, not of roses, but ofhousekeeping. Care-taking and thrift and neatness are a nature to her;



she is as dainty and delicate in her person as a white cat, aseverlastingly busy as a bee; and all the most needful faculties oftime, weight, measure, and proportion ought to be fully developed inher skull, if there is any truth in phrenology. Besides all this, shehas a sort of hard-grained little vein of common sense, against whichmy fanciful conceptions and poetical notions are apt to hit with justa little sharp grating, if they are not well put. In fact, this kindof woman needs carefully to be idealized in the process of education,or she will stiffen and dry, as she grows old, into a veritablehousehold Pharisee, a sort of domestic tyrant. She needs to be trainedin artistic values and artistic weights and measures, to study all thearts and sciences of the beautiful, and then she is charming. Mostuseful, most needful, these little women: they have the centripetalforce which keeps all the domestic planets from gyrating and friskingin unseemly orbits, and, properly trained, they fill a house with thebeauty of order, the harmony and consistency of proportion, the melodyof things moving in time and tune, without violating the gracefulappearance of ease which Art requires.

So I had an eye to Jenny's education in my article which I unfoldedand read, and which was entitled

HOMEKEEPING VERSUS HOUSEKEEPING

There are many women who know how to keep a house, but there are butfew that know how to keep a home. To keep a house may seem acomplicated affair, but it is a thing that may be learned; it lies inthe 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 thesphere of all these, but it takes in the intellectual, the social, thespiritual, the immortal.

* * * * *

Here the hickory stick broke in two, and the two brands fellcontroversially out and apart on the hearth, scattering the ashes

and coals, and calling for Jenny and the hearth-brush. Your wood firehas this foible, that it needs something to be done to it everyfive minutes; but, after all, these little interruptions of ourbright-faced genius are like the piquant sallies of a cleverfriend,--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," saidI, 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. "Formy part, I never can remember which is which."

"I remember," said Jenny; "it's what our old nurse used to callinternal and _out_-ternal,--I always remember by that."

"Come, my dears," said my wife, "let your father read;" so I went onas follows:--



* * * * *

I remember in my bachelor days going with my boon companion, BillCarberry, to look at the house to which he was in a few weeks tointroduce his bride. Bill was a gallant, free-hearted, open-handedfellow, the life of our whole set, and we felt that natural aversionto losing him that bachelor friends would. How could we tell underwhat strange aspects he might look forth upon us, when once he hadpassed into "that undiscovered country" of matrimony? But Bill laughedto scorn our apprehensions.

"I'll tell you what, Chris," he said, as he sprang cheerily up thesteps and unlocked the door of his future dwelling, "do you know whatI chose this house for? Because it's a social-looking house. Lookthere, now," he said, as he ushered me into a pair of parlors,--"lookat 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, andSophie gliding in and out like a sunbeam. I'm getting poetical, yousee. Then, did you ever see a better, wider, airier dining-room?What capital suppers and things we'll have there! the nicesttimes,--everything free and easy, you know,--just what I've alwayswanted a house for. I tell you, Chris, you and Tom Innis shall havelatch-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. Andhere now's the library,--fancy this full of books and engravings fromthe ceiling to the floor; here you shall come just as you please andask 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 capitalgirl to keep things going. Oh, Sophie'll make a house of this, you maydepend!"

A day or two after, Bill dragged me stumbling over boxes and throughstraw 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 apattern on each; well, the sofa's just like them, and the curtains tomatch, and the carpets made for the floor with centrepieces andborders. I never saw anything more magnificent in my life. Sophie'sgovernor furnishes the house, and everything is to be A No. 1, and allthat, you see. Messrs. Curtain & Collamore are coming to make therooms 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 hopeyou'll be able to keep it up; but law business comes in rather slowlyat first, old fellow."

"Well, you know it isn't the way I should furnish, if my capital wasthe 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 shehas always lived in."

I said nothing, but had an oppressive presentiment that social freedomwould 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 andcomplete from top to toe, and everybody said what a lucky fellow hewas; but that was about the end of it, so far as our visiting wasconcerned. The running in, and dropping in, and keeping latch-keys,and making informal calls, that had been forespoken, seemed about aslikely as if Bill had lodged in the Tuileries.

Sophie, who had always been one of your snapping, sparkling, busy sortof girls, began at once to develop her womanhood and show herprinciples, and was as different from her former self as yourcareworn, mousing old cat is from your rollicking, frisky kitten.Not but that Sophie was a good girl. She had a capital heart, agood, true womanly one, and was loving and obliging; but still shewas one of the desperately painstaking, conscientious sort ofwomen whose very blood, as they grow older, is devoured withanxiety, and she came of a race of women in whom housekeeping wasmore than an art or a science,--it was, so to speak, a religion.Sophie's mother, aunts, and grandmothers, for nameless generationsback, were known and celebrated housekeepers. They might have beengenuine descendants of the inhabitants of that Hollandic town ofBroeck, celebrated by Washington Irving, where the cows' tails arekept tied up with unsullied blue ribbons, and the ends of thefire-wood 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 theneatness of the celestial city, the unsullied crystal of its wallsand the polish of its golden pavement, when the faces of all thehousewives were set Zionward at once.

Now this solemn and earnest view of housekeeping is onerous enoughwhen a poor girl first enters on the care of a moderately furnishedhouse, where the articles are not too expensive to be reasonablyrenewed as time and use wear them; but it is infinitely worse when acataract of splendid furniture is heaped upon her care,--when splendidcrystals cut into her conscience, and mirrors reflect her duties, andmoth and rust stand ever ready to devour and sully in every room andpassageway.

Sophie was solemnly warned and instructed by all the mothers andaunts,--she was warned of moths, warned of cockroaches, warned offlies, warned of dust; all the articles of furniture had their covers,made of cold Holland linen, in which they looked like bodies laidout,--even the curtain tassels had each its little shroud,--andbundles of receipts, and of rites and ceremonies necessary for thepreservation and purification and care of all these articles, werestuffed into the poor girl's head, before guiltless of cares as thefeathers that floated above it.

Poor Bill found very soon that his house and furniture were to be keptat such an ideal point of perfection that he needed another house to

live in,--for, poor fellow, he found the difference between having ahouse and a home. It was only a year or two after that my wife and Istarted our ménage on very different principles, and Bill would oftendrop in upon us, wistfully lingering in the cosy armchair between mywriting-table and my wife's sofa, and saying with a sigh howconfoundedly pleasant things looked there,--so pleasant to have abright, open fire, and geraniums and roses and birds, and all thatsort of thing, and to dare to stretch out one's legs and move withoutthinking what one was going to hit. "Sophie is a good girl!" he wouldsay, "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 inlavender that the poor girl is actually getting thin and losing herhealth; and then, you see, there's Aunt Zeruah, she mounts guard atour house, and keeps up such strict police regulations that a fellowcan't do a thing. The parlors are splendid, but so lonesome anddismal!--not a ray of sunshine, in fact not a ray of light, exceptwhen a visitor is calling, and then they open a crack. They're afraidof flies, and yet, dear knows, they keep every looking-glass andpicture-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 whereyou can make yourselves cosy?"

"Not a bit of it. Sophie and Aunt Zeruah have fixed their throne up inour bedroom, and there they sit all day long, except at calling-hours,and then Sophie dresses herself and comes down. Aunt Zeruah insistsupon it that the way is to put the whole house in order, and shut allthe blinds, and sit in your bedroom, and then, she says, nothing getsout of place; and she tells poor Sophie the most hocus-pocus storiesabout her grandmothers and aunts, who always kept everything in theirhouses so that they could go and lay their hands on it in the darkestnight. I'll bet they could in our house. From end to end it is keptlooking 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 pianoshut tight, the bookcases shut and locked, the engravings locked up,all the drawers and closets locked. Why, if I want to take a fellowinto the library, in the first place it smells like a vault, and Ihave to unbarricade windows, and unlock and rummage for half an hourbefore I can get at anything; and I know Aunt Zeruah is standingtiptoe at the door, ready to whip everything back and lock up again. Afellow can't be social, or take any comfort in showing his books andpictures that way. Then there's our great, light dining-room, with itssunny south windows,--Aunt Zeruah got us out of that early in April,because she said the flies would speck the frescoes and get into thechina-closet, and we have been eating in a little dingy den, with awindow 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 issuch a care off Sophie's mind that I ought to be willing to eat downcellar to the end of the chapter. Now, you see, Chris, my position isa delicate one, because Sophie's folks all agree that, if there isanything in creation that is ignorant and dreadful and mustn't beallowed his way anywhere, it's 'a man.' Why, you'd think, to hear AuntZeruah talk, that we were all like bulls in a china-shop, ready totoss 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, andif I try to get anything done differently Sophie cries, and says shedon't know what to do, and so I give it up. Now, if I want to ask afew of our set in sociably to dinner, I can't have them where we eatdown cellar,--oh, that would never do! Aunt Zeruah and Sophie's mother

and the whole family would think the family honor was forever ruinedand undone. We mustn't ask them unless we open the dining-room, andhave 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 isabominable for me to increase her cares, and so I invite fellows todine with me at Delmonico's, and then Sophie cries, and Sophie'smother says it doesn't look respectable for a family man to be diningat public places; but, hang it, a fellow wants a home somewhere!"



My wife soothed the chafed spirit, and spake comfortably unto him, andtold him that he knew there was the old lounging-chair always readyfor him at our fireside. "And you know," she said, "our things are allso plain that we are never tempted to mount any guard over them; ourcarpets are nothing, and therefore we let the sun fade them, and liveon the sunshine and the flowers."

"That's it," said Bill bitterly. "Carpets fading,--that's AuntZeruah's monomania. These women think that the great object of housesis to keep out sunshine. What a fool I was when I gloated over theprospect of our sunny south windows! Why, man, there are threedistinct 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 tothe floor. What's the use of my pictures, I desire to know? They arehung in that room, and it's a regular campaign to get light enough tosee 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 inthe evening? She says she has so much sewing to do that she and AuntZeruah 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 theremustn'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 haveto open all the fortifications next day, and search Jerusalem withcandles to find them. No; in the evening the gas is lighted athalf-cock, you know; and if I turn it up, and bring in my newspapersand spread about me, and pull down some books to read, I can feel thenervousness 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, tosee if I am done, so that she may fold up the papers and put a book onthem, and lock up the books in their cases. Nobody ever comes in tospend an evening. They used to try it when we were first married, butI believe the uninhabited appearance of our parlors discouraged them.

Everybody has stopped coming now, and Aunt Zeruah says 'it is such acomfort, for now the rooms are always in order. How poor Mrs.Crowfield lives, with her house such a thoroughfare, she is sure shecan't see. Sophie never would have strength for it; but then, to besure, some folks ain't as particular as others. Sophie was brought upin a family of very particular housekeepers.'"

My wife smiled, with that calm, easy, amused smile that has brightenedup 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 wouldhave cried for a week, and been utterly forlorn and disconsolate. Iknow it's not the poor girl's fault; I try sometimes to reason withher, but you can't reason with the whole of your wife's family, to thethird and fourth generation backwards; but I'm sure it's hurting herhealth,--wearing her out. Why, you know Sophie used to be the life ofour set; and now she really seems eaten up with care from morning tonight, there are so many things in the house that something dreadfulis 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 keepchanging our servants all the time, and they break and destroy so thatnow we are turned out of the use of all our things. We not only eat inthe basement, but all our pretty table-things are put away, and wehave all the cracked plates and cracked tumblers and cracked teacupsand old buck-handled knives that can be raised out of chaos. I coulduse these things and be merry if I didn't know we had better ones; andI can't help wondering whether there isn't some way that our tablecould be set to look like a gentleman's table; but Aunt Zeruah saysthat 'it would cost thousands, and what difference does it make aslong as nobody sees it but us?' You see, there is no medium in hermind between china and crystal and cracked earthenware. Well, I'mwondering how all these laws of the Medes and Persians are going towork when the children come along. I'm in hopes the children willsoften 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 wereconcerned, never existed.

But their whole childhood was a long battle,--children versus

furniture, and furniture always carried the day. The first step of thehousekeeping powers was to choose the least agreeable and leastavailable room in the house for the children's nursery, and to fit itup with all the old, cracked, rickety furniture a neighboringauction-shop could afford, and then to keep them in it. Now everybodyknows that to bring up children to be upright, true, generous, andreligious needs so much discipline, so much restraint and correction,and so many rules and regulations, that it is all that the parents cancarry out, and all the children can bear. There is only a certainamount of the vital force for parents or children to use in thisbusiness of education, and one must choose what it shall be used for.The Aunt Zeruah faction chose to use it for keeping the house andfurniture, and the children's education proceeded accordingly. The

rules of right and wrong of which they heard most frequently were allof this sort: Naughty children were those who went up the frontstairs, or sat on the best sofa, or fingered any of the books in thelibrary, or got out one of the best teacups, or drank out of thecut-glass goblets.

Why did they ever want to do it? If there ever is a forbidden fruit inan Eden, will not our young Adams and Eves risk soul and body to findout how it tastes? Little Tom, the oldest boy, had the courage andenterprise and perseverance of a Captain Parry or Dr. Kane, and heused them all in voyages of discovery to forbidden grounds. He stoleAunt 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 sonoisy and rude, you'll disturb your dear mamma? She's sick, and shemay 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 toboarding-school, and then there was never found a time when it wasconvenient to have him come home again. He could not come in thespring, for then they were house-cleaning, nor in the autumn, becausethen they were house-cleaning; and so he spent his vacations atschool, unless, by good luck, a companion who was so fortunate as tohave a home invited him there. His associations, associates, habits,principles, were as little known to his mother as if she had sent himto China. Aunt Zeruah used to congratulate herself on the rest therewas at home, now he was gone, and say she was only living in hopes ofthe time when Charlie and Jim would be big enough to send away, too;and meanwhile Charlie and Jim, turned out of the charmed circle whichshould hold growing boys to the father's and mother's side, detestingthe dingy, lonely playroom, used to run the city streets, and hanground 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 sitin. There are enough to be found to clap them on the back, and tellthem stories that their mothers must not hear, and laugh when theycompass with their little piping voices the dreadful litanies of sinand 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 ahard-visaged, angular woman,--careful and troubled about many things,and forgetful that one thing is needful. One of the boys had run awayto sea; I believe he has never been heard of. As to Tom, the eldest,he ran a career wild and hard enough for a time, first at school andthen in college, and there came a time when he came home, in the fullmight of six feet two, and almost broke his mother's heart with hisassertions of his home rights and privileges. Mothers who throw awaythe key of their children's hearts and childhood sometimes have a sadretribution. As the children never were considered when they werelittle and helpless, so they do not consider when they are strong andpowerful. 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 allthe family traditions into wild disorder, as he would never have donehad not all his childish remembrances of them been embittered by theassociation of restraint and privation. He actually seemed to hate anyappearance of luxury or taste or order,--he was a perfect Philistine.

As for my friend Bill, from being the pleasantest and most genial offellows, he became a morose, misanthropic man. Dr. Franklin has asignificant proverb,--"Silks and satins put out the kitchen fire."Silks and satins--meaning by them the luxuries of housekeeping--oftenput out not only the parlor fire, but that more sacred flame, the fireof domestic love. It is the greatest possible misery to a man and tohis 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 ideasof 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 aHome, and How to Keep it.

III

WHAT IS A HOME

It is among the sibylline secrets which lie mysteriously between youand me, O reader, that these papers, besides their public aspect, havea private one proper to the bosom of mine own particular family. Theyare not merely an _ex post facto_ protest in regard to that carpet andparlor of celebrated memory, but they are forth-looking towards otherhomes that may yet arise near us. For, among my other confidences, youmay recollect I stated to you that our Marianne was busy in thoseinteresting cares and details which relate to the preparing andordering of another dwelling.

Now, when any such matter is going on in a family, I have observed thatevery feminine instinct is in a state of fluttering vitality,--everywoman, old or young, is alive with womanliness to the tips of her

fingers; and it becomes us of the other sex, however consciouslyrespected, to walk softly and put forth our sentiments discreetly, andwith due reverence for the mysterious powers that reign in the femininebreast.

I had been too well advised to offer one word of direct counsel on asubject where there were such charming voices, so able to convict meof absurdity at every turn. I had merely so arranged my affairs as toput into the hands of my bankers, subject to my wife's order, the verymodest marriage portion which I could place at my girl's disposal; andMarianne and Jenny, unused to the handling of money, were incessant intheir discussions with ever patient mamma as to what was to be donewith it. I say Marianne and Jenny, for, though the case undoubtedly is

Marianne's, yet, like everything else in our domestic proceedings, itseems to fall, somehow or other, into Jenny's hands, through theintensity and liveliness of her domesticity of nature. Little Jenny isso bright and wide awake, and with so many active plans and fanciestouching anything in the housekeeping world, that, though the youngestsister and second party in this affair, a stranger, hearkening to thedaily discussions, might listen a half-hour at a time without findingout 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 mostquiet girls, she has a will five times as inflexible as one who talksmore, yet in all family counsels it is Jenny and mamma that do thediscussion, 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 BobStephens, who figured as future proprietor and householder in theseconsultations. So far as the question of financial possibilities isconcerned, it is important to remark that Bob belongs to the class ofyoung Edmunds celebrated by the poet:--

"Wisdom and worth were all he had."



He is, in fact, an excellent-hearted and clever fellow, with a worldof agreeable talents, a good tenor in a parlor duet, a good actor at acharade, a lively, off-hand conversationist, well up in all thecurrent literature of the day, and what is more, in my eyes, awell-read lawyer, just admitted to the bar, and with as fair businessprospects as usually fall to the lot of young aspirants in thatprofession.

Of course, he and my girl are duly and truly in love, in all theproper moods and tenses; but as to this work they have in hand ofbeing householders, managing fuel, rent, provision, taxes, gas andwater rates, they seem to my older eyes about as sagacious as a pairof this year's robins. Nevertheless, as the robins of each year dosomehow learn to build nests as well as their ancestors, there isreason to hope as much for each new pair of human creatures. But it isone of the fatalities of our ill-jointed life that houses are usuallyfurnished for future homes by young people in just this state ofblissful ignorance of what they are really wanted for, or what islikely to be done with the things in them.

Now, to people of large incomes, with ready wealth for the rectificationof mistakes, it doesn't much matter how the ménage is arranged atfirst; they will, if they have good sense, soon rid themselves of thelittle 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 thisfirst start in domestic life, mistakes are far more serious. I haveknown people go on for years groaning under the weight of domesticpossessions they did not want, and pining in vain for others whichthey did, simply from the fact that all their first purchases weremade in this time of blissful ignorance.

I had been a quiet auditor to many animated discussions among theyoung people as to what they wanted and were to get, in which thesubject of prudence and economy was discussed, with quotations ofadvice thereon given in serious good faith by various friends and

relations who lived easily on incomes four or five times larger thanour own. Who can show the ways of elegant economy more perfectly thanpeople thus at ease in their possessions? From what serene heights dothey instruct the inexperienced beginners! Ten thousand a year givesone leisure for reflection, and elegant leisure enables one to viewhousehold economies dispassionately; hence the unction with whichthese gifted daughters of upper air delight to exhort youngneophytes.

"Depend upon it, my dear," Aunt Sophia Easygo had said, "it's alwaysthe best economy to get the best things. They cost more in thebeginning, but see how they last! These velvet carpets on my floorhave been in constant wear for ten years, and look how they wear!

I never have an ingrain carpet in my house,--not even on thechambers. Velvet and Brussels cost more to begin with, but thenthey last. Then I cannot recommend the fashion that is creeping in ofhaving plate instead of solid silver. Plate wears off, and has tobe renewed, which comes to about the same thing in the end as ifyou bought all solid at first. If I were beginning as Marianne is, Ishould just set aside a thousand dollars for my silver, and be contentwith a few plain articles. She should buy all her furniture atMessrs. David & Saul's. People call them dear, but their work willprove 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 toany extravagant lengths,--simplicity is a grace of itself."

The waters of the family council were troubled when Jenny, flamingwith enthusiasm, brought home the report of this conversation. When mywife proceeded, with her well-trained business knowledge, to comparethe prices of the simplest elegancies recommended by Aunt Easygo withthe sum total to be drawn on, faces lengthened perceptibly.

"How _are_ people to go to housekeeping," said Jenny, "if everythingcosts so much?"

My wife quietly remarked that we had had great comfort in our ownhome,--had entertained unnumbered friends, and had only ingraincarpets on our chambers and a three-ply on our parlor, and she doubtedif any guest had ever thought of it,--if the rooms had been a shadeless pleasant; and as to durability, Aunt Easygo had renewed hercarpets oftener than we. Such as ours were, they had worn longer thanhers.

"But, mamma, you know everything has gone on since your day. Everybodymust at least approach a certain style nowadays. One can't furnish sofar behind other people."

My wife answered in her quiet way, setting forth her doctrine of aplain average to go through the whole establishment, placingparlors, chambers, kitchen, pantries, and the unseen depths oflinen-closets in harmonious relations of just proportion, andshowed by calm estimates how far the sum given could go towardsthis result. _There_ the limits were inexorable. There is nothing sodamping to the ardor of youthful economies as the hard, positivelogic of figures. It is so delightful to think in some airy waythat the things we like best are the cheapest, and that a sort ofrigorous duty compels us to get them at any sacrifice. There is noremedy for this illusion but to show by the multiplication andaddition tables what things are and are not possible. My wife'sfigures met Aunt Easygo's assertions, and there was a lull among

the high contracting parties for a season; nevertheless, I could seeJenny was secretly uneasy. I began to hear of journeys made to farplaces, here and there, where expensive articles of luxury wereselling at reduced prices. Now a gilded mirror was discussed, andnow a velvet carpet which chance had brought down temptingly nearthe sphere of financial possibility. I thought of our parlor, andprayed 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 spendher 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. Tosay the truth, my dear, I think your papers afford a good opportunityof dropping a thought now and then in their minds. Jenny was askinglast night when you were going to write your next paper. The girl hasa bright, active mind, and thinks of what she hears."

So flattered, by the best of flatterers, I sat down to write on mytheme; and that evening, at firelight time, I read to my little senateas follows:--



WHAT IS A HOME, AND HOW TO KEEP IT

I have shown that a dwelling, rented or owned by a man, in which hisown 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 indefiniteknowledge of what they want and long for when that word is spoken."Home!" sighs the disconsolate bachelor, tired of boarding-house fareand buttonless shirts. "Home!" says the wanderer in foreign lands, andthinks of mother's love, of wife and sister and child. Nay, the wordhas in it a higher meaning hallowed by religion; and when theChristian would express the highest of his hopes for a better life, hespeaks of his _home_ beyond the grave. The word "home" has in it theelements of love, rest, permanency, and liberty; but, besides these,it has in it the idea of an education by which all that is purestwithin us is developed into nobler forms, fit for a higher life. Thelittle child by the home-fireside was taken on the Master's knee whenhe would explain to his disciples the mysteries of the kingdom.

Of so great dignity and worth is this holy and sacred thing, that thepower to create a HOME ought to be ranked above all creativefaculties. The sculptor who brings out the breathing statue from coldmarble, the painter who warms the canvas into a deathless glow of

beauty, the architect who built cathedrals and hung the world-likedome of St. Peter's in midair, is not to be compared, in sanctity andworthiness, to the humblest artist who, out of the poor materialsafforded by this shifting, changing, selfish world, creates the secureEden of a home.

A true home should be called the noblest work of art possible to humancreatures, inasmuch as it is the very image chosen to represent thelast and highest rest of the soul, the consummation of man'sblessedness.

Not without reason does the oldest Christian church require of thoseentering on marriage the most solemn review of all the past life, the

confession and repentance of every sin of thought, word, and deed, andthe reception of the holy sacrament; for thus the man and woman whoapproach the august duty of creating a home are reminded of thesanctity and beauty of what they undertake.

In this art of homemaking I have set down in my mind certain firstprinciples, like the axioms of Euclid, and the first is,--

_No home is possible without love._

All business marriages and marriages of convenience, all mere culinarymarriages and marriages of mere animal passion, make the creation of atrue home impossible in the outset. Love is the jeweled foundation of

this New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven, and takes asmany bright forms as the amethyst, topaz, and sapphire of thatmysterious vision. In this range of creative art all things arepossible to him that loveth, but without love nothing is possible.

We hear of most convenient marriages in foreign lands, which maybetter be described as commercial partnerships. The money on each sideis counted; there is enough between the parties to carry on the firm,each having the appropriate sum allotted to each. No love ispretended, but there is great politeness. All is so legally and



thoroughly arranged that there seems to be nothing left for futurequarrels to fasten on. Monsieur and Madame have each their apartments,their carriages, their servants, their income, their friends, theirpursuits,--understand the solemn vows of marriage to mean simply thatthey are to treat each other with urbanity in those few situationswhere the path of life must necessarily bring them together.

We are sorry that such an idea of marriage should be gainingfoothold in America. It has its root in an ignoble view of life,--anutter and pagan darkness as to all that man and woman are calledto do in that highest relation where they act as one. It is a meanand low contrivance on both sides, by which all the grand work ofhome-building, all the noble pains and heroic toils of homeeducation--that education where the parents learn more than theyteach--shall be (let us use the expressive Yankee idiom) _shirked_.

It is a curious fact that, in those countries where this system ofmarriages is the general rule, there is no word corresponding to ourEnglish word "home." In many polite languages of Europe it would beimpossible neatly to translate the sentiment with which we began thisessay, that a man's house is not always his home.

Let any one try to render the song, "Sweet Home," into French, and onefinds how Anglo-Saxon is the very genius of the word. The structure of

life, in all its relations, in countries where marriages are matter ofarrangement and not of love, excludes the idea of home.

How does life run in such countries? The girl is recalled from herconvent or boarding-school, and told that her father has found ahusband for her. No objection on her part is contemplated or providedfor; none generally occurs, for the child is only too happy to obtainthe fine clothes and the liberty which she has been taught come onlywith 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 ofAnglo-Saxon life in our minds. They are not intolerable, because they

are provided for by arrangements which make it possible for each to gohis or her several way, seeing very little of the other. The son ordaughter, which in due time makes its appearance in this ménage, issent out to nurse in infancy, sent to boarding-school in youth, and inmaturity portioned and married, to repeat the same process for anothergeneration. Meanwhile father and mother keep a quiet establishment andpursue 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 aboutthem, could scarcely find room to establish themselves. Individualcharacter, it is true, does something to modify this programme.

There are charming homes in France and Italy, where warm and noblenatures, thrown together perhaps by accident, or mated by wisepaternal choice, infuse warmth into the coldness of the system underwhich they live. There are in all states of society some of suchdomesticity of nature that they will create a home around themselvesunder any circumstances, however barren. Besides, so kindly is humannature, that Love, uninvited before marriage, often becomes a guestafter, 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 actout personal and individual tastes and peculiarities, as we cannotdo before the wide world. We are to have our meals at what hour wewill, served in what style suits us. Our hours of going and comingare 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 ourwhole arrangements the expression, so far as our means can compass it,of our own personal ideas of what is pleasant and desirable inlife. This element of liberty, if we think of it, is the chiefcharm of home. "Here I can do as I please," is the thought withwhich the tempest-tossed earth-pilgrim blesses himself or herself,turning inward from the crowded ways of the world. This thoughtblesses the man of business, as he turns from his day's care andcrosses the sacred threshold. It is as restful to him as the slippersand gown and easy-chair by the fireside. Everybody understands himhere. Everybody is well content that he should take his ease in hisown way. Such is the case in the ideal home. That such is not alwaysthe case in the real home comes often from the mistakes in thehouse-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. Theconsequence is that all sorts of furniture and belongings, which inthe Old World have a recognized relation to certain possibilities ofincome, and which require certain other accessories to make them ingood keeping, are thrown in the way of all sorts of people.

Young people who cannot expect by any reasonable possibility to keepmore than two or three servants, if they happen to have the means inthe outset furnish a house with just such articles as in England wouldsuit an establishment of sixteen. We have seen houses in Englandhaving two or three housemaids, and tables served by a butler and twowaiters, where the furniture, carpets, china, crystal, and silver werein 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 inAmerican life; it is, and will long continue to be, a leading featurein the life of a country so rich in openings for man and woman thatdomestic service can be only the stepping-stone to something higher.Nevertheless we Americans are great travelers; we are sensitive,appreciative, fond of novelty, apt to receive and incorporate into ourown life what seems fair and graceful in that of other people. Ourwomen's wardrobes are made elaborate with the thousand elegancies ofFrench toilet,--our houses filled with a thousand knick-knacks ofwhich our plain ancestors never dreamed. Cleopatra did not set sail onthe Nile in more state and beauty than that in which our young

American bride is often ushered into her new home,--her wardrobe allgossamer lace and quaint frill and crimp and embroidery, her house amuseum of elegant and costly gewgaws, and, amid the whole collectionof elegancies and fragilities, she, perhaps, the frailest.

Then comes the tug of war. The young wife becomes a mother, and whileshe is retired to her chamber, blundering Biddy rusts the elegantknives, or takes off the ivory handles by soaking in hot water; thesilver is washed in greasy soapsuds, and refreshed now and then with athump, which cocks the nose of the teapot awry, or makes the handle



assume an air of drunken defiance. The fragile china is chipped hereand there around its edges with those minute gaps so vexatious to awoman's soul; the handles fly hither and thither in the wild confusionof Biddy's washing-day hurry, when cook wants her to help hang out theclothes. Meanwhile Bridget sweeps the parlor with a hard broom, andshakes out showers of ashes from the grate, forgetting to cover thedamask lounges, and they directly look as rusty and time-worn as ifthey had come from an auction-store; and all together unite in makingsuch havoc of the delicate ruffles and laces of the bridal outfit andbaby _layette_ that, when the poor young wife comes out of herchamber after her nurse has left her, and, weakened and embarrassedwith the demands of the newcomer, begins to look once more into theaffairs of her little world, she is ready to sink with vexation anddiscouragement. Poor little princess! Her clothes are made asprincesses wear them, her baby's clothes like a young duke's, herhouse furnished like a lord's, and only Bridget and Biddy and Polly todo the work of cook, scullery-maid, butler, footman, laundress,nursery-maid, housemaid, and lady's maid. Such is the array that inthe Old Country would be deemed necessary to take care of anestablishment got up like hers. Everything in it is too fine,--not toofine to be pretty, not in bad taste in itself, but too fine for thesituation, 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 keepthings as they should be. There is no freedom in a house where thingsare 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 firesideoppressive,--the various articles of his parlor and table seem like somany temper-traps and spring-guns, menacing explosion and disaster.

There may be, indeed, the most perfect home-feeling, the utmostcosiness and restfulness, in apartments crusted with gilding, carpetedwith velvet, and upholstered with satin. I have seen such, where thehome-like look and air of free use was as genuine as in a Western logcabin; 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 ourdomestic furniture. But so long as articles must be shrouded from use,or used with fear and trembling, because their cost is above thegeneral level of our means, we had better be without them, eventhough the most lucky of accidents may put their possession in ourpower.

But it is not merely by the effort to maintain too much elegancethat the sense of home liberty is banished from a house. It issometimes expelled in another way, with all painstaking andconscientious strictness, by the worthiest and best of human beings,the blessed followers of Saint Martha. Have we not known them, thedeaf, worthy creatures, up before daylight, causing most scrupulous

lustrations of every pane of glass and inch of paint in ourparlors, in consequence whereof every shutter and blind must bekept closed for days to come, lest the flies should speck the freshlywashed windows and wainscoting? Dear shade of Aunt Mehitabel,forgive our boldness! Have we not been driven for days, in ouryouth, to read our newspaper in the front veranda, in the kitchen,out in the barn,--anywhere, in fact, where sunshine could befound,--because there was not a room in the house that was notcleaned, shut up, and darkened? Have we not shivered with cold, allthe glowering, gloomy month of May, because, the august front parlor



having undergone the spring cleaning, the andirons were snugly tiedup in the tissue-paper, and an elegant frill of the same materialwas trembling before the mouth of the once glowing fireplace? Even so,dear soul, full of loving-kindness and hospitality as thou wast, yetever making our house seem like a tomb! And with what patiencewouldst thou sit sewing by a crack in the shutters an inch wide,rejoicing in thy immaculate paint and clear glass! But was thereever a thing of thy spotless and unsullied belongings which a boymight use? How I trembled to touch thy scoured tins, that hung inappalling brightness! with what awe I asked for a basket to pickstrawberries! and where in the house could I find a place to eat apiece of gingerbread? How like a ruffian, a Tartar, a pirate, Ialways felt when I entered thy domains! and how, from day to day,I wondered at the immeasurable depths of depravity which were alwaysleading me to upset something, or break or tear or derange something,in thy exquisitely kept premises! Somehow the impression was burnedwith overpowering force into my mind that houses and furniture,scrubbed floors, white curtains, bright tins and brasses, were thegreat, awful, permanent facts of existence; and that men and women,and particularly children, were the meddlesome intruders upon thisdivine order, every trace of whose intermeddling must be scrubbedout and obliterated in the quickest way possible. It seemed evidentto me that houses would be far more perfect if nobody lived in them atall, 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 housewas a place full of traps and pitfalls for boys, a deadly temptationto sins which beset one every moment; and when I read about asailor's free life on the ocean, I felt an untold longing to go forthand 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 tochildren. When we say liberty, we do not mean license. We do not meanthat Master Johnny be allowed to handle elegant volumes withbread-and-butter fingers, or that little Miss be suffered to drum onthe piano, or practice line-drawing with a pin on varnished furniture.

Still it is essential that the family parlors be not too fine for thefamily to sit in,--too fine for the ordinary accidents, haps andmishaps of reasonably well-trained children. The elegance of theparlor where papa and mamma sit and receive their friends should wearan inviting, not a hostile and bristling, aspect to little people. Itsbeauty and its order gradually form in the little mind a love ofbeauty and order, and the insensible carefulness of regard.

Nothing is worse for a child than to shut him up in a room which heunderstands is his, _because_ he is disorderly,--where he is expected,of course, to maintain and keep disorder. We have sometimes pitied thepoor little victims who show their faces longingly at the doors ofelegant parlors, and are forthwith collared by the domestic police and

consigned to some attic apartment, called a playroom, where chaoscontinually reigns. It is a mistake to suppose, because childrenderange a well-furnished apartment, that they like confusion. Orderand beauty are always pleasant to them as to grown people, anddisorder and defacement are painful; but they know neither how tocreate the one nor to prevent the other,--their little lives are aseries of experiments, often making disorder by aiming at some newform of order. Yet, for all this, I am not one of those who feel thatin 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 donewithout a wise thought of them_.

Here, as in all high art, the old motto is in force, "_Ars est celareartem_." Children who are taught too plainly, by every anxious lookand word of their parents, by every family arrangement, by theimpressment of every chance guest into the service, that their parentsconsider their education as the one important matter in creation, areapt to grow up fantastical, artificial, and hopelessly self-conscious.The stars cannot stop in their courses, even for our personalimprovement, and the sooner children learn this the better. The greatart is to organize a home which shall move on with a strong, wide,generous movement, where the little people shall act themselves out asfreely and impulsively as can consist with the comfort of the whole,and where the anxious watching and planning for them shall be kept assecret from them as possible.

It is well that one of the sunniest and airiest rooms in the house bethe children's nursery. It is good philosophy, too, to furnish itattractively, even if the sum expended lower the standard of parlorluxuries. It is well that the children's chamber, which is to actconstantly on their impressible natures for years, should command abetter prospect, a sunnier aspect, than one which serves for a day'soccupancy of the transient guest. It is well that journeys should be

made or put off in view of the interests of the children; that guestsshould be invited with a view to their improvement; that someintimacies should be chosen and some rejected on their account. But itis not well that all this should, from infancy, be daily talked outbefore the child, and he grow up in egotism from moving in a spherewhere everything from first to last is calculated and arranged withreference to himself. A little appearance of wholesome neglectcombined with real care and never ceasing watchfulness has oftenseemed to do wonders in this work of setting human beings on their ownfeet for the life journey.

Education is the highest object of home, but education in the widestsense,--education of the parents no less than of the children. In a

true home the man and the woman receive, through their cares, theirwatchings, their hospitality, their charity, the last and highestfinish 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 ofhospitality and charity. Hospitality is a Biblical and apostolicvirtue, and not so often recommended in Holy Writ without reason.Hospitality is much neglected in America for the very reasons touchedupon above. We have received our ideas of propriety and elegance ofliving from old countries, where labor is cheap, where domesticservice is a well-understood, permanent occupation, adopted cheerfullyfor life, and where of course there is such a subdivision of labor as

insures great thoroughness in all its branches. We are ashamed orafraid to conform honestly and hardily to a state of things purelyAmerican. We have not yet accomplished what our friend the Doctorcalls "our weaning," and learned that dinners with circuitous coursesand divers other Continental and English refinements, well enough intheir way, cannot be accomplished in families with two or threeuntrained servants, without an expense of care and anxiety which makesthem heart-withering to the delicate wife, and too severe a trial tooccur often. America is the land of subdivided fortunes, of a generalaverage of wealth and comfort, and there ought to be, therefore, an



understanding in the social basis far more simple than in the OldWorld.

Many families of small fortunes know this,--they are quietly livingso,--but they have not the steadiness to share their daily averageliving with a friend, a traveler, or guest, just as the Arab shareshis tent and the Indian his bowl of succotash. They cannot havecompany, they say. Why? Because it is such a fuss to get out the bestthings, and then to put them back again. But why get out the bestthings! Why not give your friend what he would like a thousand timesbetter,--a bit of your average home life, a seat at any time at yourboard, a seat at your fire? If he sees that there is a handle off yourteacup, and that there is a crack across one of your plates, he onlythinks, with a sigh of relief, "Well, mine aren't the only things thatmeet with accidents," and he feels nearer to you ever after; he willlet you come to his table and see the cracks in his teacups, and youwill condole with each other on the transient nature of earthlypossessions. If it become apparent in these entirely undressedrehearsals that your children are sometimes disorderly, and that yourcook sometimes overdoes the meat, and that your second girl sometimesis awkward in waiting, or has forgotten a table propriety, your friendonly feels, "Ah, well, other people have trials as well as I," and hethinks, if you come to see him, he shall feel easy with you.

"Having company" is an expense that may always be felt; but easy dailyhospitality, the plate always on your table for a friend, is anexpense that appears on no accounts book, and a pleasure that is dailyand constant.

Under this head of hospitality, let us suppose a case. A travelercomes from England; he comes in good faith and good feeling to see howAmericans live. He merely wants to penetrate into the interior ofdomestic life, to see what there is genuinely and peculiarly Americanabout it. Now here is Smilax, who is living, in a small, neat way, onhis salary from the daily press. He remembers hospitalities receivedfrom our traveler 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 andchambermaid, who divide the functions of his establishment betweenthem. What shall he do? Let him say, in a fair, manly way, "My dearfellow, I'm delighted to see you. I live in a small way, but I'll domy best for you, and Mrs. Smilax will be delighted. Come and dine withus, so and so, and we'll bring in one or two friends." So the mancomes, and Mrs. Smilax serves up such a dinner as lies within thelimits of her knowledge and the capacities of her servants. All plain,good of its kind, unpretending, without an attempt to do anythingEnglish or French,--to do anything more than if she were furnishing agala dinner for her father or returned brother. Show him your housefreely, just as it is, talk to him freely of it, just as he in Englandshowed 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 wastingMrs. Smilax's health and spirits for, in unavailing efforts to get upa foreign dinner-party.

A man who has any heart in him values a genuine, little bit of homemore than anything else you can give him. He can get French cookingat a restaurant; he can buy expensive wines at first-class hotels, ifhe wants them; but the traveler, though ever so rich and ever sowell-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 bitof real, genuine heart life. Perhaps he would like better thananything to show you the last photograph of his wife, or to read toyou the great, round-hand letter of his ten-year-old which he has gotto-day. He is ready to cry when he thinks of it. In this mood he goesto see you, hoping for something like, home, and you first receivehim in a parlor opened only on state occasions, and that has beencircumstantially and exactly furnished, as the upholsterer assuresyou, as every other parlor of the kind in the city is furnished.You treat him to a dinner got up for the occasion, with hiredwaiters,--a dinner which it has taken Mrs. Smilax a week to preparefor, and will take her a week to recover from,--for which the baby hasbeen snubbed and turned off, to his loud indignation, and your youngfour-year-old sent to his aunts. Your traveler eats your dinner, andfinds it inferior, as a work of art, to other dinners,--a poorimitation. He goes away and criticises; you hear of it, and resolvenever to invite a foreigner again. But if you had given him a littleof your heart, a little home warmth and feeling,--if you had shownhim your baby, and let him romp with your four-year-old, and eat agenuine dinner with you,--would he have been false to that? Not solikely. He wanted something real and human,--you gave him a baddress 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 beautifulworks of art in the Old World, that they shall in some sense beconsidered the property of all who can appreciate. Fine grounds havehours when the public may be admitted; pictures and statues may beshown to visitors: and this is a noble charity. In the same manner thefortunate individuals who have achieved the greatest of all humanworks of art should employ it as a sacred charity. How many, morallywearied, wandering, disabled, are healed and comforted by the warmthof a true home! When a mother has sent her son to the temptations of adistant city, what news is so glad to her heart as that he has foundsome quiet family where he visits often and is made to feel at HOME?How many young men have good women saved from temptation and shipwreckby 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 womenwho, while they have houses, have no homes, see from afar, in theirdistant, bleak life journey, the light of a true home fire, and, ifmade welcome there, warm their stiffened limbs, and go forth strongerto their pilgrimage. Let those who have accomplished this beautifuland perfect work of divine art be liberal of its influence. Let themnot 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 bythe ministration of this great charity of home.

We have heard much lately of the restricted sphere of woman. We havebeen told how many spirits among women are of a wider, stronger, more

heroic mould than befits the mere routine of housekeeping. It may betrue that there are many women far too great, too wise, too high, formere housekeeping. But where is the woman in any way too great, or toohigh, or too wise, to spend herself in creating a home? What can anywoman make diviner, higher, better? From such homes go forth allheroisms, all inspirations, all great deeds. Such mothers and suchhomes have made the heroes and martyrs, faithful unto death, who havegiven their precious lives to us during these three years of ouragony!



Homes are the work of art peculiar to the genius of woman. Man helpsin this work, but woman leads; the hive is always in confusion withoutthe queen bee. But what a woman must she be who does this workperfectly! She comprehends all, she balances and arranges all; alldifferent tastes and temperaments find in her their rest, and she canunite at one hearthstone the most discordant elements. In her isorder, yet an order ever veiled and concealed by indulgence. None arechecked, reproved, abridged of privileges by her love of system; forshe knows that order was made for the family, and not the family fororder. Quietly she takes on herself what all others refuse oroverlook. What the unwary disarrange she silently rectifies. Everybodyin her sphere breathes easy, feels free; and the driest twig begins inher sunshine to put out buds and blossoms. So quiet are her operationsand movements that none sees that it is she who holds all things inharmony; only, alas, when she is gone, how many things suddenly appeardisordered, inharmonious, neglected! All these threads have beensmilingly held in her weak hand. Alas, if that is no longer there!

Can any woman be such a housekeeper without inspiration? No. In thewords of the old church service, "her soul must ever have affiance inGod." The New Jerusalem of a perfect home cometh down from God out ofheaven. But to make such a home is ambition high and worthy enough forany woman, be she what she may.

One thing more. Right on the threshold of all perfection lies thecross to be taken up. No one can go over or around that cross inscience or in art. Without labor and self-denial neither Raphael norMichel Angelo nor Newton was made perfect. Nor can man or womancreate a true home who is not willing in the outset to embrace lifeheroically to encounter labor and sacrifice. Only to such shall thisdivinest power be given to create on earth that which is the nearestimage 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 weshall not readily be able to take up our strain of conversation justwhere we left off. Suffer me, therefore, to remind you that the monthpast left us seated at the fireside, just as we had finished readingof what a home was, and how to make one.

The fire had burned low, and great, solid hickory coals were winkingdreamily at us from out their fluffy coats of white ashes,--just as if

some household sprite there were opening now one eye and then theother, and looking in a sleepy, comfortable way at us.

The close of my piece about the good house mother had seemed to tellon my little audience. Marianne had nestled close to her mother, andlaid 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 glintof a tear in her quick, sparkling eye,--yes, actually a little brightbead fell upon her work; whereupon she started up actively, anddeclared that the fire wanted just one more stick to make a blaze



before bedtime; and then there was such a raking among the coals, suchan adjusting of the andirons, such vigorous arrangement of the wood,and such a brisk whisking of the hearth-brush, that it was evidentJenny had something on her mind. When all was done, she sat downagain and looked straight into the blaze, which went dancing andcrackling up, casting glances and flecks of light on our pictures andbooks, and making all the old, familiar furniture seem full of lifeand motion.

"I think that's a good piece," she said decisively. "I think those arethings that should be thought about."

Now Jenny was the youngest of our flock, and therefore, in a certainway, regarded by my wife and me as perennially "the baby;" and theselittle, old-fashioned, decisive ways of announcing her opinions seemedso much a part of her nature, so peculiarly "Jennyish," as I used tosay, that my wife and I only exchanged amused glances over her headwhen they occurred.

In a general way, Jenny, standing in the full orb of her feminineinstincts like Diana in the moon, rather looked down on all masculineviews of women's matters as _tolerabiles ineptioe_; but towards herpapa 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, andall that, is a very serious thing, and that people go into it withvery little thought about it. I really think those things papa hasbeen saying there ought to be thought about."

"Papa," said Marianne, "I wish you would tell me exactly how you wouldspend that money you gave me for house-furnishing. I should like justyour views."

"Precisely," said Jenny with eagerness; "because it is just as papasays,--a sensible man, who has thought and had experience, can't help

having some ideas, even about women's affairs, that are worthattending 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 onecan't live in such a way as to have beautiful things around one. I'msorry they must cost so much, and take so much care, for I am made sothat I really want them. I do so like to see pretty things! I do likerich carpets and elegant carved furniture, and fine china andcut-glass and silver. I can't bear mean, common-looking rooms. Ishould so like to have my house look beautiful!"

"Your house ought not to look mean and common,--your house ought tolook beautiful," I replied. "It would be a sin and a shame to have itotherwise. No house ought to be fitted up for a future home without astrong and a leading reference to beauty in all its arrangements. If Iwere a Greek, I should say that the first household libation should bemade to beauty; but, being an old-fashioned Christian, I would saythat he who prepares a home with no eye to beauty neglects the exampleof the great Father who has filled our earth home with such elaborateornament."



"But then, papa, there's the money!" said Jenny, shaking her littlehead wisely. "You men don't think of that. You want us girls, forinstance, to be patterns of economy, but we must always be wearingfresh, nice things; you abhor soiled gloves and worn shoes; and yethow is all this to be done without money? And it's just so inhousekeeping. You sit in your armchairs, and conjure up visions of allsorts of impossible things to be done; but when mamma there takes outthat 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 awoman,"--this was my only way of revenging myself; "that is to say,you jump to conclusions, without sufficient knowledge. I maintain thatin house-furnishing, as well as woman-furnishing, there's nothing soeconomical as beauty."

"There's one of papa's paradoxes!" said Jenny.

"Yes," said I, "that is my thesis, which I shall nail up over themantelpiece there, as Luther nailed his to the church door. It is timeto rake up the fire now; but to-morrow night I will give you a paperon the Economy of the Beautiful."

* * * * *

"Come, now we are to have papa's paradox," said Jenny, as soon as thetea-things had been carried out.

_Entre nous_, I must tell you that insensibly we had fallen into thehabit of taking our tea by my study fire. Tea, you know, is a merenothing in itself, its only merit being its social and poeticassociations, its warmth and fragrance; and the more socially andinformally it can be dispensed, the more in keeping with its airy andcheerful nature.

Our circle was enlightened this evening by the cheery visage of BobStephens, seated, as of right, close to Marianne's work-basket.

"You see, Bob," said Jenny, "papa has undertaken to prove that themost beautiful things are always the cheapest."

"I'm glad to hear that," said Bob; "for there's a carved antiquebookcase and study-table that I have my eye on, and if this can in anyway be made to appear"--

"Oh, it won't be made to appear," said Jenny, settling herself at herknitting, "only in some transcendental, poetic sense, such as papa canalways make out. Papa is more than half a poet, and his truths turnout to be figures of rhetoric when one comes to apply them to mattersof fact."

"Now, Miss Jenny, please remember my subject and thesis," Ireplied,--"that in house-furnishing there is nothing so economical asbeauty; and I will make it good against all comers, not by figures ofrhetoric, but by figures of arithmetic. I am going to be verymatter-of-fact and commonplace in my details, and keep ever in viewthe addition table. I will instance a case which has occurred undermy own observation."



THE ECONOMY OF THE BEAUTIFUL

Two of the houses lately built on the new land in Boston were boughtby two friends, Philip and John. Philip had plenty of money, and paidthe cash down for his house, without feeling the slightest vacancy inhis pocket. John, who was an active, rising young man, just enteringon a flourishing business, had expended all his moderate savings foryears in the purchase of his dwelling, and still had a mortgageremaining, which he hoped to clear off by his future successes. Philipbegins the work of furnishing as people do with whom money isabundant, and who have simply to go from shop to shop and order allthat suits their fancy and is considered "the thing" in good society.John begins to furnish with very little money. He has a wife and twolittle ones, and he wisely deems that to insure to them a well-builthouse, in an open, airy situation, with conveniences for warming,bathing, and healthy living, is a wise beginning in life; but itleaves him little or nothing beyond.

Behold, then, Philip and his wife, well pleased, going the rounds ofshops and stores in fitting up their new dwelling, and let us followstep by step. To begin with the wall-paper. Imagine a front and backparlor, with folding-doors, with two south windows on the front, andtwo 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 fourdollars a roll. This, by the time it has been put on, with goldmouldings, according to the most established taste of the bestpaper-hangers, will bring the wall-paper of the two rooms to a figuresomething like two hundred dollars. Now they proceed to the carpetstores, and there are thrown at their feet by obsequious clerksvelvets and Axminsters, with flowery convolutions and medallioncentres, as if the flower gardens of the tropics were whirling inwaltzes, 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 inprice,--four or six dollars a yard, it is all the same to them,--andsoon 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 eighthundred dollars for papering and carpeting alone. Now come the greatmantel-mirrors for four hundred more, and our rooms progress. Thencomes the upholsterer, and measures our four windows, that he mayskillfully barricade them from air and sunshine. The fortificationsagainst heaven, thus prepared, cost, in the shape of damask, cord,tassels, shades, laces, and cornices, about two hundred dollars perwindow. 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 onlyreflect, he would see, himself, how foolish it was for him to try toforce himself into a window guarded by his betters. If there isanything cheap and plebeian, it is sunshine and fresh air! Behold us,

then, with our two rooms papered, carpeted, and curtained for twothousand 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 twoparlors furnished at an outlay of three thousand dollars, without asingle picture, a single article of statuary, a single object of artof 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 suchgood taste generally reigns in their establishments that roomsfurnished at haphazard from them cannot fail of a certain air of good



taste, so far as the individual things are concerned. But thedifferent articles we have supposed, having been ordered withoutreference to one another or the rooms, have, when brought together, nounity of effect, and the general result is scattering and confused. Ifasked how Philip's parlors look, your reply is, "Oh, the usual way ofsuch parlors,--everything that such people usually get,--medallioncarpets, carved furniture, great mirrors, bronze mantel ornaments, andso on." The only impression a stranger receives, while waiting in thedim twilight of these rooms, is that their owner is rich, and able toget good, handsome things, such as all other rich people get.

Now our friend John, as often happens in America, is moving in thesame social circle with Philip, visiting the same people,--his houseis the twin of the one Philip has been furnishing,--and how shall he,with a few hundred dollars, make his rooms even presentable besidethose which Philip has fitted up elegantly at three thousand?

Now for the economy of beauty. Our friend must make his prayer to theGraces,--for, if they cannot save him, nobody can. One thing John hasto begin with, that rare gift to man, a wife with the magic cestus ofVenus,--not around her waist, but, if such a thing could be, in herfinger-ends. All that she touches falls at once into harmony andproportion. Her eye for color and form is intuitive: let her arrange agarret, with nothing but boxes, barrels, and cast-off furniture in it,

and ten to one she makes it seem the most attractive place in thehouse. It is a veritable "gift of good faërie," this tact ofbeautifying and arranging, that some women have; and, on the presentoccasion, it has a real, material value, that can be estimated indollars and cents. Come with us and you can see the pair taking theirsurvey of the yet unfurnished parlors, as busy and happy as a coupleof bluebirds picking up the first sticks and straws for their nest.

"There are two sunny windows to begin with," says the good fairy, withan appreciative glance. "That insures flowers all winter."

"Yes," says John; "I never would look at a house without a good sunnyexposure. 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; allyou want of a paper, you know, is to make a ground-tint to throw outyour pictures and other matters, and to reflect a pleasant tone oflight."

"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 graysuffused with gold or rose color, such as you see at evening in theclouds."

"So I think," responds she; "but, better, I should like a paper with atone of buff,--something that produces warm yellowish reflections, andwill 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 justabout the shade we want."



"Well, I can find that, in good American paper, as I said before, atfrom thirty-seven to forty cents a roll. Then our bordering: there'san 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 andmaroon: which is the best for the picture?"

"I think," says John, looking above the mantelpiece, as if he saw apicture there,--"I think a border of maroon velvet, with maroonfurniture, is the best for the picture."

"I think so, too," said she; "and then we will have that lovely maroonand 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 shadesof crimson; it has a good warm, strong color, and when I come to coverthe lounges and our two old armchairs with maroon rep, it will makesuch a pretty effect."

"Yes," said John; "and then, you know, our picture is so bright, itwill light up the whole. Everything depends on the picture."

Now as to "the picture," it has a story which must be told. John,

having been all his life a worshiper and adorer of beauty andbeautiful things, had never passed to or from his business withoutstopping at the print-shop windows, and seeing a little of what wasthere.

On one of these occasions he was smitten to the heart with the beautyof an autumn landscape, where the red maples and sumachs, the purpleand crimson oaks, all stood swathed and harmonized together in thehazy Indian summer atmosphere. There was a great yellow chestnuttree, on a distant hill, which stood out so naturally that Johninstinctively felt his fingers tingling for a basket, and hisheels alive with a desire to bound over on to the rustling hillsideand pick up the glossy brown nuts. Everything was there of autumn,

even to the goldenrod and purple asters and scarlet creepers in theforeground.

John went in and inquired. It was by an unknown French artist, withoutname 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 justbeen paid a quarter's salary; he bethought him of board-bill andwasherwoman, 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 atrained 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 muchless than its worth. "It was all I could give, though," he said; "andone who paid four times as much could not value it more." And so Johntook one and another of his friends, with longer purses than his own,to the studio of the modest stranger; and now his pieces command theirfull worth in the market, and he works with orders far ahead of hisability to execute, giving to the canvas the trails of Americanscenery as appreciated and felt by the subtile delicacy of the Frenchmind,--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 ofMorvillier, at Maiden, scarce a bowshot from our Boston.

This picture had always been the ruling star of John's house, his maindependence for brightening up his bachelor apartments; and when hecame 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 areal artist, who studies Nature minutely and conscientiously, hassomething of the charm of the good Mother herself,--something of herfaculty of putting on different aspects under different lights. Johnand his wife had studied their picture at all hours of the day: theyhad seen how it looked when the morning sun came aslant the scarletmaples and made a golden shimmer over the blue mountains, how itlooked toned down in the cool shadows of afternoon, and how it warmedup in the sunset and died off mysteriously into the twilight; and now,when larger parlors were to be furnished, the picture was still thetower of strength, the rallying-point of their hopes.

"Do you know, John," said the wife, hesitating, "I am really in doubtwhether we shall not have to get at least a few new chairs and a sofafor our parlors? They are putting in such splendid things at the otherdoor that I am positively ashamed of ours; the fact is, they lookalmost disreputable,--like a heap of rubbish."

"Well," said John, laughing, "I don't suppose all together sent to anauction-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 nomoney to get any more."

"Ah, well, then, if there isn't, we must see what we can do withthese, and summon all the good fairies to our aid," said Mary."There's your little cabinet-maker, John, will look over the thingsand furbish them up; there's that broken arm of the chair must bemended, and everything re-varnished; then I have found such a lovelyrep, of just the richest shade of maroon, inclining to crimson, andwhen we come to cover the lounges and armchairs and sofas and ottomans

all alike, you know they will be quite another thing."

"Trust you for that, Mary! By the bye, I've found a nice little woman,who has worked on upholstery, who will come in by the day, and be thehands that shall execute the decrees of your taste."

"Yes, I am sure we shall get on capitally. Do you know that I'm almostglad we can't get new things? It's a sort of enterprise to see what wecan do with old ones."

"Now, you see, Mary," said John, seating himself on a lime-cask whichthe plasterers had left, and taking out his memorandum-book,--"yousee, 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 onnew furniture."

"Well, let's hear."

"Well, my way is short and simple. We must put things into our roomsthat people will look at, so that they will forget to look at thefurniture, and never once trouble their heads about it. People neverlook at furniture so long as there is anything else to look at; justas Napoleon, when away on one of his expeditions, being told that the



French populace were getting disaffected, wrote back, 'Gild the _domedes Invalides_,' and so they gilded it, and the people, looking atthat, forgot everything else."

"But I'm not clear yet," said Mary, "what is coming of thisrhetoric."

"Well, then, Mary, I'll tell you. A suit of new carved black-walnutfurniture, severe in taste and perfect in style, such as I shouldchoose at David & Saul's, could not be got under three hundreddollars, and I haven't the three hundred to give. What, then, shall wedo? We must fall back on our resources; we must look over ourtreasures. We have our proof cast of the great glorious head of theVenus di Milo; we have those six beautiful photographs of Rome, thatBrown brought to us; we have the great German lithograph of theSan Sisto Mother and Child, and we have the two angel heads, from thesame; we have that lovely golden twilight sketch of Heade's; we havesome sea photographs of Bradford's; we have an original pen-and-inksketch by Billings; and then, as before, we have 'our picture.'What has been the use of our watching at the gates and waiting at thedoors of Beauty all our lives, if she hasn't thrown us out a crustnow and then, so that we might have it for time of need? Now, yousee, Mary, we must make the toilet of our rooms just as a prettywoman 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 hereand a bit of fringe there, and a button somewhere else, dazzles usinto thinking that she has an infinity of beautiful attire. Our roomsare new and pretty of themselves, to begin with; the tint of thepaper, and the rich coloring of the border, corresponding with thefurniture and carpets, will make them seem prettier. And now forarrangement. Take this front room. I propose to fill those tworecesses each side of the fireplace with my books, in their plainpine cases, just breast-high from the floor: they are stained agood dark color, and nobody need stick a pin in them to find outthat they are not rosewood. The top of these shelves on either side tobe covered with the same stuff as the furniture, finished with acrimson 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 thelovely Clytie, and put it the other side. Then I shall get ofWilliams & Everett two of their chromo lithographs, which give youall the style and charm of the best English watercolor school. I willhave the lovely Bay of Amalfi over my Venus, because she came fromthose suns and skies of southern Italy, and I will hang Lake Comoover my Clytie. Then, in the middle, over the fireplace, shall be'our picture.' Over each door shall hang one of the lithographedangel heads of the San Sisto, to watch our going out and coming in;and the glorious Mother and Child shall hang opposite the Venus diMilo, to show how Greek and Christian unite in giving the noblesttype to womanhood. And then, when we have all our sketches andlithographs framed and hung here and there, and your flowers

blooming as they always do, and your ivies wandering and rambling asthey used to, and hanging in the most graceful ways and places, andall those little shells and ferns and vases, which you are alwaysconjuring with, tastefully arranged, I'll venture to say that ourrooms will be not only pleasant, but beautiful, and that peoplewill oftener say, 'How beautiful!' when they enter, than if wespent three times the money on new furniture."

In the course of a year after this conversation, one and another ofmy acquaintances were often heard speaking of John Morton's house.



"Such beautiful rooms,--so charmingly furnished,--you must go and seethem. What does make them so much pleasanter than those rooms in theother house, which have everything in them that money can buy?" Sosaid the folk; for nine people out of ten only feel the effect of aroom, and never analyze the causes from which it flows: they know thatcertain rooms seem dull and heavy and confused, but they don't knowwhy; that certain others seem cheerful, airy, and beautiful, but theyknow not why. The first exclamation, on entering John's parlors, wasso often "How beautiful!" that it became rather a byword in thefamily. Estimated by their mere money value, the articles in the roomswere of very trifling worth; but, as they stood arranged and combined,they had all the effect of a lovely picture. Although the statuary wasonly plaster, and the photographs and lithographs such as were allwithin the compass of limited means, yet every one of them was a goodthing of its own kind, or a good reminder of some of the greatestworks of art. A good plaster cast is a daguerreotype, so to speak, ofa great statue, though it may be bought for five or six dollars, whileits original is not to be had for any namable sum. A chromo lithographof the best sort gives all the style and manner and effect of Turneror Stanfield, or any of the best of modern artists, though you buy itfor five or ten dollars, and though the original would command athousand guineas. The lithographs from Raphael's immortal picture giveyou the results of a whole age of artistic culture, in a form withinthe compass of very humble means. There is now selling for five

dollars at Williams & Everett's a photograph of Cheney's crayondrawing of the San Sisto Madonna and Child, which has the very spiritof the glorious original. Such a picture, hung against the wall of achild's room, would train its eye from infancy; and yet how many willfreely spend five dollars in embroidery on its dress, that say theycannot afford works of art!

There was one advantage which John and his wife found, in the way inwhich they furnished their house, that I have hinted at before: itgave freedom to their children. Though their rooms were beautiful,it was not with the tantalizing beauty of expensive and frailknick-knacks. Pictures hung against the wall, and statuary safelylodged on brackets, speak constantly to the childish eye, but are

out of the reach of childish fingers, and are not upset by childishromps. They are not, like china and crystal, liable to be used andabused by servants; they do not wear out; they are not spoiled bydust, 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 sheshall find it all wrecked and shattered. And this style of beauty,inexpensive as it is, compared with luxurious furniture, is a meansof cultivation. No child is ever stimulated to draw or to read by anAxminster carpet or a carved centre-table; but a room surrounded withphotographs and pictures and fine casts suggests a thousandinquiries, stimulates the little eye and hand. The child is foundwith its pencil, drawing, or he asks for a book on Venice, or wantsto hear the history of the Roman Forum.

But I have made my article too long. I will write another on the moraland intellectual effects of house-furnishing.

"I have proved my point, Miss Jenny, have I not? _In house-furnishingnothing 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_. Thatis to say, the last half hour before bedtime, we draw in, shoulder toshoulder, around the last brands and embers of our hearth, which weprick up and brighten, and dispose for a few farewell flickers andglimmers. This is a grand time for discussion. Then we talk overparties, if the young people have been out of an evening,--a book, ifwe have been reading one; we discuss and analyze characters,--give ourviews on all subjects, æsthetic, theological, and scientific, in a waymost wonderful to hear; and, in fact, we sometimes get so engaged inour discussions that every spark of the fire burns out, and we beginto feel ourselves shivering around the shoulders, before we canremember that it is bedtime.

So, after the reading of my last article, we had a "raking-uptalk,"--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 helpfeeling that, if I had the taste and the money too, it would be betterthan the taste alone with no money. I like the nice arrangements andthe books and the drawings, but I think all these would appear betterstill with really elegant furniture."

"Who doubts that?" said I. "Give me a large tub of gold coin to dipinto, and the furnishing and beautifying of a house is a simpleaffair. The same taste that could make beauty out of cents and dimescould make it more abundantly out of dollars and eagles. But Ihave 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, anddevoutly cared for, and then I say that BEAUTY IS CHEAP,--nay, toput it so that the shrewdest Yankee will understand it,--BEAUTY ISTHE CHEAPEST THING YOU CAN HAVE, because in many ways it is asubstitute for expense. A few vases of flowers in a room, a fewblooming, well-kept plants, a few prints framed in fanciful framesof cheap domestic fabric, a statuette, a bracket, an engraving, apencil-sketch,--above all, a few choice books,--all these arranged bya woman who has the gift in her finger-ends, often produce such anillusion on the mind's eye that one goes away without once havingnoticed that the cushion of the armchair was worn out, and that someveneering had fallen off the centre-table.

"I have a friend, a schoolmistress, who lives in a poor little cottageenough, which, let alone of the Graces, might seem mean and sordid,but a few flower-seeds and a little weeding in the spring make it, allsummer, an object which everybody stops to look at. Her æsthetic soulwas at first greatly tried with the water-barrel which stood under theeaves spout,--a most necessary evil, since only thus could her scantysupply of soft water for domestic purposes be secured. One of theGraces, however, suggested to her a happy thought. She planted a rowof morning-glories round the bottom of her barrel, and drove a row oftacks around the top, and strung her water-butt with twine, like a



great harpsichord. A few weeks covered the twine with blossomingplants, which every morning were a mass of many-colored airy blooms,waving in graceful sprays, and looking at themselves in the water. Thewater-barrel, in fact, became a celebrated stroke of ornamentalgardening, which the neighbors came to look at."

"Well, but," said Jenny, "everybody hasn't mamma's faculty withflowers. Flowers will grow for some people, and for some they won't.Nobody can see what mamma does so very much, but her plants alwayslook fresh and thriving and healthy,--her things blossom just when shewants them, and do anything else she wishes them to; and there areother people that fume and fuss and try, and their things won't doanything at all. There's Aunt Easygo has plant after plant broughtfrom the greenhouse, and hanging-baskets, and all sorts of things; buther plants grow yellow and drop their leaves, and her hanging-basketsget dusty and poverty-stricken, while mamma's go on flourishing asheart could desire."

"I can tell you what your mother puts into her plants," saidI,--"just what she has put into her children, and all her otherhome-things,--her _heart_. She loves them; she lives in them; she hasin herself a plant-life and a plant-sympathy. She feels for them asif she herself were a plant; she anticipates their wants,--alwaysremembers them without an effort, and so the care flows to them

daily and hourly. She hardly knows when she does the things thatmake them grow, but she gives them a minute a hundred times a day.She moves this nearer the glass,--draws that back,--detects some thiefof a worm on one,--digs at the root of another, to see why itdroops,--washes these leaves and sprinkles those,--waters, andrefrains from watering, all with the habitual care of love. Yourmother herself doesn't know why her plants grow; it takes aphilosopher and a writer for the 'Atlantic' to tell her what the causeis."

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 beginto depend much on plants for the beauty of my rooms, for fear I shouldnot have your gift,--and, of all forlorn and hopeless things in aroom, ill-kept plants are the most so."

"I would not recommend," said I, "a young housekeeper, just beginning,to rest much for her home ornament on plant-keeping, unless she has anexperience of her own love and talent in this line which makes hersure of success; for plants will not thrive if they are forgotten oroverlooked, 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 parlorsof John's that you wrote of, flowers acted a great part."

"The charm of those parlors of John's may be chemically analyzed," Isaid. "In the first place, there is sunshine, a thing that alwaysaffects the human nerves of happiness. Why else is it that people arealways so glad to see the sun after a long storm? why are bright daysmatters 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 thepictures, books, statuettes of an interior. John, happily, had nomoney to buy brocatelle curtains, and, besides this, he loved sunshinetoo much to buy them, if he could. He had been enough with artists toknow that heavy damask curtains darken precisely that part of thewindow where the light proper for pictures and statuary should comein, namely, the upper part. The fashionable system of curtains lightsonly the legs of the chairs and the carpets, and leaves all the upperportion of the room in shadow. John's windows have shades which can atpleasure be drawn down from the top or up from the bottom, so thatthe best light to be had may always be arranged for his littleinterior."

"Well, papa," said Marianne, "in your chemical analysis of John'srooms, what is the next thing to the sunshine?"

"The next," said I, "is harmony of color. The wall-paper, thefurniture, the carpets, are of tints that harmonize with one another.This is a grace in rooms always, and one often neglected. The Frenchhave an expressive phrase with reference to articles which are out ofaccord,--they say that they swear at each other, I have been in roomswhere I seemed to hear the wall-paper swearing at the carpet, and thecarpet swearing back at the wall-paper, and each article of furniture

swearing at the rest. These appointments may all of them be of themost expensive kind, but with such dis-harmony no arrangement can everproduce anything but a vulgar and disagreeable effect. On the otherhand, I have been in rooms where all the material was cheap and thefurniture poor, but where, from some instinctive knowledge of thereciprocal effect of colors, everything was harmonious, and produced asense of elegance.

"I recollect once traveling on a Western canal through a long stretchof wilderness, and stopping to spend the night at an obscuresettlement of a dozen houses. We were directed to lodgings in a commonframe house at a little distance, where, it seemed, the only hotel waskept. When we entered the parlor, we were struck with utter amazement

at its prettiness, which affected us before we began to ask ourselveshow it came to be pretty. It was, in fact, only one of the miracles ofharmonious color working with very simple materials. Some woman hadbeen busy there, who had both eyes and fingers. The sofa, the commonwooden rocking-chairs, and some ottomans, probably made of oldsoap-boxes, were all covered with American nankeen of a softyellowish-brown, with a bordering of blue print. The window-shades,the table-cover, and the piano-cloth all repeated the same colors, inthe same cheap material. A simple straw matting was laid over thefloor, and, with a few books, a vase of flowers, and one or twoprints, the room had a home-like and even elegant air, that struck usall 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 inexpensivepossible,--simply the following out, in cheap material, a law ofuniformity and harmony, which always will produce beauty. In the samemanner, I have seen a room furnished, whose effect was really gorgeousin color, where the only materials used were Turkey-red cotton and asimple ingrain carpet of corresponding color.

"Now, you girls have been busy lately in schemes for buying a velvetcarpet 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 wascheaper than velvets usually are, and that it was a genteel pattern."

"Now, papa," said Jenny, "what ears you have! We thought you werereading all the time!"

"I see what you are going to say," said Marianne. "You think that wehave not once mentioned the consideration which should determine thecarpet, 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 goodchance to get a velvet carpet."

"Yet, good as the chance is, it costs just twice as much as aningrain."

"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 ofsuch 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, thathe wishes to make you a present of a dollar on the yard, or is theresome reason why it is undesirable?" said I.

"Well, you know, papa, he said those large patterns were not sosalable."

"To tell the truth," said Marianne, "I never did like the patternexactly; as to uniformity of tint, it might match with anything, forthere'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 doyou want?"

"We want sixty yards for both rooms," said Jenny, always primed withstatistics.

"That will be a hundred and twenty dollars," I said.

"Yes," said Jenny; "and we went over the figures together, and thoughtwe could make it out by economizing in other things. Aunt Easygo said

that the carpet was half the battle,--that it gave the air toeverything else."

"Well, Marianne, if you want a man's advice in the case, mine is atyour 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 saveon your carpet spend on engravings, chromo lithographs, or photographsof some 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 oldbook-worm, yet he has his eyes open. Do you think I don't know why mygirls have the credit of being the best-dressed girls on the street?"

"Oh 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 ofribbon because it is selling at half price, and put it on withoutconsidering 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 downstairs, with allyour colors harmonized, even to your gloves and gaiters? Now, a roommust be dressed as carefully as a lady."

"Well, I'm convinced," said Jenny, "that papa knows how to make roomsprettier than Aunt Easygo; but then she said this was cheap, becauseit would outlast two common carpets."

"But, as you pay double price," said I, "I don't see that. Besides, Iwould rather, in the course of twenty years, have two nice, freshingrain carpets, of just the color and pattern that suited my rooms,than labor along with one ill-chosen velvet that harmonized withnothing."

"I give it up," said Jenny; "I give it up."

"Now, understand me," said I; "I am not traducing velvet or Brusselsor Axminster. I admit that more beautiful effects can be found inthose goods than in the humbler fabrics of the carpet rooms. Nothingwould delight me more than to put an unlimited credit to Marianne'saccount, and let her work out the problems of harmonious color invelvet and damask. All I have to say is, that certain unities ofcolor, certain general arrangements, will secure very nearly as goodgeneral effects in either material. A library with a neat, mossy greencarpet on the floor, harmonizing with wall-paper and furniture, looksgenerally as well, whether the mossy green is made in Brussels or iningrain. In the carpet stores, these two materials stand side by sidein the very same pattern, and one is often as good for the purpose asthe other. A lady of my acquaintance, some years since, employed an

artist to decorate her parlors. The walls being frescoed and tinted tosuit his ideal, he immediately issued his decree that her splendidvelvet carpets must be sent to auction, and others bought of certaincolors harmonizing with the walls. Unable to find exactly the colorand pattern he wanted, he at last had the carpets woven in aneighboring factory, where, as yet, they had only the art of weavingingrains. Thus was the material sacrificed at once to the harmony."

I remarked, in passing, that this was before Bigelow's mechanicalgenius had unlocked for America the higher secrets of carpet-weaving,



and made it possible to have one's desires accomplished in Brussels orvelvet. In those days, English carpet-weavers did not send to Americafor 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 theiragreeable air is the books in them. Some people are fond of treatingbooks as others do children. One room in the house is selected, andevery book driven into it and kept there. Yet nothing makes a room sohome-like, so companionable, and gives it such an air of refinement,as the presence of books. They change the aspect of a parlor from thatof 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'sthings to stay. It gives the appearance of permanence and repose andquiet fellowship; and, next to pictures on the walls, the many-coloredbindings and gildings of books are the most agreeable adornment of aroom."

"Then, Marianne," said Bob, "we have something to start with, at allevents. There are my English Classics and English Poets, and myuniform editions of Scott and Thackeray and Macaulay and Prescott andIrving and Longfellow and Lowell and Hawthorne and Holmes and a hostmore. We really have something pretty there."

"You are a lucky girl," I said, "to have so much secured. A girlbrought up in a house full of books, always able to turn to this orthat 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 treasuresthe other day. Do you know, I have one really fine old engraving,that Bob says is quite a genuine thing; and then there is thatpencil-sketch that poor Schöne made for me the month before hedied,--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, "nowyou are fairly on the right track."

"But, papa," said Marianne, "I am troubled about one thing. My love ofbeauty runs into everything. I want pretty things for my table; andyet, as you say, servants are so careless, one cannot use such thingsfreely without great waste."

"For my part," said my wife, "I believe in best china, to be keptcarefully on an upper shelf, and taken down for high-days andholidays; it may be a superstition, but I believe in it. It must neverbe taken out except when the mistress herself can see that it is

safely cared for. My mother always washed her china herself; and itwas a very pretty social ceremony, after tea was over, while she satamong us washing her pretty cups, and wiping them on a fine damasktowel."

"With all my heart," said I; "have your best china and venerateit,--it is one of the loveliest of domestic superstitions; only donot make it a bar to hospitality, and shrink from having a friend totea with you, unless you feel equal to getting up to the high shelfwhere 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 anecessity, and beauty is cheap. Because you cannot afford beauty inone form, it does not follow that you cannot have it in another.Because one cannot afford to keep up a perennial supply of delicatechina and crystal, subject to the accidents of raw, untrainedservants, it does not follow that the every-day table need present asordid assortment of articles chosen simply for cheapness, while thewhole capacity of the purse is given to the set forever locked awayfor state occasions.

"A table-service all of simple white, of graceful forms, eventhough not of china, if arranged with care, with snowy, well-kepttable-linen, clear glasses, and bright American plate in place ofsolid silver, may be made to look inviting; add a glass of flowersevery day, and your table may look pretty: and it is far moreimportant that it should look pretty for the family every day thanfor company once in two weeks."

"I tell my girls," said my wife, "as the result of my experience, youmay have your pretty china and your lovely fanciful articles for thetable only so long as you can take all the care of them yourselves. Assoon as you get tired of doing this, and put them into the hands ofthe trustiest servants, some good, well-meaning creature is sure to

break her heart and your own and your very pet darling china pitcherall in one and the same minute, and then her frantic despair leavesyou not even the relief of scolding."

"I have become perfectly sure," said I "that there are spiteful littlebrownies, intent on seducing good women to sin, who mount guard overthe special idols of the china closet. If you hear a crash, and a loudIrish wail from the inner depths, you never think of its being ayellow pie-plate, or that dreadful one-handled tureen that you havebeen wishing were broken these five years; no, indeed,--it is sure tobe the lovely painted china bowl, wreathed with morning-glories andsweet-peas, or the engraved glass goblet, with quaint Old Englishinitials. China sacrificed must be a great means of saintship to

women. Pope, I think, puts it as the crowning grace of his perfectwoman that she is

"'Mistress of herself though china fall.'"

"I ought to be a saint by this time, then," said mamma; "for in thecourse of my days I have lost so many idols by breakage, and peculiaraccidents that seemed by a special fatality to befall my prettiest andmost irreplaceable things, that in fact it has come to be asuperstitious feeling now with which I regard anything particularlypretty 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 poorone."

"Yet," said I, "the principle of beauty is never so captivating aswhen it presides over the hour of daily meals. I would have the roomwhere they are served one of the pleasantest and sunniest in thehouse. I would have its coloring cheerful, and there should becompanionable pictures and engravings on the walls. Of all things, Idislike a room that seems to be kept, like a restaurant, merely to eatin. I like to see in a dining-room something that betokens a pleasant



sitting-room at other hours. I like there some books, a comfortablesofa or lounge, and all that should make it cosy and inviting. Thecustom in some families, of adopting for the daily meals one of thetwo parlors which a city house furnishes, has often seemed to me aparticularly happy one. You take your meals, then, in an agreeableplace, surrounded by the little pleasant arrangements of your dailysitting-room; and after the meal, if the lady of the house does thehonors of her own pretty china herself, the office may be a pleasantand social one.

"But in regard to your table-service I have my advice at hand. Investin pretty table-linen, in delicate napkins, have your vase of flowers,and be guided by the eye of taste in the choice and arrangement ofeven the every-day table articles, and have no ugly things when youcan have pretty ones by taking a little thought. If you are soretempted with lovely china and crystal, too fragile to last, tooexpensive to be renewed, turn away to a print-shop and comfortyourself by hanging around the walls of your dining-room beauty thatwill not break or fade, that will meet your eye from year to year,though plates, tumblers, and teasets successively vanish. There is myadvice for you, Marianne."

At the same time let me say, in parenthesis, that my wife, whoseweakness is china, informed me that night, when we were by ourselves,

that she was ordering secretly a teaset as a bridal gift for Marianneevery cup of which was to be exquisitely painted with the wild flowersof America, from designs of her own,--a thing, by the by, that can nowbe very nicely executed in our country, as one may find by looking inat our friend Briggs's on School Street. "It will last her all herlife," she said, "and always be such a pleasure to look at; and apretty tea-table is such a pretty sight!" So spoke Mrs. Crowfield,"unweaned from china by a thousand falls." She spoke even with tearsin 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 growing grace,--their _homeliness_. By 'homeliness' I mean not ugliness, as the word is aptto be used, but the air that is given to a room by being really athome in it. Not the most skillful arrangement can impart this charm.

"It is said that a king of France once remarked, 'My son, you mustseem 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 thatthey are never used, that you can never be at ease there. In vain thehousemaid is taught to wheel the sofa and turn chair toward chair; invain it is attempted to imitate a negligent arrangement of thecentre-table.

"Books that have really been read and laid down, chairs that havereally been moved here and there in the animation of social contact,have a sort of human vitality in them; and a room in which peoplereally 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 thisone grace, that they seem to let you into the home life and homecurrent. You seem to understand in a moment that you are taken intothe family, and are moving in its inner circles, and not revolving ata distance in some outer court of the gentiles.

"How many people do we call on from year to year and know no more oftheir feelings, habits, tastes, family ideas and ways, than if theylived in Kamtschatka! And why? Because the room which they call afront parlor is made expressly so that you never shall know. They sitin a back room,--work, talk, read, perhaps. After the servant has letyou in and opened a crack of the shutters, and while you sit waitingfor them to change their dress and come in, you speculate as to whatthey 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 hastilyto. Do they love plants? Do they write letters, sew, embroider,crochet? Do they ever romp and frolic? What books do they read? Dothey sketch or paint? Of all these possibilities the mute and muffledroom says nothing. A sofa and six chairs, two ottomans fresh from theupholsterer's, a Brussels carpet, a centre-table with four gilt Booksof Beauty on it, a mantel-clock from Paris, and two bronze vases,--allthose 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, andyou remark that it is a pleasant day, and thus the acquaintanceprogresses from year to year. One hour in the back room, where theplants and canary-bird and children are, might have made you fastfriends for life; but, little as it is, you care no more for them thanfor the gilt clock on the mantel.

"And now, girls," said I, pulling a paper out of my pocket, "you mustknow that your father is getting to be famous by means of these 'Houseand 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 theforce of them, and are delighted with the felicity of yourtreatment of the topic you have chosen. You have taken hold of asubject that lies deep in our hearts, in a genial, temperate, andconvincing spirit. All must acknowledge the power of yoursentiments upon their imaginations; if they could only trust tothem in actual life! There is the rub.

"Omitting further upon these points, there is a special feature ofyour articles upon which we wish to address you. You seem as yet(we do not know, of course, what you may hereafter do) to speakonly of homes whose conduct depends upon the help of servants. Nowyour 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 thereforehope that you will give a reasonable share of your attention to uswho do not employ servants, so that you may ease us of some of ourburdens, which, in spite of common sense, we dare not throw off.For instance, we have company,--a friend from afar (perhapswealthy), or a minister, or some other man of note. What do we do?Sit down and receive our visitor with all good will and thefreedom of a home? No; we (the lady of the house) flutter about toclear up things, apologizing about this, that, and the other



condition of unpreparedness, and, having settled the visitor inthe parlor, set about marshaling the elements of a grand dinner orsupper, 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 thetime which our guest spends with us. We have spread ourselves, andshown him what we could do; but what a paltry, heart-sickeningachievement! Now, good Mr. Crowfield, thou friend of the robbedand despairing, wilt thou not descend into our purgatorial circle,and tell the world what thou hast seen there of dolefulremembrance? Tell us how we, who must do and desire to do our ownwork, can show forth in our homes a homely yet genial hospitality,and entertain our guests without making a fuss and hurlyburly, andseeming to be anxious for their sake about many things, andspending too much time getting meals, as if eating were the chiefsocial 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 thatdo their own work are the strongest, the most numerous, and, takingone thing with another, quite as well cultivated a class as any other.They are the anomaly of our country,--the distinctive feature of thenew society that we are building up here; and, if we are to accomplishour national destiny, that class must increase rather than diminish. Ishall certainly do my best to answer the very sensible and pregnantquestions 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 theclock 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 proppedon an ottoman, reading for the two-hundredth time Hawthorne's "Mossesfrom an Old Manse," or his "Twice-Told Tales," I forget which,--I onlyknow that these books constitute my cloud-land, where I love to sailaway in dreamy quietude, forgetting the war, the price of coal and



flour, the rates of exchange, and the rise and fall of gold. What doall these things matter, as seen from those enchanted gardens in Paduawhere the weird Rappaccini tends his enchanted plants, and hisgorgeous daughter fills us with the light and magic of her presence,and saddens us with the shadowy allegoric mystery of her preternaturaldestiny? But my wife represents the positive forces of time, place,and number in our family, and, having also a chronological head, sheknows the day of the month, and therefore gently reminded me that byinevitable 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 camehead-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 whodoes her own work."

"Enough!" said I, seizing the pen with alacrity; "you have hit theexact phrase:--

"'The _lady_ who _does her own work_.'"

* * * * *

America is the only country where such a title is possible,--the onlycountry 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 ofeducation, cultivation, and refinement, of liberal tastes and ideas,who, without any very material additions or changes, would berecognized 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 factpeculiar to American society, a clear, plain result of the newprinciples 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 imbuedwith the spirit of feudal and aristocratic ideas, the discipline ofthe wilderness soon brought them to a democratic level; thegentleman felled the wood for his log-cabin side by side with theploughman, and thews and sinews rose in the market. "A man wasdeemed honorable in proportion as he lifted his hand upon the hightrees of the forest." So in the interior domestic circle. Mistressand maid, living in a log-cabin together, became companions, andsometimes the maid, as the more accomplished and stronger, tookprecedence of the mistress. It became natural and unavoidable thatchildren should begin to work as early as they were capable of it. Theresult was a generation of intelligent people brought up to laborfrom necessity, but turning on the problem of labor the acuteness of

a disciplined brain. The mistress, outdone in sinews and muscles byher maid, kept her superiority by skill and contrivance. If shecould not lift a pail of water she could invent methods which madelifting the pail unnecessary; if she could not take a hundred stepswithout weariness, she could make twenty answer the purpose of ahundred.

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-sightedthrift, and from a love of thoroughness and well-doing which despisedthe rude, unskilled work of barbarians. People, having once felt thethorough neatness and beauty of execution which came of free,educated, and thoughtful labor, could not tolerate the clumsiness ofslavery. Thus it came to pass that for many years the rural populationof New England, as a general rule, did their own work, both out doorsand in. If there were a black man or black woman or bound girl, theywere emphatically only the _helps_, following humbly the steps ofmaster and mistress, and used by them as instruments of lighteningcertain portions of their toil. The master and mistress with theirchildren were the head workers.

Great merriment has been excited in the Old Country because years agothe first English travelers found that the class of persons by themdenominated servants were in America denominated help or helpers. Butthe term was the very best exponent of the state of society. Therewere few servants in the European sense of the word; there was asociety of educated workers, where all were practically equal, andwhere, if there was a deficiency in one family and an excess inanother, a _helper_, not a servant, was hired. Mrs. Brown, who has sixsons and no daughters, enters into agreement with Mrs. Jones, who hassix daughters and no sons. She borrows a daughter, and pays her goodwages 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 whichthey are to be employed in all respects as equals and companions, andso the work of the community is equalized. Hence arose, and for manyyears continued, a state of society more nearly solving than any otherever did the problem of combining the highest culture of the mind withthe 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 indoor work with cheerful alertness,--one tosweep the room, another to make the fire, while a third prepared thebreakfast for the father and brothers who were going out to manlylabor; 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 nextweek. They spun with the book tied to the distaff; they wove; they didall manner of fine needlework; they made lace, painted flowers, and,in short, in the boundless consciousness of activity, invention, andperfect health, set themselves to any work they had ever read orthought of. A bride in those days was married with sheets andtablecloths of her own weaving, with counterpanes and toilet-coverswrought in divers embroidery by her own and her sisters' hands. Theamount of fancy work done in our days by girls who have nothing elseto 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 andposition, though perhaps not as happy in perfect self-satisfaction anda conviction of the dignity and desirableness of its lot as in formerdays. Human nature is above all things--lazy. Every one confesses inthe abstract that exertion which brings out all the powers of body andmind is the best thing for us all; but practically most people do allthey can to get rid of it, and as a general rule nobody does much morethan circumstances drive him to do. Even I would not write thisarticle were not the publication-day hard on my heels. I should readHawthorne and Emerson and Holmes, and dream in my armchair, and



project in the clouds those lovely unwritten stories that curl andveer and change like mist-wreaths in the sun. So also, howeverdignified, however invigorating, however really desirable, are habitsof life involving daily physical toil, there is a constant evil demonat every one's elbow, seducing him to evade it, or to bear its weightwith sullen, discontented murmurs.

I will venture to say that there are at least, to speak verymoderately, a hundred houses where these humble lines will be read anddiscussed, where there are no servants except the ladies of thehousehold. I will venture to say, also, that these households, many ofthem, are not inferior in the air of cultivation and refined eleganceto many which are conducted by the ministration of domestics. I willventure to assert furthermore that these same ladies who live thusfind quite as much time for reading, letter-writing, drawing,embroidery, and fancy work as the women of families otherwisearranged. I am quite certain that they would be found on an average tobe in the enjoyment of better health, and more of that sense ofcapability and vitality which gives one confidence in one's ability tolook into life and meet it with cheerful courage, than three quartersof the women who keep servants; and that, on the whole, their domesticestablishment is regulated more exactly to their mind, their foodprepared and served more to their taste. And yet, with all this, Iwill _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 wholive in their houses like boarders, who have only to speak and it isdone, are the truly enviable ones. One after another of theirassociates, as opportunity offers and means increase, deserts theranks, and commits her domestic affairs to the hands of hiredservants. Self-respect takes the alarm. Is it altogether genteel tolive as we do? To be sure, we are accustomed to it; we have it allsystematized and arranged; the work of our own hands suits us betterthan any we can hire; in fact, when we do hire, we are discontentedand uncomfortable, for who will do for us what we will do forourselves? 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 thedishes ingloriously,--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, anunwillingness to face with dignity the actual facts and necessitiesof our situation in life,--this, after all, is the worst and mostdangerous feature of the case. It is the same sort of pride whichmakes Smilax think he must hire a waiter in white gloves, and getup a circuitous dinner party on English principles, to entertain afriend from England. Because the friend in England lives in suchand 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 ofMrs. Smilax. Now there are two principles of hospitality that peopleare very apt to overlook. One is, that their guests like to be madeat home, and treated with confidence; and another is, that peopleare always interested in the details of a way of life that is new tothem. The Englishman comes to America as weary of his old, easy,family-coach life as you can be of yours: he wants to see somethingnew under the sun,--something American; and forthwith we all bestirourselves to give him something as near as we can fancy exactly likewhat 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 citylife, but to lie on the haymow, to swing in the barn, to form intimacywith the pigs, chickens, and ducks, and to eat baked potatoes,exactly on the critical moment when they are done, from the oven ofthe cooking-stove,--and we remark, _en passant_, that nobody has evertruly eaten a baked potato unless he has seized it at that preciseand fortunate moment.

I fancy you now, my friends, whom I have in my eye. You are threehappy women together. You are all so well that you know not how itfeels to be sick. You are used to early rising, and would not lie inbed if you could. Long years of practice have made you familiar withthe shortest, neatest, most expeditious method of doing everyhousehold office, so that really, for the greater part of the time inyour house, there seems to a looker-on to be nothing to do. You risein the morning and dispatch your husband, father, and brothers to thefarm or wood-lot; you go sociably about chatting with each other,while you skim the milk, make the butter, turn the cheeses. Theforenoon is long; it's ten to one that all the so-called morning workis over, and you have leisure for an hour's sewing or reading beforeit is time to start the dinner preparations. By two o'clock yourhousework is done, and you have the long afternoon for books,needlework, or drawing,--for perhaps there is among you one with agift 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 ofreading. I see on your bookshelves Prescott, Macaulay, Irving, besidesthe lighter fry of poems and novels, and, if I mistake not, thefriendly covers of the "Atlantic." When you have company, you inviteMrs. Smith or Brown or Jones to tea: you have no trouble--they comeearly, with their knitting or sewing; your particular crony sits withyou by your polished stove while you watch the baking of those lightbiscuits and tea rusks for which you are so famous, and Mrs.Somebodyelse chats with your sister, who is spreading the table withyour best china in the best room. When tea is over, there is plenty ofvolunteering to help you wash your pretty India teacups, and get themback into the cupboard. There is no special fatigue or exertion in allthis, though you have taken down the best things and put them back,

because you have done all without anxiety or effort, among those whowould do precisely the same if you were their visitors.

But now comes down pretty Mrs. Simmons and her pretty daughter tospend a week with you, and forthwith you are troubled. Your youngest,Fanny, visited them in New York last fall, and tells you of their cookand chambermaid, and the servant in white gloves that waits on thetable. You say in your soul, "What shall we do? they never can becontented to live as we do; how shall we manage?" And now you long forservants.

This is the very time that you should know that Mrs. Simmons is tiredto death of her fine establishment, and weighed down with the task of

keeping the peace among her servants. She is a quiet soul, dearlyloving her ease and hating strife; and yet last week she had fivequarrels to settle between her invaluable cook and the other membersof her staff, because invaluable cook, on the strength of knowing howto get up state dinners and to manage all sorts of mysteries which hermistress knows nothing about, asserts the usual right of spoiledfavorites to insult all her neighbors with impunity, and rule with arod of iron over the whole house. Anything that is not in the leastlike her own home and ways of living will be a blessed relief andchange to Mrs. Simmons. Your clean, quiet house, your delicate



cookery, your cheerful morning tasks, if you will let her follow youabout, and sit and talk with you while you are at your work, will allseem a pleasant contrast to her own life. Of course, if it came to thecase of offering to change lots in life, she would not do it; but verylikely she _thinks_ she would, and sighs over and pities herself, andthinks sentimentally how fortunate you are, how snugly and securelyyou live, and wishes she were as untrammeled and independent as you.And she is more than half right; for, with her helpless habits, herutter ignorance of the simplest facts concerning the reciprocalrelations of milk, eggs, butter, saleratus, soda, and yeast, she iscompletely 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 toprove a perfect treasure,--neat, dapper, nimble, skillful, andspirited. The very soul of Mrs. Simmons rejoices in heaven. Illusivebliss! The newcomer proves to be no favorite with Madam Cook, and thedomestic fates evolve the catastrophe, as follows. First, low murmurof distant thunder in the kitchen; then a day or two of sulky silence,in which the atmosphere seems heavy with an approaching storm. At lastcomes the climax. The parlor door flies open during breakfast. Enterseamstress in tears, followed by Mrs. Cook, with a face swollen andred with wrath, who tersely introduces the subject-matter of the dramain a voice trembling with rage.

"Would you be plased, ma'am, to suit yerself with another cook? Meweek 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 ahouse, nor I won't; them as likes the Cork girls is welcome for allme; but it's not for the likes of me to live with them, and she beenin the kitchen a-upsettin' of me gravies with her flatirons andthings."

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 thunderstorm in the midst of aregular Irish row.

Cook, of course, is sure of her victory. She knows that a great dinneris to come off Wednesday, and that her mistress has not the smallestidea how to manage it, and that therefore, whatever happens, she mustbe conciliated.

Swelling with secret indignation at the tyrant, poor Mrs. Simmonsdismisses her seamstress with longing looks. She suited her mistressexactly, but she didn't suit cook!

Now, if Mrs. Simmons had been brought up in early life with theexperience that you have, she would be mistress in her own house. Shewould quietly say to Madam Cook, "If my family arrangements do notsuit you, you can leave. I can see to the dinner myself." And shecould do it. Her well-trained muscles would not break down under alittle extra work; her skill, adroitness, and perfect familiarity witheverything that is to be done would enable her at once to make cooksof any bright girls of good capacity who might still be in herestablishment; and, above all, she would feel herself mistress in herown 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 themachine in any spot where a hand is needed never comes to be the slaveof a coarse, vulgar Irishwoman.

So, also, in forming a judgment of what is to be expected of servantsin a given time, and what ought to be expected of a given amountof provisions, poor Mrs. Simmons is absolutely at sea. If even forone six months in her life she had been a practical cook, and hadreally had the charge of the larder, she would not now be haunted,as she constantly is, by an indefinite apprehension of an immensewastefulness, perhaps of the disappearance of provisions throughsecret channels of relationship and favoritism. She certainly couldnot be made to believe in the absolute necessity of so many pounds ofsugar, quarts of milk, and dozens of eggs, not to mention spicesand wine, as are daily required for the accomplishment of MadamCook's purposes. But though now she does suspect and apprehend,she cannot speak with certainty. She cannot say, "_I_ have madethese things. I know exactly what they require. I have done this andthat myself, and know it can be done, and done well, in a certaintime." It is said that women who have been accustomed to doing theirown work become hard mistresses. They are certainly more sure of theground they stand on,--they are less open to imposition,--they canspeak 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 generalerror lies in expecting that any servant ever will do as well forthem as they will do for themselves, and that an untrained,undisciplined human being ever _can_ do housework, or any otherwork, with the neatness and perfection that a person of trainedintelligence can. It has been remarked in our armies that the men ofcultivation, though bred in delicate and refined spheres, can bearup under the hardships of camp-life better and longer than roughlaborers. The reason is, that an educated mind knows how to useand save its body, to work it and spare it, as an uneducated mindcannot; and so the college-bred youth brings himself safelythrough 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 savethe wear of the muscles. By forethought, contrivance, system, andarrangement, they lessen the amount to be done, and do it with lessexpense of time and strength than others. The old New England motto, _Get your work done up in the forenoon_, applied to an amount ofwork which would keep a common Irish servant toiling from daylight tosunset.

A lady living in one of our obscure New England towns, where therewere no servants to be hired, at last by sending to a distant citysucceeded in procuring a raw Irish maid of all work, a creature ofimmense bone and muscle, but of heavy, unawakened brain. In onefortnight she established such a reign of Chaos and old Night in the

kitchen and through the house that her mistress, a delicate woman,incumbered with the care of young children, began seriously to thinkthat she made more work each day than she performed, and dismissedher. What was now to be done? Fortunately, the daughter of aneighboring farmer was going to be married in six months, and wanted alittle ready money for her trousseau. The lady was informed that MissSo-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 thefamily 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 ofa lady. The newcomer took a survey of the labors of a family of tenmembers, including four or five young children, and, looking, seemedat once to throw them into system, matured her plans, arranged herhours of washing, ironing, baking, cleaning, rose early, moveddeftly, and in a single day the slatternly and littered kitchenassumed that neat, orderly appearance that so often strikes one in NewEngland farmhouses. The work seemed to be all gone. Everything wasnicely washed, brightened, put in place, and stayed in place: thefloors, when cleaned, remained clean; the work was always done, andnot doing; and every afternoon the young lady sat neatly dressed inher own apartment, either writing letters to her betrothed, or sewingon her bridal outfit. Such is the result of employing those who havebeen 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 FifthAvenue; and, if she is, she will, we fear, prove rather an exactingmistress to Irish Biddy and Bridget; but she will never be threatenedby her cook and chambermaid, after the first one or two have tried theexperiment.

* * * * *

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 soI read as far, reader, as you have.

"Well, papa," said Jenny, "what are you meaning to make out there? Doyou really think it would be best for us all to try to go back to thatold style of living you describe? After all, you have shown only thedark side of an establishment with servants, and the bright side ofthe other way of living. Mamma does not have such trouble with herservants; matters have always gone smoothly in our family; and, if weare not such wonderful girls as those you describe, yet we may makepretty 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 theday when I have heartily wished for the strength and ability to managemy household matters as my grandmother of notable memory managed hers.But I fear that those remarkable women of the olden times are like theancient painted glass,--the art of making them is lost; my mother wasless 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 theparlors, 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 weretrained to habits of industry and mechanical adroitness from thecradle, and every household process was reduced to the very minimum oflabor. Every step required in a process was counted, every movementcalculated; and she who took ten steps, when one would do, lost herreputation for 'faculty.' Certainly such an early drill was of use indeveloping the health and the bodily powers, as well as in givingprecision to the practical mental faculties. All household economieswere arranged with equal niceness in those thoughtful minds. A trained



housekeeper knew just how many sticks of hickory of a certain sizewere required to heat her oven, and how many of each different kind ofwood. She knew by a sort of intuition just what kind of food wouldyield the most palatable nutriment with the least outlay ofaccessories in cooking. She knew to a minute the time when eacharticle must go into and be withdrawn from her oven; and, if she couldonly lie in her chamber and direct, she could guide an intelligentchild through the processes with mathematical certainty. It isimpossible, however, that anything but early training and longexperience can produce these results, and it is earnestly to be wishedthat the grandmothers of New England had only written down theirexperiences for our children; they would have been a mine of maximsand traditions, better than any other traditions of the elders whichwe know of."

"One thing I know," said Marianne, "and that is, I wish I had beenbrought up so, and knew all that I should, and had all the strengthand adroitness that those women had. I should not dread to beginhousekeeping, as I now do. I should feel myself independent. I shouldfeel that I knew how to direct my servants, and what it was reasonableand proper to expect of them; and then, as you say, I shouldn't bedependent on all their whims and caprices of temper. I dread thosehousehold 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 thesuperincumbent pressure which in the Old World confines the servantsto a regular orbit. They come here feeling that this is somehow a landof liberty, and with very dim and confused notions of what liberty is.They are for the most part the raw, untrained Irish peasantry, and thewonder is, that, with all the unreasoning heats and prejudices of theCeltic blood, all the necessary ignorance and rawness, there should bethe measure of comfort and success there is in our domestic

arrangements. But, so long as things are so, there will be constantchanges and interruptions in every domestic establishment, andconstantly recurring interregnums when the mistress must put her ownhand 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 saveher strength. She knows nothing experimentally of the simplestprocesses necessary to keep her family comfortably fed and clothed;and she has a way of looking at all these things which makes themparticularly hard and distasteful to her. She does not escape beingobliged to do housework at intervals, but she does it in a weak,blundering, confused way, that makes it twice as hard and disagreeableas it need be.

Now what I have to say is, that, if every young woman learned to dohousework and cultivated her practical faculties in early life, shewould, in the first place, be much more likely to keep her servants,and, in the second place, if she lost them temporarily, would avoidall that wear and tear of the nervous system which comes from constantill-success in those departments on which family health and tempermainly depend. This is one of the peculiarities of our American lifewhich require a peculiar training. Why not face it sensibly?



The second thing I have to say is, that our land is now full ofmotorpathic institutions to which women are sent at great expense tohave hired operators stretch and exercise their inactive muscles. Theylie for hours to have their feet twigged, their arms flexed, and allthe different muscles of the body worked for them, because they are soflaccid and torpid that the powers of life do not go on. Would it notbe quite as cheerful and less expensive a process if young girls fromearly life developed the muscles in sweeping, dusting, ironing,rubbing furniture, and all the multiplied domestic processes which ourgrandmothers knew of? A woman who did all these, and diversified theintervals with spinning on the great and little wheel, never came toneed the gymnastics of Dio Lewis or of the Swedish motorpathist, whichreally are a necessity now. Does it not seem poor economy to payservants for letting our muscles grow feeble, and then to payoperators to exercise them for us? I will venture to say that ourgrandmothers in a week went over every movement that any gymnast hasinvented, and went over them to some productive purpose, too.

Lastly, my paper will not have been in vain if those ladies who havelearned and practice the invaluable accomplishment of doing their ownwork will know their own happiness and dignity, and properly valuetheir great acquisition, even though it may have been forced upon themby circumstances.

VII

WHAT CAN BE GOT IN AMERICA

While I was preparing my article for the "Atlantic," our friend BobStephens burst in upon us, in some considerable heat, with a newspaperin 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 sufferand die for our country,'--and now comes the test of femininepatriotism."

"Why, what's the matter now?" said Jenny, running eagerly to look overhis shoulder at the paper.

"No more foreign goods," said he, waving it aloft,--"no more goldshipped 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 thewar."

"But I don't see how it _can_ be done," said Jenny.

"Why," said I, "do you suppose that 'nothing to wear' is made inAmerica?"

"But, dear Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Featherstone, a nice girl, whowas 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 veryordinary, and, as to American carpets, everybody knows their colorsdon't hold; and then, as to dress, a lady must have gloves, youknow,--and everybody knows no such things are made in America asgloves."

"I think," I said, "that I have heard of certain fair ladies wishingthat they were men, that they might show with what alacrity they wouldsacrifice everything on the altar of their country: life and limbwould be nothing; they would glory in wounds and bruises, they wouldenjoy losing a right arm, they wouldn't mind limping about on a lameleg the rest of their lives, if they were John or Peter, if only theymight serve their dear country."

"Yes," said Bob, "that's female patriotism! Girls are always ready tojump off from precipices, or throw themselves into abysses, but as towearing an unfashionable hat or thread gloves, that they can'tdo,--not even for their dear country. No matter whether there's anymoney left to pay for the war or not, the dear souls must have twentyyards 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 tomake these sacrifices and refused! I think I have seen women ready togive up dress and fashion and everything else for a good cause."

"For that matter," said I, "the history of all wars has shown womenready to sacrifice what is most intimately feminine in times of perilto their country. The women of Carthage not only gave up their jewelsin the siege of their city, but, in the last extremity, cut off theirhair for bowstrings. The women of Hungary and Poland, in theircountry's need, sold their jewels and plate and wore ornaments of ironand lead. In the time of our own Revolution, our women dressed inplain homespun and drank herb-tea,--and certainly nothing is morefeminine than a cup of tea. And in this very struggle, the women ofthe Southern States have cut up their carpets for blankets, have bornethe most humiliating retrenchments and privations of all kinds withouta 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 notretrenched and made sacrifices, it has been because it has not beenimpressed on them that there is any particular call for it. Everythinghas seemed to be so prosperous and plentiful in the Northern States,money has been so abundant and easy to come by, that it has reallybeen difficult to realize that a dreadful and destructive war wasraging. Only occasionally, after a great battle, when the lists of thekilled and wounded have been sent through the country, have we feltthat we were making a sacrifice. The women who have spent such sumsfor laces and jewels and silks have not had it set clearly before themwhy 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 havebeen buying foreign goods who would not do it if they could see anyconnection between their not doing it and the salvation of thecountry; but when I go to buy a pair of gloves, I naturally want thebest pair I can find, the pair that will last the longest and look thebest, 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 owncountry. I'm sure the poor manufacturers of England have shown thevery noblest spirit with relation to our cause, and so have the silkweavers and artisans of France,--at least, so I have heard; why shouldwe not give them a fair share of encouragement, particularly whenthey make things that we are not in circumstances to make, have notthe means to make?"

"Those are certainly sensible questions," I replied, "and ought tomeet a fair answer, and I should say that, were our country in afair ordinary state of prosperity, there would be no reason why ourwealth should not flow out for the encouragement of well-directedindustry in any part of the world; from this point of view we mightlook on the whole world as our country, and cheerfully assist indeveloping its wealth and resources. But our country is now in thesituation of a private family whose means are absorbed by anexpensive sickness, involving the life of its head: just now it isall we can do to keep the family together; all our means areswallowed up by our own domestic wants; we have nothing to givefor the encouragement of other families, we must exist ourselves; wemust get through this crisis and hold our own, and, that we may doit, all the family expenses must be kept within ourselves as far aspossible. If we drain off all the gold of the country to send toEurope to encourage her worthy artisans, we produce high prices

and distress among equally worthy ones at home, and we lessen theamount of our resources for maintaining the great struggle fornational existence. The same amount of money which we pay for foreignluxuries, if passed into the hands of our own manufacturers andproducers, becomes available for the increasing expenses of the war."

"But, papa," said Jenny, "I understood that a great part of ourgovernmental income was derived from the duties on foreign goods, andso I inferred that the more foreign goods were imported the better itwould be."

"Well, suppose," said I, "that for every hundred thousand dollars wesend 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 agreat 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 andmultitudes of others are greatly mistaken. Your partiality for foreignthings has kept you ignorant of what you have at home. Now I am notblaming the love of foreign things: it is not peculiar to usAmericans; all nations have it. It is a part of the poetry of ournature to love what comes from afar, and reminds us of lands distantand 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. WeAmericans are great travelers, and few people travel, I fancy, withmore real enjoyment than we; our domestic establishments, as comparedwith those of the Old World, are less cumbrous and stately, and so ourmoney is commonly in hand as pocket-money, to be spent freely andgayly in our tours abroad.

"We have such bright and pleasant times in every country that weconceive 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 thatcity of boulevards and fountains. Hence it comes, in a way not veryblamable, that many people have been so engrossed with what can be gotfrom abroad that they have neglected to inquire what can be found athome: they have supposed, of course, that to get a decent watch theymust send to Geneva or to London; that to get thoroughly good carpetsthey must have the English manufacture; that a really tastefulwall-paper could be found only in Paris; and that flannels andbroadcloths could come only from France, Great Britain, or Germany."

"Well, isn't it so?" said Miss Featherstone. "I certainly have alwaysthought so; I never heard of American watches, I'm sure."

"Then," said I, "I'm sure you can't have read an article that youshould have read on the Waltham watches, written by our friend GeorgeW. Curtis, in the 'Atlantic' for January of last year. I must referyou to that to learn that we make in America watches superior to thoseof Switzerland or England, bringing into the service machinery andmodes of workmanship unequaled for delicacy and precision; as I saidbefore, you must get the article and read it, and, if some sunny dayyou could make a trip to Waltham and see the establishment, it wouldgreatly assist your comprehension."

"Then, as to men's clothing," said Bob, "I know to my entiresatisfaction that many of the most popular cloths for men's wear areactually American fabrics baptized with French and English names tomake them sell."

"Which shows," said I, "the use of a general community movement toemploy American goods. It will change the fashion. The demand willcreate the supply. When the leaders of fashion are inquiring forAmerican instead of French and English fabrics, they will be surprisedto find what nice American articles there are. The work of our ownhands will no more be forced to skulk into the market under French andEnglish names, and we shall see, what is really true, that an Americangentleman need not look beyond his own country for a wardrobe

befitting him. I am positive that we need not seek broadcloth or otherwoolen goods from foreign lands,--that _better_ hats are made inAmerica than in Europe, and better boots and shoes; and I should beglad to send an American gentleman to the World's Fair dressed fromtop to toe in American manufactures, with an American watch in hispocket, and see if he would suffer in comparison with the gentlemen ofany other country."

"Then, as to house-furnishing," began my wife, "American carpets aregetting to be every way equal to the English."

"Yes," said I, "and, what is more, the Brussels carpets of England arewoven on looms invented by an American, and bought of him. Our

countryman, Bigelow, went to England to study carpet-weaving in theEnglish looms, supposing that all arts were generously open for theinstruction of learners. He was denied the opportunity of studying themachinery and watching the processes by a shortsighted jealousy. Heimmediately sat down with a yard of carpeting, and, patientlyunraveling it thread by thread, combined and calculated till heinvented the machinery on which the best carpets of the Old and theNew World are woven. No pains which such ingenuity and energy canrender effective are spared to make our fabrics equal those of theBritish 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 ourown resources. The fact is, every year improves our fabrics. Ourmechanics, our manufacturers, are working with an energy, a zeal, anda skill that carry things forward faster than anybody dreams of; andnobody can predicate the character of American articles in anydepartment now by their character even five years ago."

"Well, as to wall-papers," said Miss Featherstone, "there you mustconfess the French are and must be unequaled."

"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 tocome, far ahead of all the world: their drawing of flowers, vines, andfoliage has the accuracy of botanical studies and the grace offinished works of art, and we cannot as yet pretend in America to doanything equal to it. But for satin finish, and for a variety ofexquisite tints of plain colors, American papers equal any in theworld: our gilt papers even surpass in the heaviness and polish of thegilding those of foreign countries; and we have also gorgeous velvets.All I have to say is, let people who are furnishing houses inquire forarticles of American manufacture, and they will be surprised at whatthey will see. We need go no farther than our Cambridge glassworks tosee that the most dainty devices of cut-glass, crystal, ground and

engraved glass of every color and pattern, may be had of Americanworkmanship, every way equal to the best European make, and for halfthe price. And American painting on china is so well executed, both inBoston and New York, that deficiencies in the finest French or Englishsets 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 beingexercised on articles imported from Europe. Our tables must,therefore, perforce, be largely indebted to foreign lands for years tocome. Exclusive of this item, however, I believe it would require verylittle self-denial to paper, carpet, and furnish a house entirely fromthe manufactures of America. I cannot help saying one word here in

favor of the cabinet-makers of Boston. There is so much severity oftaste, such a style and manner about the best-made Boston furniture,as raises it really quite into the region of the fine arts. Ourartisans have studied foreign models with judicious eyes, and sotransferred to our country the spirit of what is best worth imitatingthat one has no need to import furniture from Europe."

"Well," said Miss Featherstone, "there is one point you cannot makeout,--gloves; certainly the French have the monopoly of thatarticle."

"I am not going to ruin my cause by asserting too much," said I. "Ihaven't been with nicely dressed women so many years not to speak

with proper respect of Alexander's gloves; and I confess honestly thatto forego them must be a fair, square sacrifice to patriotism. Butthen, on the other hand, it is nevertheless true that gloves have longbeen made in America and surreptitiously brought into market asFrench. I have lately heard that very nice kid gloves are made atWatertown and in Philadelphia. I have only heard of them and not seen.A loud demand might bring forth an unexpected supply from these andother sources. If the women of America were bent on having gloves madein their own country, how long would it be before apparatus andfactories would spring into being? Look at the hoop-skirt factories;



women wanted hoop-skirts,--would have them or die,--and forthwithfactories arose, and hoop-skirts became as the dust of the earth forabundance."

"Yes," said Miss Featherstone, "and, to say the truth, the Americanhoop-skirts are the only ones fit to wear. When we were living on theChamps Élysées, I remember we searched high and low for something likethem, and finally had to send home to America for some."

"Well," said I, "that shows what I said. Let there be only a heartycall for an article and it will come. These spirits of the vasty deepare not so very far off, after all, as we may imagine, and women'sunions and leagues will lead to inquiries and demands which will asinfallibly bring supplies as a vacuum will create a draught of air."

"But, at least, there are no ribbons made in America," said MissFeatherstone.

"Pardon, my lady, there is a ribbon factory now in operation inBoston, and ribbons of every color are made in New York; there is alsoin the vicinity of Boston a factory which makes Roman scarfs. Thisshows that the faculty of weaving ribbons is not wanting to usAmericans, and a zealous patronage would increase the supply.

"Then, as for a thousand and one little feminine needs, I believe ourmanufacturers can supply them. The Portsmouth Steam Company makeswhite spool-cotton equal to any in England, and colored spool-cotton,of every shade and variety, such as is not made either in England orFrance. Pins are well made in America; so are hooks and eyes, and avariety of buttons. Straw bonnets of American manufacture are alsoextensively in market, and quite as pretty ones as the double-pricedones which are imported.

"As to silks and satins, I am not going to pretend that they are to befound here. It is true, there are silk manufactories, like that of theCheneys in Connecticut, where very pretty foulard dress-silks aremade, together with sewing-silk enough to supply a large demand.

Enough has been done to show that silks might be made in America; butat present, as compared with Europe, we claim neither silks nor threadlaces among our manufactures.

"But what then? These are not necessaries of life. Ladies can be verytastefully dressed in other fabrics besides silks. There are manypretty American dress-goods which the leaders of fashion might makefashionable, and certainly no leader of fashion could wish to dressfor a nobler object than to aid her country in deadly peril.

"It is not a life-pledge, not a total abstinence, that is asked,--onlya temporary expedient to meet a stringent crisis. We only ask apreference for American goods where they can be found. Surely, women

whose exertions in Sanitary Fairs have created an era in the historyof the world will not shrink from so small a sacrifice for so obviousa good.

"Here is something in which every individual woman can help. Everywoman who goes into a shop and asks for American goods renders anappreciable aid to our cause. She expresses her opinion and herpatriotism, and her voice forms a part of that demand which shallarouse and develop the resources of her country. We shall learn toknow our own country. We shall learn to respect our own powers, and



every branch of useful labor will spring and flourish under ourwell-directed efforts. We shall come out of our great contest, notbedraggled, ragged, and poverty-stricken, but developed, instructed,and rich. Then will we gladly join with other nations in the freeinterchange of manufactures, and gratify our eye and taste with whatis foreign, while we can in turn send abroad our own productions inequal ratio."

"Upon my word," said Miss Featherstone, "I should think it was theFourth of July; but I yield the point. I am convinced; and henceforthyou 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 dosomething for your country,--it lies right in your hand. Go to theshops, determined on supplying your family and yourself with Americangoods. Insist on having them; raise the question of origin over everyarticle shown to you. In the Revolutionary times, some of the leadingmatrons of New England gave parties where the ladies were dressed inhomespun and drank sage tea. Fashion makes all things beautiful, andyou, my charming and accomplished friend, can create beauty bycreating 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 owncountry,--resolve that the money in your hand shall go to your bravebrothers, to your co-Americans, now straining every nerve to upholdthe nation and cause it to stand high in the earth. What are youwithout your country? As Americans you can hope for no rank but therank of your native land, no badge of nobility but her beautifulstars. It rests with this conflict to decide whether those stars shallbe badges of nobility to you and your children in all lands. Women ofAmerica, 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 andpompons, and other matters for which the women have curiousnames,--"the fact is, American women and girls must learn toeconomize; it isn't merely restricting one's self to American goods,it is general economy, that is required. Now here's this hat,--costsme only three dollars, all told; and Sophie Page bought an English one

this morning at Madam Meyer's for which she gave fifteen. And I reallydon't think hers has more of an air than mine. I made this over, yousee, with things I had in the house, bought nothing but the ribbon,and paid for altering and pressing, and there you see what a stylishhat I have!"

"Lovely! admirable!" said Miss Featherstone. "Upon my word, Jenny, youought to marry a poor parson; you would be quite thrown away upon arich man."



"Let me see," said I. "I want to admire intelligently. That isn't thehat you were wearing yesterday?"

"Oh no, papa! This is just done. The one I wore yesterday was mywaterfall-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 scarletfeathers 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. MissFeatherstone will remember that the waterfall was a great bargain, andI had the feather from last year; and as to the jockey, that was madeout of my last year's white one, dyed over. You know, papa, I alwaystake 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 wonderfulwhat they contrive to dress on. How they manage to do it I'm sure Ican't see. I never could, I'm convinced."

"Yes," said Jenny, "I've bought but just one new hat. I only wish youcould sit in church where we do, and see those Miss Fielders. Marianneand I have counted six new hats apiece of those girls',--_new_, youknow, just out of the milliner's shop; and last Sunday they came outin 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 amillion dollars lately on government contracts."

"For my part," said Jenny, "I think such extravagance, at such a timeas this, is shameful."

"Do you know," said I, "that I'm quite sure the Misses Fielder thinkthey are practicing 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, "thatMiss Fielder thinks herself half ready for translation, because shehas 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 thesecret councils of the Fielders, doubtless we should perceive whattemptations they daily resist; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadfulthey suffer themselves to be, because they feel it important now, inthis crisis, to practice economy; how they abuse the Sibthorpes, whohave a new hat every time they drive out, and never think of wearingone more than two or three times; how virtuous and self-denying theyfeel when they think of the puffed tulle, for which they only gaveeighteen 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 notallow themselves to be swept into the vortex of extravagance, whateverother 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 toldme that she positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but thatshe really did feel the necessity of economy. 'Perhaps we might affordto spend more than some others,' she said; 'but it's so much better togive the money to the Sanitary Commission!'"

"Furthermore," said I, "I am going to put forth another paradox, andsay that very likely there are some people looking on my girls, andcommenting on them for extravagance in having three hats, even thoughmade 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 millinerythan Marianne and I do."

"When I was a young lady," said my wife, "a well-dressed girl got hera new bonnet in the spring, and another in the fall; that was theextent of her purchases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left oflast 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. Ialso bought myself, every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and alight pair, and wore them through the summer, and another two throughthe winter; one or two pair of white kids, carefully cleaned, carriedme through all my parties. Hats had not been heard of, and the greatnecessity which requires two or three new ones every spring and fallhad not arisen. Yet I was reckoned a well-appearing girl, who dressedliberally. Now, a young lady who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat,and a jockey must still be troubled with anxious cares for her springand fall and summer and winter bonnets,--all the variety will not takethe 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 trimmingthat may be expended upon them. When I was a young lady, seventy-five

dollars a year was considered by careful parents a liberal allowancefor a daughter's wardrobe. I had a hundred, and was reckoned rich; andI sometimes used a part to make up the deficiencies in the allowanceof Sarah Evans, my particular friend, whose father gave her onlyfifty. We all thought that a very scant allowance; yet she generallymade a very pretty and genteel appearance, with the help of occasionalpresents from friends."

"How could a girl dress for fifty dollars?" said Marianne.

"She could get a white muslin and a white cambric, which, withdifferent sortings of ribbons, served her for all dress occasions. Asilk, in those days, took only ten yards in the making, and one dark

silk was considered a reasonable allowance to a lady's wardrobe. Oncemade, it stood for something,--always worn carefully, it lasted foryears. One or two calico morning-dresses, and a merino for winterwear, completed the list. Then, as to collars, capes, cuffs, etc., weall did our own embroidering, and very pretty things we wore, too.Girls looked as prettily then as they do now, when four or fivehundred dollars a year is insufficient to clothe them."

"But, mamma, you know our allowance isn't anything like that,--it isquite a slender one, though not so small as yours was," said Marianne.



"Don't you think the customs of society make a difference? Do youthink, as things are, we could go back and dress for the sum youdid?"

"You cannot," said my wife, "without a greater sacrifice of feelingthan I wish to impose on you. Still, though I don't see how to helpit, I cannot but think that the requirements of fashion are becomingneedlessly extravagant, particularly in regard to the dress of women.It seems to me, it is making the support of families so burdensomethat young men are discouraged from marriage. A young man, in amoderately good business, might cheerfully undertake the world with awife who could make herself pretty and attractive for seventy-fivedollars a year, when he might sigh in vain for one who positivelycould not get through, and be decent, on four hundred. Women, too, aregetting to be so attached to the trappings and accessories of lifethat they cannot think of marriage without an amount of fortune whichfew young men possess."

"You are talking in very low numbers about the dress of women," saidMiss Featherstone. "I do assure you that it is the easiest thing inthe world for a girl to make away with a thousand dollars a year, andnot 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 yourmother's day girls talked of a pair of gloves,--now they talk of apack; then it was a bonnet summer and winter,--now it is a bonnetspring, summer, autumn, and winter, and hats like monthly roses,--anew blossom every few weeks."

"And then," said my wife, "every device of the toilet is immediatelytaken up and varied and improved on, so as to impose an almost monthlynecessity for novelty. The jackets of May are outshone by thejackets of June; the buttons of June are antiquated in July; thetrimmings of July are _passées_ by September; side-combs, back-combs,puffs, rats, and all sorts of such matters, are in a distracted raceof improvement; every article of feminine toilet is on the move

towards perfection. It seems to me that an infinity of money must bespent in these trifles by those who make the least pretension to keepin the fashion."

"Well, papa," said Jenny, "after all, it's just the way things alwayshave been since the world began. You know the Bible says, 'Can a maidforget her ornaments?' It's clear she can't. You see, it's a law ofnature; and you remember all that long chapter in the Bible that wehad read in church last Sunday about the curls and veils and tinklingornaments and crimping-pins, and all that, of those wicked daughtersof 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 girlcould keep her place in society, by hard economy, and spend only fiftydollars a year on her dress. Mamma found a hundred dollars ample. Ihave more than that, and find myself quite straitened to keep myselflooking well. I don't want to live for dress, to give all my time andthoughts to it; I don't wish to be extravagant: and yet I wish to belady-like--it annoys and makes me unhappy not to be fresh and neat andnice, shabbiness and seediness are my aversion. I don't see where thefault is. Can one individual resist the whole current of society? It



certainly is not strictly necessary for us girls to have half thethings we do. We might, I suppose, live without many of them, and, asmamma says, look just as well, because girls did so before thesethings were invented. Now I confess I flatter myself, generally, thatI am a pattern of good management and economy, because I get so muchless than other girls I associate with. I wish you could see MissThorne's fall dresses that she showed me last year when she wasvisiting here. She had six gowns, and no one of them could have costless than seventy or eighty dollars, and some of them must have beeneven more expensive, and yet I don't doubt that this fall she willfeel that she must have just as many more. She runs through and wearsout these expensive things, with all their velvet and thread lace,just as I wear my commonest ones; and at the end of the season theyare really gone,--spotted, stained, frayed, the lace all pulled topieces,--nothing left to save or make over. I feel as if Jenny and Iwere patterns of economy when I see such things. I really don't knowwhat economy is. What is it?"

"There is the same difficulty in my housekeeping," said my wife. "Ithink I am an economist. I mean to be one. All our expenses are on amodest scale, and yet I can see much that really is not strictlynecessary; but if I compare myself with some of my neighbors, I feelas if I were hardly respectable. There is no subject on which all theworld are censuring one another so much as this. Hardly any one but

thinks her neighbors extravagant in some one or more particulars, andtakes for granted that she herself is an economist."

"I'll venture to say," said I, "that there isn't a woman of myacquaintance that does not think she is an economist."

"Papa is turned against us women, like all the rest of them," saidJenny. "I wonder if it isn't just so with the men?"

"Yes," said Marianne, "it's the fashion to talk as if all theextravagance of the country was perpetrated by women. For my part, Ithink young men are just as extravagant. Look at the sums they spendfor cigars and meerschaums,--an expense which hasn't even the pretense

of usefulness in any way; it's a purely selfish, nonsensicalindulgence. When a girl spends money in making herself look pretty,she contributes something to the agreeableness of society; but a man'scigars and pipes are neither ornamental nor useful."

"Then look at their dress," said Jenny: "they are to the full as fussyand particular about it as girls; they have as many fine, invisiblepoints of fashion, and their fashions change quite as often; and theyhave just as many knick-knacks, with their studs and their sleevebuttons and waistcoat buttons, their scarfs and scarf pins, theirwatch chains and seals and seal rings, and nobody knows what. Thenthey often waste and throw away more than women, because they are notgood judges of material, nor saving in what they buy, and have no

knowledge of how things should be cared for, altered, or mended. Iftheir cap is a little too tight, they cut the lining with a penknife,or slit holes in a new shirt-collar because it does not exactly fit totheir mind. For my part, I think men are naturally twice as wastefulas women. A pretty thing, to be sure, to have all the waste of thecountry laid to us!"

"You are right, child," said I; "women are by nature, as compared withmen, the care-taking and saving part of creation,--the authors andconservators 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 Stevens.

"In this way. Economy is the science of proportion. Whether aparticular purchase is extravagant depends mainly on the income it istaken from. Suppose a woman has a hundred and fifty a year for herdress, and gives fifty dollars for a bonnet, she gives a third of herincome,--it is a horrible extravagance; while for the woman whoseincome is ten thousand it may be no extravagance at all. The poorclergyman's wife, when she gives five dollars for a bonnet, may begiving as much in proportion to her income as the woman who givesfifty. Now the difficulty with the greater part of women is, that themen, who make the money and hold it, give them no kind of standard bywhich to measure their expenses. Most women and girls are in thismatter entirely at sea, without chart or compass. They don't know inthe least what they have to spend. Husbands and fathers often pridethemselves about not saying a word on business matters to their wivesand daughters. They don't wish them to understand them, or to inquireinto them, or to make remarks or suggestions concerning them. 'I wantyou to have everything that is suitable and proper,' says Jones to hiswife, '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 fordress and housekeeping, I could tell better.'

"'Nonsense, Susan! I can't do that,--it's too much trouble. Get whatyou 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 Joneshas 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. Ican'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 theStebbinses, nor so much.'

"'Don't you know that the Stebbinses are worth five times as much asever I was?'

"No, Mrs. Jones did not know it: how should she, when her husbandmakes it a rule never to speak of his business to her, and she has notthe remotest idea of his income?

"Thus multitudes of good, conscientious women and girls areextravagant from pure ignorance. The male provider allows bills to berun up in his name, and they have no earthly means of judging whether

they are spending too much or too little, except the semi-annualhurricane which attends the coming in of these bills.

"The first essential in the practice of economy is a knowledge ofone's income, and the man who refuses to accord to his wife andchildren this information has never any right to accuse them ofextravagance, because he himself deprives them of that standard ofcomparison which is an indispensable requisite in economy. As early aspossible in the education of children, they should pass from thatstate of irresponsible waiting to be provided for by parents, and be



trusted with the spending of some fixed allowance, that they may learnprices and values, and have some notion of what money is actuallyworth and what it will bring. The simple fact of the possession of afixed and definite income often suddenly transforms a giddy,extravagant girl into a care-taking, prudent little woman. Herallowance is her own; she begins to plan upon it,--to add, subtract,multiply, divide, and do numberless sums in her little head. She nolonger buys everything she fancies; she deliberates, weighs, compares.And now there is room for self-denial and generosity to come in. Shecan do without this article; she can furbish up some older possessionto do duty a little longer, and give this money to some friend poorerthan she; and ten to one the girl whose bills last year were four orfive hundred finds herself bringing through this year creditably on ahundred and fifty. To be sure, she goes without numerous things whichshe used to have. From the standpoint of a fixed income she sees thatthese are impossible, and no more wants them than the green cheese ofthe moon. She learns to make her own taste and skill take the place ofexpensive purchases. She refits her hats and bonnets, retrims herdresses, and in a thousand busy, earnest, happy little ways setsherself to make the most of her small income.

"So the woman who has her definite allowance for housekeeping finds atonce a hundred questions set at rest. Before it was not clear to herwhy 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 nextneighbors do have them; and we must resign ourselves to find someother way of living."

"My dear," said my wife, "I think there is a peculiar temptation in alife organized as ours is in America. There are here no settledclasses, with similar ratios of income. Mixed together in the samesociety, going to the same parties, and blended in daily neighborlyintercourse, are families of the most opposite extremes in point offortune. In England there is a very well understood expression, thatpeople should not dress or live above their station; in America nonewill admit that they have any particular station, or that they can

live above it. The principle of democratic equality unites in societypeople of the most diverse positions and means.

"Here, for instance, is a family like Dr. Selden's: an old and highlyrespected one, with an income of only two or three thousand; yet theyare people universally sought for in society, and mingle in all theintercourse of life with merchant millionaires whose incomes are fromten to thirty thousand. Their sons and daughters go to the sameschools, the same parties, and are thus constantly meeting upon termsof social equality.

"Now it seems to me that our danger does not lie in the great andevident expenses of our richer friends. We do not expect to have

pineries, graperies, equipages, horses, diamonds,--we say openly andof course that we do not. Still, our expenses are constantly increasedby the proximity of these things, unless we understand ourselvesbetter than most people do. We don't, of course, expect to get afifteen-hundred-dollar Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we begin tolook at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble about the hook. We don'texpect sets of diamonds, but a diamond ring, a pair of solitairediamond ear-rings, begin to be speculated about among the young peopleas among possibilities. We don't expect to carpet our house withAxminster 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 ongetting hundreds of things that we don't need, that have no real valueexcept that they soothe our self-love; and for these inferior articleswe pay a higher proportion of our income than our rich neighbor doesfor his better ones. Nothing is uglier than low-priced Cashmereshawls; and yet a young man just entering business will spend aneighth of a year's income to put one on his wife, and when he has putit there it only serves as a constant source of disquiet, for, nowthat the door is opened and Cashmere shawls are possible, she isconsumed with envy at the superior ones constantly sported around her.So, also, with point-lace, velvet dresses, and hundreds of things ofthat sort, which belong to a certain rate of income, and are absurdbelow it."

"And yet, mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that velvet, point-lace, andCashmere were the cheapest finery that could be bought, because theylasted a lifetime."

"Aunt Easygo speaks from an income of ten thousand a year: they may becheap for her rate of living; but for us, for example, by no magic ofnumbers can it be made to appear that it is cheaper to have thegreatest bargain in the world in Cashmere, lace, and diamonds than notto have them at all. I never had a diamond, never wore a piece ofpoint-lace, never had a velvet dress, and have been perfectly happy,

and just as much respected as if I had. Who ever thought of objectingto me for not having them? Nobody, that I ever heard."

"Certainly not, mamma," said Marianne.

"The thing I have always said to you girls is, that you were not toexpect to live like richer people, not to begin to try, not to thinkor inquire about certain rates of expenditure, or take the firststep in certain directions. We have moved on all our life after avery 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 conscioustwinkle, "and the things that came of it; there was a concessionthere, 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 anantiquated, plain house, and plain furniture, and plain dress, and notthe 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 Ihad young children, I kept more and better servants than many women

who wore Cashmere and diamonds. I thought it better to pay extra wagesto 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 everso much lace locked away in my drawers. We always were able to go intothe country to spend our summers, and to keep a good family horse andcarriage for daily driving,--by which means we afforded, as a family,very poor patronage to the medical profession. Then we built ourhouse, and, while we left out a great many expensive commonplacesthat other people think they must have, we put in a profusion ofbathing 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 wasnecessary to preserve or to restore health; and for this I always drewon the surplus fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeeping anddressing."

"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 theway others go. I think there is, for some reason, more false shameamong Americans about economy than among Europeans. 'I cannot affordit' is more seldom heard among us. A young man beginning life, whoseincome may be from five to eight hundred a year, thinks it elegant andgallant to affect a careless air about money, especially amongladies,--to hand it out freely, and put back his change withoutcounting it,--to wear a watch chain and studs and shirt-fronts likethose of some young millionaire. None but the most expensive tailors,shoemakers, and hatters will do for him; and then he grumbles at thedearness of living, and declares that he cannot get along on hissalary. 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 wearout life and health in many households are of a nature that cannot becast 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 upfalse appearances, and to stretch a narrow income over the space thatcan be covered only by a wider one.

"The poor widow in her narrow lodgings, with her monthly rent staringher hourly in the face, and her bread and meat and candles and mealall to be paid for on delivery or not obtained at all, may findcomfort in the good old Book, reading of that other widow whosewasting measure of oil and last failing handful of meal were of suchaccount before her Father in heaven that a prophet was sent to recruitthem; and when customers do not pay, or wages are cut down, she canenter into her chamber, and, when she hath shut her door, present toher Father in heaven His sure promise that with the fowls of the airshe shall be fed and with the lilies of the field she shall beclothed: but what promises are there for her who is racking her brainson the ways and means to provide as sumptuous an entertainment of

oysters and champagne at her next party as her richer neighbor, or tocompass that great bargain which shall give her a point-lace setalmost as handsome as that of Mrs. Croesus, who has ten times herincome?"

"But, papa," said Marianne, with a twinge of that exacting sensitivenessby 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 thatisn't all of economy; the question that haunts me is, Might I not makemy 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_. Inits highest sense, economy is a just judgment of the comparative valueof things,--money only the means of enabling one to express thatvalue. This is the reason why the whole matter is so full ofdifficulty,--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 oftenlook unwise from our standpoint. For this reason multitudes of peoplewho 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 generalagreement, verbally, at least, among mankind. For instance, it isgenerally agreed that _health_ is an indispensable good,--that moneyis well spent that secures it, and worse than ill spent that ruinsit.

"With this standard in mind, how much money is wasted even by peoplewho 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 ina fashionable part of the city, though the air will be closer and thechances of health less; he spends three or four thousand more on astone front, on marble mantels imported from Italy, on plate-glasswindows, plated hinges, and a thousand nice points of finish, and hasperhaps but one bath-room for a whole household, and that so connectedwith his own apartment that nobody but himself and his wife can useit.

"Another man buys a lot in an open, airy situation, which fashion hasnot 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 thechildren and guests may all, without inconvenience, enjoy the luxuryof abundant water.

"The first spends for fashion and show, the second for health andcomfort.

"Here is a man that will buy his wife a diamond bracelet and a laceshawl, and take her yearly to Washington to show off her beauty inball dresses, who yet will not let her pay wages which will commandany but the poorest and most inefficient domestic service. The womanis worn out, her life made a desert by exhaustion consequent on afutile attempt to keep up a showy establishment with only half the

hands needed for the purpose. Another family will give brilliantparties, 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 inmidwinter, or the servants enough food to keep them from constantlydeserting. The damp, mouldy, dingy cellar-kitchen, the cold, windy,desolate attic, devoid of any comfort, where the domestics are doomedto pass their whole time, are witnesses to what such families considereconomy. Economy in the view of some is undisguised slipshodslovenliness in the home circle for the sake of fine clothes to beshown abroad; it is undisguised hard selfishness to servants anddependants, counting their every approach to comfort a needlesswaste,--grudging the Roman Catholic cook her cup of tea at dinner onFriday, when she must not eat meat,--and murmuring that a cracked,

second-hand looking-glass must be got for the servants' room: whatbusiness have they to want to know how they look?

"Some families will employ the cheapest physician, without regard tohis ability to kill or cure; some will treat diseases in theirincipiency with quack medicines, bought cheap, hoping thereby to fendoff the doctor's bill. Some women seem to be pursued by an evil demonof economy, which, like an _ignis fatuus_ in a bog, delightsconstantly to tumble them over into the mire of expense. They aredismayed at the quantity of sugar in the recipe for preserves, leave



out a quarter, and the whole ferments and is spoiled. They cannot byany means be induced at any one time to buy enough silk to make adress, 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. Onewonders, in looking at their blackened, smouldering grates in afreezing day, what the fire is there at all for,--it certainly warmsnobody. The only thing they seem likely to be lavish in is funeralexpenses, which come in the wake of leaky shoes and imperfectclothing. These funeral expenses at last swallow all, since nobody candispute an undertaker's bill. One pities these joyless beings.Economy, instead of a rational act of the judgment, is a morbidmonomania, eating the pleasure out of life, and haunting them to thegrave.

"Some people's ideas of economy seem to run simply in the line ofeating. Their flour is of an extra brand, their meat the first cut;the delicacies of every season, in their dearest stages, come home totheir table with an apologetic smile,--'It was scandalously dear, mylove, but I thought we must just treat ourselves.' And yet thesepeople cannot afford to buy books, and pictures they regard as anunthought-of extravagance. Trudging home with fifty dollars' worth ofdelicacies on his arm, Smith meets Jones, who is exulting with a bagof 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'tknow how Jones and his wife manage.' Jones and his wife will live onbread and milk for a month, and she will turn her best gown the thirdtime, but they will have their picture, and they are happy. Jones'spicture remains, and Smith's fifty dollars' worth of oysters andcanned fruit to-morrow will be gone forever. Of all modes of spendingmoney, the swallowing of expensive dainties brings the least return.There is one step lower than this,--the consuming of luxuries that areinjurious to the health. If all the money spent on tobacco and liquorscould be spent in books and pictures, I predict that nobody's healthwould be a whit less sound, and houses would be vastly moreattractive. There is enough money spent in smoking, drinking, and

over-eating to give every family in the community a good library, tohang everybody's parlor walls with lovely pictures, to set up in everyhouse a conservatory which should bloom all winter with choiceflowers, to furnish every dwelling with ample bathing and warmingaccommodations, even down to the dwellings of the poor; and in themillennium I believe this is the way things are to be.

"In these times of peril and suffering, if the inquiry arises, Howshall there be retrenchment? I answer, First and foremost, retrenchthings 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. AFrench family would live in luxury on the leavings that are constantly

coming from the tables of those who call themselves in middlingcircumstances. There are superstitions of the table that ought to bebroken through. Why must you always have cake in your closet? why needyou 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, orany one else, have suffered materially in consequence.

"Why is it imperative that you should have two or three courses atevery meal? Try the experiment of having but one, and that a very goodone, and see if any great amount of suffering ensues. Why must social



intercourse so largely consist in eating? In Paris there is a verypretty custom. Each family has one evening in the week when it staysat home and receives friends. Tea, with a little bread and butter andcake, served in the most informal way, is the only refreshment. Therooms are full, busy, bright,--everything as easy and joyous as if amonstrous supper, with piles of jelly and mountains of cake, werewaiting to give the company a nightmare at the close.

"Said a lady, pointing to a gentleman and his wife in a social circleof this kind, 'I ought to know them well,--I have seen them every weekfor twenty years.' It is certainly pleasant and confirmative of socialenjoyment for friends to eat together; but a little enjoyed in thisway answers the purpose as well as a great deal, and better, too."

"Well, papa," said Marianne, "in the matter of dress, now,--how muchought one to spend just to look as others do?"

"I will tell you what I saw the other night, girls, in the parlor ofone of our hotels. Two middle-aged Quaker ladies came gliding in, withcalm, cheerful faces, and lustrous dove-colored silks. By theirconversation I found that they belonged to that class of women amongthe Friends who devote themselves to traveling on missions ofbenevolence. They had just completed a tour of all the hospitals forwounded soldiers in the country, where they had been carrying

comforts, arranging, advising, and soothing by their cheerful, gentlepresence. They were now engaged on another mission, to the lost anderring of their own sex; night after night, guarded by a policeman,they had ventured after midnight into the dance-houses where girls arebeing led to ruin, and with gentle words of tender, motherly counselsought to win them from their fatal ways,--telling them where theymight go the next day to find friends who would open to them an asylumand aid them to seek a better life.

"As I looked upon these women, dressed with such modest purity, Ibegan secretly to think that the Apostle was not wrong when he spokeof women adorning themselves with the _ornament_ of a meek and quietspirit; for the habitual gentleness of their expression, the calmness

and purity of the lines in their faces, the delicacy and simplicity oftheir apparel, seemed of themselves a rare and peculiar beauty. Icould not help thinking that fashionable bonnets, flowing lacesleeves, and dresses elaborately trimmed could not have improved eventheir outward appearance. Doubtless their simple wardrobe needed but asmall trunk in traveling from place to place, and hindered but littletheir 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 submitthe inquiry humbly. It seems to me that there are many who go monthlyto the sacrament, and receive it with sincere devotion, and who givethanks each time sincerely that they are thus made 'members

incorporate in the mystical body of Christ,' who have never thought ofthis membership as meaning that they should share Christ's sacrificesfor lost souls, or abridge themselves of one ornament or encounter oneinconvenience for the sake of those wandering sheep for whom he died.Certainly there is a higher economy which we need to learn,--thatwhich makes all things subservient to the spiritual and immortal, andthat 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 humanbrotherhood.



"There have been from time to time, among well-meaning Christianpeople, retrenchment societies on high moral grounds, which havefailed for want of knowledge how to manage the complicated question ofnecessaries and luxuries. These words have a signification in the caseof different people as varied as the varieties of human habit andconstitution. It is a department impossible to be bound by externalrules, but none the less should every high-minded Christian soul inthis matter have a law unto itself. It may safely be laid down as ageneral rule, that no income, however large or however small, shouldbe unblessed by the divine touch of self-sacrifice. Something for thepoor, the sorrowing, the hungry, the tempted, and the weak should betaken from _what is our own_ at the expense of some personalsacrifice, or we suffer more morally than the brother from whom wewithdraw it. Even the Lord of all, when dwelling among men, out ofthat slender private purse which he accepted for his little family ofchosen ones, had ever something reserved to give to the poor. It iseasy to say, 'It is but a drop in the bucket. I cannot remove thegreat mass of misery in the world. What little I could save or givedoes nothing.' It does this, if no more,--it prevents one soul, andthat soul your own, from drying and hardening into utter selfishnessand insensibility; it enables you to say, I have done something; takenone atom from the great heap of sins and miseries and placed it on theside of good.

"The Sisters of Charity and the Friends, each with their differentcostume of plainness and self-denial, and other noble-hearted women ofno particular outward order, but kindred in spirit, have shown towomanhood, on the battlefield and in the hospital, a more excellentway,--a beauty and nobility before which all the common graces andornaments of the sex fade, appear 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 amodest little establishment not many squares off claims about as muchof my wife's and Jenny's busy thoughts as those of the propermistress.

Marianne, as I always foresaw, is a careful and somewhat anxioushousekeeper. Her tastes are fastidious; she is made for exactitude:the smallest departures from the straight line appear to her shockingdeviations. She had always lived in a house where everything had been

formed to quiet and order under the ever-present care and touch of hermother; nor had she ever participated in those cares more than to do alittle dusting of the parlor ornaments, or wash the best china, ormake sponge-cake or chocolate-caramels. Certain conditions of life hadalways appeared so to be matters of course that she had neverconceived of a house without them. It never occurred to her that suchbread and biscuit as she saw at the home table would not always and ofcourse appear at every table,--that the silver would not always be asbright, the glass as clear, the salt as fine and smooth, the platesand 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 thosehousekeepers whose touch is so fine that no one feels it. She is neverheard scolding or reproving,--never entertains her company with herrecipes for cookery or the faults of her servants. She is sounconcerned about receiving her own personal share of credit for thegood appearance of her establishment that even the children of thehouse have not supposed that there is any particular will of hers inthe matter: it all seems the natural consequence of having very goodservants.

One phenomenon they had never seriously reflected on,--that, under allthe changes of the domestic cabinet which are so apt to occur inAmerican households, the same coffee, the same bread and biscuit, thesame nicely prepared dishes and neatly laid table, always gladdenedtheir eyes; and from this they inferred only that good servants weremore abundant than most people had supposed. They were somewhatsurprised when these marvels were wrought by professedly green hands,but were given to suppose that these green hands must have had someremarkable quickness or aptitude for acquiring. That sparkling jelly,well-flavored ice-creams, clear soups, and delicate biscuits could bemade by a raw Irish girl, fresh from her native Erin, seemed to them aproof of the genius of the race; and my wife, who never felt itimportant 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 hadbeen observed on tumblers, and the spoons had sometimes dingy streakson the brightness of their first bridal polish; beds were detectedmade shockingly awry: and Marianne came burning with indignation toher mother.

"Such a little family as we have, and two strong girls," saidshe,--"everything ought to be perfect; there is really nothing to do.Think of a whole batch of bread absolutely sour! and when I gave thataway, then this morning another exactly like it! and when I talked tocook 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 haveanything but sour bread from one end of the year to the other, eatingit unperceiving, and with good cheer; and they buy also sour bread ofthe baker, with like approbation,--lightness being in their estimationthe 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, thatit 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

willfulness."

"But," said I, "suppose, instead of such general directions, youshould analyze her proceedings and find out just where she makes hermistake: is the root of the trouble in the yeast, or in the time shebegins it, letting it rise too long?--the time, you know, should varyso much with the temperature of the weather."

"As to that," said Marianne, "I know nothing. I never noticed; itnever was my business to make bread; it always seemed quite a simple



process, mixing yeast and flour and kneading it; and our bread at homewas always good."

"It seems, then, my dear, that you have come to your professionwithout even having studied it."

My wife smiled and said,--

"You know, Marianne, I proposed to you to be our family bread-makerfor one month of the year before you married."

"Yes, mamma, I remember; but I was like other girls: I thought therewas no need of it. I never liked to do such things; perhaps I hadbetter have done it."

"You certainly had," said I, "for the first business of a housekeeperin America is that of a teacher. She can have a good table only byhaving practical knowledge, and tact in imparting it. If sheunderstands her business practically and experimentally, her eyedetects at once the weak spot; it requires only a little tact, somepatience, some clearness in giving directions, and all comes right. Iventure to say that your mother would have exactly such bread asalways 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 Iheard her say so. I know she makes a great fuss about it, and rathervalues herself upon it. She is evidently accustomed to being praisedfor her bread, and feels mortified and angry, and I don't know how tomanage her."

"Well," said I, "if you carry your watch to a watchmaker, andundertake to show him how to regulate the machinery, he laughs andgoes on his own way; but if a brother-machinist makes suggestions, helistens respectfully. So, when a woman who knows nothing of woman's

work undertakes to instruct one who knows more than she does, shemakes no impression; but a woman who has been trained experimentally,and shows she understands the matter thoroughly, is listened to withrespect."

"I think," said my wife, "that your Bridget is worth teaching. She ishonest, well-principled, and tidy. She has good recommendations fromexcellent families, whose ideas of good bread, it appears, differ fromours; and with a little good-nature, tact, and patience, she will comeinto your ways."

"But the coffee, mamma,--you would not imagine it to be from the samebag 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 fewmoments too long over the fire,--they are burnt, instead of beingroasted; and there are people who think it essential to good coffeethat it should look black, and have a strong, bitter flavor. A verylittle change in the preparing will alter this."

"Now," said I, "Marianne, if you want my advice, I'll give it to yougratis: 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 thoroughknowledge of all the possibilities in the case; but after that youwill never need to make any more,--you will be able to command goodbread 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 somuch attention."

"It is simple," said my wife, "and yet requires a delicate care andwatchfulness. There are fifty ways to spoil good bread; there are ahundred little things to be considered and allowed for that requireaccurate observation and experience. The same process that will raisegood bread in cold weather will make sour bread in the heat of summer;different qualities of flour require variations in treatment, as alsodifferent sorts and conditions of yeast; and when all is done, thebaking presents another series of possibilities which require exactattention."

"So it appears," said Marianne gayly, "that I must begin to study myprofession at the eleventh hour."

"Better late than never," said I. "But there is this advantage on yourside: a well-trained mind, accustomed to reflect, analyze, and

generalize, has an advantage over uncultured minds even of doubleexperience. Poor as your cook is, she now knows more of her businessthan you do. After a very brief period of attention and experiment youwill not only know more than she does, but you will convince her thatyou do, which is quite as much to the purpose."

"In the same manner," said my wife, "you will have to give lessons toyour other girl on the washing of silver and the making of beds. Goodservants do not often come to us: they must be _made_ by patience andtraining; and if a girl has a good disposition and a reasonable degreeof handiness, and the housekeeper understands her profession, she maymake a good servant out of an indifferent one. Some of my best girlshave been those who came to me directly from the ship, with no

preparation but docility and some natural quickness. The hardest casesto be managed are not of those who have been taught nothing, but ofthose who have been taught wrongly,--who come to you self-opinionated,with ways which are distasteful to you, and contrary to the genius ofyour housekeeping. Such require that their mistress shall understandat least so much of the actual conduct of affairs as to prove to theservant that there are better ways than those in which she hashitherto been trained."

"Don't you think, mamma," said Marianne, "that there has been a sortof reaction against woman's work in our day? So much has been said ofthe higher sphere of woman, and so much has been done to find somebetter work for her, that insensibly, I think, almost everybody begins

to feel that it is rather degrading for a woman in good society to bemuch tied down to family affairs."

"Especially," said my wife, "since in these Woman's Rights Conventionsthere is so much indignation expressed at those who would confine herideas to the kitchen and nursery."

"There is reason in all things," said I. "Woman's Rights Conventionsare a protest against many former absurd, unreasonable ideas,--themere physical and culinary idea of womanhood as connected only with



puddings and shirt-buttons, the unjust and unequal burdens which thelaws of harsher ages had cast upon the sex. Many of the womenconnected with these movements are as superior in everything properlywomanly as they are in exceptional talent and culture. There is nomanner of doubt that the sphere of woman is properly to be enlarged,and that republican governments in particular are to be saved fromcorruption 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 andNature evidently have fitted her to excel in. If she be made a naturalorator, like Miss Dickinson, or an astronomer, like Mrs. Somerville,or a singer, like Grisi, let not the technical rules of womanhood bethrown in the way of her free use of her powers. Nor can there be anyreason shown why a woman's vote in the state should not be receivedwith as much respect as in the family. A state is but an associationof families, and laws relate to the rights and immunities which touchwoman's most private and immediate wants and dearest hopes; and thereis no reason why sister, wife, and mother should be more powerless inthe state than in the home. Nor does it make a woman unwomanly toexpress an opinion by dropping a slip of paper into a box, more thanto express that same opinion by conversation. In fact, there is nodoubt 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 agreat deal of crude, disagreeable talk in these conventions, but atoo great tendency of the age to make the education of womenanti-domestic. It seems as if the world never could advance exceptlike ships under a head wind, tacking and going too far, now inthis direction and now in the opposite. Our common-school systemnow rejects sewing from the education of girls, which very properlyused to occupy many hours daily in school a generation ago. Thedaughters of laborers and artisans are put through algebra,geometry, trigonometry, and the higher mathematics, to the entireneglect of that learning which belongs distinctively to woman. A

girl cannot keep pace with her class if she gives any time todomestic matters, and accordingly she is excused from them allduring the whole term of her education. The boy of a family, at anearly age, is put to a trade, or the labors of a farm; the fatherbecomes impatient of his support, and requires of him to care forhimself. Hence an interrupted education,--learning coming bysnatches in the winter months, or in the intervals of work. As theresult, the females in our country towns are commonly, in mentalculture, vastly in advance of the males of the same household; butwith this comes a physical delicacy, the result of an exclusive useof the brain and a neglect of the muscular system, with greatinefficiency 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,--thegirls that could wash, iron, brew, bake, harness a horse and drivehim, no less than braid straw, embroider, draw, paint, and readinnumerable books,--this race of women, pride of olden time, is dailylessening; and in their stead come the fragile, easily fatigued,languid girls of a modern age, drilled in book-learning, ignorantof common things. The great danger of all this, and of the evilsthat come from it, is that society by and by will turn as blindlyagainst 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 greatproblem of life here in America; the happiness of families, theirthrift, well-being, and comfort, are more affected by this than by anyone thing else. Our girls, as they have been brought up, cannotperform the labor of their own families, as in those simpler,old-fashioned days you tell of; and, what is worse, they have nopractical skill with which to instruct servants, and servants come tous, as a class, raw and untrained; so what is to be done? In thepresent state of prices, the board of a domestic costs double herwages, and the waste she makes is a more serious matter still. Supposeyou give us an article upon this subject in your 'House and HomePapers.' 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 theOld World, yet these principles have never been so thought out andapplied as to give consistency and harmony to our daily relations.America starts with a political organization based on a declaration ofthe primitive freedom and equality of all men. Every human being,according to this principle, stands on the same natural level withevery other, and has the same chance to rise, according to the degreeof power or capacity given by the Creator. All our civil institutionsare designed to preserve this equality, as far as possible, fromgeneration to generation: there is no entailed property, there are nohereditary titles, no monopolies, no privileged classes,--all are tobe as free to rise and fall as the waves of the sea.

The condition of domestic service, however, still retains about itsomething of the influences from feudal times, and from the nearpresence of slavery in neighboring States. All English literature, allthe literature of the world, describes domestic service in the oldfeudal spirit and with the old feudal language, which regarded themaster as belonging to a privileged class and the servant to aninferior one. There is not a play, not a poem, not a novel, not ahistory, that does not present this view. The master's rights, likethe rights of kings, were supposed to rest in his being born in asuperior rank. The good servant was one who, from childhood, hadlearned "to order himself lowly and reverently to all his betters."When New England brought to these shores the theory of democracy, shebrought, 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 householdswhere masters and mistresses stood on the "right divine" of theprivileged classes, howsoever they might have risen up againstauthorities themselves.

The first consequence of this state of things was a universalrejection of domestic service in all classes of American-born society.For a generation or two, there was, indeed, a sort of interchange offamily strength,--sons and daughters engaging in the service of



neighboring families, in default of a sufficient working force oftheir own, but always on conditions of strict equality. The assistantwas to share the table, the family sitting-room, and every honor andattention that might be claimed by son or daughter. When familiesincreased in refinement and education so as to make these conditionsof close intimacy with more uncultured neighbors disagreeable, theyhad to choose between such intimacies and the performance of theirown domestic toil. No wages could induce a son or daughter of NewEngland to take the condition of a servant on terms which they thoughtapplicable to that of a slave. The slightest hint of a separate tablewas resented as an insult; not to enter the front door, and not to sitin the front parlor on state occasions, was bitterly commented on as apersonal indignity.

The well-taught, self-respecting daughters of farmers, the class mostvaluable in domestic service, gradually retired from it. Theypreferred 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 toilsof a factory; yet the girls of New England, with one consent,preferred the factory, and left the whole business of domestic serviceto a foreign population; and they did it mainly because they would nottake positions in families as an inferior laboring class by the sideof 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 matronto her neighbor from the city, who was seeking for a servant in hersummer 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 inidleness."

It was vain to offer money. "We don't need your money, ma'am, we cansupport ourselves in other ways; my girls can braid straw and bindshoes, 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 infavor of a higher class; but even the foreign population became moreor less infected with the spirit of democracy. They came to thiscountry with vague notions of freedom and equality, and in ignorantand uncultivated people such ideas are often more unreasonable forbeing vague. They did not, indeed, claim a seat at the table and inthe parlor, but they repudiated many of those habits of respect andcourtesy which belonged to their former condition, and asserted theirown will and way in the round, unvarnished phrase which they supposedto be their right as republican citizens. Life became a sort ofdomestic wrangle and struggle between the employers, who secretlyconfessed their weakness, but endeavored openly to assume the air andbearing of authority, and the employed, who knew their power and

insisted on their privileges. From this cause domestic service inAmerica has had less of mutual kindliness than in old countries. Itsterms have been so ill understood and defined that both parties haveassumed the defensive; and a common topic of conversation in Americanfemale society has often been the general servile war which in oneform or another was going on in their different families,--a war asinterminable as would be a struggle between aristocracy and commonpeople, undefined by any bill of rights or constitution, and thereforeopening fields for endless disputes. In England, the class who go toservice _are_ a class, and service is a profession; the distance



between them and their employers is so marked and defined, and all thecustoms and requirements of the position are so perfectly understood,that the master or mistress has no fear of being compromised bycondescension, and no need of the external voice or air of authority.The higher up in the social scale one goes, the more courteous seemsto become the intercourse of master and servant; the more perfect andreal the power, the more is it veiled in outward expression,--commandsare phrased as requests, and gentleness of voice and manner covers anauthority which no one would think of offending without trembling.

But in America all is undefined. In the first place, there is no classwho mean to make domestic service a profession to live and die in. Itis universally an expedient, a stepping-stone to something higher;your best servants always have something else in view as soon as theyhave laid by a little money; some form of independence which shallgive them a home of their own is constantly in mind. Families lookforward to the buying of landed homesteads, and the scattered brothersand sisters work awhile in domestic service to gain the common fundfor the purpose; your seamstress intends to become a dressmaker, andtake in work at her own house; your cook is pondering a marriage withthe baker, which shall transfer her toils from your cooking-stove toher own. Young women are eagerly rushing into every other employment,till female trades and callings are all overstocked. We arecontinually harrowed with tales of the sufferings of distressed

needlewomen, of the exactions and extortions practiced on the frailsex in the many branches of labor and trade at which they try theirhands; and yet women will encounter all these chances of ruin andstarvation rather than make up their minds to permanent domesticservice. Now what is the matter with domestic service? One wouldthink, on the face of it, that a calling which gives a settled home, acomfortable room, rent-free, with fire and lights, good board andlodging, and steady, well-paid wages, would certainly offer moreattractions than the making of shirts for tenpence, with all the risksof providing one's own sustenance and shelter.

I think it is mainly from the want of a definite idea of the trueposition of a servant under our democratic institutions that domestic

service is so shunned and avoided in America, that it is the very lastthing which an intelligent young woman will look to for a living. Itis more the want of personal respect toward those in that positionthan the labors incident to it which repels our people from it. Manywould be willing to perform these labors, but they are not willing toplace themselves in a situation where their self-respect is hourlywounded by _the implication of a degree of inferiority which does notfollow any kind of labor or service in this country but that of thefamily_.

There exists in the minds of employers an unsuspected spirit ofsuperiority, which is stimulated into an active form by the resistancewhich democracy inspires in the working class. Many families think of

servants only as a necessary evil, their wages as exactions, and allthat is allowed them as so much taken from the family; and they seekin every way to get from them as much and to give them as little aspossible. Their rooms are the neglected, ill-furnished, incommodiousones,--and the kitchen is the most cheerless and comfortless place inthe house. Other families, more good-natured and liberal, providetheir domestics with more suitable accommodations, and are moreindulgent; but there is still a latent spirit of something likecontempt for the position. That they treat their servants with so muchconsideration seems to them a merit entitling them to the most



prostrate gratitude; and they are constantly disappointed and shockedat that want of sense of inferiority on the part of these people whichleads them to appropriate pleasant rooms, good furniture, and goodliving as mere matters of common justice.

It seems to be a constant surprise to some employers that servantsshould insist on having the same human wants as themselves. Ladies whoyawn 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 moredisposed to go out for an evening gossip than to sit on hard chairs inthe kitchen where they have been toiling all day. The prettychambermaid's anxieties about her dress, the time she spends at hersmall and not very clear mirror, are sneeringly noticed by those whosetoilet-cares take up serious hours; and the question has neverapparently occurred to them why a serving-maid should not want to lookpretty as well as her mistress. She is a woman as well as they, withall a woman's wants and weaknesses; and her dress is as much to her astheirs to them.

A vast deal of trouble among servants arises from impertinentinterferences and petty tyrannical exactions on the part of employers.Now the authority of the master and mistress of a house in regard totheir domestics extends simply to the things they have contracted to

do and the hours during which they have contracted to serve; otherwisethan this, they have no more right to interfere with them in thedisposal of their time than with any mechanic whom they employ. Theyhave, indeed, a right to regulate the hours of their own household,and servants can choose between conformity to these hours and the lossof their situation; but, within reasonable limits, their right to comeand go at their own discretion, in their own time, should beunquestioned.

If employers are troubled by the fondness of their servants fordancing, evening company, and late hours, the proper mode ofproceeding is to make these matters a subject of distinct contract inhiring. The more strictly and perfectly the business matters of the

first engagement of domestics are conducted, the more likelihood thereis of mutual quiet and satisfaction in the relation. It is quitecompetent to every housekeeper to say what practices are or are notconsistent with the rules of her family, and what will be inconsistentwith the service for which she agrees to pay. It is much better toregulate such affairs by cool contract in the outset than by warmaltercations and protracted domestic battles.

As to the terms of social intercourse, it seems somehow to be settledin the minds of many employers that their servants owe them and theirfamily more respect than they and the family owe to the servants. Butdo they? What is the relation of servant to employer in a democraticcountry? Precisely that of a person who for money performs any kind

of service for you. The carpenter comes into your house to put up aset of shelves,--the cook comes into your kitchen to cook your dinner.You never think that the carpenter owes you any more respect than youowe to him because he is in your house doing your behests; he is yourfellow-citizen, you treat him with respect, you expect to be treatedwith respect by him. You have a claim on him that he shall do yourwork according to your directions,--no more. Now I apprehend thatthere is a very common notion as to the position and rights ofservants which is quite different from this. Is it not a commonfeeling 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 privateaffairs, to comment on their dress and appearance, in a manner whichthey would feel to be an impertinence if reciprocated? Do they notfeel at liberty to express dissatisfaction with their performances inrude and unceremonious terms, to reprove them in the presence ofcompany, while yet they require that the dissatisfaction of servantsshall be expressed only in terms of respect? A woman would not feelherself at liberty to talk to her milliner or her dressmaker inlanguage as devoid of consideration as she will employ towards hercook or chambermaid. Yet both are rendering her a service which shepays for in money, and one is no more made her inferior thereby thanthe other. Both have an equal right to be treated with courtesy. Themaster and mistress of a house have a right to require respectfultreatment from all whom their roof shelters, but they have no moreright to exact it of servants than of every guest and every child, andthey themselves owe it as much to servants as to guests.

In order that servants may be treated with respect and courtesy, it isnot necessary, as in simpler patriarchal days, that they sit at thefamily table. Your carpenter or plumber does not feel hurt that you donot ask him to dine with you, nor your milliner and mantua-maker thatyou 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 superiorityon your part that you do not admit them to relations of privateintimacy. There may be the most perfect respect and esteem and evenfriendship between them and you, notwithstanding. So it may be in thecase of servants. It is easy to make any person understand that thereare quite other reasons than the assumption of personal superiorityfor not wishing to admit servants to the family privacy. It was not,in fact, to sit in the parlor or at the table, in themselvesconsidered, that was the thing aimed at by New England girls,--thesewere valued only as signs that they were deemed worthy of respect andconsideration, and, where freely conceded, were often in point of factdeclined.

Let servants feel, in their treatment by their employers, and in theatmosphere of the family, that their position is held to be arespectable one, let them feel in the mistress of the family the charmof unvarying consideration and good manners, let their work rooms bemade convenient and comfortable, and their private apartments bearsome reasonable comparison in point of agreeableness to those of othermembers of the family, and domestic service will be more frequentlysought by a superior and self-respecting class. There are families inwhich such a state of things prevails; and such families, amid themany causes which unite to make the tenure of service uncertain, havegenerally 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 ofthem. 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 thosewho have spoiled them in this way; while many of the longest and mostharmonious domestic unions have sprung from a simple, quiet course ofChristian justice and benevolence, a recognition of servants asfellow-beings and fellow-Christians, and a doing to them as we wouldin like circumstances that they should do to us.



The mistresses of American families, whether they like it or not, havethe duties of missionaries imposed upon them by that class from whichour supply of domestic servants is drawn. They may as well accept theposition cheerfully, and, as one raw, untrained hand after anotherpasses through their family, and is instructed by them in themysteries of good housekeeping, comfort themselves with the reflectionthat they are doing something to form good wives and mothers for theRepublic.

The complaints made of Irish girls are numerous and loud; the failingsof green Erin, alas! are but too open and manifest; yet, in arrest ofjudgment, let us move this consideration: let us imagine our owndaughters between the ages of sixteen and twenty-four, untaught andinexperienced in domestic affairs as they commonly are, shipped to aforeign shore to seek service in families. It may be questionedwhether as a whole they would do much better. The girls that fill ourfamilies and do our housework are often of the age of our owndaughters, standing for themselves, without mothers to guide them, ina foreign country, not only bravely supporting themselves, but sendinghome in every ship remittances to impoverished friends left behind. Ifour daughters did as much for us, should we not be proud of theirenergy 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 theonly hands employed are those of the daughters of Erin. True, Americanwomen have been their instructors, and many a weary hour of care havethey had in the discharge of this office; but the result on the wholeis beautiful and good, and the end of it, doubtless, will be peace.

In speaking of the office of the American mistress as being amissionary one, we are far from recommending any controversialinterference with the religious faith of our servants. It is farbetter to incite them to be good Christians in their own way than torun the risk of shaking their faith in all religion by pointing out tothem the errors of that in which they have been educated. The generalpurity of life and propriety of demeanor of so many thousands of

undefended young girls cast yearly upon our shores, with no home buttheir church, and no shield but their religion, are a sufficient proofthat this religion exerts an influence over them not to be lightlytrifled with. But there is a real unity even in opposite Christianforms; and the Roman Catholic servant and the Protestant mistress, ifalike possessed by the spirit of Christ, and striving to conform tothe Golden Rule, cannot help being one in heart, though one go to massand the other to meeting.

Finally, the bitter baptism through which we are passing, the lifeblood dearer than our own which is drenching distant fields, shouldremind us of the preciousness of distinctive American ideas. They whowould seek in their foolish pride to establish the pomp of liveried

servants in America are doing that which is simply absurd. A servantcan never in our country be the mere appendage to another man, to bemarked like a sheep with the color of his owner; he must be afellow-citizen, with an established position of his own, free to makecontracts, free to come and go, and having in his sphere titles toconsideration and respect just as definite as those of any trade orprofession whatever.

Moreover, we cannot in this country maintain to any great extent largeretinues of servants. Even with ample fortunes they are forbidden by



the general character of society here, which makes them cumbrous anddifficult to manage. Every mistress of a family knows that her caresincrease with every additional servant. Two keep the peace with eachother and their employer; three begin a possible discord, whichpossibility increases with four, and becomes certain with five or six.Trained housekeepers, such as regulate the complicated establishmentsof the Old World, form a class that are not, and from the nature ofthe 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 domesticestablishments, must necessarily be the general order of life inAmerica. So many openings of profit are to be found in this countrythat domestic service necessarily wants the permanence which forms soagreeable a feature of it in the Old World. This being the case, itshould be an object in America to exclude from the labors of thefamily all that can, with greater advantage, be executed out of it bycombined labor.

Formerly, in New England, soap and candles were to be made in eachseparate family; now, comparatively few take this toil upon them. Webuy soap of the soap-maker, and candles of the candle-factor. Thisprinciple might be extended much further. In France no family makes

its own bread, and better bread cannot be eaten than what can bebought at the appropriate shops. No family does its own washing; thefamily's linen is all sent to women who, making this their soleprofession, get it up with a care and nicety which can seldom beequaled in any family.

How would it simplify the burdens of the American housekeeper to havewashing and ironing day expunged from her calendar! How much moreneatly and compactly could the whole domestic system be arranged! Ifall the money that each separate family spends on the outfit andaccommodations for washing and ironing, on fuel, soap, starch, and theother et ceteras, were united in a fund to create a laundry for everydozen families, one or two good women could do in firstrate style what

now is very indifferently done by the disturbance and disarrangementof all other domestic processes in these families. Whoever setsneighborhood laundries on foot will do much to solve the Americanhousekeeper's hardest problem.

Finally, American women must not try with three servants to carry onlife in the style which in the Old World requires sixteen: they mustthoroughly understand, and be prepared _to teach_, every branch ofhousekeeping; they must study to make domestic service desirable bytreating their servants in a way to lead them to respect themselvesand to feel themselves respected; and there will gradually be evolvedfrom the present confusion a solution of the domestic problem whichshall 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, whichwarned us that summer was over. I was solacing myself, like all theworld in our days, with reading the "Schönberg Cotta Family," when mywife made her voice heard through the enchanted distance, anddispersed 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'tknow, 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 adelicate way of admonishing me that another paper for the "Atlantic"ought to be in train; and so I answered, not to the external form, butto the internal intention,--

"Well, you see, my dear, I haven't made up my mind what my next papershall 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 thinkmore of health and happiness depends on that than on any other onething. You may make houses enchantingly beautiful, hang them withpictures, have them clean and airy and convenient; but if the stomachis fed with sour bread and burnt coffee, it will raise such rebellionsthat the eyes will see no beauty anywhere. Now, in the little tourthat you and I have been taking this summer, I have been thinking ofthe great abundance of splendid material we have in America, comparedwith the poor cooking. How often, in our stoppings, we have sat downto tables loaded with material, originally of the very best kind,

which had been so spoiled in the treatment that there was reallynothing to eat! Green biscuits with acrid spots of alkali; souryeast-bread; meat slowly simmered in fat till it seemed like greaseitself, and slowly congealing in cold grease; and, above all, thatunpardonable enormity, strong butter! How often I have longed to showpeople what might have been done with the raw material out of whichall these monstrosities were concocted!"

"My dear," said I, "you are driving me upon delicate ground. Would youhave your husband appear in public with that most opprobrious badgeof the domestic furies, a dishcloth, pinned to his coat-tail? It iscoming 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 yousometimes talk to me, and I might hang up my pen by the side of 'UncleNed's' fiddle and bow."

"Oh, nonsense!" said my wife. "I never could write. I know what oughtto be said, and I could _say_ it to any one; but my ideas freeze inthe pen, cramp in my fingers, and make my brain seem like heavy bread.I was born for extemporary speaking. Besides, I think the best thingson all subjects in this world of ours are said, not by the practicalworkers, 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 andobserver in all domestic matters, having them so confidentiallyunder my eye in our own household; and so, if I write on a purewoman's matter, it must be understood that I am only your pen andmouthpiece,--only giving tangible form to wisdom which I havederived from you."

So down I sat and scribbled, while my sovereign lady quietly stitchedby my side. And here I tell my reader that I write on such a subjectunder protest,--declaring again my conviction that, if my wife onlybelieved in herself as firmly as I do, she would write so that nobodywould ever want to listen to me again.

COOKERY

We in America have the raw material of provision in greaterabundance 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 generallyneglected. I do not mean to say that the traveler through the lengthand breadth of our land could not, on the whole, find an average of

comfortable subsistence; yet, considering that our resources aregreater than those of any other civilized people, our results arecomparatively poorer.

It is said that, a list of the summer vegetables which are exhibitedon New York hotel tables being shown to a French _artiste_, hedeclared that to serve such a dinner properly would take tillmidnight. I recollect how I was once struck with our nationalplenteousness on returning from a Continental tour, and going directlyfrom 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 orpoultry garnished with the inevitable cauliflower or potato, whichseemed 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 andvarious names; tempting ears of Indian corn steaming in enormouspiles, and great smoking tureens of the savory succotash, an Indiangift to the table for which civilization need not blush; slicedegg-plant in delicate fritters; and marrow squashes, of creamy pulpand sweetness: a rich variety, embarrassing to the appetite, andperplexing to the choice. Verily, the thought has often impresseditself on my mind that the vegetarian doctrine preached in Americaleft a man quite as much as he had capacity to eat or enjoy, and thatin the midst of such tantalizing abundance he really lost the apologywhich 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 inferiorto that of England or France. It presents a fine abundance ofmaterial, carelessly and poorly treated. The management of food isnowhere in the world, perhaps, more slovenly and wasteful. Everythingbetokens that want of care that waits on abundance; there are greatcapabilities and poor execution. A tourist through England can seldomfail, at the quietest country inn, of finding himself served with theessentials of English table comfort,--his mutton-chop done to a turn,



his steaming little private apparatus for concocting his own tea, hischoice pot of marmalade or slice of cold ham, and his delicate rollsand creamy butter, all served with care and neatness. In France, onenever asks in vain for delicious _café-au-lait_, good bread andbutter, a nice omelet, or some savory little portion of meat with aFrench name. But to a tourist taking like chance in American countryfare, what is the prospect? What is the coffee? what the tea? and themeat? and, above all, the butter?

In lecturing on cookery, as on housebuilding, I divide the subjectinto, 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 inteacups, whether they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or whatnot.

I affirm that, if these five departments are all perfect, the greatends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort andwell-being of life are concerned. I am aware that there exists anotherdepartment, which is often regarded by culinary amateurs and youngaspirants as the higher branch and very collegiate course of practicalcookery; to wit, confectionery, by which I mean to designate allpleasing and complicated compounds of sweets and spices, devised notfor health and nourishment, and strongly suspected of interfering with

both,--mere tolerated gratifications of the palate, which we eat, notwith the expectation of being benefited, but only with the hope of notbeing injured by them. In this large department rank all sorts ofcakes, pies, preserves, ices, etc. I shall have a word or two to sayunder this head before I have done. I only remark now that, in mytours about the country, I have often had a virulent ill-will excitedtowards these works of culinary supererogation, because I thoughttheir excellence was attained by treading under foot and disregardingthe five grand essentials. I have sat at many a table garnished withthree or four kinds of well-made cake, compounded with citron andspices and all imaginable good things, where the meat was tough andgreasy, the bread some hot preparation of flour, lard, saleratus, andacid, 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 meatthat she evidently had given to the preparation of these extras, thelot of a traveler might be much more comfortable. Evidently she neverhad thought of these common articles as constituting a good table. Solong as she had puff pastry, rich black cake, clear jelly, andpreserves, she seemed to consider that such unimportant matters asbread, butter, and meat could take care of themselves. It is the sameinattention to common things as that which leads people to buildhouses with stone fronts and window-caps and expensive front-doortrimmings, without bathing-rooms or fireplaces or ventilators.

Those who go into the country looking for summer board in farmhouses

know perfectly well that a table where the butter is always fresh, thetea and coffee of the best kinds and well made, and the meats properlykept, dressed, and served, is the one table of a hundred, the fabulousenchanted island. It seems impossible to get the idea into the mindsof 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 andcivilized bread. The savage mixes simple flour and water into balls ofpaste, which he throws into boiling water, and which come out solid,glutinous masses, of which his common saying is, "Man eat dis, he nodie,"--which a facetious traveler who was obliged to subsist on itinterpreted to mean, "Dis no kill you, nothing will." In short, itrequires the stomach of a wild animal or of a savage to digest thisprimitive form of bread, and of course more or less attention in allcivilized modes of bread making is given to producing lightness. Bylightness is meant simply that the particles are to be separated fromeach other by little holes or air-cells; and all the different methodsof making light bread are neither more nor less than the formation inbread of these air-cells.

So far as we know, there are four practicable methods of aeratingbread, namely, by fermentation; by effervescence of an acid and analkali; by aerated egg, or egg which has been filled with air by theprocess of beating; and, lastly, by pressure of some gaseous substanceinto the paste, by a process much resembling the impregnation of waterin a soda fountain. All these have one and the same object,--to giveus the cooked particles of our flour separated by such permanentair-cells as will enable the stomach more readily to digest them.

A very common mode of aerating bread in America is by the effervescenceof an acid and an alkali in the flour. The carbonic acid gas thus formedproduces minute air-cells in the bread, or, as the cook says, makes itlight. When this process is performed with exact attention tochemical laws, so that the acid and alkali completely neutralize eachother, leaving no overplus of either, the result is often verypalatable. The difficulty is, that this is a happy conjunction ofcircumstances which seldom occurs. The acid most commonly employed isthat of sour milk, and, as milk has many degrees of sourness, the ruleof a certain quantity of alkali to the pint must necessarily producevery different results at different times. As an actual fact, wherethis mode of making bread prevails, as we lament to say it does to agreat 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 haveabandoned the old respectable mode of yeast brewing and bread raisingfor this specious substitute, so easily made, and so seldom wellmade. The green, clammy, acrid substance called biscuit, which manyof our worthy republicans are obliged to eat in these days, iswholly unworthy of the men and women of the Republic. Good patriotsought not to be put off in that way,--they deserve better fare.

As an occasional variety, as a household convenience for obtainingbread or biscuit at a moment's notice, the process of effervescencemay be retained; but we earnestly entreat American housekeepers, inScriptural 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 dueproportions. No cook should be left to guess and judge for herselfabout this matter. There is an article, called "Preston's InfallibleYeast Powder," which is made by chemical rule, and produces veryperfect results. The use of this obviates the worst dangers in makingbread by effervescence.

Of all processes of aeration in bread-making, the oldest and mosttime-honored is by fermentation. That this was known in the days of



our Saviour is evident from the forcible simile in which he comparesthe silent permeating force of truth in human society to the veryfamiliar household process of raising bread by a little yeast.

There is, however, one species of yeast, much used in some parts ofthe country, against which I have to enter my protest. It is calledsalt-risings, or milk-risings, and is made by mixing flour, milk, anda little salt together and leaving them to ferment. The bread thusproduced 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 whichour old English Bible describes the effect of keeping the manna of theancient Israelites, which we are informed, in words more explicit thanagreeable, "stank, and bred worms." If salt-rising bread does notfulfill the whole of this unpleasant description, it certainly doesemphatically a part of it. The smell which it has in baking, and whenmore than a day old, suggests the inquiry whether it is the saccharineor the putrid fermentation with which it is raised. Whoever breaks apiece of it after a day or two will often see minute filaments orclammy strings drawing out from the fragments, which, with theunmistakable smell, will cause him to pause before consummating anearer acquaintance.

The fermentation of flour by means of brewer's or distiller's yeast

produces, if rightly managed, results far more palatable andwholesome. The only requisites for success in it are, first, goodmaterials, and, second, great care in a few small things. There arecertain low-priced or damaged kinds of flour which can never by anykind of domestic chemistry be made into good bread; and to thosepersons whose stomachs forbid them to eat gummy, glutinous paste,under the name of bread, there is no economy in buying these poorbrands, even at half the price of good flour.

But good flour and good yeast being supposed, with a temperaturefavorable to the development of fermentation, the whole success of theprocess depends on the thorough diffusion of the proper proportionof yeast through the whole mass, and on stopping the subsequent

fermentation at the precise and fortunate point. The true housewifemakes her bread the sovereign of her kitchen,--its behests must beattended to in all critical points and moments, no matter what elsebe postponed. She who attends to her bread when she has done this,and arranged that, and performed the other, very often finds that theforces of nature will not wait for her. The snowy mass, perfectlymixed, kneaded with care and strength, rises in its beautifulperfection till the moment comes for fixing the air-cells bybaking. A few minutes now, and the acetous fermentation will begin,and the whole result be spoiled. Many bread-makers pass in uttercarelessness over this sacred and mysterious boundary. Their oven hascake in it, or they are skimming jelly, or attending to some otherof the so-called higher branches of cookery, while the bread is

quickly passing into the acetous stage. At last, when they are readyto attend to it, they find that it has been going its own way,--it isso sour that the pungent smell is plainly perceptible. Now thesaleratus-bottle is handed down, and a quantity of the dissolvedalkali mixed with the paste,--an expedient sometimes making itselftoo manifest by greenish streaks or small acrid spots in the bread. Asthe result, we have a beautiful article spoiled,--bread withoutsweetness, 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 carefullykneaded bread, baked just before it passes to the extreme point offermentation, is something of which they have no conception; and thusthey will even regard this process of spoiling the paste by theacetous fermentation, and then rectifying that acid by effervescencewith an alkali, as something positively meritorious. How else can theyvalue and relish baker's loaves, such as some are, drugged withammonia and other disagreeable things, light indeed, so light thatthey seem to have neither weight nor substance, but with no moresweetness or taste than so much white cotton?

Some persons prepare bread for the oven by simply mixing it in themass, without kneading, pouring it into pans, and suffering it to risethere. The air-cells in bread thus prepared are coarse and uneven; thebread is as inferior in delicacy and nicety to that which is wellkneaded as a raw Irish servant to a perfectly educated and refinedlady. The process of kneading seems to impart an evenness to theminute air-cells, a fineness of texture, and a tenderness andpliability to the whole substance, that can be gained in no otherway.

The divine principle of beauty has its reign over bread as well asover all other things; it has its laws of æsthetics; and that breadwhich 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, theloaves should stand a little while, just long enough to allow thefermentation going on in them to expand each little air-cell tothe point at which it stood before it was worked down, and thenthey should be immediately put into the oven.

Many a good thing, however, is spoiled in the oven. We cannot butregret, for the sake of bread, that our old steady brick ovenshave been almost universally superseded by those of ranges andcooking-stoves, which are infinite in their caprices, and forbid allgeneral rules. One thing, however, may be borne in mind as aprinciple,--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 theobjects of baking is to fix these air-cells, and that the quicker thiscan be done through the whole mass, the better will the result be.When cake or bread is made heavy by baking too quickly, it isbecause the immediate formation of the top crust hinders theexhaling of the moisture in the centre, and prevents the air-cellsfrom cooking. The weight also of the crust pressing down on thedoughy air-cells below destroys them, producing that horror of goodcooks, a heavy streak. The problem in baking, then, is the quickapplication of heat rather below than above the loaf, and its steadycontinuance till all the air-cells are thoroughly dried intopermanent 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 thevarious kinds of biscuit, tea-rusks, twists, rolls, into which breadmay be made, are much better worth a housekeeper's ambition than thegetting up of rich and expensive cake or confections. There are alsovarieties of material which are rich in good effects. Unbolted flour,altogether more wholesome than the fine wheat, and when properlyprepared more palatable, rye-flour and corn-meal, each affording athousand attractive possibilities,--each and all of these come under



the general laws of breadstuffs, and are worth a careful attention.

A peculiarity of our American table, particularly in the Southern andWestern States, is the constant exhibition of various preparations ofhot bread. In many families of the South and West, bread in loaves tobe eaten cold is an article quite unknown. The effect of this kind ofdiet upon the health has formed a frequent subject of remark amongtravelers; but only those know the full mischiefs of it who have beencompelled to sojourn for a length of time in families where it ismaintained. The unknown horrors of dyspepsia from bad bread are atopic over which we willingly draw a veil.

* * * * *

Next to bread comes _butter_,--on which we have to say that, when weremember what butter is in civilized Europe, and compare it with whatit is in America, we wonder at the forbearance and lenity of travelersin their strictures on our national commissariat.

Butter in England, France, and Italy is simply solidified cream, withall the sweetness of the cream in its taste, freshly churned each day,and unadulterated by salt. At the present moment, when salt is fivecents a pound and butter fifty, we Americans are paying, I shouldjudge 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 andEngland do this with rueful recollections.

There is, it is true, an article of butter made in the American stylewith salt, which, in its own kind and way, has a merit not inferior tothat of England and France. Many prefer it, and it certainly takes arank equally respectable with the other. It is yellow, hard, andworked so perfectly free from every particle of buttermilk that itmight make the voyage of the world without spoiling. It is salted, butsalted with care and delicacy, so that it may be a question whethereven a fastidious Englishman might not prefer its golden solidity tothe white, creamy freshness of his own. Now I am not for universalimitation of foreign customs, and where I find this butter made

perfectly I call it our American style, and am not ashamed of it. Ionly regret that this article is the exception, and not the rule, onour tables. When I reflect on the possibilities which beset thedelicate stomach in this line, I do not wonder that my veneratedfriend Dr. Mussey used to close his counsels to invalids with thedirection, "And don't eat grease on your bread."

America must, I think, have the credit of manufacturing and puttinginto market more bad butter than all that is made in all the rest ofthe world together. The varieties of bad tastes and smells whichprevail in it are quite a study. This has a cheesy taste, that amouldy,--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 longintervals, and keeping the cream meanwhile in unventilated cellars ordairies, the air of which is loaded with the effluvia of vegetablesubstances. No domestic articles are so sympathetic as those of themilk tribe: they readily take on the smell and taste of anyneighboring substance, and hence the infinite variety of flavors onwhich one mournfully muses who has late in autumn to taste twentyfirkins of butter in hopes of finding one which will simply not beintolerable on his winter table.



A matter for despair as regards bad butter is that, at the tableswhere it is used, it stands sentinel at the door to bar your way toevery other kind of food. You turn from your dreadful half-slice ofbread, which fills your mouth with bitterness, to your beefsteak,which proves virulent with the same poison; you think to take refugein vegetable diet, and find the butter in the string-beans, andpolluting the innocence of early peas; it is in the corn, in thesuccotash, in the squash; the beets swim in it, the onions have itpoured over them. Hungry and miserable, you think to solace yourselfat the dessert; but the pastry is cursed, the cake is acrid with thesame plague. You are ready to howl with despair, and your misery isgreat upon you, especially if this is a table where you have takenboard for three months with your delicate wife and four smallchildren. Your case is dreadful,--and it is hopeless, because longusage and habit have rendered your host perfectly incapable ofdiscovering what is the matter. "Don't like the butter, sir? I assureyou I paid an extra price for it, and it's the very best in themarket. I looked over as many as a hundred tubs, and picked out thisone." You are dumb, but not less despairing.

Yet the process of making good butter is a very simple one. To keepthe cream in a perfectly pure, cool atmosphere, to churn while it isyet sweet, to work out the buttermilk thoroughly, and to add salt withsuch discretion as not to ruin the fine, delicate flavor of the fresh

cream,--all this is quite simple, so simple that one wonders atthousands and millions of pounds of butter yearly manufactured whichare merely a hobgoblin-bewitchment of cream into foul and loathsomepoisons.

* * * * *

The third head of my discourse is that of _Meat_, of which Americafurnishes, 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 itis 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 Westerncountry, the traveler, on approaching an hotel, is often saluted bythe last shrieks of the chickens which half an hour afterward arepresented to him à la spread-eagle for his dinner. The example of theFather of the Faithful, most wholesome to be followed in so manyrespects, is imitated only in the celerity with which the young calf,tender and good, was transformed into an edible dish for hospitablepurposes. But what might be good housekeeping in a nomadic Emir, indays when refrigerators were yet in the future, ought not to be soclosely 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 neatlytrimmed mutton-chop of an English inn, or the artistic little circleof lamb-chop fried in bread-crumbs coiled around a tempting centre ofspinach which can always be found in France, can recognize any familyresemblance to these dapper civilized preparations in those coarse,roughly hacked strips of bone, gristle, and meat which are commonlycalled mutton-chop in America? There seems to be a large dish ofsomething resembling meat, in which each fragment has about two orthree 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 somewhatmore care and nicety in the modes of preparing what is to be cookedand eaten? Might not some of the refinement and trimness whichcharacterize the preparations of the European market be withadvantage introduced into our own? The housekeeper who wishes togarnish her table with some of those nice things is stopped in theoutset by the butcher. Except in our large cities, where someforeign travel may have created the demand, it seems impossible toget much in this line that is properly prepared.

I am aware that, if this is urged on the score of æsthetics, the readyreply will be, "Oh, we can't give time here in America to go intoniceties and French whim-whams!" But the French mode of doing almostall practical things is based on that true philosophy and utilitariangood sense which characterize that seemingly thoughtless people.Nowhere is economy a more careful study, and their market isartistically arranged to this end. The rule is so to cut their meatsthat no portion designed to be cooked in a certain manner shall havewasteful appendages which that mode of cooking will spoil. The Frenchsoup kettle stands ever ready to receive the bones, the thin fibrousflaps, the sinewy and gristly portions, which are so often included inour 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 alamb denominated leg and loin, or hind-quarter, sold for thirty centsa pound. Now this includes, besides the thick, fleshy portions, aquantity of bone, sinew, and thin fibrous substance, constitutingfull 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 skinnyand fibrous parts utterly dried up, by the application of the amountof heat necessary to cook the thick portion. Supposing the joint toweigh six pounds, at thirty cents, and that one third of the weight isso 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 isoften lost in bone, fat, and burnt skin.

The fact is, this way of selling and cooking meat in large, grossportions is of English origin, and belongs to a country where all thecustoms of society spring from a class who have no particular occasionfor economy. The practice of minute and delicate division comes from anation which acknowledges the need of economy, and has made it astudy. A quarter of lamb in this mode of division would be sold inthree nicely prepared portions. The thick part would be sold byitself, for a neat, compact little roast; the rib-bones would beartistically separated, and all the edible matters scraped away wouldform those delicate dishes of lamb-chop which, fried in bread-crumbs

to a golden brown, are so ornamental and so palatable a side-dish; thetrimmings which remain after this division would be destined to thesoup kettle or stew pan. In a French market is a little portion forevery purse, and the far-famed and delicately flavored soups and stewswhich have arisen out of French economy are a study worth ahousekeeper's attention. Not one atom of food is wasted in the Frenchmodes of preparation; even tough animal cartilages and sinews, insteadof appearing burnt and blackened in company with the roast meat towhich they happen to be related, are treated according to their ownlaws, and come out either in savory soups, or those fine, clear



meat-jellies which form a garnish no less agreeable to the eye thanpalatable to the taste.

Whether this careful, economical, practical style of meat cookingcan ever to any great extent be introduced into our kitchens now is aquestion. Our butchers are against it; our servants are wedded tothe old wholesale wasteful ways, which seem to them easier becausethey are accustomed to them. A cook who will keep and properly tenda soup kettle which shall receive and utilize all that the coarsepreparations of the butcher would require her to trim away, whounderstands the art of making the most of all these remains, is atreasure scarcely to be hoped for. If such things are to be done,it must be primarily through the educated brain of cultivated womenwho do not scorn to turn their culture and refinement upon domesticproblems.

When meats have been properly divided--so that each portion canreceive its own appropriate style of treatment--next comes theconsideration of the modes of cooking. These may be divided into twogreat general classes: those where it is desired to keep the juiceswithin the meat, as in baking, broiling, and frying; and those whoseobject is to extract the juice and dissolve the fibre, as in themaking of soups and stews. In the first class of operations, theprocess must be as rapid as may consist with the thorough cooking

of all the particles. In this branch of cookery, doing quickly isdoing well. The fire must be brisk, the attention alert. Theintroduction of cooking-stoves offers to careless domesticsfacilities for gradually drying up meats, and despoiling them ofall flavor and nutriment,--facilities which appear to be verygenerally laid hold of. They have almost banished the genuine,old-fashioned roast meat from our tables, and left in its stead driedmeats with their most precious and nutritive juices evaporated. Howfew cooks, unassisted, are competent to the simple process of broilinga beefsteak or mutton-chop! how very generally one has to choosebetween these meats gradually dried away, or burned on the outsideand raw within! Yet in England these articles _never_ come ontable 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 generallyabused as frying. The frying-pan has awful sins to answer for. Whatuntold horrors of dyspepsia have arisen from its smoky depths, likethe ghosts from witches' caldrons! The fizzle of frying meat is as awarning knell on many an ear, saying, "Touch not, taste not, if youwould not burn and writhe!"

Yet those who have traveled abroad remember that some of the lightest,most palatable, and most digestible preparations of meat have comefrom this dangerous source. But we fancy quite other rites andceremonies inaugurated the process, and quite other hands performed

its offices, than those known to our kitchens. Probably the delicate _côte-lettes_ of France are not flopped down into half-melted grease,there gradually to warm and soak and fizzle, while Biddy goes in andout on her other ministrations, till finally, when thoroughlysaturated and dinner-hour impends, she bethinks herself, and crowdsthe fire below to a roaring heat, and finishes the process by a smartburn, involving the kitchen and surrounding precincts in volumes ofStygian gloom.

From such preparations has arisen the very current medical opinion



that fried meats are indigestible. They are indigestible if they aregreasy; but French cooks have taught us that a thing has no more needto be greasy because emerging from grease than Venus had to be saltbecause she rose from the sea.

There are two ways of frying employed by the French cook. One is, toimmerse the article to be cooked in _boiling_ fat, with an emphasis onthe present participle,--and the philosophical principle is, soimmediately to crisp every pore at the first moment or two ofimmersion as effectually to seal the interior against the intrusion ofgreasy particles; it can then remain as long as may be necessarythoroughly to cook it, without imbibing any more of the boiling fluidthan if it were enclosed in an eggshell. The other method is, to rub aperfectly smooth iron surface with just enough of some oily substanceto prevent the meat from adhering, and cook it with a quick heat, ascakes are baked on a griddle. In both these cases there must be themost rapid application of heat that can be made without burning, andby the adroitness shown in working out this problem the skill of thecook is tested. Any one whose cook attains this important secret willfind fried things quite as digestible and often more palatable thanany other.

In the second department of meat cookery, to wit, the slow and gradualapplication 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 andstews? These are precisely the articles in which a French kitchenexcels. The soup kettle, made with a double bottom to prevent burning,is a permanent, ever-present institution, and the coarsest and mostimpracticable meats distilled through that alembic come out again insoups, jellies, or savory stews. The toughest cartilage, even thebones, being first cracked, are here made to give forth their hiddenvirtues, and to rise in delicate and appetizing forms. One great lawgoverns all these preparations: the application of heat must begradual, steady, long protracted, never reaching the point of activeboiling. 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 andprotracted application of heat and the skillful use of flavorsconstitute the two main points in all those nice preparations of meatfor which the French have so many names,--processes by which adelicacy can be imparted to the coarsest and cheapest food superior tothat of the finest articles under less philosophic treatment.

French soups and stews are a study, and they would not be anunprofitable one to any person who wishes to live with comfort andeven elegance on small means.

John Bull looks down from the sublime of ten thousand a year on Frenchkickshaws, 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 hiskitchen arrangements are Titanic. What magnificent rounds and sirloinsof beef, revolving on self-regulating spits, with a rich click ofsatisfaction, before grates piled with roaring fires! Let us dojustice to the royal cheer. Nowhere are the charms of pure,unadulterated animal food set forth in more imposing style. For Johnis rich, and what does he care for odds and ends and parings? Has henot 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 tenthousand pounds a year,--nothing like it; but he makes up for the



slenderness of his purse by boundless fertility of invention anddelicacy 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 Josephwith 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 servantswho call themselves cooks is, that they have not the smallest notion ofthe philosophy of the application of heat. Such a one will complacentlytell you, concerning certain meats, that the harder you boil them theharder they grow,--an obvious fact, which, under her mode of treatmentby an indiscriminate galloping boil, has frequently come under herpersonal observation. If you tell her that such meat must stand for sixhours 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 itburns to the bottom of the kettle,--a most common termination of theexperiment. The only way to make sure of the matter is either to import aFrench kettle, or to fit into an ordinary kettle a false bottom, suchas any tinman may make, that shall leave a space of an inch or twobetween the meat and the fire. This kettle may be maintained as aconstant _habitué_ of the range, and into it the cook may be instructedto 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 otherpalatable dishes. Clear soup consists of the dissolved juices of themeat and gelatine of the bones, cleared from the fat and fibrousportions by straining when cold. The grease, which rises to the top ofthe fluid, may thus be easily removed. In a stew, on the contrary,you boil down this soup till it permeates the fibre which longexposure to heat has softened. All that remains, after the properpreparation of the fibre and juices, is the flavoring, and it is inthis, particularly, that French soups excel those of America andEngland 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 orclove or allspice. You can tell at once what is in them, oftentimes toyour sorrow. But a French soup has a flavor which one recognises atonce as delicious, yet not to be characterized as due to any singlecondiment; it is the just blending of many things. The same remarkapplies 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 toeconomy.

As to those things called hashes, commonly manufactured by unwatched,untaught cooks, out of the remains of yesterday's repast, let us notdwell 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 otherwiseoccupied. Such are the best performances a housekeeper can hope forfrom an untrained cook.

But the cunningly devised minces, the artful preparations choicelyflavored, which may be made of yesterday's repast,--by these is thetrue domestic artist known. No cook untaught by an educated brain evermakes these, and yet economy is a great gainer by them.



* * * * *

As regards the department of _Vegetables_, their number and variety inAmerica are so great that a table might almost be furnished by thesealone. Generally speaking, their cooking is a more simple art, andtherefore more likely to be found satisfactorily performed, than thatof meats. If only they are not drenched with rancid butter, their ownnative excellence makes itself known in most of the ordinary modes ofpreparation.

There is, however, one exception.

Our stanch old friend the potato is to other vegetables what bread ison the table. Like bread, it is held as a sort of _sine qua non_; likethat, it may be made invariably palatable by a little care in a fewplain particulars, through neglect of which it often becomesintolerable. The soggy, waxy, indigestible viand that often appears inthe potato-dish is a downright sacrifice of the better nature of thisvegetable.

The potato, nutritive and harmless as it appears, belongs to a familysuspected of very dangerous traits. It is a family connection of thedeadly nightshade and other ill-reputed gentry, and sometimes shows

strange proclivities to evil,--now breaking out uproariously, as inthe noted potato rot, and now more covertly in various evilaffections. For this reason, scientific directors bid us beware ofthe water in which potatoes are boiled,--into which, it appears, theevil principle is drawn off; and they caution us not to shred theminto stews without previously suffering the slices to lie for an houror so in salt and water. These cautions are worth attention.

The most usual modes of preparing the potato for the table are byroasting or boiling. These processes are so simple that it is commonlysupposed every cook understands them without special directions, andyet there is scarcely an uninstructed cook who can boil or roast apotato.

A good roasted potato is a delicacy worth a dozen compositions of thecook-book; yet when we ask for it, what burnt, shriveled abortions arepresented to us! Biddy rushes to her potato-basket and pours out twodozen of different sizes, some having in them three times the amountof matter of others. These being washed, she tumbles them into heroven at a leisure interval, and there lets them lie till it is time toserve breakfast, whenever that may be. As a result, if the largest arecooked, the smallest are presented in cinders, and the intermediatesizes are withered and watery. Nothing is so utterly ruined by a fewmoments of overdoing. That which at the right moment was plump withmealy richness, a quarter of an hour later shrivels and becomeswatery,--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 cookcoming upon the table like lumps of yellow wax,--and the same article,the day after, under the directions of a skillful mistress, appearingin snowy balls of powdery lightness. In the one case, they were thrownin their skins into water and suffered to soak or boil, as the casemight be, at the cook's leisure, and, after they were boiled, to standin the water till she was ready to peel them. In the other case, thepotatoes being first peeled were boiled as quickly as possible in



salted water, which, the moment they were done, was drained off, andthen they were gently shaken for a minute or two over the fire to drythem still more thoroughly. We have never yet seen the potato sodepraved and given over to evil that could not be reclaimed by thismode of treatment.

As to fried potatoes, who that remembers the crisp, golden slices ofthe French restaurant, thin as wafers and light as snowflakes, doesnot speak respectfully of them? What cousinship with these have thosecoarse, 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 togreat acceptance, and to the vindication of the fair fame of thisqueen of vegetables.

* * * * *

Finally, I arrive at the last great head of my subject, to wit, _Tea_,--meaning thereby, as before observed, what our Hibernian frienddid 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 coffeecontroversy, 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 thousandvoices have asked, What is it about the French coffee? In the firstplace, then, the French coffee is coffee, and not chicory, or rye, orbeans, or peas. In the second place, it is freshly roasted, whenevermade,--roasted with great care and evenness in a little revolvingcylinder which makes part of the furniture of every kitchen, and whichkeeps in the aroma of the berry. It is never overdone, so as todestroy the coffee flavor, which is in nine cases out of ten the faultof the coffee we meet with. Then it is ground, and placed in acoffee-pot with a filter, through which it percolates in cleardrops--the coffee-pot standing on a heated stove to maintain the

temperature. The nose of the coffee-pot is stopped up to prevent theescape of the aroma during this process. The extract thus obtained isa perfectly clear, dark fluid, know as _café noir_, or black coffee.It is black only because of its strength, being in fact almost thevery essential oil of coffee. A tablespoonful of this in boiled milkwould make what is ordinarily called a strong cup of coffee. Theboiled milk is prepared with no less care. It must be fresh and new,not merely warmed or even brought to the boiling point, but slowlysimmered till it attains a thick, creamy richness. The coffee mixedwith this, and sweetened with that sparkling beet-root sugar whichornaments a French table, is the celebrated _café-au-lait_, the nameof which has gone round the world.

As we look to France for the best coffee, so we must look to Englandfor the perfection of tea. The tea-kettle is as much an Englishinstitution as aristocracy or the Prayer Book; and when one wants toknow exactly how tea should be made, one has only to ask how a fineold English housekeeper makes it.

The first article of her faith is, that the water must not merely behot, not merely _have boiled_ a few moments since, but be actually _boiling_ at the moment it touches the tea. Hence, though servantsin England are vastly better trained than with us, this delicate



endeavor than to do uncommon things respectably. We Americans in manythings as yet have been a little inclined to begin making our shirt atthe ruffle; but nevertheless, when we set about it, we can make theshirt as nicely as anybody,--it needs only that we turn our attentionto 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 inrespect to French cookery. Having heard much of it, with no verydistinct idea what it is, our people have somehow fallen into thenotion that its forte lies in high spicing,--and so, when our cooksput a great abundance of clove, mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon intotheir preparations, they fancy that they are growing up to be Frenchcooks. But the fact is, that the Americans and English are farmore given to spicing than the French. Spices in our made dishesare abundant, and their taste is strongly pronounced. In living ayear 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 Natureproduces in high-flavored fruits. The recipes of our cookery-books aremost of them of English origin, coming down from the times of ourphlegmatic ancestors, when the solid, burly, beefy growth of the foggy

island required the heat of fiery condiments, and could digest heavysweets. Witness the national recipe for plum-pudding, which may berendered: Take a pound of every indigestible substance you can thinkof, boil into a cannon-ball, and serve in flaming brandy. So of theChristmas mince-pie and many other national dishes. But in America,owing to our brighter skies and more fervid climate, we have developedan acute, nervous delicacy of temperament far more akin to that ofFrance than of England.

Half of the recipes in our cook-books are mere murder to suchconstitutions and stomachs as we grow here. We require to ponder thesethings, and think how we in our climate and under our circumstancesought 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 mywife, and see what she says.

XI

OUR HOUSE

Our gallant Bob Stephens, into whose lifeboat our Marianne has beenreceived, has lately taken the mania of housebuilding into his head.Bob is somewhat fastidious, difficult to please, fond of domesticitiesand individualities; and such a man never can fit himself into a housebuilt by another, and accordingly housebuilding has always been hisfavorite mental recreation. During all his courtship, as much time wastaken 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 chronicdisposition has been quickened into an acute form by the falling-in ofsome few thousands to their domestic treasury,--left as the soleresiduum of a painstaking old aunt, who took it into her head to makea will in Bob's favor, leaving, among other good things, a nice littlebit of land in a rural district half an hour's railroad ride fromBoston.

So now ground-plans thicken, and my wife is being consulted morning,noon, and night; and I never come into the room without finding theirheads close together over a paper, and hearing Bob expatiate on hisfavorite 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 bossoverhead, and finished mediævally with ultramarine blue andgilding,--and then away he goes sketching Gothic patterns ofbookshelves which require only experienced carvers, and thewherewithal to pay them, to be the divinest things in the world.

Marianne is exercised about china-closets and pantries, and about abedroom on the ground-floor,--for, like all other women of our days,she expects not to have strength enough to run upstairs oftener thanonce or twice a week; and my wife, who is a native genius in thisline, 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, accordingas the ideas of the young couple veer and vary.

One day Bob is importuned to give two feet off from his libraryfor a closet in the bedroom, but resists like a Trojan. The nextmorning, being mollified by private domestic supplications, Bobyields, and my wife rubs out the lines of yesterday, two feet comeoff the library, and a closet is constructed. But now the parlorproves too narrow,--the parlor wall must be moved two feet intothe hall. Bob declares this will spoil the symmetry of the latter;and, if there is anything he wants, it is a wide, generous, amplehall to step into when you open the front door.

"Well, then," says Marianne, "let's put two feet more into the widthof the house."

"Can't on account of the expense, you see," says Bob. "You see everyadditional foot of outside wall necessitates so many more bricks, somuch more flooring, so much more roofing, etc."

And my wife, with thoughtful brow, looks over the plans, and considershow two feet more are to be got into the parlor without moving any ofthe walls.

"I say," says Bob, bending over her shoulder, "here, take your twofeet in the parlor, and put two more feet on to the other side of the

hall stairs;" and he dashes heavily with his pencil.

"Oh, Bob!" exclaims Marianne, "there are the kitchen pantries! youruin them,--and no place for the cellar stairs!"

"Hang the pantries and cellar stairs!" says Bob. "Mother must find aplace for them somewhere else. I say the house must be roomy andcheerful, and pantries and those things may take care of themselves;they can be put _somewhere_ well enough. No fear but you will find aplace 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 arenecessary evils, only to be tolerated in cities where land is too dearto afford any other."

So goes the discussion till the trio agree to sleep over it. The nextmorning an inspiration visits my wife's pillow. She is up and seizesplans and paper, and, before six o'clock, has enlarged the parlor verycleverly by throwing out a bow-window. So waxes and wanes theprospective house, innocently battered down and rebuilt withIndia-rubber and black-lead. Doors are cut out to-night and walled upto-morrow; windows knocked out here and put in there, as some observersuggests possibilities of too much or too little draught. Now allseems finished, when, lo! a discovery! There is no fireplace norstove-flue in my lady's bedroom, and can be none without moving thebathing-room. Pencil and India-rubber are busy again, and for a whilethe whole house seems to threaten to fall to pieces with the confusion

of the moving; the bath-room wanders like a ghost, now invading acloset, now threatening the tranquillity of the parlor, till at lastit is laid, by some unheard-of calculations of my wife's, and sinks torest in a place so much better that everybody wonders it never wasthought of before.

"Papa," said Jenny, "it appears to me people don't exactly knowwhat they want when they build; why don't you write a paper onhousebuilding?"

"I have thought of it," said I, with the air of a man called to settlesome great reform. "It must be entirely because Christopher has notwritten 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 theywant everything they can think of under the sun. There's Bob beenstudying architectural antiquities, and nobody knows what, andsketching all sorts of curly-whorlies; and Marianne has her notionsabout a parlor and boudoir and china closets and bedroom closets; andBob wants a baronial hall; and mamma stands out for linen closets andbathing-rooms and all that; and so, among them all it will just end ingetting 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 toprevent all this; but as my time in the 'Atlantic' is coming round, Imay as well write on what I am obliged to think of, and so I will givea paper on the subject to enliven our next evening's session."

So that evening, when Bob and Marianne had dropped in as usual, andwhile the customary work of drawing and rubbing out was going on atMrs. Crowfield's sofa, I produced my paper and read as follows:--



OUR HOUSE

There is a place, called "our house," which everybody knows of. Thesailor talks of it in his dreams at sea. The wounded soldier, turningin his uneasy hospital-bed, brightens at the word; it is like thedropping of cool water in the desert, like the touch of cool fingerson a burning brow. "Our house," he says feebly, and the light comesback into his dim eyes; for all homely charities, all fond thoughts,all purities, all that man loves on earth or hopes for in heaven, risewith the word.

"Our house" may be in any style of architecture, low or high. It maybe the brown old farmhouse, with its tall wellsweep, or the one-storygambrel-roofed cottage, or the large, square, white house, with greenblinds, under the wind-swung elms of a century; or it may be thelog-cabin of the wilderness, with its one room,--still there is aspell in the memory of it beyond all conjurations. Its stone and brickand mortar are like no other; its very clapboards and shingles aredear to us, powerful to bring back the memories of early days and allthat 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 onundaunted.

* * * * *

There is no one fact of our human existence that has a strongerinfluence upon us than the house we dwell in, especially that in whichour earlier and more impressible years are spent. The building andarrangement of a house influence the health, the comfort, the morals,the religion. There have been houses built so devoid of allconsideration for the occupants, so rambling and haphazard in thedisposal of rooms, so sunless and cheerless and wholly withoutsnugness 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 andmanner of civilized and Christianized men, which are so inhuman intheir building that they can only be called snares and traps forsouls,--places where children cannot well escape growing up filthy andimpure; places where to form a home is impossible, and to live adecent, Christian life would require miraculous strength.

A celebrated British philanthropist, who had devoted much study to thedwellings of the poor, gave it as his opinion that the temperancesocieties were a hopeless undertaking in London unless these dwellings

underwent a transformation. They were so squalid, so dark, socomfortless, so constantly pressing upon the senses foulness, pain,and inconvenience, that it was only by being drugged with gin andopium that their miserable inhabitants could find heart to drag onlife from day to day. He had himself tried the experiment of reforminga drunkard by taking him from one of these loathsome dens, andenabling him to rent a tenement in a block of model lodging-houseswhich had been built under his supervision. The young man had been adesigner of figures for prints; he was of a delicate frame, and anervous, susceptible temperament. Shut in one miserable room with his



wife and little children, without the possibility of pure air, withonly filthy, fetid water to drink, with the noise of other miserablefamilies resounding through the thin partitions, what possibility wasthere of doing anything except by the help of stimulants, which for abrief hour lifted him above the perception of these miseries? Changedat once to a neat flat, where, for the same rent as his former den, hehad three good rooms, with water for drinking, house-service, andbathing freely supplied, and the blessed sunshine and air coming inthrough windows well arranged for ventilation, he became in a fewweeks a new man. In the charms of the little spot which he could callhome, its quiet, its order, his former talent came back to him, and hefound strength, in pure air and pure water and those purer thoughts ofwhich they are the emblems, to abandon burning and stupefyingstimulants.

The influence of dwelling-houses for good or for evil--their influenceon the brain, the nerves, and, through these, on the heart andlife--is one of those things that cannot be enough pondered by thosewho build houses to sell or rent.

Something more generous ought to inspire a man than merely thepercentage which he can get for his money. He who would build housesshould think a little on the subject. He should reflect what housesare for, what they may be made to do for human beings. The great

majority of houses in cities are not built by the indwellersthemselves; they are built for them by those who invest their money inthis way, with little other thought than the percentage which theinvestment will return.

For persons of ample fortune there are, indeed, palatial residences,with all that wealth can do to render life delightful. But in thatclass of houses which must be the lot of the large majority, thosewhich must be chosen by young men in the beginning of life, when meansare comparatively restricted, there is yet wide room for thought andthe 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 samesum which built an inconvenient and unpleasant house might have beenmade 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 littlesqueezed rooms and that flourishing staircase, with the colored-glasschina-closet window, and no butler's sink?"

"Yes," said Bob; "and those astonishing, abominable stone abortionsthat adorned the doorsteps. People do lay out a deal of money to makehouses look ugly, it must be confessed."

"One would willingly," said Marianne, "dispense with frightful stoneornaments in front, and with heavy mouldings inside, which are of nopossible use or beauty, and with showy plaster cornices andcentrepieces in the parlor ceilings, and even with marble mantels, forthe luxury of hot and cold water in each chamber, and a couple ofcomfortable bath-rooms. Then, the disposition of windows and doors is



* * * * *

The first object of a house is shelter from the elements. This objectis effected by a tent or wigwam which keeps off rain and wind. Thefirst disadvantage of this shelter is, that the vital air which youtake into your lungs, and on the purity of which depends the purity ofblood and brain and nerves, is vitiated. In the wigwam or tent youare constantly taking in poison, more or less active, with everyinspiration. Napoleon had his army sleep without tents. He stated thatfrom experience he found it more healthy, and wonderful have been theinstances of delicate persons gaining constantly in rigor from beingobliged, in the midst of hardships, to sleep constantly in the openair. Now the first problem in housebuilding is to combine theadvantage of shelter with the fresh elasticity of outdoor air. I amnot going to give here a treatise on ventilation, but merely to say,in general terms, that the first object of a house builder orcontriver should be to make a healthy house; and the first requisiteof a healthy house is a pure, sweet, elastic air.

I am in favor, therefore, of those plans of housebuilding which havewide central spaces, whether halls or courts, into which all the roomsopen, and which necessarily preserve a body of fresh air for the useof 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 peopleare restricted for space, and cannot afford to give up wide centralportions of the house for the mere purposes of passage, this centralhall can be made a pleasant sitting-room. With tables, chairs,bookcases, and sofas comfortably disposed, this ample central roomabove and below is, in many respects, the most agreeable lounging roomof the house; while the parlors below and the chambers above, openingupon it, form agreeable withdrawing rooms for purposes of greaterprivacy.

It is customary with many persons to sleep with bedroom windowsopen,--a very imperfect and often dangerous mode of procuring that

supply of fresh air which a sleeping-room requires. In a houseconstructed in the manner indicated, windows might be freely leftopen in these central halls, producing there a constant movementof air, and the doors of the bedrooms placed ajar, when a very slightopening in the windows would create a free circulation through theapartments.

In the planning of a house, thought should be had as to the generaldisposition of the windows, and the quarters from which favoringbreezes may be expected should be carefully considered. Windows shouldbe so arranged that draughts of air can be thrown quite through andacross the house. How often have we seen pale mothers and droopingbabes 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 invain against a dead wall! One longs sometimes to knock holes throughpartitions, and let in the air of heaven.

No other gift of God so precious, so inspiring, is treated with suchutter irreverence and contempt in the calculations of us mortals asthis same air of heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if one had a preacher whounderstood the subject, might do more to repress sin than the mostorthodox discourse to show when and how and why sin came. A ministergets up in a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air almost makes



the candles burn blue, and bewails the deadness of the church,--thechurch the while, drugged by the poisoned air, growing sleepier andsleepier, though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so.

Little Jim, who, fresh from his afternoon's ramble in the fields, lastevening said his prayers dutifully, and lay down to sleep in a mostChristian frame, this morning sits up in bed with his hair bristlingwith crossness, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won't say hisprayers,--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 allnight fed by poison, is in a mild state of moral insanity. Delicatewomen remark that it takes them till eleven or twelve o'clock to getup their strength in the morning. Query: Do they sleep with closedwindows and doors, and with heavy bed-curtains?

The houses built by our ancestors were better ventilated in certainrespects than modern ones, with all their improvements. The greatcentral chimney, with its open fireplaces in the different rooms,created a constant current which carried off foul and vitiated air. Inthese days, how common is it to provide rooms with only a flue for astove! This flue is kept shut in summer, and in winter opened only toadmit a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of the airquite as fast as the occupants breathe it away. The sealing up offireplaces and introduction of air-tight stoves may, doubtless, be a

saving of fuel; it saves, too, more than that,--in thousands andthousands 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 narrowearth which are man's only inalienable property. In other words, sincethe invention of air-tight stoves, thousands have died of slow poison.It is a terrible thing to reflect upon, that our Northern winters lastfrom November to May, six long months, in which many families confinethemselves to one room, of which every window-crack has been carefullycalked to make it air-tight, where an air-tight stove keeps theatmosphere at a temperature between eighty and ninety, and the inmatessitting there, with all their winter clothes on, become enervated bothby the heat and by the poisoned air, for which there is no escape butthe occasional opening of a door.

It is no wonder that the first result of all this is such a delicacyof skin and lungs that about half the inmates are obliged to give upgoing into the open air during the six cold months, because theyinvariably catch cold if they do so. It is no wonder that the coldcaught about the first of December has by the first of March become afixed consumption, and that the opening of the spring, which ought tobring life and health, in so many cases brings death.

We hear of the lean condition in which the poor bears emerge fromtheir six months' wintering, during which they subsist on the fatwhich they have acquired the previous summer. Even so, in our longwinters, multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily waning

strength which they acquired in the season when windows and doors wereopen, and fresh air was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of springfever and spring biliousness, and have thousands of nostrums forclearing the blood in the spring. All these things are the pantingsand palpitations of a system run down under slow poison, unable to geta step farther. Better, far better, the old houses of the olden time,with their great roaring fires, and their bedrooms where the snow camein and the wintry winds whistled. Then, to be sure, you froze yourback while you burned your face; your water froze nightly in yourpitcher; your breath congealed in ice-wreaths on the blankets; and you



could write your name on the pretty snow-wreath that had sifted inthrough the window-cracks. But you woke full of life and vigor,--youlooked out into the whirling snowstorms without a shiver, and thoughtnothing of plunging through drifts as high as your head on your dailyway to school. You jingled in sleighs, you snowballed, you lived insnow like a snowbird, and your blood coursed and tingled, in full tideof good, merry, real life, through your veins,--none of theslow-creeping, black blood which clogs the brain and lies like aweight on the vital wheels!

"Mercy upon us, papa!" said Jenny, "I hope we need not go back to suchhouses?"

"No, my dear," I replied. "I only said that such houses were betterthan those which are all winter closed by double windows and burnt-outair-tight stoves."

* * * * *

The perfect house is one in which there is a constant escape of everyfoul and vitiated particle of air through one opening, while aconstant supply of fresh outdoor air is admitted by another. Inwinter, this outdoor air must pass through some process by which it isbrought up to a temperate warmth.

Take a single room, and suppose on one side a current of outdoor airwhich has been warmed by passing through the air chamber of a modernfurnace. Its temperature need not be above sixty-five,--it answersbreathing purposes better at that. On the other side of the room letthere be an open wood or coal fire. One cannot conceive the purposesof warmth and ventilation more perfectly combined.

Suppose a house with a great central hall, into which a current offresh, temperately warmed air is continually pouring. Each chamberopening upon this hall has a chimney up whose flue the rarefied air isconstantly passing, drawing up with it all the foul and poisonousgases. That house is well ventilated, and in a way that need bring no

dangerous draughts upon the most delicate invalid. For the bettersecuring of privacy in sleeping-rooms, we have seen two doorsemployed, one of which is made with slats, like a window-blind, sothat 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 poisonousnitrogen of turnips and cabbages, but good, fresh, outdoor air from acold-air pipe, so placed as not to get the lower stratum near theground, where heavy damps and exhalations collect, but high up, injust 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, alltheir religion, have got to come to them, while they live in thisworld, through the medium of the brain,--and as black, uncleansedblood 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,--thefirst object of the man who builds a house is to secure a pure andhealthy atmosphere therein.

Therefore, in allotting expenses, set this down as a _must-be_: "Ourhouse must have fresh air,--everywhere, at all times, winter and



summer." Whether we have stone facings or no; whether our parlor hascornices or marble mantles or no; whether our doors are machine-madeor 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 andstring, if we cannot afford lock and knob and fresh air too; but inour house we will live cleanly and Christianly. We will no morebreathe the foul air rejected from a neighbor's lungs than we will usea neighbor's tooth-brush and hair-brush. Such is the first essentialof "our house,"--the first great element of human health andhappiness,--AIR.

* * * * *

"I say, Marianne," said Bob, "have we got fireplaces in ourchambers?"

"Mamma took care of that," said Marianne.

"You may be quite sure," said I, "if your mother has had a hand inplanning your house, that the ventilation is cared for."

It must be confessed that Bob's principal idea in a house had been aGothic library, and his mind had labored more on the possibility ofadapting some favorite bits from the baronial antiquities to modern

needs than on anything so terrestrial as air. Therefore he awoke asfrom a dream, and taking two or three monstrous inhalations, he seizedthe plans and began looking over them with new energy. Meanwhile Iwent 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 Godsends us daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as well as the mimicfires by which we warm our dwellings, cook our food, and light ournightly 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 behated. There are many houses where not a cent has been expended onventilation, but where hundreds of dollars have been freely lavishedto keep out the sunshine. The chamber, truly, is tight as a box; ithas no fireplace, not even a ventilator opening into the stove-flue;but, oh, joy and gladness! it has outside blinds and insidefolding-shutters, so that in the brightest of days we may create therea darkness that may be felt. To observe the generality of New Englandhouses, a spectator might imagine they were planned for the torridzone, where the great object is to keep out a furnace draught ofburning 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 fromOctober to June all families, whether they actually have it or not,would be the more comfortable for a morning and evening fire. Foreight months in the year the weather varies on the scale of cool,cold, colder, and freezing; and for all the four other months what isthe number of days that really require the torrid-zone system ofshutting 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 andwell-to-do, with their turfy yards and their breezy great elms, butall shut up from basement to attic, as if the inmates had all sold outand gone to China. Not a window-blind open above or below. Is thehouse inhabited? No,--yes,--there is a faint stream of blue smoke fromthe kitchen chimney, and half a window-blind open in some distantback 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. Ican't myself blame people that shut up their rooms and darken theirhouses in fly-time,--do you, mamma?"

"Not in extreme cases; though I think there is but a short season whenthis is necessary; yet the habit of shutting up lasts the year round,and gives to New England villages that dead, silent, cold, uninhabitedlook which is so peculiar."

"The one fact that a traveler would gather in passing through ourvillages would be this," said I, "that the people live in their housesand in the dark. Barely do you see doors and windows open, people

sitting at them, chairs in the yard, and signs that the inhabitantsare living out-of-doors."

"Well," said Jenny, "I have told you why, for I have been at UnclePeter's in summer, and aunt does her spring-cleaning in May, and thenshe shuts all the blinds and drops all the curtains, and the housestays clean till October. That's the whole of it. If she had all herwindows open, there would be paint and windows to be cleaned everyweek; 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 ofliving in the dark, even if the great object of existence were to berid of flies. I remember, during this same journey, stopping for a

day or two at a country boarding-house, which was dark as Egyptfrom cellar to garret. The long, dim, gloomy dining-room was firstclosed by outside blinds, and then by impenetrable paper curtains,notwithstanding which it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive. Youfound where the cake plate was by the buzz which your hand made, ifyou chanced to reach in that direction. It was disagreeable,because in the darkness flies could not always be distinguishedfrom huckleberries; and I couldn't help wishing, that, since we musthave the flies, we might at last have the light and air to console usunder them. People darken their rooms and shut up every avenue ofoutdoor enjoyment, and sit and think of nothing but flies; in fact,flies are all they have left. No wonder they become morbid on thesubject."

"Well now, papa talks just like a man, doesn't he?" said Jenny. "Hehasn't the responsibility of keeping things clean. I wonder what hewould do, if he were a housekeeper."

"Do? I will tell you. I would do the best I could. I would shut myeyes on fly-specks, and open them on the beauties of Nature. I wouldlet the cheerful sun in all day long, in all but the few summer dayswhen coolness is the one thing needful: those days may be soonnumbered 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, andI would do with one less gown and have her; and when I had spent all Icould afford on cleaning windows and paint, I would harden my heartand turn off my eyes, and enjoy my sunshine and my fresh air, mybreezes, and all that can be seen through the picture windows of anopen, airy house, and snap my fingers at the flies. There you haveit."

"Papa's hobby is sunshine," said Marianne.

"Why shouldn't it be? Was God mistaken, when He made the sun? Did Hemake him for us to hold a life's battle with? Is that vital powerwhich reddens the cheek of the peach and pours sweetness through thefruits and flowers of no use to us? Look at plants that grow withoutsun,--wan, pale, long-visaged, holding feeble, imploring hands ofsupplication towards the light. Can human beings afford to throw awaya vitalizing force so pungent, so exhilarating? You remember theexperiment of a prison where one row of cells had daily sunshine andthe others none. With the same regimen, the same cleanliness, the samecare, the inmates of the sunless cells were visited with sickness anddeath in double measure. Our whole population in New England aregroaning and suffering under afflictions, the result of a depressedvitality,--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 toequip an army, while we are fighting against, wasting, and throwingaway with both hands, that blessed influence which comes nearest topure vitality of anything God has given.

"Who is it that the Bible describes as a sun, arising with healing inhis wings? Surely, that sunshine which is the chosen type and image ofHis love must be healing through all the recesses of our daily life,drying damp and mould, defending from moth and rust, sweetening illsmells, clearing from the nerves the vapors of melancholy, making lifecheery. If I did not know Him, I should certainly adore and worshipthe sun, the most blessed and beautiful image of Him among thingsvisible! 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. Butto proceed with our reading."

* * * * *

"Our house" shall be set on a southeast line, so that there shall notbe a sunless room in it, and windows shall be so arranged that it canbe traversed and transpierced through and through with those brightshafts of light which come straight from God.

"Our house" shall not be blockaded with a dank, dripping mass ofshrubbery set plumb against the windows, keeping out light and air.

There shall be room all round it for breezes to sweep, and sunshine tosweeten and dry and vivify; and I would warn all good souls who beginlife by setting out two little evergreen-trees within a foot of eachof their front-windows, that these trees will grow and increase tilltheir front-rooms will be brooded over by a sombre, stifling shadowfit only for ravens to croak in.

One would think, by the way some people hasten to convert a verynarrow front-yard into a dismal jungle, that the only danger of ourNew 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, chillyrooms, behind such dripping thickets? Our neighbors' faults assume adeeper hue, life seems a dismal thing, our very religion growsmouldy.

My idea of a house is, that, as far as is consistent with shelter andreasonable privacy, it should give you on first entering an open,breezy, outdoor freshness of sensation. Every window should be apicture--sun and trees and clouds and green grass should seem never tobe 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 ofbeing cleaned and shut up, but to be open and enjoyed. There shall belong verandas above and below, where invalids may walk dry-shod, andenjoy open-air recreation in wettest weather. In short, I will try tohave "our house" combine as far as possible the sunny, joyous, freshlife of a gypsy in the fields and woods with the quiet and neatnessand comfort and shelter of a roof, rooms, floors, and carpets.

After heavenly fire, I have a word to say of earthly, artificialfires. Furnaces, whether of hot water, steam, or hot air, are allhealthy and admirable provisions for warming our houses during theeight or nine months of our year that we must have artificial heat, ifonly, as I have said, fireplaces keep up a current of ventilation.

The kitchen-range with its water-back I humbly salute. It is a greatthrobbing heart, and sends its warm tides of cleansing, comfortingfluid all through the house. One could wish that this friendly dragoncould be in some way moderated in his appetite for coal,--he doesconsume without mercy, it must be confessed,--but then great is thework he has to do. At any hour of day or night, in the most distantpart of your house, you have but to turn a stop-cock and your reddragon sends you hot water for your need; your washing-day becomes amere play-day; your pantry has its ever-ready supply; and then, by alittle judicious care in arranging apartments and economizing heat, arange may make two or three chambers comfortable in winter weather. Arange with a water-back is among the _must-be's_ 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 throughimperfect fixtures. But it must not do this: a fluid that kills a treeor a plant with one breath must certainly be a dangerous ingredient inthe atmosphere, and if admitted into houses, must be introduced withevery safeguard.

There are families living in the country who make their own gas by avery simple process. This is worth an inquiry from those who build.There are also contrivances now advertised, with good testimonials, ofdomestic machines for generating gas, said to be perfectly safe,

simple to be managed, and producing a light superior to that of thecity gas works. This also is worth an inquiry when "our house" is tobe 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 beplentiful, it must be easy to get at, it must be pure. Our ancestorshad some excellent ideas in home living and housebuilding. Theirhouses were, generally speaking, very sensibly contrived,--roomy,airy, and comfortable; but in their water arrangements they had little



mercy on womankind. The well was out in the yard; and in winter onemust flounder through snow and bring up the ice-bound bucket, beforeone could fill the tea-kettle for breakfast. For a sovereign princessof the republic, this was hardly respectful or respectable. Wells havecome somewhat nearer in modern times; but the idea of a constantsupply of fresh water by the simple turning of a stop-cock has not yetvisited the great body of our houses. Were we free to build "ourhouse" just as we wish it, there should be a bath-room to every two orthree inmates, and the hot and cold water should circulate to everychamber.

Among our _must-be's_, we would lay by a generous sum for plumbing.Let us have our bath-rooms, and our arrangements for cleanliness andhealth in kitchen and pantry; and afterwards let the quality of ourlumber and the style of our finishing be according to the sum we haveleft. The power to command a warm bath in a house at any hour of dayor night is better in bringing up a family of children than any amountof ready medicine. In three quarters of childish ailments the warmbath is an almost immediate remedy. Bad colds, incipient fevers,rheumatisms, convulsions, neuralgias innumerable, are washed off intheir 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 agreat 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 toocumbrous,--you do not turn to it. But when your chamber opens upon aneat, quiet little nook, and you have only to turn your stop-cocks andall is ready, your remedy is at hand, you use it constantly. You arewaked in the night by a scream, and find little Tom sitting up, wildwith burning fever. In three minutes he is in the bath, quieted andcomfortable; you get him back, cooled and tranquil, to his littlecrib, and in the morning he wakes as if nothing had happened.

Why should not so invaluable and simple a remedy for disease, such apreservative of health, such a comfort, such a stimulus, be consideredas much a matter-of-course in a house as a kitchen-chimney? At leastthere 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 ofmany.

A house in which water is universally and skillfully distributed is somuch easier to take care of as almost to verify the saying of afriend, that his house was so contrived that it did its own work: onehad better do without carpets on the floors, without stuffed sofas androcking-chairs, and secure this.

* * * * *

"Well, papa," said Marianne, "you have made out all your four elementsin 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 inour houses, the better housekeepers we were."

"My dears," said I, "we philosophers must give an occasional dip intothe mystical, and say something apparently absurd for the purpose ofexplaining that we mean nothing in particular by it. It gives commonpeople an idea of our sagacity, to find how clear we come out of ourapparent contradictions and absurdities. Listen."



* * * * *

For the fourth requisite of "our house," EARTH, let me point you toyour mother's plant-window, and beg you to remember the fact thatthrough our long, dreary winters we are never a month without flowers,and the vivid interest which always attaches to growing things. Theperfect house, as I conceive it, is to combine as many of theadvantages of living out of doors as may be consistent with warmth andshelter, and one of these is the sympathy with green and growingthings. Plants are nearer in their relations to human health and vigorthan is often imagined. The cheerfulness that well-kept plants impartto a room comes not merely from gratification of the eye,--there is ahealthful exhalation from them, they are a corrective of theimpurities of the atmosphere. Plants, too, are valuable as tests ofthe vitality of the atmosphere; their drooping and failure convey tous information that something is amiss with it. A lady once told methat she could never raise plants in her parlors on account of the gasand anthracite coal. I answered, "Are you not afraid to live and bringup your children in an atmosphere which blights your plants?" If thegas escape from the pipes, and the red-hot anthracite coal or thered-hot air-tight stove burns out all the vital part of the air, sothat healthy plants in a few days wither and begin to drop theirleaves, it is sign that the air must be looked to and reformed. It isa fatal augury for a room that plants cannot be made to thrive in it.

Plants should not turn pale, be long-jointed, long-leaved, andspindling; and where they grow in this way, we may be certain thatthere is a want of vitality for human beings. But where plants appearas they do in the open air, with vigorous, stocky growth, andshort-stemmed, deep-green leaves, we may believe the conditions ofthat atmosphere are healthy for human lungs.

It is pleasant to see how the custom of plant growing has spreadthrough our country. In how many farmhouse windows do we see petuniasand nasturtiums vivid with bloom, while snows are whirling without,and how much brightness have those cheap enjoyments shed on the livesof those who cared for them! We do not believe there is a human beingwho would not become a passionate lover of plants, if circumstances

once made it imperative to tend upon and watch the growth of one. Thehistory of Picciola for substance has been lived over and over by manya man and woman who once did not know that there was a particle ofplant-love in their souls. But to the proper care of plants in potsthere are many hindrances and drawbacks. The dust chokes the littlepores of their green lungs, and they require constant showering; andto carry all one's plants to a sink or porch for this purpose is alabor which many will not endure. Consequently plants often do not geta showering once a month! We should try to imitate more closely theaction of Mother Nature, who washes every green child of hers nightlywith 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 torequire to keep them fresh. They are always tempting one to spatterthe carpet and surrounding furniture, which are not equally benefitedby the libation."

"It is partly for that very reason," I replied, "that the plan of 'ourhouse' provides for the introduction of Mother Earth, as you willsee."



* * * * *

A perfect house, according to my idea, should always include in it alittle compartment where plants can be kept, can be watered, can bedefended from the dust, and have the sunshine and all the conditionsof growth.

People have generally supposed a conservatory to be one of the lasttrappings of wealth,--something not to be thought of for those inmodest circumstances. But is this so? You have a bow-window in yourparlor. Leave out the flooring, fill the space with rich earth, closeit from the parlor by glass doors, and you have room for enough plantsand flowers to keep you gay and happy all winter. If on the southside, where the sunbeams have power, it requires no heat but thatwhich warms the parlor; and the comfort of it is incalculable, and theexpense a mere trifle greater than that of the bow-window alone.

In larger houses a larger space might be appropriated in this way. Wewill not call it a conservatory, because that name suggests ideas ofgardeners, and mysteries of culture and rare plants, which bring allsorts of care and expense in their train. We would rather call it agreenery, a room floored with earth, with glass sides to admit thesun,--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 connectedby a spot of green and flowers, with plants, mosses, and ferns forthe shadowy portions, and such simple blooms as petunias andnasturtiums garlanding the sunny portion near the windows? If nearthe water-works, this greenery might be enlivened by the play of afountain, whose constant spray would give that softness to the airwhich 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 adream of the Alhambra."

"Yet I happen to have seen real people in our day living in just sucha house," said I. "I could point you, this very hour, to a cottage,which in style of building is the plainest possible, which unites manyof the best ideas of a true house. My dear, can you sketch the groundplan of that house we saw in Brighton?"

"Here it is," said my wife, after a few dashes with her pencil, "aninexpensive house, yet one of the pleasantest I ever saw."

[Illustration: House Blueprint]

"This cottage, which might, at the rate of prices before the war, havebeen built for five thousand dollars, has many of the requirementswhich I seek for a house. It has two stories, and a tier of verypleasant attic-rooms, two bathing-rooms, and the water carried intoeach story. The parlor and dining-room both look into a little bower,where a fountain is ever playing into a little marble basin, and whichall the year through has its green and bloom. It is heated simply fromthe furnace by a register, like any other room of the house, andrequires no more care than a delicate woman could easily give. The



brightness and cheerfulness it brings during our long, dreary wintersis incredible."

* * * * *

But one caution is necessary in all such appendages. The earth must bethoroughly underdrained to prevent the vapors of stagnant water, andhave a large admixture of broken charcoal to obviate the consequencesof vegetable decomposition. Great care must be taken that there be noleaves left to fall and decay on the ground, since vegetableexhalations poison the air. With these precautions such a plot willsoften and purify the air of a house.

Where the means do not allow even so small a conservatory, a recessedwindow might be fitted with a deep box, which should have a drain-pipeat the bottom, and a thick layer of broken charcoal and gravel, with amixture of fine wood-soil and sand, for the top stratum. Here iviesmay be planted, which will run and twine and strike their littletendrils here and there, and give the room in time the aspect of abower; the various greenhouse nasturtiums will make winter gorgeouswith blossoms. In windows unblessed by sunshine--and, alas! such aremany--one can cultivate ferns and mosses; the winter-growing ferns, ofwhich there are many varieties, can be mixed with mosses and woodlandflowers.

Early in February, when the cheerless frosts of winter seem mostwearisome, the common blue violet, wood anemone, hepatica, orrock-columbine, if planted in this way, will begin to bloom. Thecommon partridge-berry, with its brilliant scarlet fruit anddark-green leaves, will also grow finely in such situations, and havea beautiful effect. These things require daily showering to keep themfresh, and the moisture arising from them will soften and freshen thetoo dry air of heated winter rooms.

* * * * *

Thus I have been through my four essential elements in

housebuilding,--air, fire, water, and earth. I would provide for thesebefore anything else. After they are secured, I would gratify my tasteand fancy as far as possible in other ways. I quite agree with Bob inhating commonplace houses, and longing for some little bit ofarchitectural effect! and I grieve profoundly that every step in thatdirection must cost so much. I have also a taste for niceness offinish. I have no objection to silver-plated door-locks and hinges,none to windows which are an entire plate of clear glass. Icongratulate 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 havethese 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 bemachine-made, and my lumber of the second quality, I would have mybath-rooms, my conservatory, my sunny bow-windows, and my perfectventilation; and my house would then be so pleasant, and every one init in such a cheerful mood, that it would verily seem to be ceiledwith cedar.

Speaking of ceiling with cedar, I have one thing more to say. WeAmericans have a country abounding in beautiful timber, of whosebeauties 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 inquaint beauty the grain of unpainted chestnut, prepared simply with acoat or two of oil. The butternut has a rich golden brown, the verydarling 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. Theblack-walnut, with its heavy depth of tone, works in well as anadjunct; and as to oak, what can we say enough of its quaint and manyshadings? Even common pine, which has been considered not decent tolook upon till hastily shrouded in a friendly blanket of white paint,has, when oiled and varnished, the beauty of satin-wood. The secondquality of pine, which has what are called _shakes_ in it, under thismode of treatment often shows clouds and veins equal in beauty to thechoicest woods. The cost of such a finish is greatly less than that ofthe old method; and it saves those days and weeks of cleaning whichare demanded by white paint, while its general tone is softer and moreharmonious. Experiments in color may be tried in the combinations ofthese woods, which at small expense produce the most charmingeffects.

As to paper hangings, we are proud to say that our Americanmanufacturers now furnish all that can be desired. There are somebranches of design where artistic, ingenious France must still excel

us; but whoso has a house to fit up, let him first look at what hisown country has to show, and he will be astonished.

There is one topic in housebuilding on which I would add a few words.The difficulty of procuring and keeping good servants, which must longbe one of our chief domestic troubles, warns us so to arrange ourhouses that we shall need as few as possible. There is the greatestconceivable difference in the planning and building of houses as tothe amount of work which will be necessary to keep them in respectablecondition. Some houses require a perfect staff of housemaids: thereare plated hinges to be rubbed, paint to be cleaned, with intricaciesof moulding and carving which daily consume hours of dusting topreserve them from a slovenly look. Simple finish, unpainted wood, a

general distribution of water through the dwelling, will enable a verylarge house to be cared for by one pair of hands, and yet maintain acreditable appearance.

In kitchens one servant may perform the work of two by a close packingof all the conveniences for cooking and such arrangements as shallsave time and steps. Washing-day may be divested of its terrors bysuitable provisions for water, hot and cold; by wringers, which saveat once the strength of the linen and of the laundress; and bydrying-closets connected with ranges, where articles can in a fewmoments be perfectly dried. These, with the use of a small mangle,such as is now common in America, reduce the labors of the laundry onehalf.

There are many more things which might be said of "our house," andChristopher may, perhaps, find some other opportunity to say them. Forthe present his pen is tired and ceaseth.

XII



HOME RELIGION

It was Sunday evening, and our little circle were convened by my studyfireside, where a crackling hickory fire proclaimed the fall of theyear to be coming on, and cold weather impending. Sunday evenings, mymarried boys and girls are fond of coming home and gathering round theold hearthstone, and "making believe" that they are children again. Weget out the old-fashioned music-books, and sing old hymns to very oldtunes, and my wife and her matron daughters talk about the babies inthe intervals; and we discourse of the sermon, and of the choir, andall the general outworks of good pious things which Sunday suggests.

"Papa," said Marianne, "you are closing up your 'House and HomePapers,' 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 onyet; you ought not to close the year without it; no house and home canbe complete without Religion: you should write a paper on HomeReligion."

My wife, as you may have seen in these papers, is an old-fashioned

woman, something of a conservative. I am, I confess, rather givento progress and speculation; but I feel always as if I were going onin these ways with a string round my waist, and my wife's handsteadily pulling me back into the old paths. My wife is a steady,Bible-reading, Sabbath-keeping woman, cherishing the memory of herfathers, and loving to do as they did,--believing, for the most part,that the paths well beaten by righteous feet are safest, eventhough much walking therein has worn away the grass and flowers.Nevertheless, she has an indulgent ear for all that gives promiseof bettering anybody or anything, and therefore is not severe on anynew methods that may arise in our progressive days of accomplishingold good objects.

"There must be a home religion," said my wife.

"I believe in home religion," said Bob Stephens,--"but not in theoutward show of it. The best sort of religion is that which one keepsat the bottom of his heart, and which goes up thence quietly throughall his actions, and not the kind that comes through a certain routineof forms and ceremonies. Do you suppose family prayers, now, and ablessing at meals, make people any better?"

"Depend upon it, Robert," said my wife,--she always calls him Roberton Sunday evenings,--"depend upon it, we are not so very much wiserthan 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, dailyacts of respect and duty which we owe to our Creator? It is too muchthe slang of our day to decry forms, and to exalt the excellency ofthe spirit in opposition to them; but tell me, are you satisfied withfriendship that has none of the outward forms of friendship, or lovethat has none of the outward forms of love? Are you satisfied of theexistence of a sentiment that has no outward mode of expression? Eventhe old heathen had their pieties; they would not begin a feastwithout a libation to their divinities, and there was a shrine inevery well-regulated house for household gods."



"The trouble with all these things," said Bob, "is that they get to bemere forms. I never could see that family worship amounted to muchmore in most families."

"The outward expression of all good things is apt to degenerate intomere form," said I. "The outward expression of social good feelingbecomes a mere form; but for that reason must we meet each other likeoxen? not say, 'Good morning,' or 'Good evening,' or 'I am happy tosee you'? Must we never use any of the forms of mutual good will,except in those moments when we are excited by a real, presentemotion? What would become of society? Forms are, so to speak, adaguerreotype of a past good feeling, meant to take and keep theimpression of it when it is gone. Our best and most inspired momentsare crystallized in them; and even when the spirit that created themis gone, they help to bring it back. Every one must be conscious thatthe use of the forms of social benevolence, even towards those who arepersonally unpleasant to us, tends to ameliorate prejudices. We see aman entering our door who is a weary bore, but we use with him thoseforms of civility which society prescribes, and feel far kinder to himthan if we had shut the door in his face and said, 'Go along, youtiresome fellow!' Now why does not this very obvious philosophy applyto better and higher feelings? The forms of religion are as much morenecessary 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 yearin a family--the assembling of parents and children for a few sacredmoments each day, though it may be a form many times, especially inthe gay and thoughtless hours of life--often becomes invested withdeep sacredness in times of trouble, or in those crises that rouse ourdeeper feelings. In sickness, in bereavement, in separation, the dailyprayer at home has a sacred and healing power. Then we remember thescattered and wandering ones; and the scattered and wandering thinktenderly of that hour when they know they are remembered. I know, whenI was a young girl, I was often thoughtless and careless about familyprayers; 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 helooked bending over that Bible more than in any other way; andexpressions and sentences in his prayers which fell unheeded on myears 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 haveleft them far behind in years. When we have summered and winteredthem, and look back on them from changed times and other days, we findthat they were making their mark upon us, though we knew it not."

"I have often admired," said I, "the stateliness and regularity offamily 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 theunited repetition of the Lord's Prayer by all."

"No such assemblage is possible in our country," said Bob. "Ourservants are for the most part Roman Catholics, and forbidden by theirreligion to join with us in acts of worship."

"The greater the pity," said I. "It is a pity that all Christians whocan conscientiously repeat the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayertogether should for any reason be forbidden to do so. It would do more



to harmonize our families, and promote good feeling between mastersand servants, to meet once a day on the religious ground common toboth, than many sermons on reciprocal duties."

"But, while the case is so," said Marianne, "we can't help it. Ourservants cannot unite with us; our daily prayers are somethingforbidden to them."

"We cannot in this country," said I, "give to family prayer thatsolemn stateliness which it has in a country where religion is a civilinstitution, and masters and servants, as a matter of course, belongto one church. Our prayers must resemble more a private interview witha father than a solemn act of homage to a king. They must be moreintimate and domestic. The hour of family devotion should be thechildren's hour,--held dear as the interval when the busy father dropshis business and cares, and, like Jesus of old, takes the little onesin his arms and blesses them. The child should remember it as the timewhen the father always seemed most accessible and loving. The oldfamily worship of New England lacked this character of domesticity andintimacy,--it was stately and formal, distant and cold; but, whateverwere its defects, I cannot think it an improvement to leave it outaltogether, as too many good sort of people in our day are doing.There may be practical religion where its outward daily forms areomitted, 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 otherway; and if the spirit of love rules the family hour, it may prove thesource and spring of all that is good through the day. It seems to bea solemn duty in the parents thus to make the Invisible Fatherhoodreal to their children, who can receive this idea at first onlythrough outward forms and observances. The little one thus learns thathis father has a Father in heaven, and that the earthly life he isliving is only a sacrament and emblem,--a type of the eternal lifewhich infolds it, and of more lasting relations there. Whether,therefore, it be the silent grace and silent prayer of the Friends, orthe form of prayer of ritual churches, or the extemporaneousoutpouring of those whose habits and taste lead them to extempore

prayer, in one of these ways there should be daily outward and visibleacts 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 thatshe thinks isn't the thing."

"Well, you see," said Marianne, "Bob is always talking against our oldPuritan fathers, and saying all manner of hard things about them. Heseems to think that all their ways and doings must of course have beenabsurd. For my part, I don't think we are in any danger of being toostrict about anything. It appears to me that in this country there isa 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 whatshall come next."

"The fact is," said I, "that we realize very fully all the objectionsand difficulties of the experiments in living that we have tried; butthe difficulties in others that we are intending to try have not yetcome 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 areundermining it and threatening its extinction. But it had great merits



and virtues, and produced effects on society that we cannot wellafford to dispense with. The clearing of a whole day from allpossibilities of labor and amusement necessarily produced a grave andthoughtful people, and a democratic republic can be carried on by noother. In lands which have Sabbaths of mere amusement, mere gala days,republics rise and fall as quick as children's card-houses; and thereason is, they are built by those whose political and religiouseducation has been childish. The common people of Europe have beensedulously nursed on amusements by the reigning powers, to keep themfrom meddling with serious matters; their religion has been sensuousand sentimental, and their Sabbaths thoughtless holidays. The commonpeople of New England are educated to think, to reason, to examine allquestions of politics and religion for themselves; and one deeplythoughtful day every week baptizes and strengthens their reflectiveand reasoning faculties. The Sunday-schools of Paris are whirligigswhere Young France rides round and round on little hobby-horses tillhis brain spins even faster than Nature made it to spin; and when hegrows up, his political experiments are as whirligig as his Sundayeducation. If I were to choose between the Sabbath of France and theold Puritan Sabbath, I should hold up both hands for the latter, withall its objectionable features."

"Well," said my wife, "cannot we contrive to retain all that is reallyvaluable 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 Sabbathof Continental Europe: it does not suit democratic institutions; itcannot be made even a quiet or a safe day, except by means of thatever-present armed police that exists there. If the Sabbath of Americais simply to be a universal loafing, picnicking, dining-out day, as itis now with all our foreign population, we shall need what they havein Europe, the gendarmes at every turn, to protect the fruit on ourtrees and the melons in our fields. People who live a little out fromgreat cities see enough, and more than enough, of this sort ofSabbath-keeping, with our loose American police.

"The fact is, our system of government was organized to go by moralinfluences as much as mills by water, and Sunday was the great day forconcentrating these influences and bringing them to bear; and we mightjust as well break down all the dams and let out all the water of theLowell mills, and expect still to work the looms, as to expect to workour laws and constitution with European notions of religion.

"It is true the Puritan Sabbath had its disagreeable points. So havethe laws of Nature. They are of a most uncomfortable sternness andrigidity; yet for all that, we would hardly join in a petition to havethem repealed, or made wavering and uncertain for human convenience.We can bend to them in a thousand ways, and live very comfortablyunder them."

"But," said Bob, "Sabbath-keeping is the iron rod of bigots; theydon't allow a man any liberty of his own. One says it's wicked towrite a letter Sunday; another holds that you must read no book butthe Bible; and a third is scandalized if you take a walk, ever soquietly, in the fields. There are all sorts of quips and turns. We mayfasten things with pins of a Sunday, but it's wicked to fasten withneedle and thread, and so on, and so on; and each one, plantinghimself on his own individual mode of keeping Sunday, points his gunsand 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 asamong those things concerning which no man should judge another. Itseems to me that the error as regards the Puritan Sabbath was inrepresenting it, not as a gift from God to man, but as a tribute ofman to God. Hence all these hagglings and nice questions and exactionsto the uttermost farthing. The holy time must be weighed and measured.It must begin at twelve o'clock of one night, and end at twelveo'clock of another; and from beginning to end, the mind must be keptin a state of tension by the effort not to think any of its usualthoughts or do any of its usual works. The fact is, that themetaphysical, defining, hair-splitting mind of New England, turningits whole powers on this one bit of ritual, this one only day ofdivine service, which was left of all the feasts and fasts of the oldchurches, made of it a thing straiter and stricter than ever the oldJews dreamed of.

"The old Jewish Sabbath entered only into the physical region, merelyenjoining cessation from physical toil. 'Thou shalt not _labor_ nor doany _work_,' covered the whole ground. In other respects than this itwas a joyful festival, resembling, in the mode of keeping it, theChristmas of the modern church. It was a day of social hilarity,--theJewish law strictly forbidding mourning and gloom during festivals.

The people were commanded on feast days to rejoice before the Lordtheir God with all their might. We fancy there were no houses wherechildren were afraid to laugh, where the voice of social cheerfulnessquavered away in terror lest it should awake a wrathful God. TheJewish Sabbath was instituted, in the absence of printing, of books,and of all the advantages of literature, to be the great means ofpreserving sacred history,--a day cleared from all possibility ofother employment than social and family communion, when the heads offamilies and the elders of tribes might instruct the young in thosereligious traditions which have thus come down to us.

"The Christian Sabbath is meant to supply the same moral need in thatimproved and higher state of society which Christianity introduced.

Thus it was changed from the day representing the creation of theworld to the resurrection day of Him who came to make all things new.The Jewish Sabbath was buried with Christ in the sepulchre, and arosewith Him, not a Jewish, but a Christian festival, still holding initself that provision for man's needs which the old institutionpossessed, 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 daywas left open and free to the needs and convenience of the varyingcircumstances and characters of those for whose benefit it wasinstituted."

"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 todeal with," I said.

"And," said Marianne, "how to find out what is nonsense?"--

"By clear conceptions," said I, "of what the day is for. I shoulddefine the Sabbath as a divine and fatherly gift to man,--a dayexpressly set apart for the cultivation of his moral nature. Its



object is not merely physical rest and recreation, but moralimprovement. The former are proper to the day only so far as theyare subservient to the latter. The whole human race have theconscious need of being made better, purer, and more spiritual; thewhole human race have one common danger of sinking to a mere animallife under the pressure of labor or in the dissipations of pleasure;and of the whole human race the proverb holds good, that what may bedone any time is done at no time. Hence the Heavenly Fatherappoints one day as a special season for the culture of man'shighest faculties. Accordingly, whatever ways and practicesinterfere with the purpose of the Sabbath as a day of worship andmoral culture should be avoided, and all family arrangements for theday should be made with reference thereto."

"Cold dinners on Sunday, for example," said Bob. "Marianne holds theseas prime articles of faith."

"Yes,--they doubtless are most worthy and merciful, in giving to thepoor cook one day she may call her own, and rest from the heat ofrange and cooking-stove. For the same reason, I would suspend as faras possible all traveling, and all public labor, on Sunday. Thehundreds of hands that these things require to carry them on are thehands of human beings, whose right to this merciful pause of rest isas clear as their humanity. Let them have their day to look upward."

"But the little ones," said my oldest matron daughter, who had not asyet spoken,--"they are the problem. Oh, this weary labor of makingchildren keep Sunday! If I try it, I have no rest at all myself. If Imust talk to them or read to them to keep them from play, my Sabbathbecomes my hardest working day."

"And, pray, what commandment of the Bible ever said children shouldnot play on Sunday?" said I. "We are forbidden to work, and we see thereason why; but lambs frisk and robins sing on Sunday; and littlechildren, who are as yet more than half animals, must not be made tokeep the day in the manner proper to our more developed faculties. Asmuch cheerful, attractive religious instruction as they can bear

without weariness may be given, and then they may simply be restrainedfrom disturbing others. Say to the little one, 'This day we have nobleand beautiful things to think of that interest us deeply: you are achild; you cannot read and think and enjoy such things as much as wecan; you may play softly and quietly, and remember not to make adisturbance.' I would take a child to public worship at least once ofa Sunday; it forms a good habit in him. If the sermon be long andunintelligible, there are the little Sabbath-school books in everychild's hands; and while the grown people are getting what theyunderstand, who shall forbid a child's getting what is suited to himin a way that interests him and disturbs nobody? The Sabbath-school isthe child's church and happily it is yearly becoming a more and moreattractive institution. I approve the custom of those who beautify the

Sabbath school-room with plants, flowers, and pictures, thus making itan attractive place to the childish eye. The more this customprevails, the more charming in after years will be the memories ofSunday.

"It is most especially to be desired that the whole air and aspect ofthe day should be one of cheerfulness. Even the new dresses, newbonnets, and new shoes, in which children delight of a Sunday, shouldnot be despised. They have their value in marking the day as afestival; 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 itas a period of wearisome restraint. All the latitude should be givento children that can be, consistently with fixing in their minds theidea of a sacred season. I would rather that the atmosphere of the dayshould resemble that of a weekly Thanksgiving than that it should makeits mark on the tender mind only by the memory of deprivations andrestrictions."

"Well," said Bob, "here's Marianne always breaking her heart about myreading on Sunday. Now I hold that what is bad on Sunday is bad onMonday,--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 restrictionupon us in reference to Sunday. The day is put at our disposal as agood Father hands a piece of money to his child,--'There it is; takeit and spend it well.' The child knows from his father's characterwhat he means by spending it well, but he is left free to use his ownjudgment as to the mode.

"If a man conscientiously feels that reading of this or thatdescription is the best for him as regards his moral training andimprovement, let him pursue it, and let no man judge him. It isdifficult, with the varying temperaments of men, to decide what are or

are not religious books. One man is more religiously impressed by thereading of history or astronomy than he would be by reading a sermon.There may be overwrought and wearied states of the brain and nerveswhich require and make proper the diversions of light literature; andif so, let it be used. The mind must have its recreations as well asthe body."

"But for children and young people," said my daughter,--"would you letthem read novels on Sunday?"

"That is exactly like asking, Would you let them talk with peopleon Sunday? Now people are different; it depends, therefore, on whothey are. Some are trifling and flighty, some are positively

bad-principled, some are altogether good in their influence. So of theclass of books called novels. Some are merely frivolous, some areabsolutely noxious and dangerous, others again are written with astrong moral and religious purpose, and, being vivid and interesting,produce far more religious effect on the mind than dull treatisesand sermons. The parables of Christ sufficiently establish the pointthat there is no inherent objection to the use of fiction inteaching religious truth. Good religious fiction, thoughtfullyread, may be quite as profitable as any other reading."

"But don't you think," said Marianne, "that there is danger in toomuch fiction?"

"Yes," said I. "But the chief danger of all that class of reading isits _easiness_, and the indolent, careless mental habits it induces. Agreat deal of the reading of young people on all days is reallyreading to no purpose, its object being merely present amusement. Itis a listless yielding of the mind to be washed over by a stream whichleaves no fertilizing properties, and carries away by constant wearthe good soil of thought. I should try to establish a barrier againstthis kind of reading, not only on Sunday, but on Monday, on Tuesday,and on all days. Instead, therefore, of objecting to any particularclass of books for Sunday reading, I should say in general that



reading merely for pastime, without any moral aim, is the thing to beguarded against. That which inspires no thought, no purpose, whichsteals away all our strength and energy, and makes the Sabbath a dayof dreams, is the reading I would object to.

"So of music. I do not see the propriety of confining one's self totechnical sacred music. Any grave, solemn, thoughtful, or patheticmusic has a proper relation to our higher spiritual nature, whether itbe printed in a church service-book or on secular sheets. On me, forexample, Beethoven's Sonatas have a far more deeply religiousinfluence than much that has religious names and words. Music is to bejudged of by its effects."

"Well," said Bob, "if Sunday is given for our own individualimprovement, I for one should not go to church. I think I get a greatdeal more good in staying at home and reading."

"There are two considerations to be taken into account in reference tothis matter of church-going," I replied. "One relates to our duty asmembers of society in keeping up the influence of the Sabbath, andcausing it to be respected in the community; the other, to the properdisposition of our time for our own moral improvement. As members ofthe community, we should go to church, and do all in our power tosupport the outward ordinances of religion. If a conscientious man

makes up his mind that Sunday is a day for outward acts of worship andreverence, he should do his own part as an individual towardssustaining these observances. Even though he may have such mental andmoral resources that as an individual he could gain much more insolitude than in a congregation, still he owes to the congregation theinfluence of his presence and sympathy. But I have never yet seen theman, however finely gifted morally and intellectually, whom I thoughtin the long run a gainer in either of these respects by the neglect ofpublic worship. I have seen many who in their pride kept aloof fromthe sympathies and communion of their brethren, who lost strengthmorally, and deteriorated in ways that made themselves painfully felt.Sunday is apt in such cases to degenerate into a day of mere mentalidleness 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 gostraight on with the work of life on Sunday, on the plea that 'tolabor is to pray,' I simply think they are mistaken. In the firstplace, to labor is _not_ the same thing as to pray. It may sometimesbe as good a thing to do, and in some cases even a better thing; butit is not the same thing. A man might as well never write a letter tohis 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 wifeas to write to her, but few wives would not say that both were notbetter than either alone. Furthermore, there is no doubt that theintervention of one day of spiritual rest and aspiration so refreshes

a man's whole nature, and oils the many wheels of existence, thathe who allows himself a weekly Sabbath does more work in the courseof his life for the omission of work on that day.

"A young student in a French college, where the examinations arerigidly severe, found by experience that he succeeded best in hisexamination by allowing one day of entire rest just before it. Hisbrain and nervous system refreshed in this way carried him through thework better than if taxed to the last moment. There are mentransacting 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 principleturn their thoughts most entirely out of the current of worldly careson Sunday fulfill unconsciously a great law of health; and that,whether their moral nature be thereby advanced or not, their brainwill work more healthfully and actively for it, even in physical andworldly matters. It is because the Sabbath thus harmonizes thephysical and moral laws of our being that the injunction concerning itis placed among the ten great commandments, each of which representssome one of the immutable needs of humanity."

"There is yet another point of family religion that ought to bethought of," said my wife: "I mean the customs of mourning. If thereis anything that ought to distinguish Christian families from Pagans,it should be their way of looking at and meeting those inevitableevents that must from time to time break the family chain. It seems tobe the peculiarity of Christianity to shed hope on such events. Andyet it seems to me as if it were the very intention of many of thecustoms of society to add tenfold to their gloom and horror,--suchswathings of black crape, such funereal mufflings of every pleasantobject, such darkening of rooms, and such seclusion from society andgiving up to bitter thoughts and lamentation. How can little childrenthat look on such things believe that there is a particle of truth in

all they hear about the joyous and comforting doctrines which theBible holds forth for such times?"

"That subject is a difficult one," I rejoined. "Nature seems toindicate a propriety in some outward expressions of grief when we loseour friends. All nations agree in these demonstrations. In a certaindegree they are soothing to sorrow; they are the language of externallife made to correspond to the internal. Wearing mourning has itsadvantages. It is a protection to the feelings of the wearer, for whomit procures sympathetic and tender consideration; it saves grief frommany a hard jostle in the ways of life; it prevents the necessity ofmany a trying explanation, and is the ready apology for many anomission of those tasks to which sorrow is unequal. For all these

reasons I never could join the crusade which some seem disposed towage against it. Mourning, however, ought not to be continued foryears. Its uses are more for the first few months of sorrow, when itserves the mourner as a safeguard from intrusion, insuring quiet andleisure in which to reunite the broken threads of life, and to gatherstrength for a return to its duties. But to wear mourning garments andforego society for two or three years after the loss of any friend,however dear, I cannot but regard as a morbid, unhealthy nursing ofsorrow, unworthy of a Christian."

"And yet," said my wife, "to such an unhealthy degree does this customprevail, that I have actually known young girls who have never wornany other dress than mourning, and consequently never been into

society, during the entire period of their girlhood. First, the deathof a father necessitated three years of funereal garments andabandonment of social relations; then the death of a brother added twoyears more; and before that mourning was well ended, another of a widecircle of relatives being taken, the habitual seclusion was stillprotracted. What must a child think of the Christian doctrine of lifeand death who has never seen life except through black crape? Weprofess to believe in a better life to which the departed good arecalled,--to believe in the shortness of our separation, the certaintyof 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 ofthe dust,' and not from above."

"But," said Bob, "after all, death is a horror; you can make nothingless of it. You can't smooth it over, nor dress it with flowers; it iswhat Nature shudders at."

"It is precisely for this reason," said I, "that Christians shouldavoid those customs which aggravate and intensify this natural dread.Why overpower the senses with doleful and funereal images in the hourof weakness and bereavement, when the soul needs all her force to riseabove the gloom of earth, and to realize the mysteries of faith? Whyshut the friendly sunshine from the mourner's room? Why muffle in awhite shroud every picture that speaks a cheerful household word tothe 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, allthe shutters on the street are closed and tied with black crape, andso remain for months. What an oppressive gloom must this bring on ahouse! how like the very shadow of death! It is enlisting the nervesand the senses against our religion, and making more difficult thegreat duty of returning to life and its interests. I would haveflowers and sunshine in the deserted rooms, and make them symbolicalof the cheerful mansions above, to which our beloved ones are gone.

Home ought to be so religiously cheerful, so penetrated by the life oflove and hope and Christian faith, that the other world may be madereal by it. Our home life should be a type of the higher life. Ourhome should be so sanctified, its joys and its sorrows so baptized andhallowed, that it shall not be sacrilegious to think of heaven as ahigher form of the same thing,--a Father's house in the bettercountry, whose mansions are many, whose love is perfect, whose joy iseternal."

THE CHIMNEY-CORNER

I

WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH HER? OR, THE WOMAN QUESTION

"Well, what will you do with her?" said I to my wife.

My wife had just come down from an interview with a pale, faded-lookingyoung woman in rusty black attire, who had called upon me on the verycommon supposition that I was an editor of the "Atlantic Monthly."

By the by, this is a mistake that brings me, Christopher Crowfield,

many letters that do not belong to me, and which might with equalpertinency be addressed, "To the Man in the Moon." Yet these lettersoften make my heart ache,--they speak so of people who strive andsorrow and want help; and it is hard to be called on in plaintivetones for help which you know it is perfectly impossible for you togive.

For instance, you get a letter in a delicate hand, setting forth theold distress,--she is poor, and she has looking to her for supportthose that are poorer and more helpless than herself: she has tried



sewing, but can make little at it; tried teaching, but cannot now geta school,--all places being filled, and more than filled; at last hastried literature, and written some little things, of which she sendsyou a modest specimen, and wants your opinion whether she can gain herliving by writing. You run over the articles, and perceive at a glancethat there is no kind of hope or use in her trying to do anything atliterature; and then you ask yourself mentally, "What is to be donewith her? What can she do?"

Such was the application that had come to me this morning,--only,instead of by note, it came, as I have said, in the person of theapplicant, a thin, delicate, consumptive-looking being, wearing thatrusty mourning which speaks sadly at once of heart bereavement andmaterial poverty.

My usual course is to turn such cases over to Mrs. Crowfield; and itis to be confessed that this worthy woman spends a large portion ofher time, and wears out an extraordinary amount of shoe-leather, inperforming the duties of a self-constituted intelligence office. Talkof giving money to the poor! what is that, compared to givingsympathy, thought, time, taking their burdens upon you, sharing theirperplexities? They who are able to buy off every application at thedoor of their heart with a five or ten dollar bill are those who freethemselves at least expense.

My wife had communicated to our friend, in the gentlest tones and inthe blandest manner, that her poor little pieces, however interestingto her own household circle, had nothing in them wherewith to enableher to make her way in the thronged and crowded thoroughfare ofletters,--that they had no more strength or adaptation to win breadfor her than a broken-winged butterfly to draw a plough; and it tooksome resolution in the background of her tenderness to make the poorapplicant entirely certain of this. In cases like this, absolutecertainty is the very greatest, the only true kindness.

It was grievous, my wife said, to see the discouraged shade whichpassed over her thin, tremulous features when this certainty forced

itself upon her. It is hard, when sinking in the waves, to see thefrail bush at which the hand clutches uprooted; hard, when alone inthe crowded thoroughfare of travel, to have one's last bank-notedeclared a counterfeit. I knew I should not be able to see her face,under the shade of this disappointment; and so, coward that I was, Iturned this trouble, where I have turned so many others, upon mywife.

"Well, what shall we do with her?" said I.

"I really don't know," said my wife musingly.

"Do you think we could get that school in Taunton for her?"

"Impossible; Mr. Herbert told me he had already twelve applicants forit."

"Couldn't you get her plain sewing? Is she handy with her needle?"

"She has tried that, but it brings on a pain in her side, and cough;and the doctor has told her it will not do for her to confineherself."



"How is her handwriting? Does she write a good hand?"

"Only passable."

"Because," said I, "I was thinking if I could get Steele and Simpsonto give her law papers to copy."

"They have more copyists than they need now; and, in fact, this womandoes not write the sort of hand at all that would enable her to get onas a copyist."

"Well," said I, turning uneasily in my chair, and at last hitting on abright masculine expedient, "I'll tell you what must be done. She mustget married."

"My dear," said my wife, "marrying for a living is the very hardestway a woman can take to get it. Even marrying for love often turns outbadly enough. Witness poor Jane."

Jane was one of the large number of people whom it seemed my wife'sfortune to carry through life on her back. She was a pretty, smiling,pleasing daughter of Erin, who had been in our family originally asnursery-maid. I had been greatly pleased in watching a little idyllicaffair growing up between her and a joyous, good-natured young

Irishman, to whom at last we married her. Mike soon after, however,took to drinking and unsteady courses; and the result has been to Janeonly a yearly baby, with poor health and no money.

"In fact," said my wife, "if Jane had only kept single, she could havemade her own way well enough, and might have now been in good healthand had a pretty sum in the savings bank. As it is, I must carry notonly her, but her three children, on my back."

"You ought to drop her, my dear. You really ought not to burdenyourself with other people's affairs as you do," said I inconsistently.

"How can I drop her? Can I help knowing that she is poor and

suffering? And if I drop her, who will take her up?"

Now there is a way of getting rid of cases of this kind, spoken of ina quaint old book, which occurred strongly to me at this moment:--

"If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and oneof you say unto them, 'Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled,'notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to thebody, what doth it profit?"

I must confess, notwithstanding the strong point of the closingquestion, I looked with an evil eye of longing on this very easy wayof disposing of such cases. A few sympathizing words, a few

expressions of hope that I did not feel, a line written to turn thecase into somebody else's hands,--any expedient, in fact, to hide thelonging eyes and imploring hands from my sight,--was what my carnalnature at this moment greatly craved.

"Besides," said my wife, resuming the thread of her thoughts in regardto the subject just now before us, "as to marriage, it's out of thequestion at present for this poor child; for the man she loved andwould have married lies low in one of the graves before Richmond. It'sa sad story,--one of a thousand like it. She brightened for a few



moments, and looked almost handsome, when she spoke of his bravery andgoodness. Her father and lover have both died in this war. Her onlybrother has returned from it a broken-down cripple, and she has himand her poor old mother to care for, and so she seeks work. I told herto come again to-morrow, and I would look about for her a littleto-day."

"Let me see, how many are now down on your list to be looked aboutfor, Mrs. Crowfield?--some twelve or thirteen, are there not? You'vegot Tom's sister disposed of finally, I hope,--that's a comfort!"

"Well, I'm sorry to say she came back on my hands yesterday," said mywife patiently. "She is a foolish young thing, and said she didn'tlike living out in the country. I'm sorry, because the Morrises are anexcellent family, and she might have had a life home there, if she hadonly been steady, and chosen to behave herself properly. But yesterdayI found her back on her mother's hands again; and the poor woman toldme that the dear child never could bear to be separated from her, andthat she hadn't the heart to send her back."

"And in short," said I, "she gave you notice that you must provide forMiss O'Connor in some more agreeable way. Cross that name off yourlist, at any rate. That woman and girl need a few hard raps in theschool of experience before you can do anything for them."

"I think I shall," said my long-suffering wife; "but it's a pity tosee a young thing put in the direct road to ruin."

"It is one of the inevitables," said I, "and we must save our strengthfor those that are willing to help themselves."

"What's all this talk about?" said Bob, coming in upon us ratherbrusquely.

"Oh, as usual, the old question," said I,--"'What's to be done withher?'"

"Well," said Bob, "it's exactly what I've come to talk with motherabout. Since she keeps a distressed women's agency office, I've cometo consult her about Marianne. That woman will die before six monthsare out, a victim to high civilization and the Paddies. There we are,twelve miles out from Boston, in a country villa so convenient thatevery part of it might almost do its own work,--everything arranged inthe most convenient, contiguous, self-adjusting, self-acting,patent-right, perfective manner,--and yet I tell you Marianne will dieof that house. It will yet be recorded on her tombstone, 'Died ofconveniences.' For myself, what I languish for is a log-cabin, with abed in one corner, a trundle-bed underneath for the children, afireplace only six feet off, a table, four chairs, one kettle, acoffee-pot, and a tin baker,--that's all. I lived deliciously in an

establishment of this kind last summer, when I was up at LakeSuperior; and I am convinced, if I could move Marianne into it atonce, that she would become a healthy and a happy woman. Her life issmothered out of her with comforts; we have too many rooms, too manycarpets, too many vases and knick-knacks, too much china and silver;she has too many laces and dresses and bonnets; the children all havetoo many clothes: in fact, to put it scripturally, our riches arecorrupted, our garments are moth-eaten, our gold and our silver iscankered, and, in short, Marianne is sick in bed, and I have come tothe agency office for distressed women to take you out to attend to



her.

"The fact is," continued Bob, "that since our cook married, and Alicewent to California, there seems to be no possibility of putting ourdomestic cabinet upon any permanent basis. The number of femalepersons that have been through our house, and the ravages they havewrought on it for the last six months, pass belief. I had yesterday abill of sixty dollars' plumbing to pay for damages of various kindswhich had had to be repaired in our very convenient water-works; andthe blame of each particular one had been bandied like a shuttlecockamong our three household divinities. Biddy privately assured my wifethat Kate was in the habit of emptying dustpans of rubbish into themain drain from the chambers, and washing any little extra bits downthrough the bowls; and, in fact, when one of the bathing-room bowlshad overflowed so as to damage the frescoes below, my wife, with greatdelicacy and precaution, interrogated Kate as to whether she hadfollowed her instructions in the care of the water-pipes. Of courseshe protested the most immaculate care and circumspection. 'Sure, andshe knew how careful one ought to be, and wasn't of the likes of thimas wouldn't mind what throuble they made,--like Biddy, who would throwtrash and hair in the pipes, and niver listen to her tellin'; sure,and hadn't she broken the pipes in the kitchen, and lost the stoppers,as it was a shame to see in a Christian house?' Ann, the third girl,being privately questioned, blamed Biddy on Monday, and Kate on

Tuesday; on Wednesday, however, she exonerated both; but on Thursday,being in a high quarrel with both, she departed, accusing themseverally, not only of all the evil practices aforesaid, but of lyingand stealing, and all other miscellaneous wickednesses that came tohand. Whereat the two thus accused rushed in, bewailing themselves andcursing Ann in alternate strophes, averring that she had given thebaby laudanum, and, taking it out riding, had stopped for hours withit in a filthy lane where the scarlet fever was said to be rife,--inshort, made so fearful a picture that Marianne gave up the child'slife at once, and has taken to her bed. I have endeavored all I couldto quiet her, by telling her that the scarlet fever story was probablyan extemporaneous work of fiction, got up to gratify the Hiberniananger at Ann; and that it wasn't in the least worth while to believe

one thing more than another from the fact that any of the tribe saidit. But she refuses to be comforted, and is so Utopian as to lie therecrying, 'Oh, if I only could get one that I could trust,--one thatwould really speak the truth to me,--one that I might know really wentwhere she said she went, and really did as she said she did!' To haveto live so, she says, and bring up little children with those shecan't trust out of her sight, whose word is good for nothing,--to feelthat her beautiful house and her lovely things are all going to rackand ruin, and she can't take care of them, and can't see where or whenor how the mischief is done,--in short, the poor child talks as womendo who are violently attacked with housekeeping fever tending tocongestion of the brain. She actually yesterday told me that shewished, on the whole, she never had got married, which I take to be

the most positive indication of mental alienation."

"Here," said I, "we behold at this moment two women dying for the wantof what they can mutually give one another,--each having a supply ofwhat the other needs, but held back by certain invisible cobwebs,slight but strong, from coming to each other's assistance. Mariannehas money enough, but she wants a helper in her family, such as allher money has been hitherto unable to buy; and here, close at hand, isa woman who wants home shelter, healthy, varied, active, cheerfullabor, with nourishing food, kind care, and good wages. What hinders



these women from rushing to the help of one another, just as two dropsof water on a leaf rush together and make one? Nothing but a miserableprejudice,--but a prejudice so strong that women will starve in anyother mode of life rather than accept competency and comfort inthis."

"You don't mean," said my wife, "to propose that our protégée shouldgo to Marianne as a servant?"

"I do say it would be the best thing for her to do,--the only openingthat I see, and a very good one, too, it is. Just look at it. Her bareliving at this moment cannot cost her less than five or six dollars aweek,--everything at the present time is so very dear in the city. Nowby what possible calling open to her capacity can she pay her boardand washing, fuel and lights, and clear a hundred and some odd dollarsa year? She could not do it as a district school teacher; shecertainly cannot, with her feeble health, do it by plain sewing; shecould not do it as a copyist. A robust woman might go into a factoryand earn more; but factory work is unintermitted, twelve hours daily,week in and out, in the same movement, in close air, amid the clatterof machinery; and a person delicately organized soon sinks under it.It takes a stolid, enduring temperament to bear factory labor. Nowlook at Marianne's house and family, and see what is insured to yourprotégée there.

"In the first place, a home,--a neat, quiet chamber, quite as good asshe has probably been accustomed to,--the very best of food, served ina pleasant, light, airy kitchen, which is one of the most agreeablerooms in the house, and the table and table service quite equal tothose of most farmers and mechanics. Then her daily tasks would belight and varied,--some sweeping, some dusting, the washing anddressing of children, the care of their rooms and the nursery,--all ofit the most healthful, the most natural work of a woman,--workalternating with rest, and diverting thought from painful subjects byits variety, and, what is more, a kind of work in which a goodChristian woman might have satisfaction, as feeling herself useful inthe highest and best way; for the child's nurse, if she be a pious,

well-educated woman, may make the whole course of nursery life aneducation in goodness. Then, what is far different from any othermodes of gaining a livelihood, a woman in this capacity can make andfeel herself really and truly beloved. The hearts of little childrenare easily gained, and their love is real and warm, and no true womancan become the object of it without feeling her own life madebrighter. Again, she would have in Marianne a sincere, warm-heartedfriend, who would care for her tenderly, respect her sorrows, shelterher feelings, be considerate of her wants, and in every way aid her inthe cause she has most at heart,--the succor of her family. There aremany ways besides her wages in which she would infallibly be assistedby Marianne, so that the probability would be that she could send herlittle salary almost untouched to those for whose support she was

toiling,--all this on her part."

"But," added my wife, "on the other hand, she would be obliged toassociate and be ranked with common Irish servants."

"Well," I answered, "is there any occupation, by which any of us gainour living, which has not its disagreeable side? Does not the lawyerspend all his days either in a dusty office or in the foul air of acourt-room? Is he not brought into much disagreeable contact with thelowest class of society? Are not his labors dry and hard and



exhausting? Does not the blacksmith spend half his life in soot andgrime, that he may gain a competence for the other half? If this womanwere to work in a factory, would she not often be brought intoassociations distasteful to her? Might it not be the same in any ofthe arts and trades in which a living is to be got? There must beunpleasant circumstances about earning a living in any way, only Imaintain that those which a woman would be likely to meet with as aservant in a refined, well-bred Christian family would be less than inalmost any other calling. Are there no trials to a woman, I beg toknow, in teaching a district school, where all the boys, big andlittle, of a neighborhood congregate? For my part, were it my daughteror sister who was in necessitous circumstances, I would choose forher a position such as I name, in a kind, intelligent, Christianfamily, before many of those to which women do devote themselves."

"Well," said Bob, "all this has a good sound enough, but it's quiteimpossible. It's true, I verily believe, that such a kind of servantin our family would really prolong Marianne's life years,--that itwould improve her health, and be an unspeakable blessing to her, tome, and the children,--and I would almost go down on my knees to areally well-educated, good American woman who would come into ourfamily and take that place; but I know it's perfectly vain and uselessto expect it. You know we have tried the experiment two or three timesof having a person in our family who should be on the footing of a

friend, yet do the duties of a servant, and that we never could makeit work well. These half-and-half people are so sensitive, so exactingin their demands, so hard to please, that we have come to the firmdetermination that we will have no sliding-scale in our family, andthat whoever we are to depend on must come with bona fide willingnessto take the position of a servant, such as that position is in ourhouse; and that, I suppose, your protégée would never do, even if shecould thereby live easier, have less hard work, better health, andquite as much money as she could earn in any other way."

"She would consider it a personal degradation, I suppose," said mywife.

"And yet, if she only knew it," said Bob, "I should respect her farmore profoundly for her willingness to take that position, whenadverse fortune has shut other doors."

"Well, now," said I, "this woman is, as I understand, the daughter ofa respectable stone-mason, and the domestic habits of her early lifehave probably been economical and simple. Like most of our mechanics'daughters, she has received in one of our high schools an educationwhich has cultivated and developed her mind far beyond those of herparents and the associates of her childhood. This is a common fact inour American life. By our high schools the daughters of plainworkingmen are raised to a state of intellectual culture which seemsto make the disposition of them in any kind of industrial calling a

difficult one. They all want to teach school,--and schoolteaching,consequently, is an overcrowded profession,--and, failing that, thereis only millinery and dressmaking. Of late, it is true, efforts havebeen made in various directions to widen their sphere. Typesetting andbookkeeping are in some instances beginning to be open to them.

"All this time there is lying, neglected and despised, a calling towhich womanly talents and instincts are peculiarly fitted,--a callingfull of opportunities of the most lasting usefulness; a calling whichinsures a settled home, respectable protection, healthful exercise,



good air, good food, and good wages; a calling in which a woman maymake real friends, and secure to herself warm affection: and yet thiscalling is the one always refused, shunned, contemned, left to thealien and the stranger, and that simply and solely because it bearsthe name of _servant_. A Christian woman, who holds the name of Christin her heart in true devotion, would think it the greatest possiblemisfortune and degradation to become like him in taking upon her 'theform of a servant.' The founder of Christianity says: 'Whether isgreater, he that sitteth at meat or he that serveth? But _I_ am amongyou as he that serveth.' But notwithstanding these so plaindeclarations of Jesus, we find that scarce any one in a Christian landwill accept real advantages of position and employment that come withthat name and condition."

"I suppose," said my wife, "I could prevail upon this woman to do allthe duties of the situation, if she could be, as they phrase it,'treated as one of the family.'"

"That is to say," said Bob, "if she could sit with us at the sametable, be introduced to our friends, and be in all respects as oneof us. Now, as to this, I am free to say that I have no falsearistocratic scruples. I consider every well-educated woman as fullymy equal, not to say my superior; but it does not follow from thisthat she would be one whom I should wish to make a third party with me

and my wife at meal-times. Our meals are often our seasons ofprivacy,--the times when we wish in perfect unreserve to speak ofmatters that concern ourselves and our family alone. Even invitedguests and family friends would not be always welcome, howeveragreeable at times. Now a woman may be perfectly worthy of respect,and we may be perfectly respectful to her, whom nevertheless we donot wish to take into the circle of intimate friendship. I regardthe position of a woman who comes to perform domestic service as Ido any other business relation. We have a very respectable young ladyin our employ who does legal copying for us, and all is perfectlypleasant and agreeable in our mutual relations; but the case would befar otherwise were she to take it into her head that we treated herwith contempt, because my wife did not call on her, and because she

was not occasionally invited to tea. Besides, I apprehend that awoman of quick sensibilities, employed in domestic service, and whowas so far treated as a member of the family as to share our table,would find her position even more painful and embarrassing than ifshe took once for all the position of a servant. We could notcontrol the feelings of our friends; we could not always insurethat they would be free from aristocratic prejudice, even were we soourselves. We could not force her upon their acquaintance, and shemight feel far more slighted than she would in a position where noattentions of any kind were to be expected. Besides which, I havealways noticed that persons standing in this uncertain position areobjects of peculiar antipathy to the servants in full; that theyare the cause of constant and secret cabals and discontents; and that

a family where the two orders exist has always raked up in it thesmouldering embers of a quarrel ready at any time to burst outinto open feud."

"Well," said I, "here lies the problem of American life. Half ourwomen, like Marianne, are being faded and made old before their timeby exhausting endeavors to lead a life of high civilization andrefinement with only such untrained help as is washed up on our shoresby the tide of emigration. Our houses are built upon a plan thatprecludes the necessity of much hard labor, but requires rather



careful and nice handling. A well-trained, intelligent woman, who hadvitalized her finger-ends by means of a well-developed brain, could doall the work of such a house with comparatively little physicalfatigue. So stands the case as regards our houses. Now, over againstthe women that are perishing in them from too much care, there isanother class of American women that are wandering up and down,perishing for lack of some remunerating employment. That class ofwomen, whose developed brains and less developed muscles mark them aspeculiarly fitted for the performance of the labors of a highcivilization, stand utterly aloof from paid domestic service. Soonerbeg, sooner starve, sooner marry for money, sooner hang on asdependents in families where they know they are not wanted, thanaccept of a quiet home, easy, healthful work, and certain wages, inthese refined and pleasant modern dwellings of ours."

"What is the reason of this?" said Bob.

"The reason is, that we have not yet come to the full development ofChristian democracy. The taint of old aristocracies is yet pervadingall parts of our society. We have not yet realized fully the truedignity of labor, and the surpassing dignity of domestic labor. And Imust say that the valuable and courageous women who have agitated thedoctrines of Woman's Rights among us have not in all things seen theirway clear in this matter."

"Don't talk to me of those creatures," said Bob, "those men-women,those anomalies, neither flesh nor fish, with their conventions, andtheir cracked woman-voices strained in what they call public speaking,but which I call public squeaking! No man reverences true women morethan I do. I hold a real, true, thoroughly good _woman_, whether in myparlor or my kitchen, as my superior. She can always teach mesomething that I need to know. She has always in her somewhat of thedivine gift of prophecy; but in order to keep it, she must remain awoman. When she crops her hair, puts on pantaloons, and strides aboutin conventions, she is an abortion, and not a woman."

"Come! come!" said I, "after all, speak with deference. We that choose

to wear soft clothing and dwell in kings' houses must respect theBaptists, who wear leathern girdles, and eat locusts and wild honey.They are the voices crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for acoming good. They go down on their knees in the mire of life to liftup and brighten and restore a neglected truth; and we that have notthe energy to share their struggle should at least refrain fromcriticising their soiled garments and ungraceful action. There havebeen excrescences, eccentricities, peculiarities, about the camp ofthese reformers; but the body of them have been true and noble women,and worthy of all the reverence due to such. They have already in manyof our States reformed the laws relating to woman's position, andplaced her on a more just and Christian basis. It is through theirmovements that in many of our States a woman can hold the fruits of

her own earnings, if it be her ill luck to have a worthless, drunkenspendthrift for a husband. It is owing to their exertions that newtrades and professions are opening to woman; and all that I have tosay to them is, that in the suddenness of their zeal for opening newpaths for her feet, they have not sufficiently considered thepropriety of straightening, widening, and mending the one broad, goodold path of domestic labor, established by God himself. It does appearto me, that, if at least a portion of their zeal could be spent inremoving the stones out of this highway of domestic life, and makingit pleasant and honorable, they would effect even more. I would not



have them leave undone what they are doing; but I would, were I worthyto be considered, humbly suggest to their prophetic wisdom andenthusiasm, whether, in this new future of women which they wish tointroduce, women's natural, God-given employment of _domestic service_ is not to receive a new character, and rise in a new form.

"'To love and serve' is a motto worn with pride on some aristocraticfamily shields in England. It ought to be graven on the Christianshield. _Servant_ is the name which Christ gives to the _Christian_;and in speaking of his kingdom as distinguished from earthly kingdoms,he distinctly said, that rank there should be conditioned, not upondesire to command, but on willingness to serve.

"'Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion overthem, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But itshall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, lethim be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let himbe your _servant_.'

"Why is it, that this name of servant, which Christ says is thehighest in the kingdom of heaven, is so dishonored among us professingChristians, that good women will beg or starve, will suffer almost anyextreme of poverty and privation, rather than accept home, competence,security, with this honored name?"

"The fault with many of our friends of the Woman's Rights order," saidmy wife, "is the depreciatory tone in which they have spoken of thedomestic labors of a family as being altogether below the scope ofthe faculties of woman. '_Domestic drudgery_' they call it,--anexpression that has done more harm than any two words that ever wereput together.

"Think of a woman's calling clear-starching and ironing domesticdrudgery, and to better the matter turning to typesetting in a grimyprinting office! Call the care of china and silver, the sweeping ofcarpets, the arrangement of parlors and sitting-rooms, drudgery; andgo into a factory and spend the day amid the whir and clatter and

thunder of machinery, inhaling an atmosphere loaded with wool andmachine grease, and keeping on the feet for twelve hours, nearlycontinuously! Think of its being called drudgery to take care of aclean, light, airy nursery, to wash and dress and care for two orthree children, to mend their clothes, tell them stories, make themplaythings, take them out walking or driving; and rather than this, towear out the whole livelong day, extending often deep into the night,in endless sewing, in a close room of a dressmaking establishment! Isit any less drudgery to stand all day behind a counter, servingcustomers, than to tend a doorbell and wait on a table? For my part,"said my wife, "I have often thought the matter over, and concluded,that, if I were left in straitened circumstances, as many are in agreat city, I would seek a position as a servant in one of our good

families."

"I envy the family that you even think of in that connection," said I."I fancy the amazement which would take possession of them as youbegan to develop among them."

"I have always held," said my wife, "that family work, in many of itsbranches, can be better performed by an educated woman than anuneducated one. Just as an army where even the bayonets think issuperior to one of mere brute force and mechanical training, so, I



have heard it said, some of our distinguished modern female reformersshow an equal superiority in the domestic sphere,--and I do not doubtit. Family work was never meant to be the special province of untaughtbrains. I have sometimes thought I should like to show what I could doas a servant."

"Well," said Bob, "to return from all this to the question, What's tobe done with her? Are you going to _my_ distressed woman? If you are,suppose you take _your_ distressed woman along, and ask her to try it.I can promise her a pleasant house, a quiet room by herself, healthfuland not too hard work, a kind friend, and some leisure for reading,writing, or whatever other pursuit of her own she may choose for herrecreation. We are always quite willing to lend books to any whoappreciate them. Our house is surrounded by pleasant grounds, whichare open to our servants as to ourselves. So let her come and try us.I am quite sure that country air, quiet security, and moderateexercise in a good home, will bring up her health; and if she iswilling to take the one or two disagreeables which may come with allthis, let her try us."

"Well," said I, "so be it; and would that all the women seeking homesand employment could thus fall in with women who have homes and areperishing in them for want of educated helpers!"

On this question of woman's work I have yet more to say, but mustdefer it till another time.

II

WOMAN'S SPHERE

"What do you think of this Woman's Rights question?" said BobStephens. "From some of your remarks, I apprehend that you think there

is something in it. I may be wrong, but I must confess that I havelooked with disgust on the whole movement. No man reverences women asI do; but I reverence them _as_ women. I reverence them for those verythings in which their sex differs from ours; but when they come uponour ground, and begin to work and fight after our manner and with ourweapons, I regard them as fearful anomalies, neither men nor women.These Woman's Rights Conventions appear to me to have ventilatedcrudities, absurdities, and blasphemies. To hear them talk about men,one would suppose that the two sexes were natural-born enemies, andwonder whether they ever had fathers and brothers. One would think,upon their showing, that all men were a set of ruffians, in leagueagainst women,--they seeming, at the same time, to forget how on theirvery platforms the most constant and gallant defenders of their rights

are men. Wendell Phillips and Wentworth Higginson have put at theservice of the cause masculine training and manly vehemence, andcomplacently accepted the wholesale abuse of their own sex at thehands of their warrior sisters. One would think, were all they say offemale powers true, that our Joan-of-Arcs ought to have disdained tofight under male captains."

"I think," said my wife, "that, in all this talk about the rights ofmen, and the rights of women, and the rights of children, the worldseems to be forgetting what is quite as important, the _duties_ of men



and women and children. We all hear of our _rights_ till we forget our _duties_; and even theology is beginning to concern itself more withwhat man has a right to expect of his Creator than what the Creatorhas a right to expect of man."

"You say the truth," said I; "there is danger of just this overaction;and yet rights must be discussed; because, in order to understand theduties we owe to any class, we must understand their rights. To knowour duties to men, women, and children, we must know what the rightsof men, women, and children justly are. As to the 'Woman's Rightsmovement,' it is not peculiar to America, it is part of a great wavein the incoming tide of modern civilization; the swell is felt no lessin Europe, but it combs over and breaks on our American shore, becauseour great wide beach affords the best play for its waters; and as theocean waves bring with them kelp, seaweed, mud, sand, gravel, and evenputrefying débris, which lie unsightly on the shore, and yet, on thewhole, are healthful and refreshing,--so the Woman's Rights movement,with its conventions, its speech-makings, its crudities, andeccentricities, is nevertheless a part of a healthful and necessarymovement of the human race towards progress. This question of Womanand her Sphere is now, perhaps, the greatest of the age. We have putSlavery under foot, and with the downfall of Slavery the only obstacleto the success of our great democratic experiment is overthrown, andthere seems no limit to the splendid possibilities which it may open

before the human race."In the reconstruction that is now coming there lies more than thereconstruction of States and the arrangement of the machinery ofgovernment. We need to know and feel, all of us, that, from the momentof the death of Slavery, we parted finally from the régime and controlof all the old ideas formed under old oppressive systems of society,and came upon a new plane of life.

"In this new life we must never forget that we are a peculiar people,that we have to walk in paths unknown to the Old World,--paths whereits wisdom cannot guide us, where its precedents can be of little useto us, and its criticisms, in most cases, must be wholly irrelevant.

The history of our war has shown us of how little service to us in anyimportant crisis the opinions and advice of the Old World can be. Wehave been hurt at what seemed to us the want of sympathy, the directantagonism, of England. We might have been less hurt if we hadproperly understood that Providence had placed us in a position so farahead of her ideas or power of comprehension that just judgment orsympathy was not to be expected from her.

"As we went through our great war with no help but that of God,obliged to disregard the misconceptions and impertinences which theforeign press rained down upon us, so, if we are wise, we shallcontinue to do. Our object must now be to make the principles on whichour government is founded permeate consistently the mass of society,

and to purge out the leaven of aristocratic and Old World ideas. Solong as there is an illogical working in our actual life, so long asthere is any class denied equal rights with other classes, so longwill there be agitation and trouble."

"Then," said my wife, "you believe that women ought to vote?"

"If the principle on which we founded our government is true, thattaxation must not exist without representation, and if women holdproperty and are taxed, it follows that women should be represented in



the State by their votes, or there is an illogical working of ourgovernment."

"But, my dear, don't you think that this will have a bad effect on thefemale character?"

"Yes," said Bob, "it will make women caucus holders, politicalcandidates."

"It may make this of some women, just as of some men," said I. "Butall men do not take any great interest in politics; it is verydifficult to get some of the best of them to do their duty in voting,and the same will be found true among women."

"But, after all," said Bob, "what do you gain? What will a woman'svote be but a duplicate of that of her husband or father, or whateverman happens to be her adviser?"

"That may be true on a variety of questions; but there are subjectson which the vote of women would, I think, be essentially differentfrom that of men. On the subjects of temperance, public morals, andeducation, I have no doubt that the introduction of the female voteinto legislation, in States, counties, and cities, would produceresults very different from that of men alone. There are thousands of

women who would close grog-shops, and stop the traffic in spirits,if they had the legislative power; and it would be well for societyif they had. In fact, I think that a State can no more afford todispense with the vote of women in its affairs than a family.Imagine a family where the female has no voice in the housekeeping! AState is but a larger family, and there are many of its concernswhich, equally with those of a private household, would be betteredby female supervision."

"But fancy women going to those horrible voting-places! It is morethan I can do myself," said Bob.

"But you forget," said I, "that they are horrible and disgusting

principally because women never go to them. All places where women areexcluded tend downward to barbarism; but the moment she is introduced,there come in with her courtesy, cleanliness, sobriety, and order.When a man can walk up to the ballot-box with his wife or his sisteron his arm, voting-places will be far more agreeable than now, andthe polls will not be such bear-gardens that refined men will beconstantly tempted to omit their political duties there.

"If for nothing else, I would have women vote, that the business ofvoting may not be so disagreeable and intolerable to men of refinementas it now is; and I sincerely believe that the cause of good morals,good order, cleanliness, and public health would be a gainer notmerely by the added feminine vote, but by the added vote of a great

many excellent but too fastidious men, who are now kept from the pollsby the disagreeables they meet there.

"Do you suppose that, if women had equal representation with men inthe municipal laws of New York, its reputation for filth during thelast year would have gone so far beyond that of Cologne, or any othercity renowned for bad smells? I trow not. I believe a lady mayoresswould have brought in a dispensation of brooms and whitewash, and madea terrible searching into dark holes and vile corners, before now.Female New York, I have faith to believe, has yet left in her enough



of the primary instincts of womanhood to give us a clean, healthycity, if female votes had any power to do it."

"But," said Bob, "you forget that voting would bring together all thewomen of the lower classes."

"Yes; but, thanks to the instincts of their sex, they would come intheir Sunday clothes; for where is the woman that hasn't her finery,and will not embrace every chance to show it? Biddy's parasol, and hatwith pink ribbons, would necessitate a clean shirt in Pat as much ason Sunday. Voting would become a fête, and we should have a populationat the polls as well-dressed as at church. Such is my belief."

"I do not see," said Bob, "but you go to the full extent with ourmodern female reformers."

"There are certain neglected truths, which have been held up by thesereformers, that are gradually being accepted and infused into the lifeof modern society; and their recognition will help to solidify andpurify democratic institutions. They are:--

"1. The right of every woman to hold independent property.

"2. The right of every woman to receive equal pay with man for work

which she does equally well."3. The right of any woman to do any work for which, by her naturalorganization and talent, she is peculiarly adapted.

"Under the first head, our energetic sisters have already, by the helpof their gallant male adjutants, reformed the laws of several of ourStates, so that a married woman is no longer left the unprotectedlegal slave of any unprincipled, drunken spendthrift who may be herhusband,--but, in case of the imbecility or improvidence of thenatural head of the family, the wife, if she have the ability, canconduct business, make contracts, earn and retain money for the goodof the household; and I am sure no one can say that immense injustice

and cruelty are not thereby prevented.

"It is quite easy for women who have the good fortune to have just andmagnanimous husbands to say that they feel no interest in suchreforms, and that they would willingly trust their property to the manto whom they give themselves; but they should remember that laws arenot made for the restraint of the generous and just, but of thedishonest and base. The law which enables a married woman to hold herown property does not forbid her to give it to the man of her heart,if she so pleases; and it does protect many women who otherwise wouldbe reduced to the extremest misery. I once knew an energetic millinerwho had her shop attached four times, and a flourishing businessbroken up in four different cities, because she was tracked from city

to city by a worthless spendthrift, who only waited till she hadamassed a little property in a new place to swoop down upon and carryit off. It is to be hoped that the time is not distant when everyState will give to woman a fair chance to the ownership and use of herown earnings and her own property.

"Under the head of the right of every woman to do any work for whichby natural organization and talent she is especially adapted, there isa word or two to be said.



"The talents and tastes of the majority of women are naturallydomestic. The family is evidently their sphere, because in all waystheir organization fits them for that more than for anything else.

"But there are occasionally women who are exceptions to the commonlaw, gifted with peculiar genius and adaptations. With regard to suchwomen, there has never seemed to be any doubt in the verdict ofmankind that they ought to follow their nature, and that theirparticular sphere was the one to which they are called. Did anybodyever think that Mrs. Siddons and Mrs. Kemble and Ristori had betterhave applied themselves sedulously to keeping house, because they werewomen, and 'woman's noblest station is retreat'?

"The world has always shown a fair average of good sense in thismatter, from the days of the fair Hypatia in Alexandria, who, we aretold, gave lectures on philosophy behind a curtain, lest her charmsshould distract the attention of too impressible young men, down tothose of Anna Dickinson. Mankind are not, after all, quite fools, andseem in these cases to have a reasonable idea that exceptional talentshave exceptional laws, and make their own code of proprieties.

"Now there is no doubt that Miss Dickinson, though as relating to herfemininity she is quite as pretty and modest a young woman as any tobe found in the most sheltered circle, has yet a most exceptional

talent for public speaking, which draws crowds to hear her, and makeslecturing for her a lucrative profession, as well as a means ofadvocating just and generous sentiments, and of stimulating her ownsex to nobler purposes; and the same law which relates to Siddons andKemble and Ristori relates also to her.

"The doctrine of _vocations_ is a good one and a safe one. If a womanmistakes her vocation, so much the worse for her; the world does notsuffer, but she does, and the suffering speedily puts her where shebelongs. There is not near so much danger from attempts to imitateAnna Dickinson as there is from the more common feminine attempts torival the _demi-monde_ of Paris in fantastic extravagance and luxury.

"As to how a woman may determine whether she has any such vocation,there is a story quite in point. A good Methodist elder was listeningto an ardent young mechanic who thought he had a call to throw up hisshop and go to preaching.

"'I feel,' said the young ardent, 'that I have a call to preach.'

"'Hast thou noticed whether people seem to have a call to hear thee?'said the shrewd old man. 'I have always noticed that a true call ofthe Lord may be known by this, that people have a _call_ to hear.'"

"Well," said Bob, "the most interesting question still remains: Whatare to be the employments of woman? What ways are there for her to use

her talents, to earn her livelihood and support those who are dear toher, when Providence throws that necessity upon her? This is becomingmore than ever one of the pressing questions of our age. The war hasdeprived so many thousands of women of their natural protectors, thateverything must be thought of that may possibly open a way for theirself-support."

"Well, let us look over the field," said my wife. "What is there forwoman?"



"In the first place," said I, "come the professions requiring naturalgenius,--authorship, painting, sculpture, with the subordinate arts ofphotographing, coloring, and finishing; but when all is told, thesefurnish employment to a very limited number,--almost as nothing to thewhole. Then there is teaching, which is profitable in its higherbranches, and perhaps the very pleasantest of all the callings open towoman; but teaching is at present an overcrowded profession, theapplicants everywhere outnumbering the places. Architecture andlandscape gardening are arts every way suited to the genius of woman,and there are enough who have the requisite mechanical skill andmathematical education; and, though never yet thought of for the sex,that I know of, I do not despair of seeing those who shall find inthis field a profession at once useful and elegant. When women plandwelling-houses, the vast body of tenements to be let in our citieswill wear a more domestic and comfortable air, and will be built morewith reference to the real wants of their inmates."

"I have thought," said Bob, "that agencies of various sorts, ascanvassing the country for the sale of books, maps, and engravings,might properly employ a great many women. There is a large class whosehealth suffers from confinement and sedentary occupations, who might,I think, be both usefully and agreeably employed in business of thissort, and be recruiting their health at the same time."

"Then," said my wife, "there is the medical profession.""Yes," said I. "The world is greatly obliged to Miss Blackwell andother noble pioneers who faced and overcame the obstacles to theattainment of a thorough medical education by females. Thanks to them,a new and lucrative profession is now open to educated women inrelieving the distresses of their own sex; and we may hope that intime, through their intervention, the care of the sick may also becomethe vocation of cultivated, refined, intelligent women, instead ofbeing left, as heretofore, to the ignorant and vulgar. The experienceof our late war has shown us what women of a high class morally andintellectually can do in this capacity. Why should not this experienceinaugurate a new and sacred calling for refined and educated women?

Why should not NURSING become a vocation equal in dignity and ingeneral esteem to the medical profession, of which it is the righthand? Why should our dearest hopes, in the hour of their greatestperil, be committed into the hands of Sairey Gamps, when the world hasseen Florence Nightingales?"

"Yes, indeed," said my wife; "I can testify, from my own experience,that the sufferings and dangers of the sickbed, for the want ofintelligent, educated nursing, have been dreadful. A prejudiced,pig-headed, snuff-taking old woman, narrow-minded and vulgar, and moreconfident in her own way than seven men that can render a reason,enters your house at just the hour and moment when all your dearestearthly hopes are brought to a crisis. She becomes absolute dictator

over your delicate, helpless wife and your frail babe,--the absolutedictator of all in the house. If it be her sovereign will and pleasureto enact all sorts of physiological absurdities in the premises, whoshall say her nay? 'She knows her business, she hopes!' And if it beher edict, as it was of one of her class whom I knew, that each of herbabies shall eat four baked beans the day it is four days old, eatthem it must; and if the baby die in convulsions four days after, itis set down as the mysterious will of an overruling Providence.

"I know and have seen women lying upon laced pillows, under silken



curtains, who have been bullied and dominated over in the hour oftheir greatest helplessness by ignorant and vulgar tyrants, in a waythat would scarce be thought possible in civilized society, andchildren that have been injured or done to death by the same means. Acelebrated physician told me of a babe whose eyesight was nearlyruined by its nurse taking a fancy to wash its eyes with camphor,--'tokeep it from catching cold,' she said. I knew another infant that waspoisoned by the nurse giving it laudanum in some of those patentnostrums which these ignorant creatures carry secretly in theirpockets, to secure quiet in their little charges. I knew one delicatewoman who never recovered from the effects of being left at her firstconfinement in the hands of an ill-tempered, drinking nurse, and whosefeeble infant was neglected and abused by this woman in a way to causelasting injury. In the first four weeks of infancy the constitution ispeculiarly impressible; and infants of a delicate organization may, iffrightened and ill-treated, be the subjects of just such a shock tothe nervous system as in mature age comes from the sudden stroke of agreat affliction or terror. A bad nurse may affect nerves predisposedto weakness in a manner they never will recover from. I solemnlybelieve that the constitutions of more women are broken up by badnursing in their first confinement than by any other cause whatever.And yet there are at the same time hundreds and thousands of women,wanting the means of support, whose presence in a sick-room would be abenediction. I do trust that Miss Blackwell's band of educated nurses

will not be long in coming, and that the number of such may increasetill they effect a complete revolution in this vocation. A class ofcultivated, well-trained, intelligent nurses would soon elevate theemployment of attending on the sick into the noble calling it ought tobe, and secure for it its appropriate rewards."

"There is another opening for woman," said I,--"in the world ofbusiness. The system of commercial colleges now spreading over ourland is a new and most important development of our times. There thatlarge class of young men who have either no time or no inclination foran extended classical education can learn what will fit them for thatactive material life which in our broad country needs so many workers.But the most pleasing feature of these institutions is, that the

complete course is open to women no less than to men, and women theremay acquire that knowledge of bookkeeping and accounts, and of theforms and principles of business transactions, which will qualify themfor some of the lucrative situations hitherto monopolized by the othersex. And the expenses of the course of instruction are so arranged asto come within the scope of very moderate means. A fee of fiftydollars entitles a woman to the benefit of the whole course, and shehas the privilege of attending at any hours that may suit her ownengagements and convenience."

"Then, again," said my wife, "there are the departments of millineryand dressmaking, and the various branches of needlework, which affordemployment to thousands of women; there is typesetting, by which many

are beginning to get a living; there are the manufactures of cotton,woolen, silk, and the numberless useful articles which employ femalehands in their fabrication,--all of them opening avenues by which,with more or less success, a subsistence can be gained."

"Well, really," said Bob, "it would appear, after all, that there areabundance of openings for women. What is the cause of the outcry anddistress? How is it that we hear of women starving, driven to vice andcrime by want, when so many doors of useful and profitable employmentstand open to them?"



"The question would easily be solved," said my wife, "if you couldonce see the kind and class of women who thus suffer and starve.There may be exceptions, but too large a portion of them are girlsand women who can or will do no earthly thing well,--and, what isworse, are not willing to take the pains to be taught to do anythingwell. I will describe to you one girl, and you will find in everyintelligence-office a hundred of her kind to five thoroughly trainedones.

"Imprimis: she is rather delicate and genteel-looking, and you mayknow from the arrangement of her hair just what the last mode isof disposing of rats or waterfalls. She has a lace bonnet withroses, a silk mantilla, a silk dress trimmed with velvet, a whiteskirt with sixteen tucks and an embroidered edge, a pair of clothgaiters, underneath which are a pair of stockings without feet, theonly pair in her possession. She has no under-linen, and sleeps atnight in the working-clothes she wears in the day. She never seemsto have in her outfit either comb, brush, or tooth-brush of herown,--neither needles, thread, scissors, nor pins; her money, when shehas any, being spent on more important articles, such as the lacebonnet or silk mantilla, or the rats and waterfalls that glorifyher head. When she wishes to sew, she borrows what is needful of aconvenient next neighbor; and if she gets a place in a family as

second girl, she expects to subsist in these respects by borrowing ofthe better-appointed servants, or helping herself from the familystores.

"She expects, of course, the very highest wages, if she condescends tolive out; and by help of a trim outside appearance, and the manyvacancies that are continually occurring in households, she getsplaces, where her object is to do just as little of any duty assignedto her as possible, to hurry through her performances, put on herfine clothes, and go a-gadding. She is on free-and-easy terms with allthe men she meets, and ready at jests and repartee, sometimes far fromseemly. Her time of service in any one place lasts indifferently froma fortnight to two or three months, when she takes her wages, buys

her a new parasol in the latest style, and goes back to theintelligence-office. In the different families where she has livedshe has been told a hundred times the proprieties of householdlife, how to make beds, arrange rooms, wash china, glass, andsilver, and set tables; but her habitual rule is to try in each placehow small and how poor services will be accepted. When she findsless will not do, she gives more. When the mistress follows herconstantly, and shows an energetic determination to be well served,she shows that she can serve well; but the moment such attentionrelaxes, she slides back again. She is as destructive to a house asa fire; the very spirit of wastefulness is in her; she cracks thechina, dents the silver, stops the water-pipes with rubbish, and,after she is gone, there is generally a sum equal to half her wages

to be expended in repairing the effects of her carelessness. Andyet there is one thing to be said for her: she is quite as careful ofher employer's things as of her own. The full amount of her mischiefsoften does not appear at once, as she is glib of tongue, adroit inapologies, and lies with as much alertness and as little thought ofconscience as a blackbird chatters. It is difficult for people whohave been trained from childhood in the school of verities,--whohave been lectured for even the shadow of a prevarication, and shutup in disgrace for a lie, till truth becomes a habit of theirsouls,--it is very difficult for people so educated to understand how



to get on with those who never speak the truth except by mereaccident, who assert any and every thing that comes into their headswith all the assurance and all the energy of perfect verity.

"What becomes of this girl? She finds means, by begging, borrowing,living out, to keep herself extremely trim and airy for a certainlength of time, till the rats and waterfalls, the lace hat andparasol, and the glib tongue, have done their work in making a fool ofsome honest young mechanic who earns three dollars a day. She marrieshim with no higher object than to have somebody to earn money for herto spend. And what comes of such marriages?

"That is one ending of her career; the other is on the street, inhaunts of vice, in prison, in drunkenness, and death.

"Whence come these girls? They are as numerous as yellow butterfliesin autumn; they flutter up to cities from the country; they grow upfrom mothers who ran the same sort of career before them; and thereason why in the end they fall out of all reputable employment andstarve on poor wages is, that they become physically, mentally, andmorally incapable of rendering any service which society will thinkworth paying for."

"I remember," said I, "that the head of the most celebrated

dressmaking establishment in New York, in reply to the appeals of theneedlewomen of the city for sympathy and wages, came out withpublished statements to this effect: that the difficulty lay, not inunwillingness of employers to pay what work was worth, but in findingany work worth paying for; that she had many applicants, but amongthem few who could be of real use to her; that she, in common witheverybody in this country who has any kind of serious responsibilitiesto carry, was continually embarrassed for want of skilled work-peoplewho could take and go on with the labor of her various departmentswithout her constant supervision; that, out of a hundred girls, therewould not be more than five to whom she could give a dress to be madeand dismiss it from her mind as something certain to be properlydone.

"Let people individually look around their own little sphere, and askthemselves if they know any woman really excelling in any valuablecalling or accomplishment who is suffering for want of work. All of usknow seamstresses, dressmakers, nurses, and laundresses who have madethemselves such a reputation, and are so beset and overcrowded withwork, that the whole neighborhood is constantly on its knees to themwith uplifted hands. The fine seamstress, who can cut and maketrousseaus and layettes in elegant perfection, is always engaged sixmonths in advance; the pet dressmaker of a neighborhood must beengaged in May for September, and in September for May; a laundresswho sends your clothes home in nice order always has all the work thatshe can do. Good work in any department is the rarest possible thing

in our American life; and it is a fact that the great majority ofworkers, both in the family and out, do only tolerably well,--not sobadly that it actually cannot be borne, yet not so well as to be asource of real, thorough satisfaction. The exceptional worker in everyneighborhood, who does things really _well_, can always set her ownprice, and is always having more offering than she can possibly do.

"The trouble, then, in finding employment for women lies deeper thanthe purses or consciences of the employers: it lies in the want ofeducation in women; the want of _education_, I say,--meaning by



education that which fits a woman for practical and profitableemployment in life, and not mere common-school learning."

"Yes," said my wife; "for it is a fact that the most troublesome andhelpless persons to provide for are often those who have a good mediumeducation, but no feminine habits, no industry, no practicalcalculation, no muscular strength, and no knowledge of any one ofwoman's peculiar duties. In the earlier days of New England, women, asa class, had far fewer opportunities for acquiring learning, yet werefar better educated, physically and morally, than now. The high schooldid not exist; at the common school they learned reading, writing, andarithmetic, and practiced spelling; while at home they did the work ofthe household. They were cheerful, bright, and active, ever on thealert, able to do anything, from the harnessing and driving of a horseto the finest embroidery. The daughters of New England in those dayslooked the world in the face without a fear. They shunned no labor;they were afraid of none; and they could always find their way to aliving."

"But although less instructed in school learning," said I, "theyshowed no deficiency in intellectual acumen. I see no such women,nowadays, as some I remember of that olden time,--women whose strongminds and ever-active industry carried on reading and study side byside with household toils.

"I remember a young lady friend of mine, attending a celebratedboarding-school, boarded in the family of a woman who had never beento school longer than was necessary to learn to read and write, yetwho was a perfect cyclopedia of general information. The young scholarused to take her Chemistry and Natural Philosophy into the kitchen,where her friend was busy with her household work, and read herlessons to her, that she might have the benefit of her explanations;and so, while the good lady scoured her andirons or kneaded her bread,she lectured to her protégée on mysteries of science far beyond thelimits of the textbook. Many of the graduates of our modern highschools would find it hard to shine in conversation on the subjectsthey had studied, in the searching presence of some of these vigorous

matrons of the olden time, whose only school had been the leisurehours gained by energy and method from their family cares."

"And in those days," said my wife, "there lived in our families aclass of American domestics, women of good sense and good powers ofreflection, who applied this sense and power of reflection tohousehold matters. In the early part of my married life, I myself hadAmerican 'help'; and they were not only excellent servants, but trustyand invaluable friends. But now, all this class of applicants fordomestic service have disappeared, I scarce know why or how. All Iknow is, there is no more a Betsey or a Lois, such as used to takedomestic cares off my shoulders so completely."

"Good heavens! where are they?" cried Bob. "Where do they hide? Iwould search through the world after such a prodigy!"

"The fact is," said I, "there has been a slow and gradual reactionagainst household labor in America. Mothers began to feel that it wasa sort of _curse_, to be spared, if possible, to their daughters;women began to feel that they were fortunate in proportion as theywere able to be entirely clear of family responsibilities. Then Irishlabor began to come in, simultaneously with a great advance in femaleeducation.



"For a long while nothing was talked of, written of, thought of, inteachers' meetings, conventions, and assemblies, but the neglectedstate of female education; and the whole circle of the arts andsciences was suddenly introduced into our free-school system, fromwhich needlework as gradually and quietly was suffered to drop out.The girl who attended the primary and high school had so much studyimposed on her that she had no time for sewing or housework; and thedelighted mother was only too happy to darn her stockings and do thehousework alone, that her daughter might rise to a higher plane thanshe herself had attained to. The daughter, thus educated, had, oncoming to womanhood, no solidity of muscle, no manual dexterity, nopractice or experience in domestic life; and if she were to seek alivelihood, there remained only teaching, or some feminine trade, orthe factory."

"These factories," said my wife, "have been the ruin of hundreds andhundreds of our once healthy farmers' daughters and others from thecountry. They go there young and unprotected; they live there in greatboarding-houses, and associate with a promiscuous crowd, without evensuch restraints of maternal supervision as they would have in greatboarding-schools; their bodies are enfeebled by labor oftennecessarily carried on in a foul and heated atmosphere; and at thehours when off duty, they are exposed to all the dangers of unwatched

intimacy with the other sex."Moreover, the factory girl learns and practices but one thing,--someone mechanical movement, which gives no scope for invention,ingenuity, or any other of the powers called into play by domesticlabor; so that she is in reality unfitted in every way for familyduties.

"Many times it has been my lot to try, in my family service, girls whohave left factories; and I have found them wholly useless for any ofthe things which a woman ought to be good for. They knew nothing of ahouse, or what ought to be done in it; they had imbibed a thoroughcontempt of household labor, and looked upon it but as a _dernier

ressort_; and it was only the very lightest of its tasks that theycould even begin to think of. I remember I tried to persuade one ofthese girls, the pretty daughter of a fisherman, to take some lessonsin washing and ironing. She was at that time engaged to be married toa young mechanic, who earned something like two or three dollars aday.

"'My child,' said I, 'you will need to understand all kinds ofhousework if you are going to be married.'

"She tossed her little head,--

"'Indeed, she wasn't going to trouble herself about that.'

"'But who will get up your husband's shirts?'

"'Oh, he must put them out. I'm not going to be married to make aslave of myself!'

"Another young factory girl, who came for table and parlor work, wasso full of airs and fine notions that it seemed as difficult to treatwith her as with a princess. She could not sweep, because it blisteredher hands, which, in fact, were long and delicate; she could not think



of putting them into hot dish-water, and for that reason preferredwashing the dishes in cold water; she required a full hour in themorning to make her toilet; she was laced so tightly that she couldnot stoop without vertigo; and her hoops were of dimensions whichseemed to render it impossible for her to wait upon table; she wasquite exhausted with the effort of ironing the table-napkins andchamber-towels: yet she could not think of 'living out' under twodollars a week.

"Both these girls had had a good free-school education, and could readany amount of novels, write a tolerable letter, but had not learnedanything with sufficient accuracy to fit them for teachers. They werepretty, and their destiny was to marry and lie a deadweight on thehands of some honest man, and to increase, in their children, thenumber of incapables."

"Well," said Bob, "what would you have? What is to be done?"

"In the first place," said I, "I would have it felt, by those who areseeking to elevate woman, that the work is to be done, not so much bycreating for her new spheres of action as by elevating her conceptionsof that domestic vocation to which God and Nature have assigned her.It is all very well to open to her avenues of profit and advancementin the great outer world; but, after all, _to make and keep a home_

is, and ever must be, a woman's first glory, her highest aim. No workof art can compare with a perfect home; the training and guiding of afamily must be recognized as the highest work a woman can perform; andfemale education ought to be conducted with special reference tothis.

"Men are trained to be lawyers, to be physicians, to be mechanics, bylong and self-denying study and practice. A man cannot even make shoesmerely by going to the high school and learning reading, writing, andmathematics; he cannot be a bookkeeper or a printer simply fromgeneral education.

"Now women have a sphere and profession of their own,--a profession

for which they are fitted by physical organization, by their owninstincts, and to which they are directed by the pointing and manifestfinger of God,--and that sphere is _family life_. Duties to the stateand to public life they may have; but the public duties of women mustbear to their family ones the same relation that the family duties ofmen bear to their public ones. The defect in the late efforts to pushon female education is, that it has been for her merely general, andthat it has left out and excluded all that is professional; and sheundertakes the essential duties of womanhood, when they do devolve onher, without any adequate preparation."

"But is it possible for a girl to learn at school the things which fitfor her family life?" said Bob.

"Why not?" I replied. "Once it was thought impossible in school toteach girls geometry or algebra, or the higher mathematics; it wasthought impossible to put them through collegiate courses; but it hasbeen done, and we see it. Women study treatises on political economyin schools, and why should not the study of domestic economy form apart of every school course? A young girl will stand up at theblackboard, and draw and explain the compound blowpipe, and describeall the processes of making oxygen and hydrogen. Why should she notdraw and explain a refrigerator as well as an air-pump? Both are to be



explained on philosophical principles. When a schoolgirl, in herchemistry, studies the reciprocal action of acids and alkalies, whatis there to hinder the teaching her its application to the variousprocesses of cooking where acids and alkalies are employed? Why shouldshe not be led to see how effervescence and fermentation can be madeto perform their office in the preparation of light and digestiblebread? Why should she not be taught the chemical substances by whichfood is often adulterated, and the test by which such adulterationsare detected? Why should she not understand the processes ofconfectionery, and know how to guard against the deleterious orpoisonous elements that are introduced into children's sugar-plums andcandies? Why, when she learns the doctrine of mordants, the substancesby which different colors are set, should she not learn it with somepractical view to future life, so that she may know how to set thecolor of a fading calico or restore the color of a spotted one? Why,in short, when a girl has labored through a profound chemical work,and listened to courses of chemical lectures, should she come todomestic life, which presents a constant series of chemicalexperiments and changes, and go blindly along as without chart orcompass, unable to tell what will take out a stain, or what willbrighten a metal, what are common poisons and what their antidotes,and not knowing enough of the laws of caloric to understand how towarm a house, or of the laws of atmosphere to know how to ventilateone? Why should the preparation of food, that subtile art on which

life, health, cheerfulness, good temper, and good looks so largelydepend, forever be left in the hands of the illiterate and vulgar?

"A benevolent gentleman has lately left a large fortune for thefounding of a university for women; and the object is stated to be togive to women who have already acquired a general education the meansof acquiring a professional one, to fit themselves for some employmentby which they may gain a livelihood.

"In this institution the women are to be instructed in bookkeeping,stenography, telegraphing, photographing, drawing, modeling, andvarious other arts; but, so far as I remember, there is no proposal toteach domestic economy as at least _one_ of woman's professions.

"Why should there not be a professor of domestic economy in everylarge female school? Why should not this professor give lectures,first on house planning and building, illustrated by appropriateapparatus? Why should not the pupils have presented to theirinspection models of houses planned with reference to economy, to easeof domestic service, to warmth, to ventilation, and to architecturalappearance? Why should not the professor go on to lecture further onhouse-fixtures, with models of the best mangles, washing-machines,clothes-wringers, ranges, furnaces, and cooking-stoves, together withdrawings and apparatus illustrative of domestic hydraulics, showingthe best contrivances for bathing-rooms and the obvious principles ofplumbing, so that the pupils may have some idea how to work the

machinery of a convenient house when they have it, and to have suchconveniences introduced when wanting? If it is thought worth while toprovide at great expense apparatus for teaching the revolutions ofSaturn's moons and the precession of the equinoxes, why should therenot be some also to teach what it may greatly concern a woman'searthly happiness to know?

"Why should not the professor lecture on home chemistry, devoting hisfirst lecture to bread-making? and why might not a batch of bread bemade and baked and exhibited to the class, together with specimens of



such contempt of woman's noble duties will flow downward, producing alike contempt in every class in life.

"Our sovereign princesses learn the doctrine of equality very quickly,and are not going to sacrifice themselves to what is not considered _de bon ton_ by the upper classes; and the girl with the laced hat andparasol, without underclothes, who does her best to 'shirk' her dutiesas housemaid, and is looking for marriage as an escape from work, is afair copy of her mistress, who married for much the same reason, whohates housekeeping, and would rather board or do anything else thanhave the care of a family. The one is about as respectable as theother.

"When housekeeping becomes an enthusiasm, and its study and practice afashion, then we shall have in America that class of persons to relyon for help in household labors who are now going to factories, toprinting-offices, to every kind of toil, forgetful of the best lifeand sphere of woman."

III

A FAMILY TALK ON RECONSTRUCTION

Our Chimney-Corner, of which we have spoken somewhat, has, besides thewonted domestic circle, its habitués who have a frequent seat there.Among these, none is more welcome than Theophilus Thoro.

Friend Theophilus was born on the shady side of Nature, and endowed byhis patron saint with every grace and gift which can make a humancreature worthy and available, except the gift of seeing the brightside of things. His bead-roll of Christian virtues includes all thegraces of the spirit except hope; and so, if one wants to know exactlythe flaw, the defect, the doubtful side, and to take into account all

the untoward possibilities of any person, place, or thing, he had bestapply to friend Theophilus. He can tell you just where and how thebest-laid scheme is likely to fail, just the screw that will fallloose in the smoothest-working machinery, just the flaw in the mostperfect character, just the defect in the best-written book, just thevariety of thorn that must accompany each particular species of rose.

Yet Theophilus is without guile or malice. His want of faith in humannature is not bitter and censorious, but melting and pitiful. "We areall poor trash, miserable dogs together," he seems to say, as he looksout on the world and its ways. There is not much to be expected of orfor any of us; but let us love one another and be patient.

Accordingly, Theophilus is one of the most incessant workers for humangood, and perseveringly busy in every scheme of benevolententerprise, in all which he labors with melancholy steadiness withouthope. In religion he has the soul of a martyr,--nothing would suit himbetter than to be burned alive for his faith; but his belief in thesuccess of Christianity is about on a par with that of the melancholydisciple of old, who, when Christ would go to Judæa, could only say,"Let us also go, that we may die with him." Theophilus is always readyto die for the truth and the right, for which he never sees anythingbut defeat and destruction ahead.



During the late war, Theophilus has been a despairing patriot, dyingdaily, and giving all up for lost in every reverse from Bull Run toFredericksburg. The surrender of Richmond and the capitulation of Leeshortened his visage somewhat; but the murder of the President soonbrought it back to its old length. It is true that, while Lincolnlived, he was in a perpetual state of dissent from all his measures.He had broken his heart for years over the miseries of the slaves, buthe shuddered at the Emancipation Proclamation; a whirlwind of anarchywas about to sweep over the country, in which the black and the whitewould dash against each other, and be shivered like potters' vessels.He was in despair at the accession of Johnson, believing the worst ofthe unfavorable reports that clouded his reputation. Nevertheless hewas among the first of loyal citizens to rally to the support of thenew administration, because, though he had no hope in that, he couldsee nothing better.

You must not infer from all this that friend Theophilus is a socialwet blanket, a goblin shadow at the domestic hearth. By no means.Nature has gifted him with that vein of humor and that impulse tofriendly joviality which are frequent developments in sad-natured men,and often deceive superficial observers as to their real character. Hewho laughs well and makes you laugh is often called a man of cheerfuldisposition, yet in many cases nothing can be further from it than

precisely this kind of person.Theophilus frequents our chimney-corner, perhaps because Mrs.Crowfield and myself are, so to speak, children of the light and theday. My wife has precisely the opposite talent to that of our friend.She can discover the good point, the sound spot, where others see onlydefect and corruption. I myself am somewhat sanguine, and prone ratherto expect good than evil, and with a vast stock of faith in theexcellent things that may turn up in the future. The millennium is oneof the prime articles of my creed; and all the ups and downs ofsociety I regard only as so many jolts on a very rough road that istaking the world on, through many upsets and disasters, to that finalconsummation.

Theophilus holds the same belief theoretically; but it is apt to sinkso far out of sight in the mire of present disaster as to be of verylittle comfort to him.

"Yes," he said, "we are going to ruin, in my view, about as fast as wecan go. Miss Jenny, I will trouble you for another small lump of sugarin my tea."

"You have been saying that, about our going to ruin, every time youhave taken tea here for four years past," said Jenny; "but I alwaysnoticed that your fears never spoiled your relish either for tea ormuffins. People talk about being on the brink of a volcano, and the

country going to destruction, and all that, just as they put pepper ontheir potatoes; it is an agreeable stimulant in conversation,--that'sall."

"For my part," said my wife, "I can speak in another vein. When had weever in all our history so bright prospects, so much to be thankfulfor? Slavery is abolished; the last stain of disgrace is wiped fromour national honor. We stand now before the world self-consistent withour principles. We have come out of one of the severest strugglesthat ever tried a nation, purer and stronger in morals and religion,



as well as more prosperous in material things."

"My dear madam, excuse me," said Theophilus; "but I cannot help beingreminded of what an English reviewer once said,--that a lady's factshave as much poetry in them as Tom Moore's lyrics. Of course poetry isalways agreeable, even though of no statistical value."

"I see no poetry in my facts," said Mrs. Crowfield. "Is not slaveryforever abolished, by the confession of its best friends,--even ofthose who declare its abolition a misfortune, and themselves ruined inconsequence?"

"I confess, my dear madam, that we have succeeded, as we humancreatures commonly do, in supposing that we have destroyed an evil,when we have only changed its name. We have contrived to withdrawfrom the slave just that fiction of property relation which made itfor the interest of some one to care for him a little, howeverimperfectly; and, having destroyed that, we turn him out defenselessto shift for himself in a community every member of which isembittered against him. The whole South resounds with the outcries ofslaves suffering the vindictive wrath of former masters; laws arebeing passed hunting them out of this State and out of that; theanimosity of race--at all times the most bitter and unreasonable ofanimosities--is being aroused all over the land. And the free States

take the lead in injustice to them. Witness a late vote of Connecticuton the suffrage question. The efforts of government to protect therights of these poor defenseless creatures are about as energetic assuch efforts always have been and always will be while human natureremains what it is. For a while the obvious rights of the weakerparty will be confessed, with some show of consideration, in publicspeeches; they will be paraded by philanthropic sentimentalists, togive point to their eloquence; they will be here and there sustainedin governmental measures, when there is no strong temptation to thecontrary, and nothing better to be done; but the moment thatpolitical combinations begin to be formed, all the rights andinterests of this helpless people will be bandied about as so manymake-weights in the political scale. Any troublesome lion will have

a negro thrown to him to keep him quiet. All their hopes will bedashed to the ground by the imperious Southern white, no longerfeeling for them even the interest of a master, and regarding themwith a mixture of hatred and loathing as the cause of all hisreverses. Then if, driven to despair, they seek to defend themselvesby force, they will be crushed by the power of the government andground to powder, as the weak have always been under the heel of thestrong.

"So much for our abolition of slavery. As to our material prosperity,it consists of an inflated paper currency, an immense debt, a giddy,foolhardy spirit of speculation and stock-gambling, and a perfectfuror of extravagance, which is driving everybody to live beyond his

means, and casting contempt on the republican virtues of simplicityand economy.

"As to advancement in morals, there never was so much intemperance inour people before, and the papers are full of accounts of frauds,defalcations, forgeries, robberies, assassinations, and arsons.Against this tide of corruption the various organized denominations ofreligion do nothing effectual. They are an army shut up within theirown intrenchments, holding their own with difficulty, and in nosituation to turn back the furious assaults of the enemy."



"In short," said Jenny, "according to your showing, the whole countryis going to destruction. Now, if things really are so bad, if youreally believe all you have been saying, you ought not to be sittingdrinking your tea as you are now, or to have spent the afternoonplaying croquet with us girls; you ought to gird yourself withsackcloth, and go up and down the land, raising the alarm, andsaying, 'Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.'"

"Well," said Theophilus, while a covert smile played about hislips, "you know the saying, 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow,'etc. Things are not yet gone to destruction, only going,--and whynot have a good time on deck before the ship goes to pieces? Yourchimney-corner is a tranquil island in the ocean of trouble, andyour muffins are absolutely perfect. I'll take another, if you'llplease to pass them."

"I've a great mind not to pass them," said Jenny. "Are you in earnestin what you are saying, or are you only saying it for sensation? Howcan people believe such things and be comfortable? I could not. If Ibelieved all you have been saying I could not sleep nights,--I shouldbe perfectly miserable; and _you_ cannot really believe all this, oryou would be."

"My dear child," said Mrs. Crowfield, "our friend's picture isthe truth painted with all its shadows and none of its lights. Allthe dangers he speaks of are real and great, but he omits thecounterbalancing good. Let _me_ speak now. There never has been atime in our history when so many honest and just men held power inour land as now,--never a government before in which the publiccouncils recognized with more respect the just and the right.There never was an instance of a powerful government showing moretenderness in the protection of a weak and defenseless race thanours has shown in the care of the freedmen hitherto. There neverwas a case in which the people of a country were more willing togive money and time and disinterested labor to raise and educatethose who have thus been thrown on their care. Considering that we

have had a great, harassing, and expensive war on our hands, Ithink the amount done by government and individuals for thefreedmen unequaled in the history of nations; and I do not know whyit should be predicted from this past fact that, in the future,both government and people are about to throw them to the lions,as Mr. Theophilus supposes. Let us wait, at least, and see. Solong as government maintains a freedmen's bureau, administered bymen of such high moral character, we must think, at all events,that there are strong indications in the right direction. Justthink of the immense advance of public opinion within four years,and of the grand successive steps of this advance,--Emancipation inthe District of Columbia, the Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, theGeneral Emancipation Act, the Amendment of the Constitution. All

these do not look as if the black were about to be ground topowder beneath the heel of the white. If the negroes are oppressedin the South, they can emigrate; no laws hold them; active,industrious laborers will soon find openings in any part of theUnion."

"No," said Theophilus, "there will be black laws like those ofIllinois and Tennessee; there will be turbulent uprisings of theIrish, excited by political demagogues, that will bar them out ofNorthern States. Besides, as a class, they _will_ be idle and



worthless. It will not be their fault, but it will be the result oftheir slave education. All their past observation of their masters hastaught them that liberty means licensed laziness, that work meansdegradation; and therefore they will loathe work, and cherish lazinessas the sign of liberty. 'Am not I free? Have I not as good a right todo nothing as you?' will be the cry.

"Already the lazy whites, who never lifted a hand in any usefulemployment, begin to raise the cry that 'niggers won't work;' and Isuspect the cry may not be without reason. Industrious citizens cannever be made in a community where the higher class think useful labora disgrace. The whites will oppose the negro in every effort to rise;they will debar him of every civil and social right; they will sethim the worst possible example, as they have been doing for hundredsof years; and then they will hound and hiss at him for being what theymade him. This is the old track of the world,--the good, broad,reputable road on which all aristocracies and privileged classes havebeen always traveling; and it's not likely that we shall have much ofa secession from it. The millennium isn't so near us as that, by agreat deal."

"It's all very well arguing from human selfishness and human sin inthat way," said I; "but you can't take up a newspaper that doesn'tcontain abundant facts to the contrary. Here, now,"--and I turned to

the "Tribune,"--"is one item that fell under my eye accidentally, asyou were speaking:--

"'The Superintendent of Freedmen's Affairs in Louisiana, in making uphis last Annual Report, says he has 1,952 blacks settled temporarilyon 9,650 acres of land, who last year raised crops to the value of$175,000, and that he had but few worthless blacks under his care; andthat, as a class, the blacks have fewer vagrants than can be foundamong any other class of persons.'

"Such testimonies gem the newspapers like stars."

"Newspapers of your way of thinking, very likely," said Theophilus;

"but if it comes to statistics, I can bring counter-statements,numerous and dire, from scores of Southern papers, of vagrancy,laziness, improvidence, and wretchedness."

"Probably both are true," said I, "according to the greater or lesscare which has been taken of the blacks in different regions. Left tothemselves, they tend downward, pressed down by the whole weight ofsemi-barbarous white society; but when the free North protects andguides, the results are as you see."

"And do you think the free North has salt enough in it to save thiswhole Southern mass from corruption? I wish I could think so; but allI can see in the free North at present is a raging, tearing, headlong

chase after _money_. Now money is of significance only as it givespeople the power of expressing their ideal of life. And what does thisideal prove to be among us? Is it not to ape all the splendors andvices of old aristocratic society? Is it not to be able to live inidleness, without useful employment, a life of glitter and flutter andshow? What do our New York dames of fashion seek after? To avoidfamily care, to find servants at any price who will relieve them ofhome responsibilities, and take charge of their houses and childrenwhile they shine at ball and opera, and drive in the park. And theservants who learn of these mistresses,--what do they seek after?



_They_ seek also to get rid of care, to live as nearly as possiblewithout work, to dress and shine in their secondary sphere, as themistresses do in the primary one. High wages with little work andplenty of company express Biddy's ideal of life, which is a littlemore respectable than that of her mistress, who wants high wages withno work. The house and the children are not Biddy's; and why shouldshe care more for their well-being than the mistress and the mother?

"Hence come wranglings and moanings. Biddy uses a chest of tea inthree months, and the amount of the butcher's bill is fabulous;Jane gives the baby laudanum to quiet it, while she slips out to _her_ parties; and the upper classes are shocked at the demoralizedstate of the Irish, their utter want of faithfulness and moralprinciple! How dreadful that there are no people who enjoy theself-denials and the cares which they dislike, that there are nopeople who rejoice in carrying that burden of duties which they donot wish to touch with one of their fingers! The outcry about thebadness of servants means just this: that everybody is tired ofself-helpfulness,--the servants as thoroughly as the masters andmistresses. All want the cream of life, without even the trouble ofskimming; and the great fight now is, who shall drink the skim-milk,which nobody wants. _Work_,--honorable toil,--manly, womanlyendeavor,--is just what nobody likes; and this is as much a fact inthe free North as in the slave South.

"What are all the young girls looking for in marriage? Some man withmoney enough to save them from taking any care or having any troublein domestic life, enabling them, like the lilies of the field, torival Solomon in all his glory, while they toil not, neither do theyspin; and when they find that even money cannot purchase freedom fromcare in family life, because their servants are exactly of the samemind with themselves, and hate to do their duties as cordially as theythemselves do, then are they in anguish of spirit, and wish forslavery, or aristocracy, or anything that would give them power overthe lower classes."

"But surely, Mr. Theophilus," said Jenny, "there is no sin in

disliking trouble, and wanting to live easily and have a good time inone's life,--it's so very natural."

"No sin, my dear, I admit; but there is a certain amount of work andtrouble that somebody must take to carry on the family and the world;and the mischief is, that all are agreed in wanting to get rid of it.Human nature is above all things lazy. I am lazy myself. Everybody is.The whole struggle of society is as to who shall eat the hardbread-and-cheese of labor, which must be eaten by somebody. Nobodywants it,--neither you in the parlor, nor Biddy in the kitchen.

"'The mass ought to labor, and we lie on sofas,' is a sentence thatwould unite more subscribers than any confession of faith that ever

was presented, whether religious or political; and its subscriberswould be as numerous and sincere in the free States as in the slaveStates, or I am much mistaken in my judgment. The negroes are men andwomen, like any of the rest of us, and particularly apt in theimitation of the ways and ideas current in good society; andconsequently to learn to play on the piano and to have nothing inparticular to do will be the goal of aspiration among colored girlsand woman, and to do housework will seem to them intolerable drudgery,simply because it is so among the fair models to whom they look up inhumble admiration. You see, my dear, what it is to live in a



democracy. It deprives us of the vantage-ground on which we cultivatedpeople can stand and say to our neighbor,--'The cream is for me, andthe skim-milk for you; the white bread for me, and the brown for you.I am born to amuse myself and have a good time, and you are born to doeverything that is tiresome and disagreeable to me.' The 'My LadyLudlows' of the Old World can stand on their platform and lecture thelower classes from the Church Catechism, to 'order themselves lowlyand reverently to all their betters;' and they can base theirexhortations on the old established law of society by which some areborn to inherit the earth, and live a life of ease and pleasure, andothers to toil without pleasure or amusement, for their support andaggrandizement. An aristocracy, as I take it, is a combination ofhuman beings to divide life into two parts, one of which shallcomprise all social and moral advantages, refinement, elegance,leisure, ease, pleasure, and amusement,--and the other, incessanttoil, with the absence of every privilege and blessing of humanexistence. Life thus divided, we aristocrats keep the good forourselves and our children, and distribute the evil as the lot of thegeneral mass of mankind. The desire to monopolize and to dominate isthe most rooted form of human selfishness; it is the hydra with manyheads, and, cut off in one place, it puts out in another.

"Nominally, the great aristocratic arrangement of American society hasjust been destroyed; but really, I take it, the essential _animus_ of

the slave system still exists, and pervades the community, North aswell as South. Everybody is wanting to get the work done by somebodyelse, and to take the money himself; the grinding between employersand employed is going on all the time, and the field of controversyhas only been made wider by bringing in a whole new class of laborers.The Irish have now the opportunity to sustain their aristocracy overthe negro. Shall they not have somebody to look down upon?

"All through free society, employers and employed are at incessantfeud; and the more free and enlightened the society, the more bitterthe feud. The standing complaint of life in America is the badness ofservants; and England, which always follows at a certain rate behindus in our social movements, is beginning to raise very loudly the same

complaint. The condition of service has been thought worthy of publicattention in some of the leading British prints; and Ruskin, in asumming-up article, speaks of it as a deep ulcer in society,--a thinghopeless of remedy."

"My dear Mr. Theophilus," said my wife, "I cannot imagine whither youare rambling, or to what purpose you are getting up these horribleshadows. You talk of the world as if there were no God in it,overruling the selfishness of men, and educating it up to order andjustice. I do not deny that there is a vast deal of truth in what yousay. Nobody doubts that, in general, human nature _is_ selfish,callous, unfeeling, willing to engross all good to itself, and totrample on the rights of others. Nevertheless, thanks to God's

teaching and fatherly care, the world has worked along to the point ofa great nation founded on the principles of strict equality,forbidding all monopolies, aristocracies, privileged classes, by itsvery constitution; and now, by God's wonderful providence, this nationhas been brought, and forced, as it were, to overturn and abolish theonly aristocratic institution that interfered with its freedevelopment. Does not this look as if a Mightier Power than ours wereworking in and for us, supplementing our weakness and infirmity? andif we believe that man is always ready to drop everything and let itrun back to evil, shall we not have faith that God will _not_ drop the



noble work he has so evidently taken in hand in this nation?"

"And I want to know," said Jenny, "why your illustrations ofselfishness are all drawn from the female sex. Why do you speak ofgirls that marry for money, any more than men? of mistresses of familiesthat want to be free from household duties and responsibilities, ratherthan of masters?"

"My charming young lady," said Theophilus, "it is a fact that inAmerica, except the slaveholders, women have hitherto been the onlyaristocracy. Women have been the privileged class,--the only one towhich our rough democracy has always and everywhere given theprecedence,--and consequently the vices of aristocrats are moredeveloped in them as a class than among men. The leading principle ofaristocracy, which is to take pay without work, to live on the toilsand earnings of others, is one which obtains more generally amongwomen than among men in this country. The men of our country, as ageneral thing, even in our uppermost classes, always propose tothemselves some work or business by which they may acquire a fortune,or enlarge that already made for them by their fathers. The women ofthe same class propose to themselves nothing but to live at their easeon the money made for them by the labors of fathers and husbands. As aconsequence, they become enervated and indolent,--averse to anybracing, wholesome effort, either mental or physical. The unavoidable

responsibilities and cares of a family, instead of being viewed bythem in the light of a noble life work, in which they do their part inthe general labors of the world, seem to them so many injuries andwrongs; they seek to turn them upon servants, and find servantsunwilling to take them; and so selfish are they, that I have heardmore than one lady declare that she didn't care if it was unjust, sheshould like to have slaves, rather than be plagued with servants whohad so much liberty. All the novels, poetry, and light literature ofthe world, which form the general staple of female reading, are basedupon aristocratic institutions, and impregnated with aristocraticideas; and women among us are constantly aspiring to foreign andaristocratic modes of life rather than to those of native republicansimplicity. How many women are there, think you, that would not go in

for aristocracy and aristocratic prerogatives, if they were only surethat they themselves should be of the privileged class? To be 'My LadyDuchess,' and to have a right by that simple title to the prostratedeference of all the lower orders! How many would have firmness tovote against such an establishment merely because it was bad forsociety? Tell the fair Mrs. Feathercap, 'In order that you may be aduchess, and have everything a paradise of elegance and luxury aroundyou and your children, a hundred poor families must have no chance foranything better than black bread and muddy water all their lives, ahundred poor men must work all their lives on such wages that afortnight's sickness will send their families to the almshouse, andthat no amount of honesty and forethought can lay up any provision forold age.'"

"Come now, sir," said Jenny, "don't tell me that there are any girlsor women so mean and selfish as to want aristocracy or rank sopurchased! You are too bad, Mr. Theophilus!"

"Perhaps they might not, were it stated in just these terms; yet Ithink, if the question of the establishment of an order of aristocracyamong us were put to vote, we should find more women than men whowould go for it; and they would flout at the consequences to societywith the lively wit and the musical laugh which make feminine



selfishness so genteel and agreeable.

"No! It is a fact that in America, the women, in the wealthyclasses, are like the noblemen of aristocracies, and the men arethe workers. And in all this outcry that has been raised aboutwomen's wages being inferior to those of men there is one thingoverlooked,--and that is, that women's work is generally inferior tothat of men, because in every rank they are the pets of society andare excused from the laborious drill and training by which men arefitted for their callings. Our fair friends come in generally by someroyal road to knowledge, which saves them the dire necessity of realwork,--a sort of feminine hop-skip-and-jump into science or mechanicalskill,--nothing like the uncompromising hard labor to which the boyis put who would be a mechanic or farmer, a lawyer or physician.

"I admit freely that we men are to blame for most of the faults of ourfair nobility. There is plenty of heroism, abundance of energy, andlove of noble endeavor lying dormant in these sheltered and petteddaughters of the better classes; but we keep it down and smother it.Fathers and brothers think it discreditable to themselves not to givetheir daughters and sisters the means of living in idleness; and anyadventurous fair one, who seeks to end the ennui of utter aimlessnessby applying herself to some occupation whereby she may earn her ownliving, infallibly draws down on her the comments of her whole circle:

'Keeping school, is she? Isn't her father rich enough to support her?What could possess her?'"

"I am glad, my dear Sir Oracle, that you are beginning to recollectyourself and temper your severities on our sex," said my wife. "Asusual, there is much truth lying about loosely in the vicinity of yourassertions; but they are as far from being in themselves the truth aswould be their exact opposites.

"The class of American women who travel, live abroad, and representour country to the foreign eye, have acquired the reputation of beingSybarites in luxury and extravagance, and there is much in the modesof life that are creeping into our richer circles to justify this.

"Miss Murray, ex-maid-of-honor to the Queen of England, among otherimpressions which she received from an extended tour through ourcountry, states it as her conviction that young American girls of thebetter classes are less helpful in nursing the sick and in the generalduties of family life than the daughters of the aristocracy ofEngland; and I am inclined to believe it, because even the Queen hastaken special pains to cultivate habits of energy and self-helpfulnessin her children. One of the toys of the Princess Royal was said to bea cottage of her own, furnished with every accommodation for cookingand housekeeping, where she from time to time enacted the part ofhousekeeper, making bread and biscuit, boiling potatoes which sheherself had gathered from her own garden-patch, and inviting her royal

parents to meals of her own preparing; and report says, that thedignitaries of the German court have been horrified at the energeticdetermination of the young royal housekeeper to overlook her own linenclosets and attend to her own affairs. But as an offset to what I havebeen saying, it must be admitted that America is a country where ayoung woman can be self-supporting without forfeiting her place insociety. All our New England and Western towns show us female teacherswho are as well received and as much caressed in society, and as oftencontract advantageous marriages, as any women whatever; and theproductive labor of American women, in various arts, trades, and



callings, would be found, I think, not inferior to that of any womenin the world.

"Furthermore, the history of the late war has shown them capable ofevery form of heroic endeavor. We have had hundreds of FlorenceNightingales, and an amount of real hard work has been done by femalehands not inferior to that performed by men in the camp and field, andenough to make sure that American womanhood is not yet so enervated asseriously to interfere with the prospects of free republicansociety."

"I wonder," said Jenny, "what it is in our country that spoils theworking classes that come into it. They say that the emigrants, asthey land here, are often simple-hearted people, willing to work,accustomed to early hours and plain living, decorous and respectful intheir manners. It would seem as if aristocratic drilling had done themgood. In a few months they become brawling, impertinent, grasping,want high wages, and are very unwilling to work. I went to severalintelligence-offices the other day to look for a girl for Marianne,and I thought, by the way the candidates catechized the ladies, andthe airs they took upon them, that they considered themselves thefuture mistresses interrogating their subordinates.

"'Does ye expect me to do the washin' with the cookin'?'

"'Yes.'

"'Thin I'll niver go to that place!'

"'And does ye expect me to get the early breakfast for yer husband tobe off in the train every mornin'?'

"'Yes.'

"'I niver does that,--that ought to be a second girl's work.'

"'How many servants does ye keep, ma'am?'

"'Two.'

"'I niver lives with people that keeps but two servants.'

"'How many has ye in yer family?'

"'Seven.'

"'That's too large a family. Has ye much company?'

"'Yes, we have company occasionally.'

"'Thin I can't come to ye; it'll be too harrd a place.'

"In fact, the thing they were all in quest of seemed to be a verysmall family, with very high wages, and many perquisites andprivileges.

"This is the kind of work-people our manners and institutions make ofpeople that come over here. I remember one day seeing a coachman touchhis cap to his mistress when she spoke to him, as is the way inEurope, and hearing one or two others saying among themselves,--



"'That chap's a greenie; he'll get over that soon.'"

"All these things show," said I, "that the staff of power haspassed from the hands of gentility into those of labor. We may thinkthe working classes somewhat unseemly in their assertion ofself-importance; but, after all, are they, considering their inferioradvantages of breeding, any more overbearing and impertinent than theupper classes have always been to them in all ages and countries?

"When Biddy looks long, hedges in her work with many conditions, andis careful to get the most she can for the least labor, is she, afterall, doing any more than you or I or all the rest of the world? Imyself will not write articles for five dollars a page, when there arethose who will give me fifteen. I would not do double duty as aneditor on a salary of seven thousand, when I could get ten thousandfor less work.

"Biddy and her mistress are two human beings, with the same humanwants. Both want to escape trouble, to make their life comfortable andeasy, with the least outlay of expense. Biddy's capital is her musclesand sinews; and she wants to get as many greenbacks in exchange forthem as her wit and shrewdness will enable her to do. You feel, whenyou bargain with her, that she is nothing to you, except so far as her

strength and knowledge may save you care and trouble; and she feelsthat you are nothing to her, except so far as she can get your moneyfor her work. The free-and-easy airs of those seeking employment showone thing,--that the country in general is prosperous, and thatopenings for profitable employment are so numerous that it is notthought necessary to try to conciliate favor. If the community were atstarvation-point, and the loss of a situation brought fear of thealmshouse, the laboring-class would be more subservient. As it is,there is a little spice of the bitterness of a past age of servitudein their present attitude,--a bristling, self-defensive impertinence,which will gradually smooth away as society learns to accommodateitself to the new order of things."

"Well, but, papa," said Jenny, "don't you think all this a very severetest, if applied to us women particularly, more than to the men? Mr.Theophilus seems to think women are aristocrats, and go for enslavingthe lower classes out of mere selfishness; but I say that we are agreat deal more strongly tempted than men, because all theseannoyances and trials of domestic life come upon us. It is veryinsidious, the aristocratic argument, as it appeals to us; there seemsmuch to be said in its favor. It does appear to me that it is betterto have servants and work-people tidy, industrious, respectful, anddecorous, as they are in Europe, than domineering, impertinent, andnegligent, as they are here,--and it seems that there is something inour institutions that produces these disagreeable traits; and Ipresume that the negroes will eventually be traveling the same road as

the Irish, and from the same influences.

"When people see all these things, and feel all the inconveniences ofthem, I don't wonder that they are tempted not to like democracy, andto feel as if aristocratic institutions made a more agreeable state ofsociety. It is not such a blank, bald, downright piece of brutalselfishness as Mr. Theophilus there seems to suppose, for us to wishthere were some quiet, submissive, laborious lower class, who would becontent to work for kind treatment and moderate wages."



"But, my little dear," said I, "the matter is not left to our choice.Wish it or not wish it, it's what we evidently can't have. The day forthat thing is past. The power is passing out of the hands of thecultivated few into those of the strong, laborious many. _Numbers_ isthe king of our era; and he will reign over us, whether we will hearor whether we will forbear. The sighers for an obedient lower classand the mourners for slavery may get ready their crape and have theirpocket-handkerchiefs bordered with black; for they have much weepingto do, and for many years to come. The good old feudal times, when twothirds of the population thought themselves born only for the honor,glory, and profit of the other third, are gone, with all theirbeautiful devotions, all their trappings of song and story. In theland where such institutions were most deeply rooted and most firmlyestablished, they are assailed every day by hard hands and stouthearts; and their position resembles that of some of the picturesqueruins of Italy, which are constantly being torn away to build prosaicmodern shops and houses.

"This great democratic movement is coming down into modern societywith a march as irresistible as the glacier moves down from themountains. Its front is in America,--and behind are England, France,Italy, Prussia, and the Mohammedan countries. In all, the rights ofthe laboring masses are a living force, bearing slowly and inevitablyall before it. Our war has been a marshaling of its armies, commanded

by a hard-handed, inspired man of the working-class. An intelligentAmerican, recently resident in Egypt, says it was affecting to noticethe interest with which the working classes there were looking uponour late struggle in America, and the earnestness of their wishes forthe triumph of the Union. 'It is our cause, it is for us,' they said,as said the cotton spinners of England and the silk weavers of Lyons.The forces of this mighty movement are still directed by a man fromthe lower orders, the sworn foe of exclusive privileges and landedaristocracies. If Andy Johnson is consistent with himself, with theprinciples which raised him from a tailor's bench to the head of amighty nation, he will see to it that the work that Lincoln began isso thoroughly done, that every man and every woman in America, ofwhatever race or complexion, shall have exactly equal rights before

the law, and be free to rise or fall according to their individualintelligence, industry, and moral worth. So long as everything is notstrictly in accordance with our principles of democracy, so long asthere is in any part of the country an aristocratic upper class whodespise labor, and a laboring lower class that is denied equalpolitical rights, so long this grinding and discord between the twowill never cease in America. It will make trouble not only in theSouth, but in the North,--trouble between all employers andemployed,--trouble in every branch and department of labor,--troublein every parlor and every kitchen.

"What is it that has driven every American woman out of domesticservice, when domestic service is full as well paid, is easier,

healthier, and in many cases far more agreeable, than shop and factorywork? It is, more than anything else, the influence of slavery in theSouth,--its insensible influence on the minds of mistresses, givingthem false ideas of what ought to be the position and treatment of afemale citizen in domestic service, and its very marked influence onthe minds of freedom-loving Americans, causing them to choose _any_ position rather than one which is regarded as assimilating them toslaves. It is difficult to say what are the very worst results of asystem so altogether bad as that of slavery; but one of the worst iscertainly the utter contempt it brings on useful labor, and the



consequent utter physical and moral degradation of a large body of thewhites; and this contempt of useful labor has been constantlyspreading like an infection from the Southern to the Northern States,particularly among women, who, as our friend here has truly said, areby our worship and exaltation of them made peculiarly liable to takethe malaria of aristocratic society. Let anybody observe theconversation in good society for an hour or two, and hear the tone inwhich servant-girls, seamstresses, mechanics, and all who work fortheir living, are sometimes mentioned, and he will see that, whileevery one of the speakers professes to regard useful labor asrespectable, she is yet deeply imbued with the leaven of aristocraticideas.

"In the South the contempt for labor bred of slavery has so permeatedsociety, that we see great, coarse, vulgar _lazzaroni_ lying about inrags and vermin, and dependent on government rations, maintaining, astheir only source of self-respect, that they never have done and neverwill do a stroke of useful work in all their lives. In the North thereare, I believe, no _men_ who would make such a boast; but I thinkthere are many women--beautiful, fascinating _lazzaroni_ of the parlorand boudoir--who make their boast of elegant helplessness and utterincompetence for any of woman's duties with equal naïveté. TheSpartans made their slaves drunk, to teach their children the evils ofintoxication; and it seems to be the policy of a large class in the

South now to keep down and degrade the only working class they have,for the sake of teaching their children to despise work.

"We of the North, who know the dignity of labor, who know the value offree and equal institutions, who have enjoyed advantages for seeingtheir operation, ought, in true brotherliness, to exercise the powergiven us by the present position of the people of the Southern States,and put things thoroughly right for them, well knowing, that, thoughthey may not like it at the moment, they will like it in the end, andthat it will bring them peace, plenty, and settled prosperity, suchas they have long envied here in the North. It is no kindness to aninvalid brother, half recovered from delirium, to leave him a knife tocut his throat with, should he be so disposed. We should rather appeal

from Philip drunk to Philip sober, and do real kindness, trusting tothe future for our meed of gratitude.

"Giving equal political rights to all the inhabitants of the SouthernStates will be their shortest way to quiet and to wealth. It willavert what is else almost certain,--a war of races; since allexperience shows that the ballot introduces the very politestrelations between the higher and lower classes. If the right berestricted, let it be by requirements of property and education,applying to all the population equally.

"Meanwhile, we citizens and citizenesses of the North should rememberthat Reconstruction means something more than setting things right in

the Southern States. We have saved our government and institutions,but we have paid a fearful price for their salvation; and we ought toprove now that they are worth the price.

"The empty chair, never to be filled; the light gone out on itscandlestick, never on earth to be rekindled; gallant souls that haveexhaled to heaven in slow torture and starvation; the precious bloodthat has drenched a hundred battlefields,--all call to us with warningvoices, and tell us not to let such sacrifices be in vain. They callon us by our clear understanding of the great principles of democratic



equality, for which our martyred brethren suffered and died, to showto all the world that their death was no mean and useless waste, but aglorious investment for the future of mankind.

"This war, these sufferings, these sacrifices, ought to make everyAmerican man and woman look on himself and herself as belonging to aroyal priesthood, a peculiar people. The blood of our slain ought tobe a gulf, wide and deep as the Atlantic, dividing us from theopinions and the practices of countries whose government and societyare founded on other and antagonistic ideas. Democratic republicanismhas never yet been perfectly worked out either in this or any othercountry. It is a splendid edifice, half built, deformed by rudescaffolding, noisy with the clink of trowels, blinding the eyes withthe dust of lime, and endangering our heads with falling brick. Wemake our way over heaps of shavings and lumber to view the statelyapartments,--we endanger our necks in climbing ladders standing in theplace of future staircases; but let us not for all this cry out thatthe old rat-holed mansions of former ages, with their mould, and moss,and cockroaches, are better than this new palace. There is nolime-dust, no clink of trowels, no rough scaffolding there, to besure, and life goes on very quietly; but there is the foul air of slowand sure decay.

"Republican institutions in America are in a transition state; they

have not yet separated themselves from foreign and antagonistic ideasand traditions, derived from old countries; and the labors necessaryfor the upbuilding of society are not yet so adjusted that there ismutual pleasure and comfort in the relations of employer and employed.We still incline to class distinctions and aristocracies. We inclineto the scheme of dividing the world's work into two orders: first,physical labor, which is held to be rude and vulgar, and the provinceof a lower class; and second, brain labor, held to be refined andaristocratic, and the province of a higher class. Meanwhile, theCreator, who is the greatest of levelers, has given to every humanbeing both a physical system, needing to be kept in order by physicallabor, and an intellectual or brain power, needing to be kept in orderby brain labor. Work, use, employment, is the condition of health in

both; and he who works either to the neglect of the other lives but ahalf-life, and is an imperfect human being.

"The aristocracies of the Old World claim that their only labor shouldbe that of the brain; and they keep their physical system in order byviolent exercise, which is made genteel from the fact only that it isnot useful or productive. It would be losing caste to refresh themuscles by handling the plough or the axe; and so foxes and hares mustbe kept to be hunted, and whole counties turned into preserves, inorder that the nobility and gentry may have physical exercise in a waybefitting their station,--that is to say, in a way that producesnothing, and does good only to themselves.

"The model republican uses his brain for the highest purposes of brainwork, and his muscles in productive physical labor; and useful laborhe respects above that which is merely agreeable. When this equalrespect for physical and mental labor shall have taken possession ofevery American citizen, there will be no so-called laboring class;there will no more be a class all muscle without brain power to guideit, and a class all brain without muscular power to execute. Thelabors of society will be lighter, because each individual will takehis part in them; they will be performed better, because no one willbe overburdened. In those days, Miss Jenny, it will be an easier



matter to keep house, because, housework being no longer regarded asdegrading drudgery, you will find a superior class of women ready toengage in it.

"Every young girl and woman, who in her sphere and by her exampleshows that she is not ashamed of domestic labor, and that sheconsiders the necessary work and duties of family life as dignifiedand important, is helping to bring on this good day. Louis Philippeonce jestingly remarked, 'I have this qualification for being a kingin these days, that I have blacked my own boots, and could black themagain.'

"Every American ought to cultivate, as his pride and birthright, thehabit of self-helpfulness. Our command of the labors of goodemployees in any department is liable to such interruptions, that hewho has blacked his own boots, and can do it again, is, on the whole,likely to secure the most comfort in life.

"As to that which Mr. Ruskin pronounces to be a deep, irremediableulcer in society, namely, domestic service, we hold that the lastworkings of pure democracy will cleanse and heal it. When right ideasare sufficiently spread; when everybody is self-helpful and capable ofbeing self-supporting; when there is a fair start for every humanbeing in the race of life, and all its prizes are, without respect of

persons, to be obtained by the best runner; when every kind of usefullabor is thoroughly respected,--then there will be a clear, just,wholesome basis of intercourse on which employers and employed canmove without wrangling or discord.

"Renouncing all claims to superiority on the one hand, and all thoughtof servility on the other, service can be rendered by fair contractsand agreements, with that mutual respect and benevolence which everyhuman being owes to every other. But for this transition period, whichis wearing out the life of so many women, and making so manyhouseholds uncomfortable, I have some alleviating suggestions, which Ishall give in my next chapter."

IV

IS WOMAN A WORKER

"Papa, do you see what the 'Evening Post' says of your New Year'sarticle on Reconstruction?" said Jenny, as we were all sitting in thelibrary after tea.

"I have not seen it."

"Well, then, the charming writer, whoever he is, takes up for us girlsand women, and maintains that no work of any sort ought to be expectedof us; that our only mission in life is to be beautiful, and torefresh and elevate the spirits of men by being so. If I get ahusband, my mission is to be always becomingly dressed, to displaymost captivating toilettes, and to be always in good spirits,--as,under the circumstances, I always should be,--and thus 'renew hisspirits' when he comes in weary with the toils of life. Householdcares are to be far from me: they destroy my cheerfulness and injure



my beauty.

"He says that the New England standard of excellence as applied towoman has been a mistaken one; and, in consequence, though thegirls are beautiful, the matrons are faded, overworked, anduninteresting; and that such a state of society tends to immorality,because, when wives are no longer charming, men are open to thetemptation to desert their firesides, and get into mischief generally.He seems particularly to complain of your calling ladies who donothing the 'fascinating _lazzaroni_ of the parlor and boudoir.'"

"There was too much truth back of that arrow not to wound," saidTheophilus Thoro, who was ensconced, as usual, in his dark corner,whence he supervises our discussions.

"Come, Mr. Thoro, we won't have any of your bitter moralities," saidJenny; "they are only to be taken as the invariable bay-leaf whichProfessor Blot introduces into all his recipes for soups and stews,--alittle elegant bitterness, to be kept tastefully in the background.You see now, papa, I should like the vocation of being beautiful. Itwould just suit me to wear point-lace and jewelry, and to have liferevolve round me, as some beautiful star, and feel that I had nothingto do but shine and refresh the spirits of all gazers, and that inthis way I was truly useful, and fulfilling the great end of my being;

but alas for this doctrine! all women have not beauty. The most of uscan only hope not to be called ill-looking, and, when we get ourselvesup with care, to look fresh and trim and agreeable; which factinterferes with the theory."

"Well, for my part," said young Rudolph, "I go for the theory of thebeautiful. If ever I marry, it is to find an asylum for ideality. Idon't want to make a culinary marriage or a business partnership. Iwant a being whom I can keep in a sphere of poetry and beauty, out ofthe dust and grime of every-lay life."

"Then," said Mr. Theophilus, "you must either be a rich man in yourown right, or your fair ideal must have a handsome fortune of her

own."

"I never will marry a rich wife," quoth Rudolph. "My wife must besupported by me, not I by her."

Rudolph is another of the habitués of our chimney-corner, representingthe order of young knighthood in America, and his dreams and fancies,if impracticable, are always of a kind to make every one think him agood fellow. He who has no romantic dreams at twenty-one will be ahorribly dry peascod at fifty; therefore it is that I gaze reverentlyat all Rudolph's chateaus in Spain, which want nothing to completethem except solid earth to stand on.

"And pray," said Theophilus, "how long will it take a young lawyer orphysician, starting with no heritage but his own brain, to create asphere of poetry and beauty in which to keep his goddess? How much ayear will be necessary, as the English say, to _do_ this garden ofEden, whereinto shall enter only the poetry of life?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen it near enough to consider. It isbecause I know the difficulty of its attainment that I have no presentthoughts of marriage. Marriage is to me in the bluest of all bluedistances,--far off, mysterious, and dreamy as the Mountains of the



Moon or sources of the Nile. It shall come only when I have secured afortune that shall place my wife above all necessity of work orcare."

"I desire to hear from you," said Theophilus, "when you have found thesum that will keep a woman from care. I know of women now inhabitingpalaces, waited on at every turn by servants, with carriages, horses,jewels, laces, Cashmeres, enough for princesses, who are eaten up bycare. One lies awake all night on account of a wrinkle in the waist ofher dress; another is dying because no silk of a certain inexpressibleshade is to be found in New York; a third has had a dress sent home,which has proved such a failure that life seems no longer worthhaving. If it were not for the consolations of religion, one doesn'tknow what would become of her. The fact is, that care and labor are asmuch correlated to human existence as shadow is to light; there is nosuch thing as excluding them from any mortal lot. You may make acanary-bird or a gold-fish live in absolute contentment without a careor labor, but a human being you cannot. Human beings are restless andactive in their very nature, and will do something, and that somethingwill prove a care, a labor, and a fatigue, arrange it how you will. Aslong as there is anything to be desired and not yet attained, so longits attainment will be attempted; so long as that attainment isdoubtful or difficult, so long will there be care and anxiety. Whenboundless wealth releases woman from every family care, she

immediately makes herself a new set of cares in another direction, andhas just as many anxieties as the most toilful housekeeper, only theyare of a different kind. Talk of labor, and look at the upper classesin London or in New York in the fashionable season. Do any women workharder? To rush from crowd to crowd all night, night after night,seeing what they are tired of, making the agreeable over an abyss ofinward yawning, crowded, jostled, breathing hot air, and crushed inhalls and stairways, without a moment of leisure for months andmonths, till brain and nerve and sense reel, and the country is longedfor as a period of resuscitation and relief! Such is the release fromlabor and fatigue brought by wealth. The only thing that makes allthis labor at all endurable is, that it is utterly and entirelyuseless, and does no good to any one in creation; this alone makes it

genteel, and distinguishes it from the vulgar toils of a housekeeper.These delicate creatures, who can go to three or four parties a nightfor three months, would be utterly desolate if they had to watch onenight in a sick-room; and though they can exhibit any amount ofphysical endurance and vigor in crowding into assembly rooms, andbreathe tainted air in an opera-house with the most martyr-likeconstancy, they could not sit one half-hour in the close room wherethe sister of charity spends hours in consoling the sick or agedpoor."

"Mr. Theophilus is quite at home now," said Jenny; "only start him onthe track of fashionable life, and he takes the course like a hound.But hear, now, our champion of the 'Evening Post':--

"'The instinct of women to seek a life of repose, their eagerness toattain the life of elegance, does not mean contempt for labor, but itis a confession of unfitness for labor. Women were not intended towork,--not because work is ignoble, but because it is as disastrousto the beauty of a woman as is friction to the bloom and softness of aflower. Woman is to be kept in the garden of life; she is to rest, toreceive, to praise; she is to be kept from the workshop world, whereinnocence is snatched with rude hands, and softness is blistered intounsightliness or hardened into adamant. No social truth is more in



need of exposition and illustration than this one; and, above all, thepeople of New England need to know it, and, better, they need tobelieve it.

"'It is therefore with regret that we discover Christopher Crowfieldapplying so harshly, and, as we think so indiscriminatingly, the theoryof work to women, and teaching a society made up of women sacrificedin the workshops of the State, or to the dustpans and kitchens of thehouse, that women must work, ought to work, and are dishonored ifthey do not work; and that a woman committed to the drudgery of ahousehold is more creditably employed than when she is charming,fascinating, irresistible, in the parlor or boudoir. The consequenceof this fatal mistake is manifest throughout New England,--in NewEngland where the girls are all beautiful and the wives and mothersfaded, disfigured, and without charm or attractiveness. The moment agirl marries, in New England, she is apt to become a drudge or a layfigure on which to exhibit the latest fashions. She never hasbeautiful hands, and she would not have a beautiful face if autilitarian society could "apply" her face to anything but thepleasure of the eye. Her hands lose their shape and softness afterchildhood, and domestic drudgery destroys her beauty of form andsoftness and bloom of complexion after marriage. To correct, or ratherto break up, this despotism of household cares, or of work, over woman,American society must be taught that women will inevitably fade and

deteriorate, unless it insures repose and comfort to them. It mustbe taught that reverence for beauty is the normal condition, whilethe theory of work, applied to women, is disastrous alike to beauty andmorals. Work, when it is destructive to men or women, is forced andunjust.

"'All the great masculine or creative epochs have been distinguishedby spontaneous work on the part of men, and universal reverence andcare for beauty. The praise of work, and sacrifice of women to thisgreat heartless devil of work, belong only to, and are the socialdoctrine of, a mechanical age and a utilitarian epoch. And if the NewEngland idea of social life continues to bear so cruelly on woman, weshall have a reaction somewhat unexpected and shocking.'"

"Well now, say what you will," said Rudolph, "you have expressed myidea of the conditions of the sex. Woman was not made to work; she wasmade to be taken care of by man. All that is severe and trying,whether in study or in practical life, is and ought to be in its verynature essentially the work of the male sex. The value of woman isprecisely the value of those priceless works of art for which we buildmuseums,--which we shelter and guard as the world's choicest heritage;and a lovely, cultivated, refined woman, thus sheltered, and guarded,and developed, has a worth that cannot be estimated by any gross,material standard. So I subscribe to the sentiments of Miss Jenny'sfriend without scruple."

"The great trouble in settling all these society questions," said I,"lies in the gold-washing--the cradling I think the miners call it. Ifall the quartz were in one stratum and all the gold in another, itwould save us a vast deal of trouble. In the ideas of Jenny's friendof the 'Evening Post' there is a line of truth and a line of falsehoodso interwoven and threaded together that it is impossible wholly toassent or dissent. So with your ideas, Rudolph, there is a degree oftruth in them, but there is also a fallacy.

"It is a truth, that woman as a sex ought not to do the hard work of



the world, either social, intellectual, or moral. These are evidencesin her physiology that this was not intended for her, and our friendof the 'Evening Post' is right in saying that any country will advancemore rapidly in civilization and refinement where woman is thussheltered and protected. And I think, furthermore, that there is nocountry in the world where women _are_ so much considered and caredfor and sheltered, in every walk of life, as in America. In Englandand France,--all over the continent of Europe, in fact,--the other sexare deferential to women only from some presumption of their socialstanding, or from the fact of acquaintanceship; but among strangers,and under circumstances where no particular rank or position can beinferred, a woman traveling in England or France is jostled and pushedto the wall, and left to take her own chance, precisely as if she werenot a woman. Deference to delicacy and weakness, the instinct ofprotection, does not appear to characterize the masculine populationof any other quarter of the world so much as that of America. InFrance, _les Messieurs_ will form a circle round the fire in thereceiving-room of a railroad station, and sit, tranquilly smokingtheir cigars, while ladies who do not happen to be of theiracquaintance are standing shivering at the other side of the room. InEngland, if a lady is incautiously booked for an outside place on acoach, in hope of seeing the scenery, and the day turns out hopelesslyrainy, no gentleman in the coach below ever thinks of offering tochange seats with her, though it pour torrents. In America, the

roughest backwoods steamboat or canal-boat captain always, as a matterof course, considers himself charged with the protection of theladies. '_Place aux dames_' is written in the heart of many a shaggyfellow who could not utter a French word any more than could abuffalo. It is just as I have before said,--women are the recognizedaristocracy, the only aristocracy, of America; and, so far fromregarding this fact as objectionable, it is an unceasing source ofpride in my country.

"That kind of knightly feeling towards woman which reverences herdelicacy, her frailty, which protects and cares for her, is, I think,the crown of manhood; and without it a man is only a rough animal. Butour fair aristocrats and their knightly defenders need to be cautioned

lest they lose their position, as many privileged orders have beforedone, by an arrogant and selfish use of power.

"I have said that the vices of aristocracy are more developed amongwomen in America than among men, and that, while there are no men inthe Northern States who are not ashamed of living a merely idle lifeof pleasure, there are many women who make a boast of helplessness andignorance in woman's family duties which any man would be ashamed tomake with regard to man's duties, as if such helplessness andignorance were a grace and a charm.

"There are women who contentedly live on, year after year, a life ofidleness, while the husband and father is straining every nerve,

growing prematurely old and gray, abridged of almost every form ofrecreation or pleasure,--all that he may keep them in a state ofcareless ease and festivity. It may be very fine, very generous, veryknightly, in the man who thus toils at the oar that his princesses mayenjoy their painted voyages; but what is it for the women?

"A woman is a moral being--an immortal soul--before she is a woman;and as such she is charged by her Maker with some share of the greatburden of work which lies on the world.



"Self-denial, the bearing of the cross, are stated by Christ asindispensable conditions to the entrance into his kingdom, and noexception is made for man or woman. Some task, some burden, somecross, each one must carry; and there must be something done in everytrue and worthy life, not as amusement, but as duty,--not as play, butas earnest work,--and no human being can attain to the Christianstandard without this.

"When Jesus Christ took a towel and girded himself, poured water intoa basin, and washed his disciples' feet, he performed a significantand sacramental act, which no man or woman should ever forget. Ifwealth and rank and power absolve from the services of life, thencertainly were Jesus Christ absolved, as he says: 'Ye call me Master,and Lord. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, yealso ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you anexample, that ye should do as I have done to you.'

"Let a man who seeks to make a terrestrial paradise for the woman ofhis heart,--to absolve her from all care, from all labor, to teach herto accept and to receive the labor of others without any attempt tooffer labor in return,--consider whether he is not thus going directlyagainst the fundamental idea of Christianity; taking the direct way tomake his idol selfish and exacting, to rob her of the highest andnoblest beauty of womanhood.

"In that chapter of the Bible where the relation between man and womanis stated, it is thus said, with quaint simplicity: 'It is not goodthat the man should be alone; I will make him an _help meet_ for him.'Woman the _helper_ of man, not his toy,--not a picture, not a statue,not a work of art, but a HELPER, a doer,--such is the view of theBible and the Christian religion.

"It is not necessary that women should work physically or morally toan extent which impairs beauty. In France, where woman is harnessedwith an ass to the plough which her husband drives,--where she digs,and wields the pick-axe,--she becomes prematurely hideous; but inAmerica, where woman reigns as queen in every household, she may

surely be a good and thoughtful housekeeper, she may have physicalstrength exercised in lighter domestic toils, not only withoutinjuring her beauty, but with manifest advantage to it. Almost everygrowing young girl would be the better in health, and thereforehandsomer, for two hours of active housework daily; and the habit ofusefulness thereby gained would be an equal advantage to her moraldevelopment. The labors of modern, well-arranged houses are not in anysense severe; they are as gentle as any kind of exercise that can bedevised, and they bring into play muscles that ought to be exercisedto be healthily developed.

"The great danger to the beauty of American women does not lie, as thewriter of the 'Post' contends, in an overworking of the physical

system which shall stunt and deform; on the contrary, American womenof the comfortable classes are in danger of a loss of physical beautyfrom the entire deterioration of the muscular system for want ofexercise. Take the life of any American girl in one of our largetowns, and see what it is. We have an educational system of publicschools which for intellectual culture is a just matter of pride toany country. From the time that the girl is seven years old, her firstthought, when she rises in the morning, is to eat her breakfast and beoff to her school. There really is no more time than enough to allowher to make that complete toilet which every well-bred female ought to



make, and to take her morning meal before her school begins. Shereturns at noon with just time to eat her dinner, and the afternoonsession begins. She comes home at night with books, slate, and lessonsenough to occupy her evening. What time is there for teaching her anyhousehold work, for teaching her to cut or fit or sew, or to inspireher with any taste for domestic duties? Her arms have no exercise; herchest and lungs, and all the complex system of muscles which are to beperfected by quick and active movement, are compressed while she bendsover book and slate and drawing-board; while the ever active brain iskept all the while going at the top of its speed. She grows up spare,thin, and delicate; and while the Irish girl, who sweeps the parlors,rubs the silver, and irons the muslins, is developing a finely roundedarm and bust, the American girl has a pair of bones at her sides, anda bust composed of cotton padding, the work of a skillful dressmaker.Nature, who is no respecter of persons, gives to Colleen Bawn, whouses her arms and chest, a beauty which perishes in the gentle,languid Edith, who does nothing but study and read."

"But is it not a fact," said Rudolph, "as stated by our friend of the'Post,' that American matrons are perishing, and their beauty andgrace all withered, from overwork?"

"It is," said my wife; "but why? It is because they are brought upwithout vigor or muscular strength, without the least practical

experience of household labor, or those means of saving it which comeby daily practice; and then, after marriage, when physically weakenedby maternity, embarrassed by the care of young children, they areoften suddenly deserted by every efficient servant, and the wholemachinery of a complicated household left in their weak, inexperiencedhands. In the country, you see a household perhaps made void some finemorning by Biddy's sudden departure, and nobody to make the bread, orcook the steak, or sweep the parlors, or do one of the complicatedoffices of a family, and no bakery, cook-shop, or laundry to turn tofor alleviation. A lovely, refined home becomes in a few hours ahowling desolation; and then ensues a long season of breakage, waste,distraction, as one wild Irish immigrant after another introduces thestyle of Irish cottage life into an elegant dwelling.

"Now suppose I grant to the 'Evening Post' that woman ought to rest,to be kept in the garden of life, and all that, how is this to be donein a country where a state of things like this is the commonest ofoccurrences? And is it any kindness or reverence to woman, to educateher for such an inevitable destiny by a life of complete physicaldelicacy and incapacity? Many a woman who has been brought into thesecruel circumstances would willingly exchange all her knowledge ofGerman and Italian, and all her graceful accomplishments, for a goodphysical development, and some respectable _savoir faire_ in ordinarylife.

"Moreover, American matrons are overworked because some unaccountable

glamour leads them to continue to bring up their girls in the sameinefficient physical habits which resulted in so much misery tothemselves. Housework as they are obliged to do it, untrained,untaught, exhausted, and in company with rude, dirty, unkemptforeigners, seems to them a degradation which they will spare to theirdaughters. The daughter goes on with her schools and accomplishments,and leads in the family the life of an elegant little visitor duringall those years when a young girl might be gradually developing andstrengthening her muscles in healthy household work. It never occursto her that she can or ought to fill any of the domestic gaps into



which her mother always steps; and she comforts herself with thethought, 'I don't know how; I can't; I haven't the strength. I can'tsweep; it blisters my hands. If I should stand at the ironing-table anhour, I should be ill for a week. As to cooking, I don't know anythingabout it.' And so, when the cook, or the chambermaid, or nurse, or alltogether, vacate the premises, it is the mamma who is successivelycook, and chambermaid, and nurse; and this is the reason why matronsfade and are overworked.

"Now, Mr. Rudolph, do you think a woman any less beautiful orinteresting because she is a fully developed physical being,--becauseher muscles have been rounded and matured into strength, so that shecan meet the inevitable emergencies of life without feeling them to bedistressing hardships? If there be a competent, well-trained servantto sweep and dust the parlor, and keep all the machinery of the housein motion, she may very properly select her work out of the family, insome form of benevolent helpfulness; but when the inevitable evil hourcomes, which is likely to come first or last in every Americanhousehold, is a woman any less an elegant woman because her love ofneatness, order, and beauty leads her to make vigorous personalexertions to keep her own home undefiled? For my part, I think adisorderly, ill-kept home, a sordid, uninviting table, has driven morehusbands from domestic life than the unattractiveness of anyoverworked woman. So long as a woman makes her home harmonious and

orderly, so long as the hour of assembling around the family table issomething to be looked forward to as a comfort and a refreshment, aman cannot see that the good house fairy, who by some magic keepseverything so delightfully, has either a wrinkle or a gray hair."

"Besides," said I, "I must tell you, Rudolph, what you fellows oftwenty-one are slow to believe; and that is, that the kind of idealparadise you propose in marriage is, in the very nature of things, animpossibility,--that the familiarities of every-day life between twopeople who keep house together must and will destroy it. Suppose youare married to Cytherea herself, and the next week attacked with arheumatic fever. If the tie between you is that of true and honestlove, Cytherea will put on a gingham wrapper, and with her own

sculptured hands wring out the flannels which shall relieve yourpains; and she will be no true woman if she do not prefer to do thisto employing any nurse that could be hired. True love ennobles anddignifies the material labors of life; and homely services renderedfor love's sake have in them a poetry that is immortal.

"No true-hearted woman can find herself, in real, actual life,unskilled and unfit to minister to the wants and sorrows of thosedearest to her, without a secret sense of degradation. The feeling ofuselessness is an extremely unpleasant one. Tom Hood, in a veryhumorous paper, describes a most accomplished schoolmistress, ateacher of all the arts and crafts which are supposed to make up finegentlewomen, who is stranded in a rude German inn, with her father

writhing in the anguish of a severe attack of gastric inflammation.The helpless lady gazes on her suffering parent, longing to help him,and thinking over all her various little store of accomplishments, notone of which bears the remotest relation to the case. She could knithim a bead purse, or make him a guard-chain, or work him a footstool,or festoon him with cut tissue-paper, or sketch his likeness, or crusthim over with alum crystals, or stick him over with little rosettes ofred and white wafers; but none of these being applicable to hispresent case, she sits gazing in resigned imbecility, till finally shedesperately resolves to improvise him some gruel, and, after a



laborious turn in the kitchen,--after burning her dress and blackingher fingers,--succeeds only in bringing him a bowl of paste!

"Not unlike this might be the feeling of many an elegant andaccomplished woman, whose education has taught and practiced her ineverything that woman ought to know, except those identical ones whichfit her for the care of a home, for the comfort of a sick-room; and soI say again that, whatever a woman may be in the way of beauty andelegance, she must have the strength and skill of a practical worker,or she is nothing. She is not simply to be the beautiful,--she is tomake the beautiful, and preserve it; and she who makes and she whokeeps the beautiful must be able to work, and know how to work.Whatever offices of life are performed by women of culture andrefinement are thenceforth elevated; they cease to be mere serviletoils, and become expressions of the ideas of superior beings. If atrue lady makes even a plate of toast, in arranging a _petit souper_ for her invalid friend, she does it as a lady should. She does notcut blundering and uneven slices; she does not burn the edges; shedoes not deluge it with bad butter, and serve it cold; but shearranges and serves all with an artistic care, with a nicety anddelicacy, which make it worth one's while to have a lady friend insickness.

"And I am glad to hear that Monsieur Blot is teaching classes of New

York ladies that cooking is not a vulgar kitchen toil, to be left toblundering servants, but an elegant feminine accomplishment, betterworth a woman's learning than crochet or embroidery; and that awell-kept culinary apartment may be so inviting and orderly that nolady need feel her ladyhood compromised by participating in itspleasant toils. I am glad to know that his cooking-academy is throngedwith more scholars than he can accommodate, and from ladies in thebest classes of society.

"Moreover, I am glad to see that in New Bedford, recently, a publiccourse of instruction in the art of bread-making has been commenced bya lady, and that classes of the most respectable young and marriedladies in the place are attending them. These are steps in the right

direction, and show that our fair countrywomen, with the grand goodsense which is their leading characteristic, are resolved to supplywhatever in our national life is wanting.

"I do not fear that women of such sense and energy will listen to thesophistries which would persuade them that elegant imbecility andinefficiency are charms of cultivated womanhood or ingredients in thepoetry of life. She alone can keep the poetry and beauty of marriedlife who has this poetry in her soul; who with energy and discretioncan throw back and out of sight the sordid and disagreeable detailswhich beset all human living, and can keep in the foreground thatwhich is agreeable; who has enough knowledge of practical householdmatters to make unskilled and rude hands minister to her cultivated

and refined tastes, and constitute her skilled brain the guide ofunskilled hands. From such a home, with such a mistress, no sirenswill seduce a man, even though the hair grow gray, and the merelyphysical charms of early days gradually pass away. The enchantmentthat was about her person alone in the days of courtship seems in thecourse of years to have interfused and penetrated the home which shehas created, and which in every detail is only an expression of herpersonality. Her thoughts, her plans, her provident care, areeverywhere; and the home attracts and holds by a thousand ties theheart which before marriage was held by the woman alone."



V

THE TRANSITION

"The fact is, my dear," said my wife, "that you have thrown a stoneinto a congregation of blackbirds, in writing as you have of ourfamily wars and wants. The response comes from all parts of thecountry, and the task of looking over and answering your lettersbecomes increasingly formidable. Everybody has something tosay,--something to propose."

"Give me a résumé," said I.

"Well," said my wife, "here are three pages from an elderly gentleman,to the effect that women are not what they used to be,--that daughtersare a great care and no help, that girls have no health and no energyin practical life, that the expense of maintaining a household is sogreat that young men are afraid to marry, and that it costs more nowper annum to dress one young woman than it used to cost to carry a

whole family of sons through college. In short, the poor old gentlemanis in a desperate state of mind, and is firmly of opinion that societyis going to ruin by an express train."

"Poor old fellow!" said I, "the only comfort I can offer him is what Itake myself,--that this sad world will last out our time at least. Nowfor the next."

"The next is more concise and spicy," said my wife. "I will read it.

"CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD, ESQ.:

"_Sir_,--If you want to know how American women are to be brought

back to family work, I can tell you a short method. Pay them asgood wages for it as they can make in any other way. I get fromseven to nine dollars a week in a shop where I work; if I couldmake the same in any good family, I should have no objection todoing it.

"Your obedient servant,

"LETITIA."

"My correspondent Letitia does not tell me," said I, "how much of thisseven or nine dollars she pays out for board and washing, fire andlights. If she worked in a good family at two or three dollars a week,

it is easily demonstrable that, at the present cost of these items,she would make as much clear profit as she now does at nine dollarsfor her shop-work.

"And there are two other things, moreover, which she does notconsider: First, that, besides board, washing, fuel, and lights, whichshe would have in a family, she would have also less unintermittedtoil. Shop-work exacts its ten hours per diem; and it makes noallowance for sickness or accident.



"A good domestic in a good family finds many hours when she can feelfree to attend to her own affairs. Her work consists of certaindefinite matters, which being done her time is her own; and if shehave skill and address in the management of her duties, she may securemany leisure hours. As houses are now built, and with the manylabor-saving conveniences that are being introduced, the physicallabor of housework is no more than a healthy woman really needs tokeep her in health. In case, however, of those slight illnesses towhich all are more or less liable, and which, if neglected, often leadto graver ones, the advantage is still on the side of domesticservice. In the shop and factory, every hour of unemployed time isdeducted; an illness of a day or two is an appreciable loss of just somuch money, while the expense of board is still going on. But in thefamily a good servant is always considered. When ill, she is carefullynursed as one of the family, has the family physician, and is subjectto no deduction from her wages for loss of time. I have known morethan one instance in which a valued domestic has been sent, at heremployer's expense, to the seaside or some other pleasant locality,for change of air, when her health has been run down.

"In the second place, family work is more remunerative, even at alower rate of wages, than shop or factory work, because it is betterfor the health. All sorts of sedentary employment, pursued by numbersof persons together in one apartment, are more or less debilitating

and unhealthy, through foul air and confinement."A woman's health is her capital. In certain ways of work she obtainsmore income, but she spends on her capital to do it. In another wayshe may get less income, and yet increase her capital. A woman cannotwork at dressmaking, tailoring, or any other sedentary employment, tenhours a day, year in and out, without enfeebling her constitution,impairing her eyesight, and bringing on a complication of complaints,but she can sweep, wash, cook, and do the varied duties of awell-ordered house with modern arrangements, and grow healthier everyyear. The times, in New England, when all women did housework a partof every day, were the times when all women were healthy. At present,the heritage of vigorous muscles, firm nerves, strong backs, and

cheerful physical life has gone from American women, and is taken upby Irish women. A thrifty young man I have lately heard of married arosy young Irish girl, quite to the horror of his mother and sisters,but defended himself by the following very conclusive logic: 'If Imarry an American girl, I must have an Irish girl to take care of her;and I cannot afford to support both.'

"Besides all this, there is a third consideration, which I humblycommend to my friend Letitia. The turn of her note speaks her a girlof good common sense, with a faculty of hitting the nail square on thehead; and such a girl must see that nothing is more likely to fall outthan that she will some day be married. Evidently, our fair friend isborn to rule; and at this hour, doubtless, her foreordained throne and

humble servant are somewhere awaiting her.

"Now domestic service is all the while fitting a girl physically,mentally, and morally for her ultimate vocation and sphere,--to be ahappy wife and to make a happy home. But factory work, shop work, andall employments of that sort, are in their nature essentiallyundomestic,--entailing the constant necessity of a boarding-houselife, and of habits as different as possible from the quiet routine ofhome. The girl who is ten hours on the strain of continued,unintermitted toil feels no inclination, when evening comes, to sit



down and darn her stockings, or make over her dresses, or study any ofthose multifarious economies which turn a wardrobe to the bestaccount. Her nervous system is flagging; she craves company andexcitement; and her dull, narrow room is deserted for some place ofamusement or gay street promenade. And who can blame her? Let anysensible woman, who has had experience of shop and factory life,recall to her mind the ways and manners in which young girls grow upwho leave a father's roof for a crowded boarding-house, without anysupervision of matron or mother, and ask whether this is the bestschool for training young American wives and mothers.

"Doubtless there are discreet and thoughtful women who, amid all thesedifficulties, do keep up thrifty, womanly habits, but they do it by aneffort greater than the majority of girls are willing to make, andgreater than they ought to make. To sew or read or study after tenhours of factory or shop work is a further drain on the nervous powerswhich no woman can long endure without exhaustion.

"When the time arrives that such a girl comes to a house of her own,she comes to it as unskilled in all household lore, with muscles asincapable of domestic labor and nerves as sensitive, as if she hadbeen leading the most luxurious, do-nothing, fashionable life. Howdifferent would be her preparation, had the forming years of her lifebeen spent in the labors of a family! I know at this moment a lady at

the head of a rich country establishment, filling her station insociety with dignity and honor, who gained her domestic education in akitchen in our vicinity. She was the daughter of a small farmer, andwhen the time came for her to be earning her living, her parentswisely thought it far better that she should gain it in a way whichwould at the same time establish her health and fit her for her ownfuture home. In a cheerful, light, airy kitchen, which was kept sotidy always as to be an attractive sitting-room, she and another youngcountry girl were trained up in the best of domestic economies by amistress who looked well to the ways of her household, till at lengththey married from the house with honor, and went to practice in homesof their own the lessons they had learned in the home of another.Formerly, in New England, such instances were not uncommon; would that

they might become so again!"

"The fact is," said my wife, "the places which the daughters ofAmerican farmers used to occupy in our families are now taken by younggirls from the families of small farmers in Ireland. They arerespectable, tidy, healthy, and capable of being taught. A goodmistress, who is reasonable and liberal in her treatment, is able tomake them fixtures. They get good wages, and have few expenses. Theydress handsomely, have abundant leisure to take care of their clothesand turn their wardrobes to the best account, and they very soonacquire skill in doing it equal to that displayed by any women of anycountry. They remit money continually to relatives in Ireland, andfrom time to time pay the passage of one and another to this

country,--and whole families have thus been established in Americanlife by the efforts of one young girl. Now, for my part, I do notgrudge my Irish fellow citizens these advantages obtained by honestlabor and good conduct; they deserve all the good fortune thusaccruing to them. But when I see sickly, nervous American womenjostling and struggling in the few crowded avenues which are open tomere brain, I cannot help thinking how much better their lot wouldhave been, with good strong bodies, steady nerves, healthy digestion,and the habit of looking any kind of work in the face, which used tobe characteristic of American women generally, and of Yankee women in



particular."

"The matter becomes still graver," said I, "by the laws of descent.The woman who enfeebles her muscular system by sedentary occupation,and over-stimulates her brain and nervous system, when she becomes amother perpetuates these evils to her offspring. Her children will beborn feeble and delicate, incapable of sustaining any severe strain ofbody or mind. The universal cry now about the ill health of youngAmerican girls is the fruit of some three generations of neglect ofphysical exercise and undue stimulus of brain and nerves. Young girlsnow are universally _born_ delicate. The most careful hygienictreatment during childhood, the strictest attention to diet, dress,and exercise, succeeds merely so far as to produce a girl who ishealthy so long only as she does nothing. With the least strain, herdelicate organism gives out, now here, now there. She cannot studywithout her eyes fail or she has headache,--she cannot get up her ownmuslins, or sweep a room, or pack a trunk, without bringing on abackache,--she goes to a concert or a lecture, and must lie by all thenext day from the exertion. If she skates, she is sure to strain somemuscle; or if she falls and strikes her knee or hits her ankle, ablow that a healthy girl would forget in five minutes terminates insome mysterious lameness which confines our poor sibyl for months.

"The young American girl of our times is a creature who has not a

particle of vitality to spare,--no reserved stock of force to drawupon in cases of family exigency. She is exquisitely strung, sheis cultivated, she is refined; but she is too nervous, too wiry,too sensitive,--she burns away too fast; only the easiest ofcircumstances, the most watchful of care and nursing, can keep herwithin the limits of comfortable health; and yet this is thecreature who must undertake family life in a country where it isnext to an absolute impossibility to have permanent domestics.Frequent change, occasional entire breakdowns, must be the lot ofthe majority of housekeepers,--particularly those who do not livein cities."

"In fact," said my wife, "we in America have so far got out of the way

of a womanhood that has any vigor of outline or opulence of physicalproportions that, when we see a woman made as a woman ought to be, shestrikes us as a monster. Our willowy girls are afraid of nothing somuch as growing stout; and if a young lady begins to round intoproportions like the women in Titian's and Giorgione's pictures, sheis distressed above measure, and begins to make secret inquiries intoreducing diet, and to cling desperately to the strongest corset-lacingas her only hope. It would require one to be better educated than mostof our girls are, to be willing to look like the Sistine Madonna orthe Venus of Milo.

"Once in a while our Italian opera-singers bring to our shores thoseglorious physiques which formed the inspiration of Italian painters;

and then American editors make coarse jokes about Barnum's fat woman,and avalanches, and pretend to be struck with terror at suchdimensions.

"We should be better instructed, and consider that Italy does us afavor, in sending us specimens, not only of higher styles of musicalart, but of a warmer, richer, and more abundant womanly life. Themagnificent voice is only in keeping with the magnificent proportionsof the singer. A voice which has no grate, no strain, which flowswithout effort,--which does not labor eagerly up to a high note, but



alights on it like a bird from above, there carelessly warbling andtrilling,--a voice which then without effort sinks into broad, rich,sombre depths of soft, heavy chest-tone,--can come only with aphysical nature at once strong, wide, and fine,--from a nature such asthe sun of Italy ripens, as he does her golden grapes, filling it withthe new wine of song."

"Well," said I, "so much for our strictures on Miss Letitia's letter.What comes next?"

"Here is a correspondent who answers the question, 'What shall we dowith her?'--apropos of the case of the distressed young woman which weconsidered in our first chapter."

"And what does he recommend?"

"He tells us that he should advise us to make our distressedwoman Marianne's housekeeper, and to send South for three orfour contrabands for her to train, and, with great apparentcomplacency, seems to think that course will solve all similarcases of difficulty."

"That's quite a man's view of the subject," said Jenny. "They thinkany woman who isn't particularly fitted to do anything else can keep

house.""As if housekeeping were not the very highest craft and mystery ofsocial life," said I. "I admit that our sex speak too unadvisedly onsuch topics, and, being well instructed by my household priestesses,will humbly suggest the following ideas to my correspondent.

"1st. A woman is not of course fit to be a housekeeper because she isa woman of good education and refinement.

"2d. If she were, a family with young children in it is not the properplace to establish a school for untaught contrabands, howeverdesirable their training may be.

"A woman of good education and good common sense may learn to be agood housekeeper, as she learns any trade, by going into a good familyand practicing first one and then another branch of the business, tillfinally she shall acquire the comprehensive knowledge to direct all.

"The next letter I will read:--

"DEAR MR. CROWFIELD,--Your papers relating to the domestic problemhave touched upon a difficulty which threatens to become a matterof life and death with me.

"I am a young man, with good health, good courage, and good

prospects. I have, for a young man, a fair income, and a prospectof its increase. But my business requires me to reside in acountry town, near a great manufacturing city. The demand forlabor there has made such a drain on the female population of thevicinity, that it seems, for a great part of the time, impossibleto keep any servants at all; and what we can hire are of thepoorest quality, and want exorbitant wages. My wife was awell-trained housekeeper, and knows perfectly all that pertains tothe care of a family; but she has three little children, and adelicate babe only a few weeks old; and can any one woman do all



that is needed for such a household? Something must be trusted toservants; and what is thus trusted brings such confusion and wasteand dirt into our house, that the poor woman is constantlydistraught between the disgust of having them and the utterimpossibility of doing without them.

"Now, it has been suggested that we remedy the trouble by payinghigher wages; but I find that for the very highest wages I secureonly the most miserable service; and yet, poor as it is, we areobliged to put up with it, because there is an amount of work tobe done in our family that is absolutely beyond my wife'sstrength.

"I see her health wearing away under these trials, her life made aburden; I feel no power to help her, and I ask you, Mr. Crowfield,What are we to do? What is to become of family life in thiscountry?

"Yours truly,

"A YOUNG FAMILY MAN."

"My friend's letter," said I, "touches upon the very hinge of thedifficulty of domestic life with the present generation.

"The real, vital difficulty, after all, in our American life is, thatour country is so wide, so various, so abounding in the richest fieldsof enterprise, that in every direction the cry is of the plenteousnessof the harvest and the fewness of the laborers. In short, there reallyare not laborers enough to do the work of the country.

"Since the war has thrown the whole South open to the competitionof free labor, the demand for workers is doubled and trebled.Manufactories of all sorts are enlarging their borders, increasingtheir machinery, and calling for more hands. Every article ofliving is demanded with an imperativeness and over an extent ofterritory which set at once additional thousands to the task of

production. Instead of being easier to find hands to execute in allbranches of useful labor, it is likely to grow every year moredifficult, as new departments of manufacture and trade divide theworkers. The price of labor, even now higher in this country thanin any other, will rise still higher, and thus complicate still morethe problem of domestic life. Even if a reasonable quota ofintelligent women choose domestic service, the demand will beincreasingly beyond the supply."

"And what have you to say to this," said my wife, "seeing you cannotstop the prosperity of the country?"

"Simply this,--that communities will be driven to organize, as they

now do in Europe, to lessen the labors of individual families byhaving some of the present domestic tasks done out of the house.

"In France, for example, no housekeeper counts either washing,ironing, or bread-making as part of her domestic cares. All the familywashing goes out to a laundry, and being attended to by those who makethat department of labor a specialty, it comes home in refreshinglybeautiful order.

"We in America, though we pride ourselves on our Yankee thrift, are



far behind the French in domestic economy. If all the families of aneighborhood should put together the sums they separately spend inbuying or fitting up and keeping in repair tubs, boilers, and otheraccommodations for washing, all that is consumed or wasted in soap,starch, bluing, fuel, together with the wages and board of an extraservant, the aggregate would suffice to fit up a neighborhood laundry,where one or two capable women could do easily and well what ten orfifteen women now do painfully and ill, and to the confusion andderangement of all other family processes.

"The model laundries for the poor in London had facilities which wouldenable a woman to do both the washing and ironing of a small family infrom two to three hours, and were so arranged that a very few womencould, with ease, do the work of a neighborhood.

"But in the absence of an establishment of this sort, the housekeepersof a country village might help themselves very much by owning amangle in common, to which all the heavier parts of the ironing couldbe sent. American ingenuity has greatly improved the machinery of themangle. It is no longer the heavy, cumbersome, structure that it usedto be in the Old World, but a compact, neat piece of apparatus, madein three or four different sizes to suit different-sized apartments.

"Mr. H. F. Bond, of Waltham, Massachusetts, now manufactures these

articles, and sends them to all parts of the country. The smallest ofthem does not take up much more room than a sewing-machine, can beturned by a boy of ten or twelve, and thus in the course of an hour ortwo the heaviest and most fatiguing part of a family ironing may beaccomplished.

"I should certainly advise the 'Young Family Man' with a delicate wifeand uncertain domestic help to fortify his kitchen with one of thesefixtures.

"But after all, I still say that the quarter to which I look for thesolution of the American problem of domestic life is a wise use of theprinciple of association.

"The future model village of New England, as I see it, shall have forthe use of its inhabitants not merely a town lyceum hall and a townlibrary, but a town laundry, fitted up with conveniences such as noprivate house can afford, and paying a price to the operators whichwill enable them to command an excellence of work such as privatefamilies seldom realize. It will also have a town bakery, where thebest of family bread, white, brown, and of all grains, shall becompounded; and lastly a town cook-shop, where soup and meats may bebought, ready for the table. Those of us who have kept house abroadremember the ease with which our foreign establishments were carriedon. A suite of elegant apartments, a courier, and one female servantwere the foundation of domestic life. Our courier boarded us at a

moderate expense, and the servant took care of our rooms. Punctuallyat the dinner hour every day, our dinner came in on the head of aporter from a neighboring cook-shop. A large chest lined with tin, andkept warm by a tiny charcoal stove in the centre, being deposited inan anteroom, from it came forth first soup, then fish, then roasts ofvarious names, and lastly pastry and confections,--far more coursesthan any reasonable Christian needs to keep him in healthy condition;and dinner being over, our box with its débris went out of the house,leaving a clear field.



"Now I put it to the distressed 'Young Family Man' whether these threeinstitutions of a bakery, a cook-shop, and a laundry, in the villagewhere he lives, would not virtually annihilate his household cares,and restore peace and comfort to his now distracted family.

"There really is no more reason why every family should make its ownbread than its own butter,--why every family should do its own washingand ironing than its own tailoring or mantua-making. In France, wherecertainly the arts of economy are well studied, there is somespecialty for many domestic needs for which we keep servants. Thebeautiful inlaid floors are kept waxed and glossy by a professionalgentleman who wears a brush on his foot-sole, skates gracefully overthe surface, and, leaving all right, departeth. Many families, eachpaying a small sum, keep this servant in common.

"Now, if ever there was a community which needed to study the art ofliving, it is our American one; for, at present, domestic life is sowearing and so oppressive as seriously to affect health and happiness.Whatever has been done abroad in the way of comfort and conveniencecan be done here; and the first neighborhood that shall set theexample of dividing the tasks and burdens of life by the judicious useof the principle of association will initiate a most important step inthe way of national happiness and prosperity.

"My solution, then, of the domestic problem may be formulized asfollows:--

"1st. That women make self helpfulness and family helpfulnessfashionable, and every woman use her muscles daily in enough householdwork to give her a good digestion.

"2d. That the situation of a domestic be made so respectable andrespected that well-educated American women shall be induced to takeit as a training-school for their future family life.

"3d. That families by association lighten the multifarious labors ofthe domestic sphere.

"All of which I humbly submit to the good sense and enterprise ofAmerican readers and workers."

VI

BODILY RELIGION: A SERMON ON GOOD HEALTH

One of our recent writers has said, that "good health is physical

religion;" and it is a saying worthy to be printed in golden letters.But good health being physical religion, it fully shares thatindifference with which the human race regards things confessedly themost important. The neglect of the soul is the trite theme of allreligious teachers; and, next to their souls, there is nothing thatpeople neglect so much as their bodies. Every person ought to beperfectly healthy, just as everybody ought to be perfectly religious;but, in point of fact, the greater part of mankind are so far fromperfect moral or physical religion that they cannot even form aconception of the blessing beyond them.



The mass of good, well-meaning Christians are not yet advanced enoughto guess at the change which a perfect fidelity to Christ's spirit andprecepts would produce in them. And the majority of people who callthemselves well, because they are not, at present, upon any particulardoctor's list, are not within sight of what perfect health would be.That fullness of life, that vigorous tone, and that elasticcheerfulness, which make the mere fact of existence a luxury, thatsuppleness which carries one like a well-built boat over every wave ofunfavorable chance,--these are attributes of the perfect health seldomenjoyed. We see them in young children, in animals, and now and then,but rarely, in some adult human being, who has preserved intact thereligion of the body through all opposing influences. Perfect healthsupposes not a state of mere quiescence, but of positive enjoyment inliving. See that little fellow, as his nurse turns him out in themorning, fresh from his bath, his hair newly curled, and his cheekspolished like apples. Every step is a spring or a dance; he runs, helaughs, he shouts, his face breaks into a thousand dimpling smiles ata word. His breakfast of plain bread and milk is swallowed with aneager and incredible delight,--it is so good that he stops to laugh orthump the table now and then in expression of his ecstasy. All daylong he runs and frisks and plays; and when at night the little headseeks the pillow, down go the eye-curtains, and sleep comes without adream. In the morning his first note is a laugh and a crow, as he sits

up in his crib and tries to pull papa's eyes open with his fatfingers. He is an embodied joy,--he is sunshine and music and laughterfor all the house. With what a magnificent generosity does the Authorof life endow a little mortal pilgrim in giving him at the outset ofhis career such a body as this! How miserable it is to look forwardtwenty years, when the same child, now grown a man, wakes in themorning with a dull, heavy head, the consequence of smoking andstudying till twelve or one the night before; when he rises languidlyto a late breakfast, and turns from this and tries that,--wants adeviled bone, or a cutlet with Worcestershire sauce, to make eatingpossible; and then, with slow and plodding step, finds his way to hisoffice and his books. Verily the shades of the prison-house gatherround the growing boy; for, surely, no one will deny that life often

begins with health little less perfect than that of the angels.

But the man who habitually wakes sodden, headachy, and a littlestupid, and who needs a cup of strong coffee and various stimulatingcondiments to coax his bodily system into something like fair workingorder, does not suppose he is out of health. He says, "Very well, Ithank you," to your inquiries,--merely because he has entirelyforgotten what good health is. He is well, not because of anyparticular pleasure in physical existence, but well simply because heis not a subject for prescriptions. Yet there is no store of vitality,no buoyancy, no superabundant vigor, to resist the strain and pressureto which life puts him. A checked perspiration, a draught of airill-timed, a crisis of perplexing business or care, and he is down

with a bilious attack or an influenza, and subject to doctors' ordersfor an indefinite period. And if the case be so with men, how is itwith women? How many women have at maturity the keen appetite, thejoyous love of life and motion, the elasticity and sense of physicaldelight in existence, that little children have? How many have anysuperabundance of vitality with which to meet the wear and strain oflife? And yet they call themselves well.

But is it possible, in maturity, to have the joyful fullness of thelife of childhood? Experience has shown that the delicious freshness



of this dawning hour may be preserved even to midday, and may bebrought back and restored after it has been for years a stranger.Nature, though a severe disciplinarian, is still, in many respects,most patient and easy to be entreated, and meets any repentantmovement of her prodigal children with wonderful condescension. TakeBulwer's account of the first few weeks of his sojourn at Malvern,and you will read, in very elegant English, the story of anexperience of pleasure which has surprised and delighted many apatient at a water-cure. The return to the great primitive elementsof health--water, air, and simple food, with a regular system ofexercise--has brought to many a jaded, weary, worn-down human beingthe elastic spirits, the simple, eager appetite, the sound sleep, ofa little child. Hence the rude huts and châlets of the peasantPriessnitz were crowded with battered dukes and princesses andnotables of every degree, who came from the hot, enervating luxurywhich had drained them of existence, to find a keener pleasure inpeasants' bread under peasants' roofs than in soft raiment andpalaces. No arts of French cookery can possibly make anything tasteso well to a feeble and palled appetite as plain brown bread and milktaste to a hungry water-cure patient, fresh from bath and exercise.

If the water-cure had done nothing more than establish the fact thatthe glow and joyousness of early life are things which may be restoredafter having been once wasted, it would have done a good work. For if

Nature is so forgiving to those who have once lost or have squanderedher treasures, what may not be hoped for us if we can learn the art ofnever losing the first health of childhood? And though with us, whohave passed to maturity, it may be too late for the blessing, cannotsomething be done for the children who are yet to come after us?

Why is the first health of childhood lost? Is it not the answer, thatchildhood is the only period of life in which bodily health is made aprominent object? Take our pretty boy, with cheeks like apples, whostarted in life with a hop, skip, and dance,--to whom laughter waslike breathing, and who was enraptured with plain bread and milk,--howdid he grow into the man who wakes so languid and dull, who wantsstrong coffee and Worcestershire sauce to make his breakfast go down?

When and where did he drop the invaluable talisman that once madeeverything look brighter and taste better to him, however rude andsimple, than now do the most elaborate combinations? What is the boy'shistory? Why, for the first seven years of his life his body is madeof some account. It is watched, cared for, dieted, disciplined, fedwith fresh air, and left to grow and develop like a thrifty plant. Butfrom the time school education begins, the body is steadily ignored,and left to take care of itself.

The boy is made to sit six hours a day in a close, hot room, breathingimpure air, putting the brain and the nervous system upon a constantstrain, while the muscular system is repressed to an unnatural quiet.During the six hours, perhaps twenty minutes are allowed for all that

play of the muscles which, up to this time, has been the constanthabit of his life. After this he is sent home with books, slate, andlessons to occupy an hour or two more in preparing for the next day.In the whole of this time there is no kind of effort to train thephysical system by appropriate exercise. Something of the sort wasattempted years ago in the infant schools, but soon given up; and now,from the time study first begins, the muscles are ignored in allprimary schools. One of the first results is the loss of that animalvigor which formerly made the boy love motion for its own sake. Evenin his leisure hours he no longer leaps and runs as he used to; he



learns to sit still, and by and by sitting and lounging come to be thehabit, and vigorous motion the exception, for most of the hours of theday. The education thus begun goes on from primary to high school,from high school to college, from college through professional studiesof law, medicine, or theology, with this steady contempt for the body,with no provision for its culture, training, or development, butrather a direct and evident provision for its deterioration anddecay.

The want of suitable ventilation in school-rooms, recitation-rooms,lecture-rooms, offices, court-rooms, conference-rooms, and vestries,where young students of law, medicine, and theology acquire theirearlier practice, is something simply appalling. Of itself it wouldanswer for men the question, why so many thousand glad, activechildren come to a middle life without joy,--a life whose best estateis a sort of slow, plodding endurance. The despite and hatred whichmost men seem to feel for God's gift of fresh air, and theirresolution to breathe as little of it as possible, could only comefrom a long course of education, in which they have been accustomed tolive without it. Let any one notice the conduct of our Americanpeople traveling in railroad cars. We will suppose that about half ofthem are what might be called well-educated people, who have learnedin books, or otherwise, that the air breathed from the lungs is ladenwith impurities,--that it is noxious and poisonous; and yet, travel

with these people half a day, and you would suppose from their actionsthat they considered the external air as a poison created expressly toinjure them, and that the only course of safety lay in keeping thecars hermetically sealed, and breathing over and over the vapor fromeach others' lungs. If a person in despair at the intolerable foulnessraises a window, what frowns from all the neighboring seats,especially from great rough-coated men, who always seem the first tobe apprehensive! The request to "put down that window" is almost sureto follow a moment or two of fresh air. In vain have rows ofventilators been put in the tops of some of the cars, for conductorsand passengers are both of one mind, that these ventilators are inletsof danger, and must be kept carefully closed.

Railroad traveling in America is systematically, and one would thinkcarefully, arranged so as to violate every possible law of health. Theold rule to keep the head cool and the feet warm is preciselyreversed. A red-hot stove heats the upper stratum of air tooppression, while a stream of cold air is constantly circulating aboutthe lower extremities. The most indigestible and unhealthy substancesconceivable are generally sold in the cars or at way-stations for theconfusion and distress of the stomach. Rarely can a traveler obtain soinnocent a thing as a plain good sandwich of bread and meat, whilepie, cake, doughnuts, and all other culinary atrocities are almostforced upon him at every stopping-place. In France, England, andGermany, the railroad cars are perfectly ventilated; the feet are keptwarm by flat cases filled with hot water and covered with carpet, and

answering the double purpose of warming the feet and diffusing anagreeable temperature through the car, without burning away thevitality of the air; while the arrangements at the refreshment-roomsprovide for the passenger as wholesome and well-served a meal ofhealthy, nutritious food as could be obtained in any home circle.

What are we to infer concerning the home habits of a nation of men whoso resignedly allow their bodies to be poisoned and maltreated intraveling over such an extent of territory as is covered by ourrailroad lines? Does it not show that foul air and improper food are



too much matters of course to excite attention? As a writer in "TheNation" has lately remarked, it is simply and only because theAmerican nation like to have unventilated cars, and to be fed on pieand coffee at stopping-places, that nothing better is known to ourtravelers; if there were any marked dislike of such a state of thingson the part of the people, it would not exist. We have wealth enough,and enterprise enough, and ingenuity enough, in our American nation,to compass with wonderful rapidity any end that really seems to usdesirable. An army was improvised when an army was wanted,--and anarmy more perfectly equipped, more bountifully fed, than so great abody of men ever was before. Hospitals, Sanitary Commissions, andChristian Commissions all arose out of the simple conviction of theAmerican people that they must arise. If the American people wereequally convinced that foul air was a poison,--that to have cold feetand hot heads was to invite an attack of illness,--that maple-sugar,popcorn, peppermint candy, pie, doughnuts, and peanuts are not dietfor reasonable beings,--they would have railroad accommodations verydifferent from those now in existence.

We have spoken of the foul air of court-rooms. What better illustrationcould be given of the utter contempt with which the laws of bodilyhealth are treated, than the condition of these places? Our lawyersare our highly educated men. They have been through high-school andcollege training, they have learned the properties of oxygen,

nitrogen, and carbonic-acid gas, and have seen a mouse die under anexhausted receiver, and of course they know that foul, unventilatedrooms are bad for the health; and yet generation after generation ofmen so taught and trained will spend the greater part of their livesin rooms notorious for their close and impure air, without so much asan attempt to remedy the evil. A well-ventilated court-room is afour-leaved clover among court-rooms. Young men are constantly losingtheir health at the bar; lung diseases, dyspepsia, follow them up,gradually sapping their vitality. Some of the brightest ornaments of theprofession have actually fallen dead as they stood pleading,--victimsof the fearful pressure of poisonous and heated air upon the excitedbrain. The deaths of Salmon P. Chase of Portland, uncle of our presentChief Justice, and of Ezekiel Webster, the brother of our great

statesman, are memorable examples of the calamitous effects of theerrors dwelt upon; and yet, strange to say, nothing efficient is doneto mend these errors, and give the body an equal chance with the mind inthe pressure of the world's affairs.

But churches, lecture-rooms, and vestries, and all buildingsdevoted especially to the good of the soul, are equally witness ofthe mind's disdain of the body's needs, and the body's consequentrevenge upon the soul. In how many of these places has the questionof a thorough provision of fresh air been even considered? Peoplewould never think of bringing a thousand persons into a desert placeand keeping them there without making preparations to feed them.Bread and butter, potatoes and meat, must plainly be found for them;

but a thousand human beings are put into a building to remain a givennumber of hours, and no one asks the question whether means existfor giving each one the quantum of fresh air needed for hiscirculation, and these thousand victims will consent to be slowlypoisoned, gasping, sweating, getting red in the face, with confusedand sleepy brains, while a minister with a yet redder face and amore oppressed brain struggles and wrestles, through the hot, seethingvapors, to make clear to them the mysteries of faith. How manychurches are there that for six or eight months in the year are neverventilated at all, except by the accidental opening of doors? The



foul air generated by one congregation is locked up by the sextonfor the use of the next assembly; and so gathers and gathers fromweek to week, and month to month, while devout persons upbraidthemselves, and are ready to tear their hair, because they alwaysfeel stupid and sleepy in church. The proper ventilation of theirchurches and vestries would remove that spiritual deadness of whichtheir prayers and hymns complain. A man hoeing his corn out on abreezy hillside is bright and alert, his mind works clearly, and hefeels interested in religion, and thinks of many a thing that mightbe said at the prayer-meeting at night. But at night, when he sitsdown in a little room where the air reeks with the vapor of hisneighbor's breath and the smoke of kerosene lamps, he findshimself suddenly dull and drowsy,--without emotion, without thought,without feeling,--and he rises and reproaches himself for thisstate of things. He calls upon his soul and all that is within himto bless the Lord; but the indignant body, abused, insulted,ignored, takes the soul by the throat, and says, "If you won't let _me_ have a good time, neither shall you." Revivals of religion,with ministers and with those people whose moral organization leadsthem to take most interest in them, often end in periods of bodilyill health and depression. But is there any need of this? Supposethat a revival of religion required, as a formula, that all themembers of a given congregation should daily take a minute dose ofarsenic in concert,--we should not be surprised after a while to

hear of various ill effects therefrom; and, as vestries andlecture-rooms are now arranged, a daily prayer-meeting is oftennothing more nor less than a number of persons spending half anhour a day breathing poison from each other's lungs. There is notonly no need of this, but, on the contrary, a good supply of pureair would make the daily prayer-meeting far more enjoyable. The body,if allowed the slightest degree of fair play, so far from being acontumacious infidel and opposer, becomes a very fair Christianhelper, and, instead of throttling the soul, gives it wings to riseto celestial regions.

This branch of our subject we will quit with one significant anecdote.A certain rural church was somewhat famous for its picturesque Gothic

architecture, and equally famous for its sleepy atmosphere, the rulesof Gothic symmetry requiring very small windows, which could be onlypartially opened. Everybody was affected alike in this church;minister and people complained that it was like the enchanted groundin the Pilgrim's Progress. Do what they would, sleep was ever at theirelbows; the blue, red, and green of the painted windows melted into arainbow dimness of hazy confusion; and ere they were aware, they wereoff on a cloud to the land of dreams.

An energetic sister in the church suggested the inquiry, whether itwas ever ventilated, and discovered that it was regularly locked up atthe close of service, and remained so till opened for the next week.She suggested the inquiry, whether giving the church a thorough airing

on Saturday would not improve the Sunday services; but nobody acted onher suggestion. Finally, she borrowed the sexton's key one Saturdaynight, and went into the church and opened all the windows herself,and let them remain so for the night. The next day everybody remarkedthe improved comfort of the church, and wondered what had produced thechange. Nevertheless, when it was discovered, it was not deemed amatter of enough importance to call for an order on the sexton toperpetuate the improvement.

The ventilation of private dwellings in this country is such as might



be expected from that entire indifference to the laws of healthmanifested in public establishments. Let a person travel in privateconveyance up through the valley of the Connecticut, and stop for anight at the taverns which he will usually find at the end of eachday's stage. The bedchamber into which he will be ushered will be theconcentration of all forms of bad air. The house is redolent of thevegetables in the cellar,--cabbages, turnips, and potatoes; and thisfragrance is confined and retained by the custom of closing the windowblinds and dropping the inside curtains, so that neither air norsunshine enters in to purify. Add to this the strong odor of a newfeather bed and pillows, and you have a combination of perfumes mostappalling to a delicate sense. Yet travelers take possession of theserooms, sleep in them all night without raising the window or openingthe blinds, and leave them to be shut up for other travelers.

The spare chamber of many dwellings seems to be an hermetically closedbox, opened only twice a year, for spring and fall cleaning; but forthe rest of the time closed to the sun and the air of heaven. Thriftycountry housekeepers often adopt the custom of making their beds onthe instant after they are left, without airing the sheets andmattresses; and a bed so made gradually becomes permeated with theinsensible emanations of the human body, so as to be a steadycorrupter of the atmosphere.

In the winter, the windows are calked and listed, the throat of thechimney built up with a tight brick wall, and a close stove isintroduced to help burn out the vitality of the air. In a sitting-roomlike this, from five to ten persons will spend about eight months ofthe year, with no other ventilation than that gained by the casualopening and shutting of doors. Is it any wonder that consumptionevery year sweeps away its thousands?--that people are sufferingconstant chronic ailments,--neuralgia, nervous dyspepsia, and all thehost of indefinite bad feelings that rob life of sweetness and flowerand bloom?

A recent writer raises the inquiry, whether the community would notgain in health by the demolition of all dwelling-houses. That is, he

suggests the question, whether the evils from foul air are not sogreat and so constant that they countervail the advantages of shelter.Consumptive patients far gone have been known to be cured by longjourneys, which have required them to be day and night in the openair. Sleep under the open heaven, even though the person be exposed tothe various accidents of weather, has often proved a miraculousrestorer after everything else had failed. But surely, if simple freshair is so healing and preserving a thing, some means might be found tokeep the air in a house just as pure and vigorous as it is outside.

An article in the May number of "Harpers' Magazine" presents drawingsof a very simple arrangement by which any house can be made thoroughlyself-ventilating. Ventilation, as this article shows, consists in two

things,--a perfect and certain expulsion from the dwelling of all foulair breathed from the lungs or arising from any other cause, and theconstant supply of pure air.

One source of foul air cannot be too much guarded against,--we meanimperfect gas-pipes. A want of thoroughness in execution is the sin ofour American artisans, and very few gas-fixtures are so thoroughlymade that more or less gas does not escape and mingle with the air ofthe dwelling. There are parlors where plants cannot be made to live,because the gas kills them; and yet their occupants do not seem to



reflect that an air in which a plant cannot live must be dangerous fora human being. The very clemency and long-suffering of Nature to thosewho persistently violate her laws is one great cause why men are,physically speaking, such sinners as they are. If foul air poisoned atonce and completely, we should have well-ventilated houses, whateverelse we failed to have. But because people can go on for weeks,months, and years breathing poisons, and slowly and imperceptiblylowering the tone of their vital powers, and yet be what they call"pretty well, I thank you," sermons on ventilation and fresh air go bythem as an idle song. "I don't see but we are well enough, and wenever took much pains about these things. There's air enough gets intohouses, of course. What with doors opening and windows occasionallylifted, the air of houses is generally good enough;"--and so thematter is dismissed.

One of Heaven's great hygienic teachers is now abroad in the world,giving lessons on health to the children of men. The cholera is likethe angel whom God threatened to send as leader to the rebelliousIsraelites. "Beware of him, obey his voice, and provoke him not; forhe will not pardon your transgressions." The advent of this fearfulmessenger seems really to be made necessary by the contempt with whichmen treat the physical laws of their being. What else could havepurified the dark places of New York? What a wiping-up and reformingand cleansing is going before him through the country! At last we find

that Nature is in earnest, and that her laws cannot be always ignoredwith impunity. Poisoned air is recognized at last as an evil,--evenalthough the poison cannot be weighed, measured, or tasted; and if allthe precautions that men are now willing to take could be madeperpetual, the alarm would be a blessing to the world.

Like the principles of spiritual religion, the principles of physicalreligion are few and easy to be understood. An old medical apothegmpersonifies the hygienic forces as the Doctors Air, Diet, Exercise,and Quiet: and these four will be found, on reflection, to cover thewhole ground of what is required to preserve human health. A humanbeing whose lungs have always been nourished by pure air, whosestomach has been fed only by appropriate food, whose muscles have been

systematically trained by appropriate exercises, and whose mind iskept tranquil by faith in God and a good conscience, has perfectphysical religion. There is a line where physical religion mustnecessarily overlap spiritual religion and rest upon it. No humanbeing can be assured of perfect health, through all the strain andwear and tear of such cares and such perplexities as life brings,without the rest of faith in God. An unsubmissive, unconfiding,unresigned soul will make vain the best hygienic treatment; and, onthe contrary, the most saintly religious resolution and purpose may bedefeated and vitiated by an habitual ignorance and disregard of thelaws of the physical system.

Perfect spiritual religion cannot exist without perfect physical

religion. Every flaw and defect in the bodily system is just so muchtaken from the spiritual vitality: we are commanded to glorifyGod, not simply in our spirits, but in our bodies and spirits. Theonly example of perfect manhood the world ever saw impresses usmore than anything else by an atmosphere of perfect healthiness.There is a calmness, a steadiness, in the character of Jesus, anaturalness in his evolution of the sublimest truths under the strainof the most absorbing and intense excitement, that could come onlyfrom the one perfectly trained and developed body, bearing as apure and sacred shrine the One Perfect Spirit. Jesus of Nazareth,



journeying on foot from city to city, always calm yet alwaysfervent, always steady yet glowing with a white heat of sacredenthusiasm, able to walk and teach all day and afterwards tocontinue in prayer all night, with unshaken nerves, sedatelypatient, serenely reticent, perfectly self-controlled, walked theearth, the only man that perfectly glorified God in His body no lessthan in His spirit. It is worthy of remark, that in choosing Hisdisciples He chose plain men from the laboring classes, who hadlived the most obediently to the simple, unperverted laws of nature.He chose men of good and pure bodies,--simple, natural, childlike,healthy men,--and baptized their souls with the inspiration of theHoly Spirit.

The hygienic bearings of the New Testament have never been sufficientlyunderstood. The basis of them lies in the solemn declaration, thatour bodies are to be temples of the Holy Spirit, and that all abuseof them is of the nature of sacrilege. Reverence for the physicalsystem, as the outward shrine and temple of the spiritual, is thepeculiarity of the Christian religion. The doctrine of the resurrectionof the body, and its physical immortality, sets the last crown of honorupon it. That bodily system which God declared worthy to be gatheredback from the dust of the grave, and re-created, as the soul's immortalcompanion, must necessarily be dear and precious in the eyes of itsCreator. The one passage in the New Testament in which it is spoken of

disparagingly is where Paul contrasts it with the brighter glory ofwhat is to come: "He shall change our vile bodies, that they may befashioned like his glorious body." From this passage has come abundanceof reviling of the physical system. Memoirs of good men are full ofabuse of it, as the clog, the load, the burden, the chain. It isspoken of as pollution, as corruption,--in short, one would think thatthe Creator had imitated the cruelty of some Oriental despots whohave been known to chain a festering corpse to a living body.Accordingly, the memoirs of these pious men are also mournfulrecords of slow suicide, wrought by the persistent neglect of the mostnecessary and important laws of the bodily system; and the body,outraged and downtrodden, has turned traitor to the soul, and playedthe adversary with fearful power. Who can tell the countless temptations

to evil which flow in from a neglected, disordered, derangednervous system,--temptations to anger, to irritability, to selfishness,to every kind of sin of appetite and passion? No wonder that the poorsoul longs for the hour of release from such a companion.

But that human body which God declares expressly was made to be thetemple of the Holy Spirit, which he considers worthy to be perpetuatedby a resurrection and an immortal existence, cannot be intended to bea clog and a hindrance to spiritual advancement. A perfect body,working in perfect tune and time, would open glimpses of happiness tothe soul approaching the joys we hope for in heaven. It is onlythrough the images of things which our bodily senses have taught us,that we can form any conception of that future bliss; and the more

perfect these senses, the more perfect our conceptions must be.

The conclusion of the whole matter, and the practical application ofthis sermon, is,--First, that all men set themselves to form the ideaof what perfect health is, and resolve to realize it for themselvesand their children. Second, that with a view to this they study thereligion of the body, in such simple and popular treatises as those ofGeorge Combe, Dr. Dio Lewis, and others, and with simple and honesthearts practice what they there learn. Third, that the training of thebodily system should form a regular part of our common-school



each other? No person of common sense ever puts forth any idea hecares twopence about, under such circumstances; all that is exchangedis a certain set of commonplaces and platitudes which people keep forparties, just as they do their kid gloves and finery. Now there areour neighbors, the Browns. When they drop in of an evening, sheknitting, and he with the last article in the paper, she really comesout with a great deal of fresh, lively, earnest, original talk. Wehave a good time, and I like her so much that it quite verges onloving; but see her in a party, when she manifests herself over fiveor six flounces of pink silk and a perfect egg-froth of tulle, herhead adorned with a thicket of crêped hair and roses, and it is plainat first view that talking with her is quite out of the question. Whathas been done to her head on the outside has evidently had some effectwithin, for she is no longer the Mrs. Brown you knew in her every-daydress, but Mrs. Brown in a party state of mind, and too distracted tothink of anything in particular. She has a few words that she answersto everything you say, as for example, 'Oh, very!' 'Certainly!' 'Howextraordinary!' 'So happy to,' etc. The fact is, that she has comeinto a state in which any real communication with her mind andcharacter must be suspended till the party is over and she is rested.Now I like society, which is the reason why I hate parties."

"But you see," said Marianne, "what are we to do? Everybody can't dropin to spend an evening with you. If it were not for these parties,

there are quantities of your acquaintances whom you would nevermeet."

"And of what use is it to meet them? Do you really know them anybetter for meeting them got up in unusual dresses, and sitting downtogether when the only thing exchanged is the remark that it is hot orcold, or it rains, or it is dry, or any other patent surface-fact thatanswers the purpose of making believe you are talking when neither ofyou is saying a word?"

"Well, now, for my part," said Marianne, "I confess I like parties:they amuse me. I come home feeling kinder and better to people, justfor the little I see of them when they are all dressed up and in good

humor with themselves. To be sure we don't say anything veryprofound,--I don't think the most of us have anything profound to say;but I ask Mrs. Brown where she buys her lace, and she tells me how shewashes it, and somebody else tells me about her baby, and promises mea new sack-pattern. Then I like to see the pretty, nice young girlsflirting with the nice young men; and I like to be dressed up a littlemyself, even if my finery is all old and many times made over. It doesme good to be rubbed up and brightened."

"Like old silver," said Bob.

"Yes, like old silver, precisely; and even if I do come home tired, itdoes my mind good to have that change of scene and faces. You men do

not know what it is to be tied to house and nursery all day, and whata perfect weariness and lassitude it often brings on us women. For mypart I think parties are a beneficial institution of society, and thatit is worth a good deal of fatigue and trouble to get one up."

"Then there's the expense," said Bob. "What earthly need is there of agrand regale of oysters, chicken salad, ice-creams, coffee, andchampagne, between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, when no one ofus would ever think of wanting or taking any such articles upon ourstomachs in our own homes? If we were all of us in the habit of having



a regular repast at that hour, it might be well enough to enjoy onewith our neighbor; but the party fare is generally just so much inaddition to the honest three meals which we have eaten during the day.Now, to spend from fifty to one, two, or three hundred dollars ingiving all our friends an indigestion from a midnight meal seems to mea very poor investment. Yet if we once begin to give the party, wemust have everything that is given at the other parties, or whereforedo we live? And caterers and waiters rack their brains to devise newforms of expense and extravagance; and when the bill comes in, one issure to feel that one is paying a great deal of money for a great dealof nonsense. It is in fact worse than nonsense, because our dearfriends are, in half the cases, not only no better, but a great dealworse, for what they have eaten."

"But there is this advantage to society," said Rudolph,--"it helps usyoung physicians. What would the physicians do if parties wereabolished? Take all the colds that are caught by our fair friends withlow necks and short sleeves, all the troubles from dancing in tightdresses and inhaling bad air, and all the headaches and indigestionfrom the _mélange_ of lobster salad, two or three kinds of ice-cream,cake, and coffee on delicate stomachs, and our profession gets adegree of encouragement that is worthy to be thought of."

"But the question arises," said my wife, "whether there are not ways

of promoting social feeling less expensive, more simple and naturaland rational. I am inclined to think that there are."

"Yes," said Theophilus Thoro; "for large parties are not, as a generalthing, given with any wish or intention of really improving ouracquaintance with our neighbors. In many cases they are openly andavowedly a general tribute paid at intervals to society, for and inconsideration of which you are to sit with closed blinds and doors andbe let alone for the rest of the year. Mrs. Bogus, for instance, livesto keep her house in order, her closets locked, her silver counted andin the safe, and her china-closet in undisturbed order. Her 'bestthings' are put away with such admirable precision, in so manywrappings and foldings, and secured with so many a twist and twine,

that to get them out is one of the seven labors of Hercules, not tobe lightly or unadvisedly taken in hand, but reverently, discreetly,and once for all, in an annual or biennial party. Then says Mrs.Bogus, 'For Heaven's sake, let's have every creature we can think of,and have 'em all over with at once. For pity's sake, let's have nodriblets left that we shall have to be inviting to dinner or to tea.No matter whether they can come or not,--only send them theinvitation, and our part is done; and, thank Heaven! we shall be freefor a year.'"

"Yes," said my wife; "a great stand-up party bears just the samerelation towards the offer of real hospitality and good will as MissSally Brass's offer of meat to the little hungry Marchioness, when,

with a bit uplifted on the end of a fork, she addressed her, 'Will youhave this piece of meat? No? Well, then, remember and don't say youhaven't had meat _offered_ to you!' You are invited to a general jam,at the risk of your life and health; and if you refuse, don't say youhaven't had hospitality offered to you. All our debts are wiped outand our slate clean; now we will have our own closed doors, no companyand no trouble, and our best china shall repose undisturbed on itsshelves. Mrs. Bogus says she never could exist in the way that Mrs.Easygo does, with a constant drip of company,--two or three tobreakfast one day, half a dozen to dinner the next, and little evening



gatherings once or twice a week. It must keep her house in confusionall the time; yet, for real social feeling, real exchange of thoughtand opinion, there is more of it in one half-hour at Mrs. Easygo'sthan in a dozen of Mrs. Bogus's great parties.

"The fact is, that Mrs. Easygo really does like the society ofhuman beings. She is genuinely and heartily social; and, inconsequence, though she has very limited means, and no money tospend in giving great entertainments, her domestic establishment isa sort of social exchange, where more friendships are formed, morereal acquaintance made, and more agreeable hours spent, than in anyother place that can be named. She never has large parties,--greatgeneral pay-days of social debts,--but small, well-chosen circles ofpeople, selected so thoughtfully, with a view to the pleasure whichcongenial persons give each other, as to make the invitation an actof real personal kindness. She always manages to have something forthe entertainment of her friends, so that they are not reduced tothe simple alternative of gaping at each other's dresses andeating lobster salad and ice-cream. There is either some choicemusic, or a reading of fine poetry, or a well-acted charade, or aportfolio of photographs and pictures, to enliven the hour andstart conversation; and as the people are skillfully chosen withreference to each other, as there is no hurry or heat or confusion,conversation, in its best sense, can bubble up, fresh, genuine, clear,

and sparkling as a woodland spring, and one goes away really restedand refreshed. The slight entertainment provided is just enough toenable you to eat salt together in Arab fashion,--not enough to formthe leading feature of the evening. A cup of tea and a basket ofcake, or a salver of ices, silently passed at quiet intervals, donot interrupt conversation or overload the stomach."

"The fact is," said I, "that the art of society among us Anglo-Saxonsis yet in its rudest stages. We are not, as a race, social andconfiding, like the French and Italians and Germans. We have a wordfor home, and our home is often a moated grange, an island, a castlewith its drawbridge up, cutting us off from all but our ownhome-circle. In France and Germany and Italy there are the boulevards

and public gardens, where people do their family living in common. Mr.A. is breakfasting under one tree, with wife and children around, andMr. B. is breakfasting under another tree, hard by; and messages,nods, and smiles pass backward and forward. Families see each otherdaily in these public resorts, and exchange mutual offices of goodwill. Perhaps from these customs of society come that naïvesimplicity and abandon which one remarks in the Continental, inopposition to the Anglo-Saxon, habits of conversation. A Frenchman oran Italian will talk to you of his feeling and plans and prospectswith an unreserve that is perfectly unaccountable to you, who havealways felt that such things must be kept for the very innermostcircle of home privacy. But the Frenchman or Italian has from a childbeen brought up to pass his family life in places of public resort, in

constant contact and intercommunion with other families; and thesocial and conversational instinct has thus been daily strengthened.Hence the reunions of these people have been characterized by asprightliness and vigor and spirit that the Anglo-Saxon has in vainattempted to seize and reproduce. English and American _conversazioni_ have very generally proved a failure, from the rooted, frozen habit ofreticence and reserve which grows with our growth and strengthens withour strength. The fact is, that the Anglo-Saxon race as a race doesnot enjoy talking, and, except in rare instances, does not talk well.A daily convocation of people, without refreshments or any extraneous



object but the simple pleasure of seeing and talking with each other,is a thing that can scarcely be understood in English or Americansociety. Social entertainment presupposes in the Anglo-Saxon mindsomething to eat, and not only something, but a great deal. Enormousdinners or great suppers constitute the entertainment. Nobody seems tohave formed the idea that the talking--the simple exchange of socialfeelings--is, of itself, the entertainment, and that being together isthe pleasure.

"Madame Rocamier for years had a circle of friends who met everyafternoon in her salon from four to six o'clock, for the simple andsole pleasure of talking with each other. The very first wits and menof letters and statesmen and savans were enrolled in it, and eachbrought to the entertainment some choice morceau which he had laidaside from his own particular field to add to the feast. The dailyintimacy gave each one such perfect insight into all the others'habits of thought, tastes, and preferences, that the conversation waslike the celebrated music of the Conservatoire in Paris, a concert ofperfectly chorded instruments taught by long habit of harmoniousintercourse to keep exact time and tune together.

"Real conversation presupposes intimate acquaintance. People must seeeach other often enough to wear off the rough bark and outside rind ofcommonplaces and conventionalities in which their real ideas are

enwrapped, and give forth without reserve their innermost and bestfeelings. Now what is called a large party is the first and rudestform of social intercourse. The most we can say of it is, that it isbetter than nothing. Men and women are crowded together like cattle ina pen. They look at each other, they jostle each other, exchange a fewcommon bleatings, and eat together; and so the performance terminates.One may be crushed evening after evening against men or women, andlearn very little about them. You may decide that a lady isgood-tempered, when any amount of trampling on the skirt of her newsilk dress brings no cloud to her brow. But _is_ it good temper, oronly wanton carelessness, which cares nothing for waste? You can seethat a man is not a gentleman who squares his back to ladies at thesupper-table, and devours boned turkey and _paté de foie gras_, while

they vainly reach over and around him for something, and that anotheris a gentleman so far as to prefer the care of his weaker neighbors tothe immediate indulgence of his own appetites; but further than thisyou learn little. Sometimes, it is true, in some secluded corner, twopeople of fine nervous system, undisturbed by the general confusion,may have a sociable half-hour, and really part feeling that they likeeach other better, and know more of each other than before. Yet thesegeneral gatherings have, after all, their value. They are not so goodas something better would be, but they cannot be wholly dispensedwith. It is far better that Mrs. Bogus should give an annual party,when she takes down all her bedsteads and throws open her whole house,than that she should never see her friends and neighbors inside herdoors at all. She may feel that she has neither the taste nor the

talent for constant small reunions. Such things, she may feel, requirea social tact which she has not. She would be utterly at a loss how toconduct them. Each one would cost her as much anxiety and thought asher annual gathering, and prove a failure after all; whereas theannual demonstration can be put wholly into the hands of the caterer,who comes in force, with flowers, silver, china, servants, and, takingthe house into his own hands, gives her entertainment for her, leavingto her no responsibility but the payment of the bills; and if Mr.Bogus does not quarrel with them, we know no reason why any one elseshould; and I think Mrs. Bogus merits well of the republic, for doing



what she can do towards the hospitalities of the season. I'm sure Inever cursed her in my heart, even when her strong coffee has heldmine eyes open till morning, and her superlative lobster salads havegiven me the very darkest views of human life that ever dyspepsia andeast wind could engender. Mrs. Bogus is the Eve who offers the apple;but after all, I am the foolish Adam who take and eat what I know isgoing to hurt me, and I am too gallant to visit my sins on the head ofmy too obliging tempter. In country places in particular, where littleis going on and life is apt to stagnate, a good, large, generousparty, which brings the whole neighborhood into one house to have ajolly time, to eat, drink, and be merry, is really quite a work oflove and mercy. People see one another in their best clothes, and thatis something; the elders exchange all manner of simple pleasantriesand civilities, and talk over their domestic affairs, while the youngpeople flirt, in that wholesome manner which is one of the safest ofyouthful follies. A country party, in fact, may be set down as a workof benevolence, and the money expended thereon fairly charged to theaccount of the great cause of peace and good will on earth."

"But don't you think," said my wife, "that, if the charge of providingthe entertainment were less laborious, these gatherings could be morefrequent? You see, if a woman feels that she must have five kinds ofcake, and six kinds of preserves, and even ice-cream and jellies in aregion where no confectioner comes in to abbreviate her labors, she

will sit with closed doors, and do nothing towards the generalexchange of life, because she cannot do as much as Mrs. Smith or Mrs.Parsons. If the idea of meeting together had some other focal pointthan eating, I think there would be more social feeling. It might be amusical reunion, where the various young people of a circle agreed tofurnish each a song or an instrumental performance. It might be animpromptu charade party, bringing out something of that taste inarrangement of costume, and capacity for dramatic effect, of whichthere is more latent in society than we think. It might be the readingof articles in prose and poetry furnished to a common paper orportfolio, which would awaken an abundance of interest and speculationon the authorship, or it might be dramatic readings and recitations.Any or all of these pastimes might make an evening so entertaining

that a simple cup of tea and a plate of cake or biscuit would be allthe refreshment needed."

"We may with advantage steal a leaf now and then from some foreignbook," said I. "In France and Italy, families have their peculiar daysset apart for the reception of friends at their own houses. The wholehouse is put upon a footing of hospitality and invitation, and thewhole mind is given to receiving the various friends. In the eveningthe salon is filled. The guests, coming from week to week, for years,become in time friends; the resort has the charm of a home circle;there are certain faces that you are always sure to meet there. A ladyonce said to me of a certain gentleman and lady whom she missed fromher circle, 'They have been at our house every Wednesday evening for

twenty years.' It seems to me that this frequency of meeting is thegreat secret of agreeable society. One sees, in our American life,abundance of people who are everything that is charming andcultivated, but one never sees enough of them. One meets them at somequiet reunion, passes a delightful hour, thinks how charming they are,and wishes one could see more of them. But the pleasant meeting islike the encounter of two ships in mid-ocean: away we sail, each onhis respective course, to see each other no more till the pleasantremembrance has died away. Yet were there some quiet, home-like resortwhere we might turn in to renew from time to time the pleasant



intercourse, to continue the last conversation, and to compare anewour readings and our experiences, the pleasant hour of liking wouldripen into a warm friendship.

"But in order that this may be made possible and practicable, theutmost simplicity of entertainment must prevail. In a French salonall is to the last degree informal. The _bouilloire_, the Frenchtea-kettle, is often tended by one of the gentlemen, who aids hisfair neighbors in the mysteries of tea-making. One nymph is always tobe found at the table dispensing tea and talk; and a basket of simplebiscuit and cakes, offered by another, is all the further repast. Theteacups and cake-basket are a real addition to the scene, becausethey cause a little lively social bustle, a little chatter andmotion,--always of advantage in breaking up stiffness, and givingoccasion for those graceful, airy nothings that answer so good apurpose in facilitating acquaintance.

"Nothing can be more charming than the description which Edmond Aboutgives, in his novel of 'Tolla,' of the reception evenings of an oldnoble Roman family,--the spirit of repose and quietude through all theapartments; the ease of coming and going; the perfect home-like spiritin which the guests settle themselves to any employment of the hourthat best suits them: some to lively chat, some to dreamy, silentlounging, some to a game, others in a distant apartment to music, and

others still to a promenade along the terraces."One is often in a state of mind and nerves which indisposes for theeffort of active conversation; one wishes to rest, to observe, to beamused without an effort; and a mansion which opens wide itshospitable arms, and offers itself to you as a sort of home, where youmay rest, and do just as the humor suits you, is a perfect godsend atsuch times. You are at home there, your ways are understood, you cando as you please,--come early or late, be brilliant or dull,--you arealways welcome. If you can do nothing for the social whole to-night,it matters not. There are many more nights to come in the future, andyou are entertained on trust, without a challenge.

"I have one friend,--a man of genius, subject to the ebbs and flows ofanimal spirits which attend that organization. Of general society hehas a nervous horror. A regular dinner or evening party is to him aterror, an impossibility; but there is a quiet parlor where stands amuch-worn old sofa, and it is his delight to enter without knocking,and be found lying with half-shut eyes on this friendly couch, whilethe family life goes on around him without a question. Nobody is tomind him, to tease him with inquiries or salutations. If he will, hebreaks into the stream of conversation, and sometimes, rousing up fromone of these dreamy trances, finds himself, ere he or they know how,in the mood for free and friendly talk. People often wonder, 'How doyou catch So-and-so? He is so shy! I have invited and invited, and henever comes.' We never invite, and he comes. We take no note of his

coming or his going; we do not startle his entrance with acclamation,nor clog his departure with expostulation; it is fully understood thatwith us he shall do just as he chooses; and so he chooses to do muchthat we like.

"The sum of this whole doctrine of society is, that we are to try thevalue of all modes and forms of social entertainment by their effectin producing real acquaintance and real friendship and good will. Thefirst and rudest form of seeking this is by a great promiscuous party,which simply effects this,--that people at least see each other on the



outside, and eat together. Next come all those various forms ofreunion in which the entertainment consists of something higher thanstaring and eating,--some exercise of the faculties of the guests inmusic, acting, recitation, reading, etc.; and these are a greatadvance, because they show people what is in them, and thus lay afoundation for a more intelligent appreciation and acquaintance. Theseare the best substitute for the expense, show, and trouble of largeparties. They are in their nature more refining and intellectual. Itis astonishing, when people really put together, in some one club orassociation, all the different talents for pleasing possessed bydifferent persons, how clever a circle may be gathered,--in the leastpromising neighborhood. A club of ladies in one of our cities has hadquite a brilliant success. It is held every fortnight at the houses ofthe members, according to alphabetical sequence. The lady who receiveshas charge of arranging what the entertainment shall be,--whethercharade, tableau, reading, recitation, or music; and the interest ismuch increased by the individual taste shown in the choice of thediversion and the variety which thence follows.

"In the summertime, in the country, open-air reunions are charmingforms of social entertainment. Croquet parties, which bring youngpeople together by daylight for a healthy exercise, and end with amoderate share of the evening, are a very desirable amusement. Whatare called 'lawn teas' are finding great favor in England and some

parts of our country. They are simply an early tea enjoyed in a sortof picnic style in the grounds about the house. Such an entertainmentenables one to receive a great many at a time, without crowding, and,being in its very idea rustic and informal, can be arranged with verylittle expense or trouble. With the addition of lanterns in the treesand a little music, this entertainment may be carried on far into theevening with a very pretty effect.

"As to dancing, I have this much to say of it. Either our houses mustbe all built over and made larger, or female crinolines must be madesmaller, or dancing must continue as it now is, the most absurd andungraceful of all attempts at amusement. The effort to execute rounddances in the limits of modern houses, in the prevailing style of

dress, can only lead to developments more startling than agreeable.Dancing in the open air, on the shaven green of lawns, is a pretty andgraceful exercise, and there only can full sweep be allowed for thepresent feminine toilet.

"The English breakfast is an institution growing in favor here, andrightfully, too; for a party of fresh, good-natured, well-dressedpeople, assembled at breakfast on a summer morning, is as nearlyperfect a form of reunion as can be devised. All are in full strengthfrom their night's rest; the hour is fresh and lovely, and they are incondition to give each other the very cream of their thoughts, thefirst keen sparkle of the uncorked nervous system. The only drawbackis that, in our busy American life, the most desirable gentlemen often

cannot spare their morning hours. Breakfast parties presuppose acondition of leisure; but when they can be compassed, they areperhaps the most perfectly enjoyable of entertainments."

"Well," said Marianne, "I begin to waver about my party. I don't know,after all, but the desire of paying off social debts prompted theidea; perhaps we might try some of the agreeable things suggested.But, dear me! there's the baby. We'll finish the talk some othertime."



VIII

HOW SHALL WE BE AMUSED

"One, two, three, four,--this makes the fifth accident on the Fourthof July, in the two papers I have just read," said Jenny.

"A very moderate allowance," said Theophilus Thoro, "if you considerthe Fourth as a great national saturnalia, in which every boy in theland has the privilege of doing whatever is right in his own eyes."

"The poor boys!" said Mrs. Crowfield. "All the troubles of the worldare laid at their door."

"Well," said Jenny, "they did burn the city of Portland, it appears.The fire arose from firecrackers, thrown by boys among the shavings ofa carpenter's shop,--so says the paper."

"And," said Rudolph, "we surgeons expect a harvest of business fromthe Fourth, as surely as from a battle. Certain to be woundings,

fractures, possibly amputations, following the proceedings of ourglorious festival."

"Why cannot we Americans learn to amuse ourselves peaceably like othernations?" said Bob Stephens. "In France and Italy, the greatestnational festivals pass off without fatal accident, or danger to anyone. The fact is, in our country we have not learned _how to beamused_. Amusement has been made of so small account in our philosophyof life, that we are raw and unpracticed in being amused. Ourdiversions, compared with those of the politer nations of Europe, arecoarse and savage,--and consist mainly in making disagreeable noisesand disturbing the peace of the community by rude uproar. The onlyidea an American boy associates with the Fourth of July is that of

gunpowder in some form, and a wild liberty to fire off pistols in allmiscellaneous directions, and to throw firecrackers under the heels ofhorses, and into crowds of women and children, for the fun of seeingthe stir and commotion thus produced. Now take a young Parisian boyand give him a fête, and he conducts himself with greater gentlenessand good breeding, because he is part of a community in which the artof amusement has been refined and perfected, so that he has a thousandresources beyond the very obvious one of making a great banging anddisturbance.

"Yes," continued Bob Stephens, "the fact is, that our grim old Puritanfathers set their feet down resolutely on all forms of amusement; theywould have stopped the lambs from wagging their tails, and shot the

birds for singing, if they could have had their way; and inconsequence of it, what a barren, cold, flowerless life is our NewEngland existence! Life is all, as Mantalini said, one 'demd horridgrind.' 'Nothing here but working and going to church,' said theGerman emigrants,--and they were about right. A French traveler, inthe year 1837, says that attending the Thursday-evening lectures andchurch prayer-meetings was the only recreation of the young people ofBoston; and we can remember the time when this really was noexaggeration. Think of that, with all the seriousness of our Bostoneast winds to give it force, and fancy the provision for amusement in



our society! The consequence is, that boys who have the longing foramusement strongest within them, and plenty of combativeness to backit, are the standing terror of good society, and our Fourth of July isa day of fear to all invalids and persons of delicate nervousorganization, and of real, appreciable danger of life and limb toevery one."

"Well, Robert," said my wife, "though I agree with you as to theactual state of society in this respect, I must enter my protestagainst your slur on the memory of our Pilgrim fathers."

"Yes," said Theophilus Thoro, "the New Englanders are the only people,I believe, who take delight in vilifying their ancestry. Every younghopeful in our day makes a target of his grandfather's gravestone, andfires away, with great self-applause. People in general seem to liketo show that they are well-born, and come of good stock; but the youngNew Englanders, many of them, appear to take pleasure in insistingthat they came of a race of narrow-minded, persecuting bigots.

"It is true, that our Puritan fathers saw not everything. They made astate where there were no amusements, but where people could go to bedand leave their house doors wide open all night, without a shadow offear or danger, as was for years the custom in all our countryvillages. The fact is, that the simple early New England life, before

we began to import foreigners, realized a state of society in whosepossibility Europe would scarcely believe. If our fathers had fewamusements, they needed few. Life was too really and solidlycomfortable and happy to need much amusement.

"Look over the countries where people are most sedulously amused bytheir rulers and governors. Are they not the countries where thepeople are most oppressed, most unhappy in their circumstances, andtherefore in greatest need of amusement? It is the slave who dancesand sings, and why? Because he owns nothing, and can own nothing, andmay as well dance and forget the fact. But give the slave a farm ofhis own, a wife of his own, and children of his own, with aschoolhouse and a vote, and ten to one he dances no more. He needs no

amusement, because he is happy.

"The legislators of Europe wished nothing more than to bring up apeople who would be content with amusements, and not ask after theirrights or think too closely how they were governed. 'Gild the dome ofthe Invalides,' was Napoleon's scornful prescription, when he heardthe Parisian population were discontented. They gilded it, and thepeople forgot to talk about anything else. They were a childish race,educated from the cradle on spectacle and show, and by the sight oftheir eyes could they be governed. The people of Boston, in 1776,could not have been managed in this way, chiefly because they werebrought up in the strict schools of the fathers."

"But don't you think," said Jenny, "that something might be added andamended in the state of society our fathers established here in NewEngland? Without becoming frivolous, there might be more attentionpaid to rational amusement."

"Certainly," said my wife, "the State and the Church both might take alesson from the providence of foreign governments, and make liberty,to say the least, as attractive as despotism. It is a very unwisemother that does not provide her children with playthings."



"And yet," said Bob, "the only thing that the Church has yet done isto forbid and to frown. We have abundance of tracts against dancing,whist-playing, ninepins, billiards, operas, theatres,--in short,anything that young people would be apt to like. The General Assemblyof the Presbyterian Church refused to testify against slavery, becauseof political diffidence, but made up for it by ordering a morestringent crusade against dancing. The theatre and opera grow up andexist among us like plants on the windy side of a hill, blown all awryby a constant blast of conscientious rebuke. There is really noamusement young people are fond of, which they do not pursue, in asort of defiance of the frown of the peculiarly religious world. Withall the telling of what the young shall _not_ do, there has been verylittle telling what they shall do.

"The whole department of amusements--certainly one of the mostimportant in education--has been by the Church made a sort of outlaws'ground, to be taken possession of and held by all sorts of spiritualragamuffins; and then the faults and shortcomings resulting from thisarrangement have been held up and insisted on as reasons why noChristian should ever venture into it.

"If the Church would set herself to amuse her young folks, instead ofdiscussing doctrines and metaphysical hair-splitting, she would proveherself a true mother, and not a hard-visaged stepdame. Let her keep

this department, so powerful and so difficult to manage, in what aremorally the strongest hands, instead of giving it up to the weakest.

"I think, if the different churches of a city, for example, would renta building where there should be a billiard-table, one or twoninepin-alleys, a reading-room, a garden and grounds for ball playingor innocent lounging, that they would do more to keep their youngpeople from the ways of sin than a Sunday-school could. Nay, more: Iwould go further. I would have a portion of the building fitted upwith scenery and a stage, for the getting up of tableaux or dramaticperformances, and thus give scope for the exercise of that histrionictalent of which there is so much lying unemployed in society.

"Young people do not like amusements any better for the wickednessconnected with them. The spectacle of a sweet little child singinghymns, and repeating prayers, of a pious old Uncle Tom dying for hisreligion, has filled theatres night after night, and proved that therereally is no need of indecent or improper plays to draw full houses.

"The things that draw young people to places of amusement are not atfirst gross things. Take the most notorious public place inParis,--the Jardin Mabille, for instance,--and the things which giveit its first charm are all innocent and artistic. Exquisite beds oflilies, roses, gillyflowers, lighted with jets of gas so artfully asto make every flower translucent as a gem; fountains where thegaslight streams out from behind misty wreaths of falling water and

calla-blossoms; sofas of velvet turf, canopied with fragranthoneysuckle; dim bowers overarched with lilacs and roses; adancing-ground under trees whose branches bend with a fruitage ofmany-colored lamps; enchanting music and graceful motion; in all thesethere is not only no sin, but they are really beautiful and desirable;and if they were only used on the side and in the service of virtueand religion, if they were contrived and kept up by the guardians andinstructors of youth, instead of by those whose interest it is todemoralize and destroy, young people would have no temptation to strayinto the haunts of vice.



"In Prussia, under the reign of Frederick William II., when onegood, hard-handed man governed the whole country like a strictschoolmaster, the public amusements for the people were made suchas to present a model for all states. The theatres were strictlysupervised, and actors obliged to conform to the rules of decorumand morality. The plays and performances were under the immediatesupervision of men of grave morals, who allowed nothing corruptingto appear; and the effect of this administration and restraint is tobe seen in Berlin even to this day. The public gardens are full ofcharming little resorts, where, every afternoon, for a very moderatesum, one can have either a concert of good music, or a very fairdramatic or operatic performance. Here whole families may be seenenjoying together a wholesome and refreshing entertainment,--themother and aunts with their knitting, the baby, the children of allages, and the father,--their faces radiant with that mild German lightof contentment and good will which one feels to be characteristic ofthe nation. When I saw these things, and thought of our own outcast,unprovided boys and young men, haunting the streets and alleys ofcities, in places far from the companionship of mothers andsisters, I felt as if it would be better for a nation to be broughtup by a good strict schoolmaster king than to try to be a republic."

"Yes," said I, "but the difficulty is to get the good schoolmaster

king. For one good shepherd, there are twenty who use the sheep onlyfor their flesh and their wool. Republics can do all that kingscan,--witness our late army and sanitary commission. Once fix the ideathoroughly in the public mind that there ought to be as regular andcareful provision for public amusement as there is for going to churchand Sunday-school, and it will be done. Central Park in New York is abeginning in the right direction, and Brooklyn is following theexample of her sister city. There is, moreover, an indication of theproper spirit in the increased efforts that are made to beautifySunday-school rooms, and make them interesting, and to haveSunday-school fêtes and picnics,--the most harmless and commendableway of celebrating the Fourth of July. Why should saloons andbar-rooms be made attractive by fine paintings, choice music, flowers,

and fountains, and Sunday-school rooms be four bare walls? There arechurches whose broad aisles represent ten and twenty millions ofdollars, and whose sons and daughters are daily drawn to circuses,operas, theatres, because they have tastes and feelings, in themselvesperfectly laudable and innocent, for the gratification of which noprovision is made in any other place."

"I know one church," said Rudolph, "whose Sunday-school room is asbeautifully adorned as any haunt of sin. There is a fountain in thecentre, which plays into a basin surrounded with shells and flowers;it has a small organ to lead the children's voices, and the walls arehung with oil paintings and engravings from the best masters. Thefestivals of the Sabbath school, which are from time to time held in

this place, educate the taste of the children, as well as amuse them;and, above all, they have through life the advantage of associatingwith their early religious education all those ideas of taste,elegance, and artistic culture which too often come through pollutedchannels.

"When the amusement of the young shall become the care of theexperienced and the wise, and the floods of wealth that are nowrolling over and over, in silent investments, shall be put into theform of innocent and refined pleasures for the children and youth of



the state, our national festivals may become days to be desired, andnot dreaded.

"On the Fourth of July, our city fathers do in a certain dim wiseperceive that the public owes some attempt at amusement to itschildren, and they vote large sums, principally expended inbell-ringing, cannon, and fireworks. The sidewalks are witness to thenumber who fall victims to the temptations held out by grog-shops andsaloons; and the papers, for weeks after, are crowded with accounts ofaccidents. Now, a yearly sum expended to keep up, and keep pure,places of amusement which hold out no temptation to vice, but whichexcel all vicious places in real beauty and attractiveness, wouldgreatly lessen the sum needed to be expended on any one particularday, and would refine and prepare our people to keep holidays andfestivals appropriately."

"For my part," said Mrs. Crowfield, "I am grieved at the opprobriumwhich falls on the race of _boys_. Why should the most critical era inthe life of those who are to be men, and to govern society, be passedin a sort of outlawry,--a rude warfare with all existing institutions?The years between ten and twenty are full of the nervous excitabilitywhich marks the growth and maturing of the manly nature. The boy feelswild impulses, which ought to be vented in legitimate and healthfulexercise. He wants to run, shout, wrestle, ride, row, skate; and all

these together are often not sufficient to relieve the need he feelsof throwing off the excitability that burns within.

"For the wants of this period what safe provision is made by thechurch, or by the state, or any of the boy's lawful educators? In allthe Prussian schools amusements are as much a part of the regularschool system as grammar or geography. The teacher is with the boys onthe playground, and plays as heartily as any of them. The boy has hisphysical wants anticipated. He is not left to fight his way, blindlystumbling against society, but goes forward in a safe path, which hiselders and betters have marked out for him.

"In our country, the boy's career is often a series of skirmishes with

society. He wants to skate, and contrives ingeniously to dam thecourse of a brook and flood a meadow which makes a splendidskating-ground. Great is the joy for a season, and great the skating.But the water floods the neighboring cellars. The boys are cursedthrough all the moods and tenses,--boys are such a plague! The dam istorn down with emphasis and execration. The boys, however, lie in waitsome cold night, between twelve and one, and build it up again; andthus goes on the battle. The boys care not whose cellar they flood,because nobody cares for their amusement. They understand themselvesto be outlaws, and take an outlaw's advantage.

"Again, the boys have their sleds; and sliding down hill is splendidfun. But they trip up some grave citizen, who sprains his shoulder.

What is the result? Not the provision of a safe, good place, whereboys _may_ slide down hill without danger to any one, but an edictforbidding all sliding, under penalty of fine.

"Boys want to swim: it is best they should swim; and if city fathers,foreseeing and caring for this want, should think it worth while tomark off some good place, and have it under such police surveillanceas to enforce decency of language and demeanor, they would prevent agreat deal that now is disagreeable in the unguided efforts of boys toenjoy this luxury.



"It would be cheaper in the end, even if one had to build sliding-piles,as they do in Russia, or to build skating-rinks, as they do inMontreal,--it would be cheaper for every city, town, and village toprovide legitimate amusement for boys, under proper superintendence,than to leave them, as they are now left, to fight their way againstsociety.

"In the boys' academies of our country, what provision is made foramusement? There are stringent rules, and any number of them, toprevent boys making any noise that may disturb the neighbors; andgenerally the teacher thinks that, if he keeps the boys _still_, andsees that they get their lessons, his duty is done. But a hundred boysought not to be kept still. There ought to be noise and motion amongthem, in order that they may healthily survive the great changes whichnature is working within them. If they become silent, averse tomovement, fond of indoor lounging and warm rooms, they are going infar worse ways than any amount of outward lawlessness could bring themto.

"Smoking and yellow-covered novels are worse than any amount ofhullabaloo; and the quietest boy is often a poor, ignorant victim,whose life is being drained out of him before it is well begun. Ifmothers could only see the series of books that are sold behind

counters to boarding-school boys, whom nobody warns and nobody caresfor,--if they could see the poison, going from pillow to pillow, inbooks pretending to make clear the great, sacred mysteries of ournature, but trailing them over with the filth of utter corruption!These horrible works are the inward and secret channel of hell, intowhich a boy is thrust by the pressure of strict outward rules,forbidding that physical and out-of-door exercise and motion to whichhe ought rather to be encouraged, and even driven.

"It is melancholy to see that, while parents, teachers, and churchesmake no provision for boys in the way of amusement, the world, theflesh, and the devil are incessantly busy and active in giving it tothem. There are ninepin-alleys, with cigars and a bar. There are

billiard-saloons, with a bar, and, alas! with the occasional companyof girls who are still beautiful, but who have lost the innocence ofwomanhood, while yet retaining many of its charms. There are theatres,with a bar, and with the society of lost women. The boy comes to oneand all of these places, seeking only what is natural and proper heshould have,--what should be given him under the eye and by the careof the Church, the school. He comes for exercise and amusement,--hegets these, and a ticket to destruction besides,--and whose fault isit?"

"These are the aspects of public life," said I, "which make me feelthat we never shall have a perfect state till women vote and bear ruleequally with men. State housekeeping has been, hitherto, like what any

housekeeping would be, conducted by the voice and knowledge of manalone.

"If women had an equal voice in the management of our public money, Ihave faith to believe that thousands which are now wasted in merepolitical charlatanism would go to provide for the rearing of thechildren of the state, male and female. My wife has spoken for theboys; I speak for the girls also. What is provided for their physicaldevelopment and amusement? Hot, gas-lighted theatric and operaticperformances, beginning at eight, and ending at midnight; hot, crowded



parties and balls; dancing with dresses tightly laced over thelaboring lungs,--these are almost the whole story. I bless the adventof croquet and skating. And yet the latter exercise, pursued as itgenerally is, is a most terrible exposure. There is no kindly parentalprovision for the poor, thoughtless, delicate young creature,--noteven the shelter of a dressing-room with a fire, at which she may warmher numb fingers and put on her skates when she arrives on the ground,and to which she may retreat in intervals of fatigue; so she catchescold, and perhaps sows the seed which with air-tight stoves and otherappliances of hot-house culture may ripen into consumption.

"What provision is there for the amusement of all the shop girls,seamstresses, factory girls, that crowd our cities? What for thethousands of young clerks and operatives? Not long since, in arespectable old town in New England, the body of a beautiful girlwas drawn from the river in which she had drowned herself,--ayoung girl only fifteen, who came to the city, far from home andparents, and fell a victim to the temptation which brought her toshame and desperation. Many thus fall every year who are nevercounted. They fall into the ranks of those whom the world abandonsas irreclaimable.

"Let those who have homes and every appliance to make life passagreeably, and who yet yawn over an unoccupied evening, fancy a lively

young girl all day cooped up at sewing in a close, ill-ventilatedroom. Evening comes, and she has three times the desire for amusementand three times the need of it that her fashionable sister has. Andwhere can she go? To the theatre, perhaps, with some young man asthoughtless as herself, and more depraved; then to the bar for a glassof wine, and another; and then, with a head swimming and turning, whoshall say where else she may be led? Past midnight and no one to lookafter her,--and one night ruins her utterly and for life, and she asyet only a child!

"John Newton had a very wise saying: 'Here is a man trying to fill abushel with chaff. Now if I fill it with wheat first, it is betterthan to fight him.' This apothegm contains in it the whole of what I

would say on the subject of amusements."

IX

DRESS, OR WHO MAKES THE FASHIONS

The door of my study being open, I heard in the distant parlor a sortof flutter of silken wings, and chatter of bird-like voices, whichtold me that a covey of Jenny's pretty young street birds had just

alighted there. I could not forbear a peep at the rosy faces thatglanced out under pheasants' tails, doves' wings, and noddinghumming-birds, and made one or two errands in that direction only thatI might gratify my eyes with a look at them.

Your nice young girl, of good family and good breeding, is always apretty object, and, for my part, I regularly lose my heart (in a sortof figurative way) to every fresh, charming creature that trips acrossmy path. All their mysterious rattletraps and whirligigs,--their curlsand networks and crimples and rimples and crisping-pins,--their little



absurdities, if you will,--have to me a sort of charm, like the tricksand stammerings of a curly-headed child. I should have made a verypoor censor if I had been put in Cato's place: the witches would havethrown all my wisdom into some private chip-basket of their own, andwalked off with it in triumph. Never a girl bows to me that I do notsee in her eye a twinkle of confidence that she could, if she chose,make an old fool of me. I surrender at discretion on first sight.

Jenny's friends are nice girls,--the flowers of good, staid,sensible families,--not heathen blossoms nursed in the hot-bed heat ofwild, high-flying, fashionable society. They have been duly and trulytaught and brought up, by good mothers and painstaking aunties, tounderstand in their infancy that handsome is that handsome does; thatlittle girls must not be vain of their pretty red shoes and nicecurls, and must remember that it is better to be good than to behandsome; with all other wholesome truisms of the kind. They have beento school, and had their minds improved in all modern ways,--havecalculated eclipses, and read Virgil, Schiller, and La Fontaine,and understand all about the geological strata, and the differentsystems of metaphysics,--so that a person reading the list oftheir acquirements might be a little appalled at the prospect ofentering into conversation with them. For all these reasons Ilistened quite indulgently to the animated conversation that wasgoing on about--Well!

What _do_ girls generally talk about, when a knot of them gettogether? Not, I believe, about the sources of the Nile, or theprecession of the equinoxes, or the nature of the human understanding,or Dante, or Shakespeare, or Milton, although they have learned allabout them in school; but upon a theme much nearer and dearer,--theone all-pervading feminine topic ever since Eve started the firsttoilet of fig-leaves; and as I caught now and then a phrase of theirchatter, I jotted it down in pure amusement, giving to each charmingspeaker the name of the bird under whose colors she was sailing.

"For my part," said little Humming-Bird, "I'm quite worn out withsewing; the fashions are all _so_ different from what they were last

year, that everything has to be made over."

"Isn't it dreadful!" said Pheasant. "There's my new mauve silk dress!it was a very expensive silk, and I haven't worn it more than three orfour times, and it really looks quite dowdy; and I can't get Pattersonto do it over for me for this party. Well, really, I shall have togive up company because I have nothing to wear."

"Who _does_ set the fashions, I wonder," said Humming-Bird; "they seemnowadays to whirl faster and faster, till really they don't leave onetime for anything."

"Yes," said Dove, "I haven't a moment for reading, or drawing, or

keeping up my music. The fact is, nowadays, to keep one's selfproperly dressed is all one can do. If I were _grande dame_ now, andhad only to send an order to my milliner and dressmaker, I might bebeautifully dressed all the time without giving much thought to itmyself; and that is what I should like. But this constant planningabout one's toilet, changing your buttons and your fringes and yourbonnet-trimmings and your hats every other day, and then beingbehindhand! It is really too fatiguing."

"Well," said Jenny, "I never pretend to keep up. I never expect to be



in the front rank of fashion, but no girl wants to be behind everyone; nobody wants to have people say, 'Do see what an old-times,rubbishy looking creature _that_ is.' And now, with my small means andmy conscience (for I have a conscience in this matter, and don't wishto spend any more time and money than is needed to keep one's selffresh and tasteful), I find my dress quite a fatiguing care."

"Well, now, girls," said Humming-Bird, "do you really know, I havesometimes thought I should like to be a nun, just to get rid of allthis labor. If I once gave up dress altogether, and knew I was to havenothing but one plain robe tied round my waist with a cord, it doesseem to me as if it would be a perfect repose,--only one is aProtestant, you know."

Now, as Humming-Bird was the most notoriously dressy individual in thelittle circle, this suggestion was received with quite a laugh. ButDove took it up.

"Well, really," she said, "when dear Mr. S---- preaches those saintlysermons to us about our baptismal vows, and the nobleness of anunworldly life, and calls on us to live for something purer andhigher than we are living for, I confess that sometimes all my lifeseems to me a mere sham,--that I am going to church, and saying solemnwords, and being wrought up by solemn music, and uttering most solemn

vows and prayers, all to no purpose; and then I come away and look atmy life, all resolving itself into a fritter about dress, andsewing-silk, cord, braid, and buttons,--the next fashion ofbonnets,--how to make my old dresses answer instead of new,--how tokeep the air of the world, while in my heart I am cherishing somethinghigher and better. If there's anything I detest it is hypocrisy; andsometimes the life I lead looks like it. But how to get out ofit?--what to do?--"

"I'm sure," said Humming-Bird, "that taking care of my clothes andgoing into company is, frankly, all I do. If I go to parties, as othergirls do, and make calls, and keep dressed,--you know papa is notrich, and one must do these things economically,--it really does take

all the time I have. When I was confirmed the Bishop talked to us sosweetly, and I really meant sincerely to be a good girl,--to be asgood as I knew how; but now, when they talk about fighting the goodfight and running the Christian race, I feel very mean and little, forI am quite sure this isn't doing it. But what is,--and who is?"

"Aunt Betsey Titcomb is doing it, I suppose," said Pheasant.

"Aunt Betsey!" said Humming-Bird, "well, she is. She spends all hermoney in doing good. She goes round visiting the poor all the time.She is a perfect saint;--but oh girls, how she looks! Well, now, Iconfess, when I think I must look like Aunt Betsey, my courage givesout. Is it necessary to go without hoops, and look like a dipped

candle, in order to be unworldly? Must one wear such a fright of abonnet?"

"No," said Jenny, "I think not. I think Miss Betsey Titcomb, good asshe is, injures the cause of goodness by making it outwardlyrepulsive. I really think, if she would take some pains with herdress, and spend upon her own wardrobe a little of the money she givesaway, that she might have influence in leading others to higher aims;now all her influence is against it. Her _outré_ and repulsiveexterior arrays our natural and innocent feelings against goodness;



for surely it is natural and innocent to wish to look well, and I amreally afraid a great many of us are more afraid of being thoughtridiculous than of being wicked."

"And after all," said Pheasant, "you know Mr. St. Clair says, 'Dressis one of the fine arts,' and if it is, why of course we ought tocultivate it. Certainly, well-dressed men and women are more agreeableobjects than rude and unkempt ones. There must be somebody whosemission it is to preside over the agreeable arts of life; and Isuppose it falls to 'us girls.' That's the way I comfort myself, atall events. Then I must confess that I do like dress; I'm notcultivated enough to be a painter or a poet, and I have all myartistic nature, such as it is, in dress. I love harmonies of color,exact shades and matches; I love to see a uniform idea carried allthrough a woman's toilet,--her dress, her bonnet, her gloves, hershoes, her pocket-handkerchief and cuffs, her very parasol, all incorrespondence."

"But, my dear," said Jenny, "anything of this kind must take afortune!"

"And if I had a fortune, I'm pretty sure I should spend a good deal ofit in this way," said Pheasant. "I can imagine such completeness oftoilet as I have never seen. How I would like the means to show what I

could do! My life, now, is perpetual disquiet. I always feel shabby.My things must all be bought at haphazard, as they can be got out ofmy poor little allowance,--and things are getting so horridly dear!Only think of it, girls! gloves at two and a quarter! and boots atseven, eight, and ten dollars! and then, as you say, the fashionschanging so! Why, I bought a sack last fall and gave forty dollars forit, and this winter I'm wearing it, to be sure, but it has no style atall,--looks quite antiquated!"

"Now I say," said Jenny, "that you are really morbid on the subject ofdress; you are fastidious and particular and exacting in your ideas ina way that really ought to be put down. There is not a girl of our setthat dresses as nicely as you do, except Emma Seyton, and her father,

you know, has no end of income."

"Nonsense, Jenny," said Pheasant. "I think I really look like abeggar; but then, I bear it as well as I can, because, you see, I knowpapa does all for us he can, and I won't be extravagant. But I dothink, as Humming-Bird says, that it would be a great relief to giveit up altogether and retire from the world; or, as Cousin John says,climb a tree and pull it up after you, and so be in peace."

"Well," said Jenny, "all this seems to have come on since the war. Itseems to me that not only has everything doubled in price, but all thehabits of the world seem to require that you shall have double thequantity of everything. Two or three years ago a good balmoral skirt

was a fixed fact; it was a convenient thing for sloppy, unpleasantweather. But now, dear me! there is no end to them. They cost fifteenand twenty dollars; and girls that I know have one or two everyseason, besides all sorts of quilled and embroidered and ruffled andtucked and flounced ones. Then, in dressing one's hair, what a perfectoverflow there is of all manner of waterfalls, and braids, and rats,and mice, and curls, and combs; when three or four years ago we combedour own hair innocently behind our ears, and put flowers in it, andthought we looked nicely at our evening parties! I don't believe welook any better now, when we are dressed, than we did then,--so what's



the use?"

"Well, did you ever see such a tyranny as this of fashion?" saidHumming-Bird. "We know it's silly, but we all bow down before it; weare afraid of our lives before it; and who makes all this and sets itgoing? The Paris milliners, the Empress, or who?"

"The question where fashions come from is like the question where pinsgo to," said Pheasant. "Think of the thousands and millions of pinsthat are being used every year, and not one of them worn out. Where dothey all go to? One would expect to find a pin mine somewhere."

"Victor Hugo says they go into the sewers in Paris," said Jenny.

"And the fashions come from a source about as pure," said I, from thenext room.

"Bless me, Jenny, do tell us if your father has been listening to usall this time!" was the next exclamation; and forthwith there was awhir and rustle of the silken wings, as the whole troop fluttered intomy study.

"Now, Mr. Crowfield, you are too bad!" said Humming-Bird, as sheperched upon a corner of my study-table, and put her little feet upon

an old "Froissart" which filled the armchair."To be listening to our nonsense!" said Pheasant.

"Lying in wait for us!" said Dove.

"Well, now, you have brought us all down on you," said Humming-Bird,"and you won't find it so easy to be rid of us. You will have toanswer all our questions."

"My dears, I am at your service, as far as mortal man may be," saidI.

"Well, then," said Humming-Bird, "tell us all about everything,--howthings come to be as they are. Who makes the fashions?"

"I believe it is universally admitted that, in the matter of femininetoilet, France rules the world," said I.

"But who rules France?" said Pheasant. "Who decides what the fashionsshall be there?"

"It is the great misfortune of the civilized world, at the presenthour," said I, "that the state of morals in France is apparently atthe very lowest ebb, and consequently the leadership of fashion isentirely in the hands of a class of women who could not be admitted

into good society, in any country. Women who can never have the nameof wife,--who know none of the ties of family,--these are thedictators whose dress and equipage and appointments give the law,first to France, and through France to the civilized world. Such wasthe confession of Monsieur Dupin, made in a late speech before theFrench Senate, and acknowledged, with murmurs of assent on all sides,to be the truth. This is the reason why the fashions have such anutter disregard of all those laws of prudence and economy whichregulate the expenditures of families. They are made by women whosesole and only hold on life is personal attractiveness, and with whom



to keep this up, at any cost, is a desperate necessity. No moralquality, no association of purity, truth, modesty, self-denial, orfamily love, comes in to hallow the atmosphere about them, and createa sphere of loveliness which brightens as mere physical beauty fades.The ravages of time and dissipation must be made up by an unceasingstudy of the arts of the toilet. Artists of all sorts, moving in theirtrain, rack all the stores of ancient and modern art for thepicturesque, the dazzling, the grotesque; and so, lest these Circes ofsociety should carry all before them, and enchant every husband,brother, and lover, the staid and lawful Penelopes leave the hearthand home to follow in their triumphal march and imitate their arts.Thus it goes in France; and in England, virtuous and domesticprincesses and peeresses must take obediently what has been decreed bytheir rulers in the _demi-monde_ of France; and we in America haveleaders of fashion, who make it their pride and glory to turn New Yorkinto Paris, and to keep even step with everything that is going onthere. So the whole world of womankind is marching under the commandof those leaders. The love of dress and glitter and fashion is gettingto be a morbid, unhealthy epidemic, which really eats away thenobleness and purity of women.

"In France, as Monsieur Dupin, Edmond About, and Michelet tell us, theextravagant demands of love for dress lead women to contract debtsunknown to their husbands, and sign obligations which are paid by the

sacrifice of honor, and thus the purity of the family is continuallyundermined. In England there is a voice of complaint, sounding fromthe leading periodicals, that the extravagant demands of femalefashion are bringing distress into families, and making marriagesimpossible; and something of the same sort seems to have begun here.We are across the Atlantic, to be sure; but we feel the swirl anddrift of the great whirlpool; only, fortunately, we are far enough offto be able to see whither things are tending, and to stop ourselves ifwe will.

"We have just come through a great struggle, in which our women haveborne an heroic part,--have shown themselves capable of any kind ofendurance and self-sacrifice; and now we are in that reconstructive

state which makes it of the greatest consequence to ourselves and theworld that we understand our own institutions and position, and learnthat, instead of following the corrupt and worn-out ways of the OldWorld, we are called on to set the example of a new state ofsociety,--noble, simple, pure, and religious; and women can do moretowards this even than men, for women are the real architects ofsociety.

"Viewed in this light, even the small, frittering cares of women'slife--the attention to buttons, trimmings, thread, and sewing-silk--maybe an expression of their patriotism and their religion. A noble-heartedwoman puts a noble meaning into even the commonplace details of life.The women of America can, if they choose, hold back their country from

following in the wake of old, corrupt, worn-out, effeminate Europeansociety, and make America the leader of the world in all that is good."

"I'm sure," said Humming-Bird, "we all would like to be noble andheroic. During the war, I did so long to be a man! I felt so poor andinsignificant because I was nothing but a girl!"

"Ah, well," said Pheasant, "but then one wants to do something worthdoing, if one is going to do anything. One would like to be grand andheroic, if one could; but if not, why try at all? One wants to be



taught, she said, that church-members had higher things to thinkof,--that their thoughts ought to be fixed on something better, andthat they ought to restrain the vanity and worldliness of children andyoung people; but now, she says, even before a girl is born, dress isthe one thing needful,--the great thing to be thought of; and so, inevery step of the way upward, her little shoes, and her littlebonnets, and her little dresses, and her corals and her ribbons, areconstantly being discussed in her presence, as the one all-importantobject of life. Aunt Maria thinks mamma is dreadful, because she hasmaternal yearnings over our toilet successes and fortunes; and wesecretly think Aunt Maria is rather soured by old age, and hasforgotten how a girl feels."

"The fact is," said I, "that the love of dress and outside show hasbeen always such an exacting and absorbing tendency, that it seems tohave furnished work for religionists and economists, in all ages, tokeep it within bounds. Various religious bodies, at the outset,adopted severe rules in protest against it. The Quakers and theMethodists prescribed certain fixed modes of costume as a barrieragainst its frivolities and follies. In the Romish Church an entranceon any religious order prescribed entire and total renunciation of allthought and care for the beautiful in person or apparel, as the firststep towards saintship. The costume of the _religieuse_ seemed to bepurposely intended to imitate the shroudings and swathings of a corpse

and the lugubrious color of a pall, so as forever to remind thewearer that she was dead to the world of ornament and physical beauty.All great Christian preachers and reformers have leveled theirartillery against the toilet, from the time of St. Jerome downward;and Tom Moore has put into beautiful and graceful verse St. Jerome'sadmonitions to the fair churchgoers of his time.

WHO IS THE MAID?

ST. JEROME'S LOVE.

Who is the maid my spirit seeks,

Through cold reproof and slander's blight?Has _she_ Love's roses on her cheeks?Is _hers_ an eye of this world's light?

No: wan and sunk with midnight prayerAre the pale looks of her I love;

Or if, at times, a light be there,Its beam is kindled from above.

I chose not her, my heart's elect,From those who seek their Maker's shrine

In gems and garlands proudly decked,As if themselves were things divine.

No: Heaven but faintly warms the breast

That beats beneath a broidered veil;And she who comes in glittering vestTo mourn her frailty, still is frail.

Not so the faded form I prizeAnd love, because its bloom is gone;

The glory in those sainted eyesIs all the grace _her_ brow puts on.

And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,So touching, as that form's decay,



Which, like the altar's trembling light,In holy lustre wastes away.

"But the defect of all these modes of warfare on the elegances andrefinements of the toilet was that they were too indiscriminate. Theywere in reality founded on a false principle. They took for grantedthat there was something radically corrupt and wicked in the body andin the physical system. According to this mode of viewing things, thebody was a loathsome and pestilent prison, in which the soul waslocked up and enslaved, and the eyes, the ears, the taste, the smell,were all so many corrupt traitors in conspiracy to poison her.Physical beauty of every sort was a snare, a Circean enchantment, tobe valiantly contended with and straitly eschewed. Hence theypreached, not moderation, but total abstinence from all pursuit ofphysical grace and beauty.

"Now, a resistance founded on an over-statement is constantly tendingto reaction. People always have a tendency to begin thinking forthemselves; and when they so think, they perceive that a good and wiseGod would not have framed our bodies with such exquisite care only tocorrupt our souls,--that physical beauty, being created in suchprofuse abundance around us, and we being possessed with such alonging for it, must have its uses, its legitimate sphere of exercise.Even the poor, shrouded nun, as she walks the convent garden, cannot

help asking herself why, if the crimson velvet of the rose was made byGod, all colors except black and white are sinful for her; and themodest Quaker, after hanging all her house and dressing all herchildren in drab, cannot but marvel at the sudden outstreaking of blueand yellow and crimson in the tulip-beds under her window, and reflecthow very differently the great All-Father arrays the world'shousekeeping. The consequence of all this has been, that the reformsbased upon these severe and exclusive views have gradually gonebackward. The Quaker dress is imperceptibly and gracefully meltingaway into a refined simplicity of modern costume, which in many casesseems to be the perfection of taste. The obvious reflection, that onecolor of the rainbow is quite as much of God as another, has led thechildren of gentle dove-colored mothers to appear in shades of

rose-color, blue, and lilac; and wise elders have said, it is not somuch the color or the shape that we object to, as giving too muchtime and too much money,--if the heart be right with God and man, thebonnet ribbon may be of any shade you please."

"But don't you think," said Pheasant, "that a certain fixed dress,marking the unworldly character of a religious order, is desirable?Now, I have said before that I am very fond of dress. I have a passionfor beauty and completeness in it; and as long as I am in the worldand obliged to dress as the world does, it constantly haunts me, andtempts me to give more time, more thought, more money, to these thingsthan I really think they are worth. But I can conceive of giving upthis thing altogether as being much easier than regulating it to the

precise point. I never read of a nun's taking the veil without acertain thrill of sympathy. To cut off one's hair, to take off andcast from her, one by one, all one's trinkets and jewels, to lie downand have the pall thrown over one, and feel one's self once for alldead to the world,--I cannot help feeling as if this were real,thorough, noble renunciation, and as if one might rise up from it witha grand, calm consciousness of having risen to a higher and pureratmosphere, and got above all the littlenesses and distractions thatbeset us here. So I have heard charming young Quaker girls, who inmore thoughtless days indulged in what for them was a slight shading



of worldly conformity, say that it was to them a blessed rest whenthey put on the strict, plain dress, and felt that they really hadtaken up the cross and turned their backs on the world. I can conceiveof doing this, much more easily than I can of striking the exact linebetween worldly conformity and noble aspiration, in the life I livenow."

"My dear child," said I, "we all overlook one great leading principleof our nature, and that is, that we are made to find a higher pleasurein self-sacrifice than in any form of self-indulgence. There issomething grand and pathetic in the idea of an entire self-surrender,to which every human soul leaps up, as we do to the sound of martialmusic.

"How many boys of Boston and New York, who had lived effeminate andidle lives, felt this new power uprising in them in our war! How theyembraced the dirt and discomfort and fatigue and watchings and toilsof camp-life with an eagerness of zest which they had never felt inthe pursuit of mere pleasure, and wrote home burning letters that theynever were so happy in their lives! It was not that dirt and fatigueand discomfort and watchings and weariness were in themselvesagreeable, but it was a joy to feel themselves able to bear all andsurrender all for something higher than self. Many a poor Batterybully of New York, many a street rowdy, felt uplifted by the discovery

that he too had hid away under the dirt and dust of his former lifethis divine and precious jewel. He leaped for joy to find that he toocould be a hero. Think of the hundreds of thousands of plain ordinaryworkingmen, and of seemingly ordinary boys, who, but for such acrisis, might have passed through life never knowing this to be inthem, and who courageously endured hunger and thirst and cold, andseparation from dearest friends, for days and weeks and months, whenthey might, at any day, have bought a respite by deserting theircountry's flag! Starving boys, sick at heart, dizzy in head, piningfor home and mother, still found warmth and comfort in the one thoughtthat they could suffer, die, for their country; and the graves atSalisbury and Andersonville show in how many souls this noble power ofself-sacrifice to the higher good was lodged,--how many there were,

even in the humblest walks of life, who preferred death by torture tolife in dishonor.

"It is this heroic element in man and woman that makes self-sacrificean ennobling and purifying ordeal in any religious profession. The manreally is taken into a higher region of his own nature, and finds apleasure in the exercise of higher faculties which he did not supposehimself to possess. Whatever sacrifice is supposed to be duty, whetherthe supposition be really correct or not, has in it an ennobling andpurifying power; and thus the eras of conversion from one form of theChristian religion to another are often marked with a real andpermanent exaltation of the whole character. But it does not followthat certain religious beliefs and ordinances are in themselves just,

because they thus touch the great heroic master-chord of the humansoul. To wear sackcloth and sleep on a plank may have been of use tomany souls, as symbolizing the awakening of this higher nature; but,still, the religion of the New Testament is plainly one which calls tono such outward and evident sacrifices.

"It was John the Baptist, and not the Messiah, who dwelt in thewilderness and wore garments of camel's hair; and Jesus was commentedon, not for his asceticism, but for his cheerful, social acceptance ofthe average innocent wants and enjoyments of humanity. 'The Son of man



came eating and drinking.' The great, and never ceasing, and utterself-sacrifice of his life was not signified by any peculiarity ofcostume, or language, or manner; it showed itself only as itunconsciously welled up in all his words and actions, in his estimatesof life, in all that marked him out as a being of a higher and holiersphere."

"Then you do not believe in influencing this subject of dress byreligious persons' adopting any particular laws of costume?" saidPheasant.

"I do not see it to be possible," said I, "considering how society ismade up. There are such differences of taste and character,--peoplemove in such different spheres, are influenced by such differentcircumstances,--that all we can do is to lay down certain greatprinciples, and leave it to every one to apply them according toindividual needs."

"But what are these principles? There is the grand inquiry."

"Well," said I, "let us feel our way. In the first place, then, we areall agreed in one starting-point,--that beauty is not to be consideredas a bad thing,--that the love of ornament in our outward and physicallife is not a sinful or a dangerous feeling, and only leads to evil,

as all other innocent things do, by being used in wrong ways. So farwe are all agreed, are we not?"

"Certainly," said all the voices.

"It is, therefore, neither wicked nor silly nor weak-minded to likebeautiful dress, and all that goes to make it up. Jewelry, diamonds,pearls, emeralds, rubies, and all sorts of pretty things that are madeof them, are as lawful and innocent objects of admiration and desire,as flowers or birds or butterflies, or the tints of evening skies.Gems, in fact, are a species of mineral flower; they are the blossomsof the dark, hard mine; and what they want in perfume they make up indurability. The best Christian in the world may, without the least

inconsistency, admire them, and say, as a charming, benevolent oldQuaker lady once said to me, 'I do so love to look at beautifuljewelry!' The love of beautiful dress, in itself, therefore, so farfrom being in a bad sense worldly, may be the same indication of arefined and poetical nature that is given by the love of flowers andof natural objects.

"In the third place, there is nothing in itself wrong, or unworthy arational being, in a certain degree of attention to the fashion ofsociety in our costume. It is not wrong to be annoyed at unnecessarydepartures from the commonly received practices of good society in thematter of the arrangement of our toilet; and it would indicate ratheran unamiable want of sympathy with our fellow beings, if we were not

willing, for the most part, to follow what they indicate to beagreeable in the disposition of our outward affairs."

"Well, I must say, Mr. Crowfield, you are allowing us all a verygenerous margin," said Humming-Bird.

"But now," said I, "I am coming to the restrictions. When is love ofdress excessive and wrong? To this I answer by stating my faith in oneof old Plato's ideas, in which he speaks of beauty and its uses. Hesays there were two impersonations of beauty worshiped under the name



of Venus in the ancient times,--the one celestial, born of the highestgods, the other earthly. To the earthly Venus the sacrifices were suchas were more trivial; to the celestial, such as were more holy. 'Theworship of the earthly Venus,' he says, 'sends us oftentimes onunworthy and trivial errands, but the worship of the celestial to highand honorable friendships, to noble aspirations and heroic actions.'

"Now it seems to me that, if we bear in mind this truth in regard tobeauty, we shall have a test with which to try ourselves in the matterof physical adornment. We are always excessive when we sacrifice thehigher beauty to attain the lower one. A woman who will sacrificedomestic affection, conscience, self-respect, honor, to love of dress,we all agree, loves dress too much. She loses the true and higherbeauty of womanhood for the lower beauty of gems and flowers andcolors. A girl who sacrifices to dress all her time, all her strength,all her money, to the neglect of the cultivation of her mind andheart, and to the neglect of the claims of others on her helpfulness,is sacrificing the higher to the lower beauty; her fault is not thelove of beauty, but loving the wrong and inferior kind.

"It is remarkable that the directions of Holy Writ, in regard to thefemale dress, should distinctly take note of this difference betweenthe higher and the lower beauty which we find in the works of Plato.The Apostle gives no rule, no specific costume, which should mark the

Christian woman from the Pagan; but says, 'whose adorning, let it notbe that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold,or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of theheart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meekand quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.' Thegold and gems and apparel are not forbidden; but we are told not todepend on them for beauty, to the neglect of those imperishable,immortal graces that belong to the soul. The makers of fashion amongwhom Christian women lived when the Apostle wrote were the same classof brilliant and worthless Aspasias who make the fashions of modernParis; and all womankind was sunk into slavish adoration of morephysical adornment when the gospel sent forth among them this call tothe culture of a higher and immortal beauty.

"In fine, girls," said I, "you may try yourselves by this standard.You love dress too much when you care more for your outward adorningsthan for your inward dispositions, when it afflicts you more to havetorn your dress than to have lost your temper, when you are moretroubled by an ill-fitting gown than by a neglected duty,--when youare less concerned at having made an unjust comment, or spread ascandalous report, than at having worn a passé bonnet, when you areless troubled at the thought of being found at the last great feastwithout the wedding garment, than at being found at the party to-nightin the fashion of last year. No Christian woman, as I view it, oughtto give such attention to her dress as to allow it to take up _all_ ofthree very important things, viz:--

_All_ her time._All_ her strength._All_ her money.

Whoever does this lives not the Christian, but the Pagan life,--worshipsnot at the Christian's altar of our Lord Jesus, but at the shrine of thelower Venus of Corinth and Rome."

"Oh now, Mr. Crowfield, you frighten me," said Humming-Bird. "I'm so



afraid, do you know, that I am doing exactly that."

"And so am I," said Pheasant; "and yet, certainly, it is not what Imean or intend to do."

"But how to help it," said Dove.

"My dears," said I, "where there is a will there is a way. Onlyresolve that you will put the true beauty first,--that, even if you dohave to seem unfashionable, you will follow the highest beauty ofwomanhood,--and the battle is half gained. Only resolve that yourtime, your strength, your money, such as you have, shall not all--normore than half--be given to mere outward adornment, and you will goright. It requires only an army of girls animated with this noblepurpose to declare independence in America, and emancipate us from thedecrees and tyrannies of French actresses and ballet-dancers. _Enavant_, girls! You yet can, if you will, save the republic."

X

WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF BEAUTY IN DRESS

The conversation on dress which I had held with Jenny and her littlecovey of Birds of Paradise appeared to have worked in the minds of thefair council, for it was not long before they invaded my study againin a body. They were going out to a party, but called for Jenny, andof course gave me and Mrs. Crowfield the privilege of seeing themequipped for conquest.

Latterly, I must confess, the mysteries of the toilet rites haveimpressed me with a kind of superstitious awe. Only a year ago mydaughter Jenny had smooth dark hair, which she wreathed in varioussoft, flowing lines about her face, and confined in a classical knot

on the back of her head. Jenny had rather a talent for coiffure, andthe arrangement of her hair was one of my little artistic delights.She always had something there,--a leaf, a spray, a bud or blossom,that looked fresh, and had a sort of poetical grace of its own.

But in a gradual way all this has been changing. Jenny's hair firstbecame slightly wavy, then curly, finally frizzly, presenting atumbled and twisted appearance, which gave me great inward concern;but when I spoke upon the subject I was always laughingly silencedwith the definitive settling remark: "Oh, it's the fashion, papa!Everybody wears it so."

I particularly objected to the change on my own small account, because

the smooth, breakfast-table coiffure, which I had always so muchenjoyed, was now often exchanged for a peculiarly bristlingappearance; the hair being variously twisted, tortured, woven, andwound, without the least view to immediate beauty or grace. But allthis, I was informed, was the necessary means towards crimping forsome evening display of a more elaborate nature than usual.

Mrs. Crowfield and myself are not party-goers by profession, but Jennyinsists on our going out at least once or twice in a season, just, asshe says, to keep up with the progress of society; and at these times



I have been struck with frequent surprise by the general untidinesswhich appeared to have come over the heads of all my female friends. Iknow, of course, that I am only a poor, ignorant, bewildered mancreature; but to my uninitiated eyes they looked as if they had all,after a very restless and perturbed sleep, come out of bed withoutsmoothing their tumbled and disordered locks. Then, every young lady,without exception, seemed to have one kind of hair, and that the kindwhich was rather suggestive of the term "woolly." Every sort of wildabandon of frowzy locks seemed to be in vogue; in some cases the hairappearing to my vision nothing but a confused snarl, in whichglittered tinklers, spangles, and bits of tinsel, and from which wavedlong pennants and streamers of different colored ribbons.

I was in fact very greatly embarrassed by my first meeting with somevery charming girls, whom I thought I knew as familiarly as my owndaughter Jenny, and whose soft, pretty hair had often formed theobject of my admiration. Now, however, they revealed themselves to mein coiffures which forcibly reminded me of the electrical experimentswhich used to entertain us in college, when the subject stood on theinsulated stool, and each particular hair of his head bristled androse, and set up, as it were, on its own account. This high-flyingcondition of the tresses, and the singularity of the ornaments whichappeared to be thrown at haphazard into them, suggested so oddly theidea of a bewitched person, that I could scarcely converse with any

presence of mind, or realize that these really were the nice,well-informed, sensible little girls of my own neighborhood,--the gooddaughters, good sisters, Sunday-school teachers, and other familiarmembers of our best educated circles; and I came away from the partyin a sort of blue maze, and hardly in a state to conduct myself withcredit in the examination through which I knew Jenny would put me asto the appearance of her different friends.

I know not how it is, but the glamour of fashion in the eyes ofgirlhood is so complete that the oddest, wildest, most uncouth devicesfind grace and favor in the eyes of even well-bred girls, when oncethat invisible, ineffable aura has breathed over them which declaresthem to be fashionable. They may defy them for a time,--they may

pronounce them horrid; but it is with a secretly melting heart, andwith a mental reservation to look as nearly like the abhorredspectacle as they possibly can on the first favorable opportunity.

On the occasion of the visit referred to, Jenny ushered her threefriends in triumph into my study; and, in truth, the little roomseemed to be perfectly transformed by their brightness. My honest,nice, lovable little Yankee fireside girls were, to be sure, got up ina style that would have done credit to Madame Pompadour, or any of themost questionable characters of the time of Louis XIV. or XV. Theywere frizzled and powdered, and built up in elaborate devices; theywore on their hair flowers, gems, streamers, tinklers, humming-birds,butterflies, South American beetles, beads, bugles, and all imaginable

rattletraps, which jingled and clinked with every motion; and yet, asthey were three or four fresh, handsome, intelligent, bright-eyedgirls, there was no denying the fact that they did look extremelypretty; and as they sailed hither and thither before me, and gazeddown upon me in the saucy might of their rosy girlhood, there was agay defiance in Jenny's demand, "Now, papa, how do you like us?"

"Very charming," answered I, surrendering at discretion.

"I told you, girls, that you could convert him to the fashions, if he



should once see you in party trim."

"I beg pardon, my dear; I am not converted to the fashion, but to you,and that is a point on which I didn't need conversion; but the presentfashions, even so fairly represented as I see them, I humbly confess Idislike."

"Oh, Mr. Crowfield!"

"Yes, my dears, I do. But then, I protest, I'm not fairly treated. Ithink, for a young American girl, who looks as most of my fair friendsdo look, to come down with her bright eyes and all her little panoplyof graces upon an old fellow like me, and expect him to like a fashionmerely because _she_ looks well in it, is all sheer nonsense. Why,girls, if you wore rings in your noses, and bangles on your arms up toyour elbows, if you tied your hair in a war-knot on the top of yourheads like the Sioux Indians, you would still look pretty. Thequestion isn't, as I view it, whether you look pretty,--for that youdo, and that you will, do what you please and dress how you will. Thequestion is whether you might not look prettier, whether another styleof dress, and another mode of getting up, would not be far morebecoming. I am one who thinks that it would."

"Now, Mr. Crowfield, you positively are too bad," said Humming-Bird,

whose delicate head was encircled by a sort of crêpy cloud of brighthair, sparkling with gold-dust and spangles, in the midst of which,just over her forehead, a gorgeous blue butterfly was perched, while aconfused mixture of hairs, gold-powder, spangles, stars, and tinklingornaments fell in a sort of cataract down her pretty neck. "You see,we girls think everything of you; and now we don't like it that youdon't like our fashions."

"Why, my little princess, so long as I like _you_ better than yourfashions, and merely think they are not worthy of you, what's theharm?"

"Oh yes, to be sure. You sweeten the dose to us babies with that

sugarplum. But really, Mr. Crowfield, why don't you like thefashions?"

"Because, to my view, they are in great part in false taste, andinjure the beauty of the girls," said I. "They are inappropriate totheir characters, and make them look like a kind and class of womenwhom they do not, and I trust never will, resemble internally, andwhose mark therefore they ought not to bear externally. But there youare, beguiling me into a sermon which you will only hate me in yourhearts for preaching. Go along, children! You certainly look as wellas anybody can in that style of getting up; so go to your party, andto-morrow night, when you are tired and sleepy, if you'll come withyour crochet, and sit in my study, I will read you Christopher

Crowfield's dissertation on dress."

"That will be amusing, to say the least," said Humming-Bird; "and, besure, we will all be here. And mind, you have to show good reasons fordisliking the present fashion."

So the next evening there was a worsted party in my study, sitting inthe midst of which I read as follows:--



WHAT ARE THE SOURCES OF BEAUTY IN DRESS

"The first one is _appropriateness_. Colors and forms and modes, inthemselves graceful or beautiful, can become ungraceful andridiculous simply through inappropriateness. The most lovely bonnetthat the most approved modiste can invent, if worn on the head of acoarse-faced Irishwoman bearing a market-basket on her arm, excitesno emotion but that of the ludicrous. The most elegant and brilliantevening dress, if worn in the daytime in a railroad car, strikes everyone with a sense of absurdity; whereas both these objects inappropriate associations would excite only the idea of beauty. So amode of dress obviously intended for driving strikes us as _outré_ in a parlor; and a parlor dress would no less shock our eyes onhorseback. In short, the course of this principle through allvarieties of form can easily be perceived. Besides appropriatenessto time, place, and circumstances, there is appropriateness to age,position, and character. This is the foundation of all our ideas ofprofessional propriety in costume. One would not like to see aclergyman in his external air and appointments resembling agentleman of the turf; one would not wish a refined and modest scholarto wear the outward air of a fast fellow, or an aged and venerablestatesman to appear with all the peculiarities of a young dandy.The flowers, feathers, and furbelows which a light-hearted younggirl of seventeen embellishes by the airy grace with which she

wears them, are simply ridiculous when transferred to the toilet ofher serious, well-meaning mamma, who bears them about with ananxious face, merely because a loquacious milliner has assured her,with many protestations, that it is the fashion, and the only thingremaining for her to do.

"There are, again, modes of dress in themselves very beautifuland very striking, which are peculiarly adapted to theatricalrepresentation and to pictures, but the adoption of which as apart of unprofessional toilet produces a sense of incongruity. Amode of dress maybe in perfect taste on the stage, that would beabsurd in an evening party, absurd in the street, absurd, inshort, everywhere else.

"Now you come to my first objection to our present Americantoilet,--its being to a very great extent _inappropriate_ to ourclimate, to our habits of life and thought, and to the whole structureof ideas on which our life is built. What we want, apparently, is somecourt of inquiry and adaptation that shall pass judgment on thefashions of other countries, and modify them to make them a gracefulexpression of our own national character, and modes of thinking andliving. A certain class of women in Paris at this present hour makesthe fashions that rule the feminine world. They are women who liveonly for the senses, with as utter and obvious disregard of any moralor intellectual purpose to be answered in living as a paroquet or amacaw. They have no family ties; love, in its pure domestic sense, is

an impossibility in their lot; religion in any sense is anotherimpossibility; and their whole intensity of existence, therefore, isconcentrated on the question of sensuous enjoyment, and that personaladornment which is necessary to secure it. When the great rulingcountry in the world of taste and fashion has fallen into such a statethat the virtual leaders of fashion are women of this character, it isnot to be supposed that the fashions emanating from them will be of akind well adapted to express the ideas, the thoughts, the state ofsociety, of a great Christian democracy such as ours ought to be.



"What is called, for example, the Pompadour style of dress, so much invogue of late, we can see to be perfectly adapted to the kind ofexistence led by dissipated women whose life is one revel ofexcitement; and who, never proposing to themselves any intellectualemployment or any domestic duty, can afford to spend three or fourhours every day under the hands of a waiting-maid, in alternatelytangling and untangling their hair. Powder, paint, gold-dust andsilver-dust, pomatums, cosmetics, are all perfectly appropriate wherethe ideal of life is to keep up a false show of beauty after the truebloom is wasted by dissipation. The woman who never goes to bed tillmorning, who never even dresses herself, who never takes a needle inher hand, who never goes to church, and never entertains one seriousidea of duty of any kind, when got up in Pompadour style, has, to saythe truth, the good taste and merit of appropriateness. Her dressexpresses just what she is,--all false, all artificial, allmeretricious and unnatural; no part or portion of her from which itmight be inferred what her Creator originally designed her to be.

"But when a nice little American girl, who has been brought up tocultivate her mind, to refine her taste, to care for her health, to bea helpful daughter and a good sister, to visit the poor and teach inSunday schools; when a good, sweet, modest little puss of this kindcombs all her pretty hair backward till it is one mass of frowsyconfusion; when she powders, and paints under her eyes; when she

adopts, with eager enthusiasm, every _outré_, unnatural fashion thatcomes from the most dissipated foreign circles,--she is in bad taste,because she does not represent either her character, her education, orher good points. She looks like a second-rate actress, when she is, infact, a most thoroughly respectable, estimable, lovable little girl,and on the way, as we poor fellows fondly hope, to bless some one ofus with her tenderness and care in some nice home in the future.

"It is not the fashion in America for young girls to havewaiting-maids,--in foreign countries it is the fashion. All thismeretricious toilet--so elaborate, so complicated, and so contrary tonature--must be accomplished, and it is accomplished, by the busylittle fingers of each girl for herself; and so it seems to be very

evident that a style of hair-dressing which it will require hours todisentangle, which must injure and in time ruin the natural beauty ofthe hair, ought to be one thing which a well-regulated court ofinquiry would reject in our American fashions.

"Again, the genius of American life is for simplicity and absence ofostentation. We have no parade of office: our public men wear norobes, no stars, garters, collars, etc.; and it would, therefore, bein good taste in our women to cultivate simple styles of dress. Now Iobject to the present fashions, as adopted from France, that they areflashy and theatrical. Having their origin with a community whosesenses are blunted, drugged, and deadened with dissipation andostentation, they reject the simpler forms of beauty, and seek for

startling effects, for odd and unexpected results. The contemplationof one of our fashionable churches, at the hour when its fairoccupants pour forth, gives one a great deal of surprise. The toiletsthere displayed might have been in good keeping among showy Parisianwomen in an opera house, but even their original inventors would havebeen shocked at the idea of carrying them into a church. The rawnessof our American mind as to the subject of propriety in dress isnowhere more shown than in the fact that no apparent distinction ismade between church and opera house in the adaptation of attire. Veryestimable and we trust very religious young women sometimes enter the



house of God in a costume which makes their utterance of the words ofthe litany and the acts of prostrate devotion in the service seemalmost burlesque. When a brisk little creature comes into a pew withhair frizzed till it stands on end in a most startling manner,rattling strings of beads and bits of tinsel, mounting over all somepert little hat with a red or green feather standing saucily uprightin front, she may look exceedingly pretty and piquant; and, if shecame there for a game of croquet or a tableau party, would be all invery good taste; but as she comes to confess that she is a miserablesinner, that she has done the things she ought not to have done, andleft undone the things she ought to have done,--as she takes upon herlips most solemn and tremendous words, whose meaning runs far beyondlife into a sublime eternity,--there is a discrepancy which would beludicrous if it were not melancholy.

"One is apt to think, at first view, that St. Jerome was right insaying,

"'She who comes in glittering vestTo mourn her frailty, still is frail.'

But St. Jerome was in the wrong, after all; for a flashy, unsuitableattire in church is not always a mark of an undevout or entirelyworldly mind; it is simply a mark of a raw, uncultivated taste. In

Italy, the ecclesiastical law prescribing a uniform black dress forthe churches gives a sort of education to European ideas of proprietyin toilet, which prevents churches from being made theatres for thesame kind of display which is held to be in good taste at places ofpublic amusement. It is but justice to the inventors of Parisianfashions to say that, had they ever had the smallest idea of going tochurch and Sunday school, as our good girls do, they would immediatelyhave devised toilets appropriate to such exigencies. If it were anypart of their plan of life to appear statedly in public to confessthemselves 'miserable sinners,' we should doubtless have sent overhere the design of some graceful penitential habit, which would giveour places of worship a much more appropriate air than they now have.As it is, it would form a subject for such a court of inquiry and

adaptation as we have supposed, to draw a line between the costume ofthe theatre and the church.

"In the same manner, there is a want of appropriateness in thecostume of our American women, who display in the street promenadea style of dress and adornment originally intended for showycarriage drives in such great exhibition grounds as the Bois deBoulogne. The makers of Parisian fashions are not generally walkers.They do not, with all their extravagance, have the bad taste totrail yards of silk and velvet over the mud and dirt of a pavement,or promenade the street in a costume so pronounced and striking asto draw the involuntary glance of every eye; and the showy toiletsdisplayed on the _pavé_ by American young women have more than once

exposed them to misconstruction in the eyes of foreign observers.

"Next to appropriateness, the second requisite to beauty in dress Itake to be unity of effect. In speaking of the arrangement of rooms inthe 'House and Home Papers,' I criticised some apartments whereinwere many showy articles of furniture, and much expense had beenincurred, because, with all this, there was no _unity of result_. Thecarpet was costly, and in itself handsome; the paper was also initself handsome and costly; the tables and chairs also in themselvesvery elegant; and yet, owing to a want of any unity of idea, any grand



harmonizing tint of color, or method of arrangement, the rooms had ajumbled, confused air, and nothing about them seemed particularlypretty or effective. I instanced rooms where thousands of dollars hadbeen spent, which, because of this defect, never excited admiration;and others in which the furniture was of the cheapest description, butwhich always gave immediate and universal pleasure. The same ruleholds good in dress. As in every apartment, so in every toilet, thereshould be one ground-tone or dominant color, which should rule all theothers, and there should be a general style of idea to whicheverything should be subjected.

"We may illustrate the effect of this principle in a very familiarcase. It is generally conceded that the majority of women look betterin mourning than they do in their ordinary apparel; a comparativelyplain person looks almost handsome in simple black. Now why is this?Simply because mourning requires a severe uniformity of color andidea, and forbids the display of that variety of colors and objectswhich go to make up the ordinary female costume, and which very fewwomen have such skill in using as to produce really beautifuleffects.

"Very similar results have been attained by the Quaker costume, which,in spite of the quaint severity of the forms to which it adhered, hasalways had a remarkable degree of becomingness, because of its

restriction to a few simple colors and to the absence of distractingornament.

"But the same effect which is produced in mourning or the Quakercostume may be preserved in a style of dress admitting color andornamentation. A dress may have the richest fullness of color,and still the tints may be so chastened and subdued as to producethe impression of a severe simplicity. Suppose, for example, agolden-haired blonde chooses for the ground-tone of her toilet adeep shade of purple, such as affords a good background for thehair and complexion. The larger draperies of the costume beingof this color, the bonnet may be of a lighter shade of the same,ornamented with lilac hyacinths, shading insensibly towards

rose-color. The effect of such a costume is simple, even thoughthere be much ornament, because it is ornament artisticallydisposed towards a general result.

"A dark shade of green being chosen as the ground-tone of a dress, thewhole costume may, in like manner, be worked up through lighter andbrighter shades of green, in which rose-colored flowers may appearwith the same impression of simple appropriateness that is made by thepink blossom over the green leaves of a rose. There have been times inFrance when the study of color produced artistic effects in costumeworthy of attention, and resulted in styles of dress of real beauty.But the present corrupted state of morals there has introduced acorrupt taste in dress; and it is worthy of thought that the decline

of moral purity in society is often marked by the deterioration of thesense of artistic beauty. Corrupt and dissipated social epochs producecorrupt styles of architecture and corrupt styles of drawing andpainting, as might easily be illustrated by the history of art. Whenthe leaders of society have blunted their finer perceptions bydissipation and immorality, they are incapable of feeling the beautieswhich come from delicate concords and truly artistic combinations.They verge towards barbarism, and require things that are strange,odd, dazzling, and peculiar to captivate their jaded senses. Such wetake to be the condition of Parisian society now. The tone of it is



given by women who are essentially impudent and vulgar, who overrideand overrule, by the mere brute force of opulence and luxury, women offiner natures and moral tone. The court of France is a court ofadventurers, of parvenus; and the palaces, the toilets, the equipage,the entertainments, of the mistresses outshine those of the lawfulwives. Hence comes a style of dress which is in itself vulgar,ostentatious, pretentious, without simplicity, without unity, seekingto dazzle by strange combinations and daring contrasts.

"Now, when the fashions emanating from such a state of society come toour country, where it has been too much the habit to put on and wear,without dispute and without inquiry, any or every thing that Francesends, the results produced are often things to make one wonder. Arespectable man, sitting quietly in church or other public assembly,may be pardoned sometimes for indulging a silent sense of theridiculous in the contemplation of the forest of bonnets whichsurround him, as he humbly asks himself the question, Were these meantto cover the head, to defend it, or to ornament it? and, if they areintended for any of these purposes, how?

"I confess, to me nothing is so surprising as the sort of things whichwell-bred women serenely wear on their heads with the idea that theyare ornaments. On my right hand sits a good-looking girl with a thingon her head which seems to consist mostly of bunches of grass, straws,

with a confusion of lace, in which sits a draggled bird, looking as ifthe cat had had him before the lady. In front of her sits another, whohas a glittering confusion of beads swinging hither and thither from ajaunty little structure of black and red velvet. An anxious-lookingmatron appears under the high eaves of a bonnet with a giganticcrimson rose crushed down into a mass of tangled hair. She is _ornamented_! she has no doubt about it.

"The fact is, that a style of dress which allows the use ofeverything in heaven above or earth beneath requires more taste andskill in disposition than falls to the lot of most of the female sexto make it even tolerable. In consequence, the flowers, fruits, grass,hay, straw, oats, butterflies, beads, birds, tinsel, streamers,

jinglers, lace, bugles, crape, which seem to be appointed to form acovering for the female head, very often appear in combinations sosingular, and the results, taken in connection with all the rest ofthe costume, are such, that we really think the people who usuallyassemble in a Quaker meeting-house are, with their entire absence ofornament, more becomingly attired than the majority of our publicaudiences. For if one considers his own impression after having seenan assemblage of women dressed in Quaker costume, he will find it tobe, not of a confusion of twinkling finery, but of many fair, sweetfaces, of charming, nice-looking women, and not of articles of dress.Now this shows that the severe dress, after all, has better answeredthe true purpose of dress, in setting forth the _woman_, than ourmodern costume, where the woman is but one item in a flying mass of

colors and forms, all of which distract attention from the faces theyare supposed to adorn. The dress of the Philadelphian ladies hasalways been celebrated for its elegance of effect, from the fact,probably, that the early Quaker parentage of the city formed the eyeand the taste of its women for uniform and simple styles of color, andfor purity and chastity of lines. The most perfect toilets that haveever been achieved in America have probably been those of the classfamiliarly called the gay Quakers,--children of Quaker families, who,while abandoning the strict rules of the sect, yet retain their modestand severe reticence, relying on richness of material, and soft,



harmonious coloring, rather than striking and dazzling ornament.

"The next source of beauty in dress is the impression of truthfulnessand reality. It is a well-known principle of the fine arts, in alltheir branches, that all shams and mere pretenses are to berejected,--a truth which Ruskin has shown with the full lustre of hismany-colored prose-poetry. As stucco pretending to be marble, andgraining pretending to be wood, are in false taste in building, sofalse jewelry and cheap fineries of every kind are in bad taste; soalso is powder instead of natural complexion, false hair instead ofreal, and flesh-painting of every description. I have even thehardihood to think and assert, in the presence of a generation whereofnot one woman in twenty wears her own hair, that the simple,short-cropped locks of Rosa Bonheur are in a more beautiful style ofhair-dressing than the most elaborate edifice of curls, rats, andwaterfalls that is erected on any fair head nowadays."

"Oh, Mr. Crowfield! you hit us all now," cried several voices.

"I know it, girls,--I know it. I admit that you are all looking verypretty; but I do maintain that you are none of you doing yourselvesjustice, and that Nature, if you would only follow her, would dobetter for you than all these elaborations. A short crop of your ownhair, that you could brush out in ten minutes every morning, would

have a more real, healthy beauty than the elaborate structures whichcost you hours of time, and give you the headache besides. I speak ofthe short crop,--to put the case at the very lowest figure,--for manyof you have lovely hair of different lengths, and susceptible of avariety of arrangements, if you did not suppose yourself obliged tobuild after a foreign pattern, instead of following out the intentionsof the great Artist who made you.

"Is it necessary absolutely that every woman and girl should lookexactly like every other one? There are women whom Nature makes withwavy or curly hair: let them follow her. There are those whom shemakes with soft and smooth locks, and with whom crinkling and crêpingis only a sham. They look very pretty with it, to be sure; but, after

all, is there but one style of beauty? and might they not lookprettier in cultivating the style which Nature seemed to have intendedfor them?

"As to the floods of false jewelry, glass beads, and tinsel finerywhich seem to be sweeping over the toilet of our women, I must protestthat they are vulgarizing the taste, and having a seriously bad effecton the delicacy of artistic perception. It is almost impossible tomanage such material and give any kind of idea of neatness or purity;for the least wear takes away their newness. And, of all disreputablethings, tumbled, rumpled, and tousled finery is the most disreputable.A simple white muslin, that can come fresh from the laundry everyweek, is, in point of real taste, worth any amount of spangled

tissues. A plain straw bonnet, with only a ribbon across it, is inreality in better taste than rubbishy birds or butterflies, or tinselornaments.

"Finally, girls, don't dress at haphazard; for dress, so far frombeing a matter of small consequence, is in reality one of the finearts,--so far from trivial, that each country ought to have a style ofits own, and each individual such a liberty of modification of thegeneral fashion as suits and befits her person, her age, her positionin life, and the kind of character she wishes to maintain.



"The only motive in toilet which seems to have obtained much as yetamong young girls is the very vague impulse to look 'stylish,'--adesire which must answer for more vulgar dressing than one would wishto see. If girls would rise above this, and desire to express by theirdress the attributes of true ladyhood, nicety of eye, fastidiousneatness, purity of taste, truthfulness, and sincerity of nature, theymight form, each one for herself, a style having its own individualbeauty, incapable of ever becoming common and vulgar.

"A truly trained taste and eye would enable a lady to select from thepermitted forms of fashion such as might be modified to her purposes,always remembering that simplicity is safe, that to attempt little andsucceed is better than to attempt a great deal and fail.

"And now, girls, I will finish by reciting to you the lines old BenJonson addressed to the pretty girls of his time, which form anappropriate ending to my remarks:--

"'Still to be dressedAs you were going to a feast;Still to be powdered, still perfumed;Lady, it is to be presumed,Though art's hid causes are not found,

All is not sweet, all is not sound."'Give me a look, give me a face,That makes simplicity a grace,--Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:Such sweet neglect more taketh meThan all the adulteries of art,That strike my eyes, but not my heart.'"

XI

THE CATHEDRAL

"I am going to build a cathedral one of these days," said I to mywife, as I sat looking at the slant line of light made by theafternoon sun on our picture of the Cathedral of Milan.

"That picture is one of the most poetic things you have among yourhouse ornaments," said Rudolph. "Its original is the world's chiefbeauty,--a tribute to religion such as Art never gave before and nevercan again,--as much before the Pantheon as the Alps, with their virginsnows and glittering pinnacles, are above all temples made with hands.

Say what you will, those Middle Ages that you call Dark had a glory offaith that never will be seen in our days of cotton-mills andManchester prints. Where will you marshal such an army of saints asstands in yonder white-marble forest, visibly transfigured andglorified in that celestial Italian air? Saintship belonged to themedieval Church; the heroism of religion has died with it."

"That's just like one of your assertions, Rudolph," said I. "You mightas well say that Nature has never made any flowers since Linnæus shutup his herbarium. We have no statues and pictures of modern saints;



but saints themselves, thank God, have never been wanting. 'As it wasin the beginning, is now, and ever shall be'"--

"But what about your cathedral?" said my wife.

"Oh yes!--my cathedral,--yes. When my stocks in cloud-land rise, I'llbuild a cathedral larger than Milan's; and the men, but moreparticularly the women, thereon, shall be those who have done evenmore than Saint Paul tells of in the saints of old, who 'subduedkingdoms, wrought righteousness, quenched the violence of fire,escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxedvaliant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.' I am notnow thinking of Florence Nightingale, nor of the host of women whohave been walking worthily in her footsteps, but of nameless saints ofmore retired and private state,--domestic saints, who have tendedchildren not their own through whooping-cough and measles, and bornethe unruly whims of fretful invalids,--stocking-darning, shirt-makingsaints,--saints who wore no visible garment of haircloth, boundthemselves with no belts of spikes and nails, yet in their inmostsouls were marked and seared with the red cross of a lifelongself-sacrifice,--saints for whom the mystical terms self-annihilationand self-crucifixion had a real and tangible meaning, all the strongerbecause their daily death was marked by no outward sign. No mysticalrites consecrated them; no organ-music burst forth in solemn rapture

to welcome them; no habit of their order proclaimed to themselves andthe world that they were the elect of Christ, the brides of anotherlife: but small, eating cares, daily prosaic duties, the pettyfriction of all the littleness and all the inglorious annoyances ofevery day, were as dust that hid the beauty and grandeur of theircalling even from themselves; they walked unknown even to theirhouseholds, unknown even to their own souls; but when the Lord comesto build his New Jerusalem, we shall find many a white stone with anew name thereon, and the record of deeds and words which only He thatseeth in secret knows. Many a humble soul will be amazed to find thatthe seed it sowed in such weakness, in the dust of daily life, hasblossomed into immortal flowers under the eye of the Lord.

"When I build my cathedral, that woman," I said, pointing to a smallpainting by the fire, "shall be among the first of my saints. Yousee her there, in an every-day dress-cap with a mortal thread-laceborder, and with a very ordinary worked collar, fastened by avisible and terrestrial breastpin. There is no nimbus around herhead, no sign of the cross upon her breast; her hands are claspedon no crucifix or rosary. Her clear, keen, hazel eye looks as if itcould sparkle with mirthfulness, as in fact it could; there are init both the subtile flash of wit and the subdued light of humor;and though the whole face smiles, it has yet a certain decisivefirmness that speaks the soul immutable in good. That woman shall bethe first saint in my cathedral, and her name shall be recorded asSaint Esther. What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished

from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity andgreatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic. Tobe really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic inthe insipid details of every-day life, is a virtue so rare as to beworthy of canonization,--and this virtue was hers. New EnglandPuritanism must be credited with the making of many such women.Severe as was her discipline, and harsh as seems now her rule, wehave yet to see whether women will be born of modern systems oftolerance and indulgence equal to those grand ones of the oldentimes whose places now know them no more. The inconceivable



austerity and solemnity with which Puritanism invested this mortallife, the awful grandeur of the themes which it made householdwords, the sublimity of the issues which it hung upon the commonestacts of our earthly existence, created characters of more than Romanstrength and greatness; and the good men and women of Puritantraining excelled the saints of the Middle Ages, as a soul fullydeveloped intellectually, educated to closest thought, and exercisedin reasoning, is superior to a soul great merely through impulseand sentiment.

"My earliest recollections of Aunt Esther, for so our saint was known,were of a bright-faced, cheerful, witty, quick-moving littlemiddle-aged person, who came into our house like a good fairy wheneverthere was a call of sickness or trouble. If an accident happened inthe great roystering family of eight or ten children (and when was notsomething happening to some of us?), and we were shut up in asick-room, then duly as daylight came the quick step and cheerful faceof Aunt Esther,--not solemn and lugubrious like so many sick-roomnurses, but with a never failing flow of wit and story that couldbeguile even the most doleful into laughing at their own afflictions.I remember how a fit of the quinsy--most tedious of all sicknesses toan active child--was gilded and glorified into quite a fête by myhaving Aunt Esther all to myself for two whole days, with nothing todo but amuse me. She charmed me into smiling at the very pangs which

had made me weep before, and of which she described her ownexperiences in a manner to make me think that, after all, the quinsywas something with an amusing side to it. Her knowledge of all sortsof medicines, gargles, and alleviatives, her perfect familiarity withevery canon and law of good nursing and tending, was something thatcould only have come from long experience in those good old NewEngland days when there were no nurses recognized as a class in theland, but when watching and the care of the sick were among thoseoffices of Christian life which the families of a neighborhoodreciprocally rendered each other. Even from early youth she had obeyeda special vocation as sister of charity in many a sick-room, and, withthe usual keen intelligence of New England, had widened her powers ofdoing good by the reading of medical and physiological works. Her

legends of nursing in those days of long typhus fever and otherformidable and protracted forms of disease were to our ears quitewonderful, and we regarded her as a sort of patron saint of thesick-room. She seemed always so cheerful, so bright, and so devoted,that it never occurred to us youngsters to doubt that she enjoyed,above all things, being with us, waiting on us all day, watching overus by night, telling us stories, and answering, in her lively andalways amusing and instructive way, that incessant fire of questionswith which a child persecutes a grown person.

"Sometimes, as a reward of goodness, we were allowed to visit her inher own room, a neat little parlor in the neighborhood, whosewindows looked down a hillside on one hand, under the boughs of an

apple-orchard, where daisies and clover and bobolinks alwaysabounded in summer time; and on the other faced the street, with agreen yard flanked by one or two shady elms between them and thestreet. No nun's cell was ever neater, no bee's cell ever morecompactly and carefully arranged; and to us, familiar with theconfusion of a great family of little ones, there was always somethinginviting about its stillness, its perfect order, and the air ofthoughtful repose that breathed over it. She lived there inperfect independence, doing, as it was her delight to do, every officeof life for herself. She was her own cook, her own parlor and



chamber maid, her own laundress; and very faultless the cooking,washing, ironing, and care of her premises were. A slice of AuntEsther's gingerbread, one of Aunt Esther's cookies, had, we allbelieved, certain magical properties such as belonged to no othermortal mixture. Even a handful of walnuts that were brought from thedepths of her mysterious closet had virtues in our eyes such as noother walnuts could approach. The little shelf of books that hungsuspended by cords against her wall was sacred in our regard; thevolumes were like no other books; and we supposed that she derivedfrom them those stores of knowledge on all subjects which sheunconsciously dispensed among us,--for she was always telling ussomething of metals, or minerals, or gems, or plants, or animals,which awakened our curiosity, stimulated our inquiries, and, aboveall, led us to wonder where she had learned it all. Even theslight restrictions which her neat habits imposed on our breezy andturbulent natures seemed all quite graceful and becoming. It wasright, in our eyes, to cleanse our shoes on scraper and mat withextra diligence, and then to place a couple of chips under the heelsof our boots when we essayed to dry our feet at her spotlesshearth. We marveled to see our own faces reflected in a thousandsmiles and winks from her bright brass andirons,--such andirons wethought were seen on earth in no other place,--and a pair of radiantbrass candlesticks, that illustrated the mantelpiece, were viewedwith no less respect.

"Aunt Esther's cat was a model for all cats,--so sleek, so intelligent,so decorous and well-trained, always occupying exactly her own cushionby the fire, and never transgressing in one iota the proprietiesbelonging to a cat of good breeding. She shared our affections withher mistress, and we were allowed as a great favor and privilege,now and then, to hold the favorite on our knees, and stroke hersatin coat to a smoother gloss.

"But it was not for cats alone that she had attractions. She was insympathy and fellowship with everything that moved and lived; knewevery bird and beast with a friendly acquaintanceship. The squirrelsthat inhabited the trees in the front yard were won in time by her

blandishments to come and perch on her window-sills, and thence, bytrains of nuts adroitly laid, to disport themselves on the shiningcherry tea-table that stood between the windows; and we youngstersused to sit entranced with delight as they gamboled and waved theirfeathery tails in frolicsome security, eating rations of gingerbreadand bits of seedcake with as good a relish as any child among us.

"The habits, the rights, the wrongs, the wants, and the sufferings ofthe animal creation formed the subject of many an interestingconversation with her; and we boys, with the natural male instinct ofhunting, trapping, and pursuing, were often made to pause in ourcareer, remembering her pleas for the dumb things which could notspeak for themselves.

"Her little hermitage was the favorite resort of numerous friends.Many of the young girls who attended the village academy made heracquaintance, and nothing delighted her more than that they shouldcome there and read to her the books they were studying, when hersuperior and wide information enabled her to light up and explain muchthat was not clear to the immature students.

"In her shady retirement, too, she was a sort of Egeria to certain menof genius, who came to read to her their writings, to consult her in



their arguments, and to discuss with her the literature and politicsof the day,--through all which her mind moved with an equal step, yetwith a sprightliness and vivacity peculiarly feminine.

"Her memory was remarkably retentive, not only of the contents ofbooks, but of all that great outlying fund of anecdote and story whichthe quaint and earnest New England life always supplied. There werepictures of peculiar characters, legends of true events stranger thanromance, all stored in the cabinets of her mind; and these came fromher lips with the greater force because the precision of her memoryenabled her to authenticate them with name, date, and circumstances ofvivid reality. From that shadowy line of incidents which marks thetwilight boundary between the spiritual world and the present life shedrew legends of peculiar clearness, but invested with the mysteriouscharm which always dwells in that uncertain region; and the shrewdflash of her eye, and the keen, bright smile with which she answeredthe wondering question, 'What _do_ you suppose it was?' or, 'Whatcould it have been?' showed how evenly rationalism in her mind keptpace with romance.

"The retired room in which she thus read, studied, thought, andsurveyed from afar the whole world of science and literature, and inwhich she received friends and entertained children, was perhaps thedearest and freshest spot to her in the world. There came a time,

however, when the neat little independent establishment was given up,and she went to associate herself with two of her nieces in keepinghouse for a boarding-school of young girls. Here her lively mannersand her gracious interest in the young made her a universal favorite,though the cares she assumed broke in upon those habits of solitudeand study which formed her delight. From the day that she surrenderedthis independency of hers, she had never, for more than a score ofyears, a home of her own, but filled the trying position of anaccessory in the home of others. Leaving the boarding-school, shebecame the helper of an invalid wife and mother in the early nursingand rearing of a family of young children,--an office which leaves noprivacy and no leisure. Her bed was always shared with some littleone; her territories were exposed to the constant inroads of little

pattering feet; and all the various sicknesses and ailments ofdelicate childhood made absorbing drafts upon her time.

"After a while she left New England with the brother to whosefamily she devoted herself. The failing health of the wife and motherleft more and more the charge of all things in her hands; servantswere poor, and all the appliances of living had the rawness andinconvenience which in those days attended Western life. It became herfate to supply all other people's defects and deficiencies.Wherever a hand failed, there must her hand be. Whenever a footfaltered, she must step into the ranks. She was the one who thoughtfor and cared for and toiled for all, yet made never a claim that anyone should care for her.

"It was not till late in my life that I became acquainted with thedeep interior sacrifice, the constant self-abnegation, which allher life involved. She was born with a strong, vehement, impulsivenature,--a nature both proud and sensitive,--a nature whose tasteswere passions, whose likings and whose aversions were of the mostintense and positive character. Devoted as she always seemed tothe mere practical and material, she had naturally a deep romanceand enthusiasm of temperament which exceeded all that can bewritten in novels. It was chiefly owing to this that a home and a



central affection of her own were never hers. In her early days ofattractiveness, none who would have sought her could meet the highrequirements of her ideality; she never saw her hero, and so nevermarried. Family cares, the tending of young children, she oftenconfessed, were peculiarly irksome to her. She had the head of astudent, a passionate love for the world of books. A Protestantconvent, where she might devote herself without interruption tostudy, was her ideal of happiness. She had, too, the keenestappreciation of poetry, of music, of painting, and of naturalscenery. Her enjoyment in any of these things was intensely vividwhenever, by chance, a stray sunbeam of the kind darted across thedusty path of her life; yet in all these her life was a constantrepression. The eagerness with which she would listen to any accountfrom those more fortunate ones who had known these things, showedhow ardent a passion was constantly held in check. A short time beforeher death, talking with a friend who had visited Switzerland, shesaid, with great feeling: 'All my life my desire to visit thebeautiful places of this earth has been so intense, that I cannotbut hope that after my death I shall be permitted to go and look atthem.'

"The completeness of her self-discipline may be gathered from the factthat no child could ever be brought to believe she had not a naturalfondness for children, or that she found the care of them burdensome.

It was easy to see that she had naturally all those particular habits,those minute pertinacities in respect to her daily movements and thearrangement of all her belongings, which would make the meddling,intrusive demands of infancy and childhood peculiarly hard for her tomeet. Yet never was there a pair of toddling feet that did not makefree with Aunt Esther's room, never a curly head that did not look up,in confiding assurance of a welcome smile, to her bright eyes. Theinconsiderate and never ceasing requirements of children and invalidsnever drew from her other than a cheerful response; and to my mindthere is more saintship in this than in the private wearing of anynumber of haircloth shirts or belts lined with spikes.

"In a large family of careless, noisy children there will be constant

losing of thimbles and needles and scissors; but Aunt Esther wasalways ready, without reproach, to help the careless and the luckless.Her things, so well kept and so treasured, she was willing to lend,with many a caution and injunction, it is true, but also with a relishof right good will. And, to do us justice, we generally felt thesacredness of the trust, and were more careful of her things than ofour own. If a shade of sewing-silk were wanting, or a choice button,or a bit of braid or tape, Aunt Esther cheerfully volunteeredsomething from her well-kept stores, not regarding the trouble shemade herself in seeking the key, unlocking the drawer, and searchingout in bag or parcel just the treasure demanded. Never was moreperfect precision, or more perfect readiness to accommodate others.

"Her little income, scarcely reaching a hundred dollars yearly, wasdisposed of with a generosity worthy a fortune. One tenth wassacredly devoted to charity, and a still further sum laid by everyyear for presents to friends. No Christmas or New Year ever cameround that Aunt Esther, out of this very tiny fund, did not findsomething for children and servants. Her gifts were trifling invalue, but well timed,--a ball of thread-wax, a paper of pins, apin-cushion,--something generally so well chosen as to show thatshe had been running over our needs, and noting what to give. Shewas no less gracious as receiver than as giver. The little articles



that we made for her, or the small presents that we could buy outof our childish resources, she always declared were exactly what sheneeded; and she delighted us by the care she took of them and thevalue she set upon them.

"Her income was a source of the greatest pleasure to her, asmaintaining an independence without which she could not have beenhappy. Though she constantly gave to every family in which she livedservices which no money could repay, it would have been the greatesttrial to her not to be able to provide for herself. Her dress, alwaysthat of a true gentlewoman,--refined, quiet, and neat,--was boughtfrom this restricted sum, and her small traveling expenses were paidout of it. She abhorred anything false or flashy: her caps weretrimmed with real thread lace, and her silk dresses were of the bestquality, perfectly well made and kept; and, after all, a little sumalways remained over in her hands for unforeseen exigencies.

"This love of independence was one of the strongest features of herlife, and we often playfully told her that her only form ofselfishness was the monopoly of saintship,--that she who gave so muchwas not willing to allow others to give to her; that she who madeherself servant of all was not willing to allow others to serve her.

"Among the trials of her life must be reckoned much ill health, borne,

however, with such heroic patience that it was not easy to say whenthe hand of pain was laid upon her. She inherited, too, a tendency todepression of spirits, which at times increased to a morbid anddistressing gloom. Few knew or suspected these sufferings, socompletely had she learned to suppress every outward manifestationthat might interfere with the happiness of others. In her hours ofdepression she resolutely forbore to sadden the lives of those aroundher with her own melancholy, and often her darkest moods were solighted up and adorned with an outside show of wit and humor, thatthose who had known her intimately were astonished to hear that shehad ever been subject to depression.

"Her truthfulness of nature amounted almost to superstition. From her

promise once given she felt no change of purpose could absolve her;and therefore rarely would she give it absolutely, for she _could not_ alter the thing that had gone forth from her lips. Our belief in thecertainty of her fulfilling her word was like our belief in theimmutability of the laws of nature. Whoever asked her got of her theabsolute truth on every subject, and, when she had no good thing tosay, her silence was often truly awful. When anything mean orungenerous was brought to her knowledge, she would close her lipsresolutely; but the flash in her eyes showed what she would speak werespeech permitted. In her last days she spoke to a friend of what shehad suffered from the strength of her personal antipathies. 'I thankGod,' she said, 'that I believe at last I have overcome all that too,and that there has not been, for some years, any human being toward

whom I have felt a movement of dislike.'

"The last year of her life was a constant discipline of unceasingpain, borne with that fortitude which could make her an entertainingand interesting companion even while the sweat of mortal agony wasstarting from her brow. Her own room she kept as a last asylum, towhich she would silently retreat when the torture became too intensefor the repression of society, and there alone, with closed doors, shewrestled with her agony. The stubborn independence of her nature tookrefuge in this final fastness, and she prayed only that she might go



down to death with the full ability to steady herself all the way,needing the help of no other hand.

"The ultimate struggle of earthly feeling came when this proudself-reliance was forced to give way, and she was obliged to leaveherself helpless in the hands of others. 'God requires that I shouldgive up my last form of self-will,' she said; 'now I have resignedthis, perhaps He will let me go home.'

"In a good old age, Death, the friend, came and opened the door ofthis mortal state, and a great soul, that had served a longappenticeship to little things, went forth into the joy of its Lord; alife of self-sacrifice and self-abnegation passed into a life ofendless rest."

"But," said Rudolph, "I rebel at this life of self-abnegation andself-sacrifice. I do not think it the duty of noble women, who havebeautiful natures and enlarged and cultivated tastes, to makethemselves the slaves of the sick-room and nursery."

"Such was not the teaching of our New England faith," said I."Absolute unselfishness,--the death of self,--such were its teachings,and such as Esther's the characters it made. 'Do the duty nearestthee' was the only message it gave to 'women with a mission;' and from

duty to duty, from one self-denial to another, they rose to a majestyof moral strength impossible to any form of mere self-indulgence. Itis of souls thus sculptured and chiseled by self-denial andself-discipline that the living temple of the perfect hereafter is tobe built. The pain of the discipline is short, but the glory of thefruition is eternal."

XII

THE NEW YEAR

[1865.]

Here comes the First of January, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Five,and we are all settled comfortably into our winter places, with ourwinter surroundings and belongings; all cracks and openings arecalked and listed, the double windows are in, the furnace dragonin the cellar is ruddy and in good liking, sending up his warmingrespirations through every pipe and register in the house; andyet, though an artificial summer reigns everywhere, like bees we haveour swarming place,--in my library. There is my chimney-corner, andmy table permanently established on one side of the hearth; andeach of the female genus has, so to speak, pitched her own winter

tent within sight of the blaze of my camp-fire. I discerned to-daythat Jenny had surreptitiously appropriated one of the drawers of mystudy-table to knitting-needles and worsted; and wicker work-basketsand stands of various heights and sizes seem to be planted here andthere for permanence among the bookcases. The canary-bird has asunny window, and the plants spread out their leaves and unfoldtheir blossoms as if there were no ice and snow in the street, andRover makes a hearth-rug of himself in winking satisfaction in frontof my fire, except when Jenny is taken with a fit of discipline, whenhe beats a retreat, and secretes himself under my table.



Peaceable, ah, how peaceable, home and quiet and warmth in winter! Andhow, when we hear the wind whistle, we think of you, O our bravebrothers, our saviors and defenders, who for our sake have no home butthe muddy camp, the hard pillow of the barrack, the weary march, theuncertain fare,--you, the rank and file, the thousand unnoticed ones,who have left warm fires, dear wives, loving little children, withouteven the hope of glory or fame,--without even the hope of doinganything remarkable or perceptible for the cause you love,--resignedonly to fill the ditch or bridge the chasm over which your countryshall walk to peace and joy! Good men and true, brave unknown hearts,we salute you, and feel that we, in our soft peace and security, arenot worthy of you! When we think of you, our simple comforts seemluxuries all too good for us, who give so little when you give all!

But there are others to whom from our bright homes, our cheerfulfiresides, we would fain say a word, if we dared.

Think of a mother receiving a letter with such a passage as thisin it! It is extracted from one we have just seen, written by aprivate in the army of Sheridan, describing the death of a private."He fell instantly, gave a peculiar smile and look, and thenclosed his eyes. We laid him down gently at the foot of a largetree. I crossed his hands over his breast, closed his eyelids down,

but the smile was still on his face. I wrapt him in his tent, spreadmy pocket-handkerchief over his face, wrote his name on a piece ofpaper, and pinned it on his breast, and there we left him: we couldnot find pick or shovel to dig a grave." There it is!--a historythat is multiplying itself by hundreds daily, the substance of whathas come to so many homes, and must come to so many more before thegreat price of our ransom is paid!

What can we say to you, in those many, many homes where the light hasgone out forever?--you, O fathers, mothers, wives, sisters, hauntedby a name that has ceased to be spoken on earth,--you, for whom thereis no more news from the camp, no more reading of lists, no moretracing of maps, no more letters, but only a blank, dead silence! The

battlecry goes on, but for you it is passed by! the victory comes,but, oh, never more to bring him back to you! your offering to thisgreat cause has been made, and been taken; you have thrown into it _all_ your living, even all that you had, and from henceforth yourhouse is left unto you desolate! O ye watchers of the cross, yewaiters by the sepulchre, what can be said to you? We could almostextinguish our own home-fires, that seem too bright when we think ofyour darkness; the laugh dies on our lip, the lamp burns dim throughour tears, and we seem scarcely worthy to speak words of comfort, lestwe seem as those who mock a grief they cannot know.

But is there no consolation? Is it nothing to have had such a treasureto give, and to have given it freely for the noblest cause for which

ever battle was set,--for the salvation of your country, for thefreedom of all mankind? Had he died a fruitless death, in the track ofcommon life, blasted by fever, smitten or rent by crushing accident,then might his most precious life seem to be as water spilled upon theground; but now it has been given for a cause and a purpose worthyeven the anguish of your loss and sacrifice. He has been countedworthy to be numbered with those who stood with precious incensebetween the living and the dead, that the plague which was consumingus might be stayed. The blood of these young martyrs shall be the seedof the future church of liberty, and from every drop shall spring up



flowers of healing. O widow! O mother! blessed among bereaved women!there remains to you a treasure that belongs not to those who havelost in any other wise,--the power to say, "He died for his country."In all the good that comes of this anguish you shall have a right andshare by virtue of this sacrifice. The joy of freedmen bursting fromchains, the glory of a nation new-born, the assurance of a triumphantfuture for your country and the world,--all these become yours by thepurchase-money of that precious blood.

Besides this, there are other treasures that come through sorrow, andsorrow alone. There are celestial plants of root so long and so deepthat the land must be torn and furrowed, ploughed up from the veryfoundation, before they can strike and nourish; and when we see howGod's plough is driving backward and forward and across this nation,rending, tearing up tender shoots, and burying soft wild-flowers, weask ourselves, What is He going to plant?

Not the first year, nor the second, after the ground has been brokenup, does the purpose of the husbandman appear. At first we see onlywhat is uprooted and ploughed in,--the daisy drabbled, and the violetcrushed,--and the first trees planted amid the unsightly furrows standdumb and disconsolate, irresolute in leaf, and without flower orfruit. Their work is under the ground. In darkness and silence theyare putting forth long fibres, searching hither and thither under the

black soil for the strength that years hence shall burst into bloomand bearing.

What is true of nations is true of individuals. It may seem now winterand desolation with you. Your hearts have been ploughed and harrowedand are now frozen up. There is not a flower left, not a blade ofgrass, not a bird to sing,--and it is hard to believe that anybrighter flowers, any greener herbage, shall spring up than thosewhich have been torn away; and yet there will. Nature herself teachesyou to-day. Outdoors nothing but bare branches and shrouding snow; andyet you know that there is not a tree that is not patiently holdingout at the end of its boughs next year's buds, frozen indeed, butunkilled. The rhododendron and the lilac have their blossoms all

ready, wrapped in cere-cloth, waiting in patient faith. Under thefrozen ground the crocus and the hyacinth and the tulip hide in theirhearts the perfect forms of future flowers. And it is even so withyou: your leaf buds of the future are frozen, but not killed; the soilof your heart has many flowers under it cold and still now, but theywill yet come up and bloom.

The dear old book of comfort tells of no present healing for sorrow.No chastening for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous, butafterwards it yieldeth peaceable fruits of righteousness. We, asindividuals, as a nation, need to have faith in that AFTERWARDS. It issure to come,--sure as spring and summer to follow winter.

There is a certain amount of suffering which must follow the rendingof the great cords of life, suffering which is natural and inevitable;it cannot be argued down; it cannot be stilled; it can no more besoothed by any effort of faith and reason than the pain of a fracturedlimb, or the agony of fire on the living flesh. All that we can do isto brace ourselves to bear it, calling on God, as the martyrs did inthe fire, and resigning ourselves to let it burn on. We must bewilling to suffer, since God so wills. There are just so many waves togo over us, just so many arrows of stinging thought to be shot intoour soul, just so many faintings and sinkings and revivings only to



suffer again, belonging to and inherent in our portion of sorrow; andthere is a work of healing that God has placed in the hands of Timealone.

Time heals all things at last; yet it depends much on us in oursuffering, whether time shall send us forth healed, indeed, but maimedand crippled and callous, or whether, looking to the great Physicianof sorrows, and co-working with him, we come forth stronger and fairereven for our wounds.

We call ourselves a Christian people, and the peculiarity ofChristianity is that it is a worship and doctrine of sorrow. The fivewounds of Jesus, the instruments of the passion, the cross, thesepulchre,--these are its emblems and watchwords. In thousands ofchurches, amid gold and gems and altars fragrant with perfume, areseen the crown of thorns, the nails, the spear, the cup of vinegarmingled with gall, the sponge that could not slake that burningdeath-thirst; and in a voice choked with anguish the Church in manylands and divers tongues prays from age to age, "By thine agony andbloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, by thy precious death andburial!"--mighty words of comfort, whose meaning reveals itself onlyto souls fainting in the cold death-sweat of mortal anguish! They tellall Christians that by uttermost distress alone was the Captain oftheir salvation made perfect as a Saviour.

Sorrow brings us into the true unity of the Church,--that unity whichunderlies all external creeds, and unites all hearts that havesuffered deeply enough to know that when sorrow is at its utmost thereis but one kind of sorrow, and but one remedy. What matter, _inextremis_, whether we be called Romanist, or Protestant, or Greek, orCalvinist?

We suffer, and Christ suffered; we die, and Christ died; he conqueredsuffering and death, he rose and lives and reigns,--and we shallconquer, rise, live, and reign. The hours on the cross were long, thethirst was bitter, the darkness and horror real,--_but they ended_.After the wail, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" came the calm,

"It is finished;" pledge to us all that our "It is finished" shallcome also.

Christ arose, fresh, joyous, no more to die; and it is written that,when the disciples were gathered together in fear and sorrow, he stoodin the midst of them, and showed unto them his hands and his side; andthen were they glad. Already had the healed wounds of Jesus becomepledges of consolation to innumerable thousands; and those who, likeChrist, have suffered the weary struggles, the dim horrors of thecross,--who have lain, like him, cold and chilled in the hopelesssepulchre,--if his spirit wakes them to life, shall come forth withhealing power for others who have suffered and are suffering.

Count the good and beautiful ministrations that have been wrought inthis world of need and labor, and how many of them have been wroughtby hands wounded and scarred, by hearts that had scarcely ceased tobleed!

How many priests of consolation is God now ordaining by the fieryimposition of sorrow! how many Sisters of the Bleeding Heart,Daughters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity, are receiving their firstvocation in tears and blood!



The report of every battle strikes into some home; and heads fall low,and hearts are shattered, and only God sees the joy that is set beforethem, and that shall come out of their sorrow. He sees our morning atthe same moment that He sees our night,--sees us comforted, healed,risen to a higher life, at the same moment that He sees us crushed andbroken in the dust; and so, though tenderer than we, He bears ourgreat sorrows for the joy that is set before us.

After the Napoleonic wars had desolated Europe, the country was, likeall countries after war, full of shattered households, of widows andorphans and homeless wanderers. A nobleman of Silesia, the Baron vonKottwitz, who had lost his wife and all his family in the reverses andsorrows of the times, found himself alone in the world, which lookedmore dreary and miserable through the multiplying lenses of his owntears. But he was one of those whose heart had been quickened in itsdeath anguish by the resurrection voice of Christ; and he came forthto life and comfort. He bravely resolved to do all that one man couldto lessen the great sum of misery. He sold his estates in Silesia,bought in Berlin a large building that had been used as barracks forthe soldiers, and, fitting it up in plain, commodious apartments,formed there a great family-establishment, into which he received thewrecks and fragments of families that had been broken up by thewar,--orphan children, widowed and helpless women, decrepit oldpeople, disabled soldiers. These he made his family, and constituted

himself their father and chief. He abode with them, and cared for themas a parent. He had schools for the children; the more advanced he putto trades and employments; he set up a hospital for the sick; and forall he had the priestly ministrations of his own Christ-like heart.The celebrated Professor Tholuck, one of the most learned men ofmodern Germany, was an early protégé of the old Baron's, who,discerning his talents, put him in the way of a liberal education. Inhis earlier years, like many others of the young who play with life,ignorant of its needs, Tholuck piqued himself on a lordly skepticismwith regard to the commonly received Christianity, and even wrote anessay to prove the superiority of the Mohammedan to the Christianreligion. In speaking of his conversion, he says,--"What moved me wasno argument, nor any spoken reproof, but simply that divine image of

the old Baron walking before my soul. That life was an argument alwayspresent to me, and which I never could answer; and so I became aChristian." In the life of this man we see the victory over sorrow.How many with means like his, when desolated by like bereavements,have lain coldly and idly gazing on the miseries of life, and weavingaround themselves icy tissues of doubt and despair,--doubting thebeing of a God, doubting the reality of a Providence, doubting thedivine love, embittered and rebellious against the power which theycould not resist, yet to which they would not submit! In such a chillheart-freeze lies the danger of sorrow. And it is a mortal danger. Itis a torpor that must be resisted, as the man in the whirling snowsmust bestir himself, or he will perish. The apathy of melancholy mustbe broken by an effort of religion and duty. The stagnant blood must

be made to flow by active work, and the cold hand warmed by claspingthe hands outstretched towards it in sympathy or supplication. Oneorphan child taken in, to be fed, clothed, and nurtured, may save aheart from freezing to death: and God knows this war is making but toomany orphans!

It is easy to subscribe to an orphan asylum, and go on in one'sdespair and loneliness. Such ministries may do good to the childrenwho are thereby saved from the street, but they impart little warmthand comfort to the giver. One destitute child housed, taught, cared



for, and tended personally, will bring more solace to a sufferingheart than a dozen maintained in an asylum. Not that the child willprobably prove an angel, or even an uncommonly interesting mortal. Itis a prosaic work, this bringing-up of children, and there can belittle rose-water in it. The child may not appreciate what is done forhim, may not be particularly grateful, may have disagreeable faults,and continue to have them after much pains on your part to eradicatethem,--and yet it is a fact, that to redeem one human being fromdestitution and ruin, even in some homely every-day course ofministrations, is one of the best possible tonics and alteratives to asick and wounded spirit.

But this is not the only avenue to beneficence which the war opens. Weneed but name the service of hospitals, the care and education of thefreedmen,--for these are charities that have long been before the eyesof the community, and have employed thousands of busy hands: thousandsof sick and dying beds to tend, a race to be educated, civilized, andChristianized, surely were work enough for one age; and yet this isnot all. War shatters everything, and it is hard to say what insociety will not need rebuilding and binding up and strengtheninganew. Not the least of the evils of war are the vices which a greatarmy engenders wherever it moves,--vices peculiar to military life, asothers are peculiar to peace. The poor soldier perils for us notmerely his body, but his soul. He leads a life of harassing and

exhausting toil and privation, of violent strain on the nervousenergies, alternating with sudden collapse, creating a craving forstimulants, and endangering the formation of fatal habits. What furiesand harpies are those that follow the army, and that seek out thesoldier in his tent, far from home, mother, wife and sister, tired,disheartened, and tempt him to forget his troubles in a momentaryexhilaration, that burns only to chill and to destroy! Evil angels arealways active and indefatigable, and there must be good angelsenlisted to face them; and here is employment for the slack hand ofgrief. Ah, we have known mothers bereft of sons in this war, who haveseemed at once to open wide their hearts, and to become mothers toevery brave soldier in the field. They have lived only to work,--andin place of one lost, their sons have been counted by thousands.

And not least of all the fields for exertion and Christian charityopened by this war is that presented by womanhood. The war isabstracting from the community its protecting and sheltering elements,and leaving the helpless and dependent in vast disproportion. Foryears to come, the average of lone women will be largely increased;and the demand, always great, for some means by which they may providefor themselves, in the rude jostle of the world, will become moreurgent and imperative.

Will any one sit pining away in inert grief, when two streets off arethe midnight dance-houses, where girls of twelve, thirteen, andfourteen are being lured into the way of swift destruction? How many

of these are daughters of soldiers who have given their hearts' bloodfor us and our liberties!

Two noble women of the Society of Friends have lately been taking thegauge of suffering and misery in our land, visiting the hospitals atevery accessible point, pausing in our great cities, and going intheir purity to those midnight orgies where mere children are beingtrained for a life of vice and infamy. They have talked with thesepoor bewildered souls, entangled in toils as terrible and inexorableas those of the slave-market, and many of whom are frightened and



distressed at the life they are beginning to lead, and earnestlylooking for the means of escape. In the judgment of these holy women,at least one third of those with whom they have talked are children sorecently entrapped, and so capable of reformation, that there would bethe greatest hope in efforts for their salvation. While such thingsare to be done in our land, is there any reason why any one should dieof grief? One soul redeemed will do more to lift the burden of sorrowthan all the blandishments and diversions of art, all the alleviationsof luxury, all the sympathy of friends.

In the Roman Catholic Church there is an order of women called theSisters of the Good Shepherd, who have renounced the world to devotethemselves, their talents and property, entirely to the work ofseeking out and saving the fallen of their own sex; and the wondersworked by their self-denying love on the hearts and lives of even themost depraved are credible only to those who know that the GoodShepherd himself ever lives and works with such spirits engaged insuch a work. A similar order of women exists in New York, under thedirection of the Episcopal Church, in connection with St. Luke'sHospital; and another in England, who tend the "House of Mercy" ofClewer.

Such benevolent associations offer objects of interest to that classwhich most needs something to fill the void made by bereavement. The

wounds of grief are less apt to find a cure in that rank of life wherethe sufferer has wealth and leisure. The _poor_ widow, whoso husbandwas her all, _must_ break the paralysis of grief. The hard necessitiesof life are her physicians; they send her out to unwelcome, yetfriendly toil, which, hard as it seems, has yet its healing power. Butthe sufferer surrounded by the appliances of wealth and luxury maylong indulge the baleful apathy, and remain in the damp shadows of thevalley of death till strength and health are irrecoverably lost. HowChrist-like is the thought of a woman, graceful, elegant, cultivated,refined, whose voice has been trained to melody, whose fingers canmake sweet harmony with every touch, whose pencil and whose needle canawake the beautiful creations of art, devoting all these powers to thework of charming back to the sheepfold those wandering and bewildered

lambs whom the Good Shepherd still calls his own! Jenny Lind once,when she sang at a concert for destitute children, exclaimed in herenthusiasm, "Is it not beautiful that I can sing so?" And so may notevery woman feel, when her graces and accomplishments draw thewanderer, and charm away evil demons, and soothe the sore and sickenedspirit, and make the Christian fold more attractive than the dizzygardens of false pleasure?

In such associations, and others of kindred nature, how many of thestricken and bereaved women of our country might find at once a homeand an object in life! Motherless hearts might be made glad in abetter and higher motherhood; and the stock of earthly life thatseemed cut off at the root, and dead past recovery, may be grafted

upon with a shoot from the tree of life which is in the Paradise ofGod.

So the beginning of this eventful 1865, which finds us still treadingthe wine-press of our great conflict, should bring with it a sereneand solemn hope, a joy such as those had with whom in the midst of thefiery furnace there walked one like unto the Son of God.

The great affliction that has come upon our country is so evidentlythe purifying chastening of a Father, rather than the avenging anger



of a Destroyer, that all hearts may submit themselves in a solemn andholy calm still to bear the burning that shall make us clean fromdross and bring us forth to a higher national life. Never, in thewhole course of our history, have such teachings of the pure abstractRight been so commended and forced upon us by Providence. Never havepublic men been so constrained to humble themselves before God, and toacknowledge that there is a Judge that ruleth in the earth. Verily hisinquisition for blood has been strict and awful; and for everystricken household of the poor and lowly hundreds of households of theoppressor have been scattered. The land where the family of the slavewas first annihilated, and the negro, with all the loves and hopes ofa man, was proclaimed to be a beast to be bred and sold in market withthe horse and the swine,--that land, with its fair name, Virginia, hasbeen made a desolation so signal, so wonderful, that the blindestpasser-by cannot but ask for what sin so awful a doom has been metedout. The prophetic visions of Nat Turner, who saw the leaves dropblood and the land darkened, have been fulfilled. The work of justicewhich he predicted is being executed to the uttermost.

But when this strange work of judgment and justice is consummated,when our country, through a thousand battles and ten thousands ofprecious deaths, shall have come forth from this long agony, redeemedand regenerated, then God himself shall return and dwell with us, andthe Lord God shall wipe away all tears from all faces, and the rebuke

of his people shall he utterly take away.

XIII

THE NOBLE ARMY OF MARTYRS

When the first number of the Chimney-Corner appeared, the snow laywhite on the ground, the buds on the trees were closed and frozen, andbeneath the hard frost-bound soil lay buried the last year's

flower-roots, waiting for a resurrection.

So in our hearts it was winter,--a winter of patient suffering andexpectancy,--a winter of suppressed sobs, of inward bleedings,--acold, choked, compressed anguish of endurance, for how long and howmuch God only could tell us.

The first paper of the Chimney-Corner, as was most meet and fitting,was given to those homes made sacred and venerable by the cross ofmartyrdom,--by the chrism of a great sorrow. That Chimney-Corner madebright by home firelight seemed a fitting place for a solemn act ofreverent sympathy for the homes by whose darkness our homes had beenpreserved bright, by whose emptiness our homes had been kept full, by

whose losses our homes had been enriched; and so we ventured withtrembling to utter these words of sympathy and cheer to those whom Godhad chosen to this great sacrifice of sorrow.

The winter months passed with silent footsteps, spring returned, andthe sun, with ever waxing power, unsealed the snowy sepulchre of budsand leaves,--birds reappeared, brooks were unchained, flowers filledevery desolate dell with blossoms and perfume. And with returningspring, in like manner, the chill frost of our fears and of ourdangers melted before the breath of the Lord. The great war, which



lay like a mountain of ice upon our hearts, suddenly dissolved and wasgone. The fears of the past were as a dream when one awaketh, and nowwe scarce realize our deliverance. A thousand hopes are springing upeverywhere, like spring flowers in the forest. All is hopefulness, allis bewildering joy.

But this our joy has been ordained to be changed into a wail ofsorrow. The kind hard hand, that held the helm so steadily in thedesperate tossings of the storm, has been stricken down just as weentered port,--the fatherly heart that bore all our sorrows can takeno earthly part in our joys. His were the cares, the watchings, thetoils, the agonies, of a nation in mortal struggle; and God, lookingdown, was so well pleased with his humble faithfulness, his patientcontinuance in well-doing, that earthly rewards and honors seemed alltoo poor for him, so he reached down and took him to immortal glories."Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thyLord!"

Henceforth the place of Abraham Lincoln is first among that noble armyof martyrs who have given their blood to the cause of human freedom.The eyes are yet too dim with tears that would seek calmly to traceout his place in history. He has been a marvel and a phenomenon amongstatesmen, a new kind of ruler in the earth. There has been somethingeven unearthly about his extreme unselfishness, his utter want of

personal ambition, personal self-valuation, personal feeling.The most unsparing criticism, denunciation, and ridicule never movedhim to a single bitter expression, never seemed to awaken in him asingle bitter thought. The most exultant hour of party victory broughtno exultation to him; he accepted power not as an honor, but as aresponsibility; and when, after a severe struggle, that power came asecond time into his hands, there was something preternatural in thecalmness of his acceptance of it. The first impulse seemed to be adisclaimer of all triumph over the party that had strained theirutmost to push him from his seat, and then a sober girding up of hisloins to go on with the work to which he was appointed. His lastinaugural was characterized by a tone so peculiarly solemn and free

from earthly passion, that it seems to us now, who look back on it inthe light of what has followed, as if his soul had already parted fromearthly things, and felt the powers of the world to come. It was notthe formal state paper of the chief of a party in an hour of victory,so much as the solemn soliloquy of a great soul reviewing its courseunder a vast responsibility, and appealing from all earthly judgmentsto the tribunal of Infinite Justice. It was the solemn clearing of hissoul for the great sacrament of Death, and the words that he quoted init with such thrilling power were those of the adoring spirits thatveil their faces before the throne,--"Just and true are thy ways, thouKing of saints!"

Among the rich treasures which this bitter struggle has brought to

our country, not the least is the moral wealth which has come to usin the memory of our martyrs. Thousands of men, women, and childrentoo, in this great conflict, have "endured tortures, not acceptingdeliverance," counting not their lives dear unto them in the holycause; and they have done this as understandingly and thoughtfully asthe first Christians who sealed their witness with their blood.

Let us in our hour of deliverance and victory record the solemn vow,that our right hand shall forget her cunning before we forget them andtheir sufferings,--that our tongue shall cleave to the roof of our



shall not do it without your permission, though I think it does agreat deal of good."

In his leisure hours, he was found in his tent reading; and beforebattle he prepared his soul with the beautiful psalms and collects forthe day, as appointed by his church, and writes with simplicity to hisfriends:--

"I prayed God that he would watch over me, and if I fell, receive mysoul in heaven; and I also prayed that I might not forget the cause Iwas fighting for, and turn my back in fear."

After nine months' service, he returned with a soldier's experience,though with a frame weakened by sickness in a malarious region. Butno sooner did health and strength return than he again enlisted, inthe Massachusetts cavalry service, and passed many months of constantactivity and adventure, being in some severe skirmishes and battleswith that portion of Sheridan's troops who approached nearest toRichmond, getting within a mile and a half of the city. At the closeof this raid, so hard had been the service, that only thirty horseswere left out of seventy-four in his company, and Walter and twoothers were the sole survivors among eight who occupied the sametent.

On the sixteenth of August, Walter was taken prisoner in a skirmish;and from the time that this news reached his parents, until the 18thof the following March, they could ascertain nothing of his fate. Ageneral exchange of prisoners having been then effected, they learnedthat he had died on Christmas Day in Salisbury Prison, of hardship andprivation.

What these hardships were is, alas! easy to be known from those toowell-authenticated accounts published by our government of thetreatment experienced by our soldiers in the Rebel prisons.

Robbed of clothing, of money, of the soldier's best friend, hissheltering blanket,--herded in shivering nakedness on the bare

ground,--deprived of every implement by which men of energy and spirithad soon bettered their lot,--forbidden to cut in adjacent forestsbranches for shelter, or fuel to cook their coarse food,--fed on apint of corn-and-cob-meal per day, with some slight addition ofmolasses or rancid meat,--denied all mental resources, all lettersfrom home, all writing to friends,--these men were cut off from theland of the living while yet they lived,--they were made to dwell indarkness as those that have been long dead.

By such slow, lingering tortures,--such weary, wasting anguish andsickness of body and soul,--it was the infernal policy of the Rebelgovernment either to wring from them an abjuration of their country,or by slow and steady draining away of the vital forces to render them

forever unfit to serve in her armies.

Walter's constitution bore four months of this usage, when death cameto his release. A fellow sufferer, who was with him in his last hours,brought the account to his parents.

Through all his terrible privations, even the lingering pains of slowstarvation, Walter preserved his steady simplicity, his faith in God,and unswerving fidelity to the cause for which he was suffering.



When the Rebels had kept the prisoners fasting for days, and thenbrought in delicacies to tempt their appetite, hoping thereby toinduce them to desert their flag, he only answered, "I would rather becarried out in that dead-cart!"

When told by some that he must steal from his fellow sufferers, asmany did, in order to relieve the pangs of hunger, he answered, "No, Iwas not brought up to that!" And so when his weakened system would nolonger receive the cobmeal which was his principal allowance, he sethis face calmly towards death. He grew gradually weaker and weaker andfainter and fainter, and at last disease of the lungs set in, and itbecame apparent that the end was at hand.

On Christmas Day, while thousands among us were bowing in ourgarlanded churches or surrounding festive tables, this young martyrlay on the cold, damp ground, watched over by his destitute friends,who sought to soothe his last hours with such scanty comforts as theirutter poverty afforded,--raising his head on the block of wood whichwas his only pillow, and moistening his brow and lips with water,while his life ebbed slowly away, until about two o'clock, when hesuddenly roused himself, stretched out his hand, and, drawing to himhis dearest friend among those around him, said, in a strong, clearvoice:--

"I am going to die. Go tell my father I am ready to die, for I die forGod and my country,"--and, looking up with a triumphant smile, hepassed to the reward of the faithful.

And now, men and brethren, if this story were a single one, it wereworthy to be had in remembrance; but Walter Raymond is not the onlynoble-hearted boy or man that has been slowly tortured and starved anddone to death, by the fiendish policy of Jefferson Davis and RobertEdmund Lee. No,--wherever this simple history shall be read, therewill arise hundreds of men and women who will testify, "Just so diedmy son!" "So died my brother!" "So died my husband!" "So died myfather!" The numbers who have died in these lingering tortures are tobe counted, not by hundreds, or even by thousands, but by tens of

thousands.

And is there to be no retribution for a cruelty so vast, soaggravated, so cowardly and base? And if there is retribution, onwhose head should it fall? Shall we seize and hang the poor, ignorant,stupid, imbruted semi-barbarians who were set as jailers to keep thesehells of torment and inflict these insults and cruelties? or shall wepunish the educated, intelligent chiefs who were the head and brain ofthe iniquity?

If General Lee had been determined not to have prisoners starved orabused, does any one doubt that he could have prevented these things?Nobody doubts it. His raiment is red with the blood of his helpless

captives. Does any one doubt that Jefferson Davis, living in ease andluxury in Richmond, knew that men were dying by inches in filth andsqualor and privation in the Libby Prison, within bowshot of his owndoor? Nobody doubts it. It was his will, his deliberate policy, thusto destroy those who fell into his hands. The chief of a so-calledConfederacy, who could calmly consider among his official documentsincendiary plots for the secret destruction of ships, hotels, andcities full of peaceable people, is a chief well worthy to presideover such cruelties; but his only just title is President ofAssassins, and the whole civilized world should make common cause



against such a miscreant.

There has been, on both sides of the water, much weak, ill-advisedtalk of mercy and magnanimity to be extended to these men, whosecrimes have produced a misery so vast and incalculable. The wretcheswho have tortured the weak and the helpless, who have secretly plottedto supplement, by dastardly schemes of murder and arson, that strengthwhich failed them in fair fight, have been commiserated as bravegenerals and unfortunate patriots, and efforts are made to place themwithin the comities of war.

It is no feeling of personal vengeance, but a sense of the eternalfitness of things, that makes us rejoice, when criminals who have sooutraged every sentiment of humanity are arrested and arraigned andawarded due retribution at the bar of their country's justice. Thereare crimes against God and human nature which it is treason alike toGod and man not to punish; and such have been the crimes of thetraitors who were banded together in Richmond.

If there be those whose hearts lean to pity, we can show them whereall the pity of their hearts may be better bestowed than in deploringthe woes of assassins. Let them think of the thousands of fathers,mothers, wives, sisters, whose lives will be forever haunted withmemories of the slow tortures in which their best and bravest were

done to death.The sufferings of those brave men are ended. Nearly a hundred thousandare sleeping in those sad nameless graves,--and may their rest besweet! "There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary beat rest. There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voiceof the oppressor." But, O ye who have pity to spare, spare it for thebroken-hearted friends, who, to life's end, will suffer over and overall that their dear ones endured. Pity the mothers who hear theirsons' faint calls in dreams, who in many a weary night-watch see thempining and wasting, and yearn with a lifelong, unappeasable yearningto have been able to soothe those forsaken, lonely death-beds. O manor woman, if you have pity to spare, spend it not on Lee or

Davis,--spend it on their victims, on the thousands of living heartswhich these men of sin have doomed to an anguish that will end onlywith life!

Blessed are the mothers whose sons passed in battle,--a quick, apainless, a glorious death! Blessed in comparison,--yet we weep forthem. We rise up and give place at sight of their mourning-garments.We reverence the sanctity of their sorrow. But before this othersorrow we are dumb in awful silence. We find no words with which toconsole such grief. We feel that our peace, our liberties, have beenbought at a fearful price, when we think of the sufferings of ourmartyred soldiers. Let us think of them. It was for _us_ they borehunger and cold and nakedness. They might have had food and raiment

and comforts, if they would have deserted our cause,--and they didnot. Cut off from all communication with home or friends or brethren,dragging on the weary months, apparently forgotten,--still they wouldnot yield, they would not fight against us; and so for us at last theydied.

What return can we make them? Peace has come, and we take up all ourblessings restored and brightened; but if we look, we shall see onevery blessing a bloody cross.



When three brave men broke through the ranks of the enemy, to bring toKing David a draught from the home well, for which he longed, thegenerous-hearted prince would not drink it, but poured it out as anoffering before the Lord; for he said, "Is not this the blood of themen that went in jeopardy of their lives?"

Thousands of noble hearts have been slowly consumed to secure to usthe blessings we are rejoicing in. We owe a duty to these ourmartyrs,--the only one we can pay.

In every place, honored by such a history and example, let a monumentbe raised at the public expense, on which shall be inscribed the namesof those who died for their country, and the manner of their death.Such monuments will educate our young men in heroic virtue, and keepalive to future ages the flame of patriotism. And thus, too, to theaching heart of bereaved love shall be given the only consolation ofwhich its sorrows admit, in the reverence which is paid to its lostloved ones.

OUR SECOND GIRL

Our establishment on Beacon Street had been for some days in arevolutionary state, owing to the fact that our second girl had gonefrom us into the holy estate of matrimony. Alice was a pretty, tidy,neat-handed creature, and, like many other blessings of life, so goodas to be little appreciated while with us. It was not till she hadleft us that we began to learn that clean glass, bright silver,spotless and untumbled table-linen, and, in short, all the appetizingarrangements and appointments of our daily meals, were not always andin all hands matters of course.

In a day or two, our silver began to have the appearance of oldpewter, and our glass looked as if nothing but muddy water could be

found. On coming down to our meals, we found the dishes in all sortsof conversational attitudes on the table,--the meat placed diagonally,the potatoes crosswise, and the other vegetables scattered here andthere,--while the table itself stood rakishly aslant, and wore the airof a table slightly intoxicated.

Our beautiful china, moreover, began to have little chipped places inthe edges, most unusual and distressing to our eyes; the handlesvanished from our teacups, and here and there a small mouthfulappeared to be bitten out of the nose of some pretty fancy pitchers,which had been the delight of my eyes.

Now, if there is anything which I specially affect, it is a refined

and pretty table arrangement, and at our house for years and yearssuch had prevailed. All of us had rather a weakness for china, and theattractions of the fragile world, as presented in the greatcrockery-stores, had been many times too much for our prudence andpurse. Consequently we had all sorts of little domestic idols of thebreakfast and dinner table,--Bohemian-glass drinking-mugs of antiqueshape, lovely bits of biscuit choicely moulded in classic patterns,beauties, oddities, and quaintnesses in the way of especial teacupsand saucers, devoted to different members of the family, wherein eachtook a particular and individual delight. Our especial china or glass



pets of the table often started interesting conversations on the stateof the plastic arts as applied to every-day life, and the charm ofbeing encircled, even in the material act of feeding our mortalbodies, with a sort of halo of art and beauty.

All this time none of us ever thought in how great degree our feelingfor elegance and refinement owed its gratification at the hour ofmeals to the care, the tidiness, and neat handling of our now lost andwedded Alice.

Nothing presents so forlorn an appearance as battered and neglectedfinery of any kind; and elegant pitchers with their noses knocked off,cut glass with cracked edges, and fragments of artistic teacups andsaucers on a tumbled tablecloth, have a peculiarly dismal appearance.In fact, we had really occasion to wonder at the perfectly weird andbewitched effect which one of our two Hibernian successors to thepretty Alice succeeded in establishing in our table department. Everycaprice in the use and employment of dishes, short of serving cream inthe gravy-boats and using the sugar-bowl for pickled oysters and thecream-pitcher for vinegar, seemed possible and permissible. My horrorwas completed one morning on finding a china hen, artisticallyrepresented as brooding on a nest, made to cover, not boiled eggs, buta lot of greasy hash, over which she sat so that her head and tailbewilderingly projected beyond the sides of the nest, instead of

keeping lengthwise within it, as a respectable hen in her senses mightbe expected to do. There certainly is a great amount of native vigorshown by these untrained Hibernians in always finding an unexpectedwrong way of doing the simplest thing. It quite enlarges one's ideasof human possibilities.

In a paroxysm of vexation, I reviled matrimony and Murphy O'Connor,who had stolen our household treasure, and further expressed mygriefs, as elder sons are apt to do, by earnest expostulationswith the maternal officer on the discouraging state of things;declaring most earnestly, morning, noon, and night, that all wasgoing to ruin, that everything was being spoiled, that nothing waseven decent, and that, if things went on so much longer, I should

be obliged to go out and board,--by which style of remark I nearlydrove that long-suffering woman frantic.

"Do be reasonable, Tom," said she. "Can I make girls to order? Can Ido anything more than try such as apply, when they seem to givepromise of success? Delicacy of hand, neatness, nicety of eye, are notthings likely to be cultivated in the Irish boarding-houses from whichour candidates emerge. What chance have the most of them had to learnanything except the most ordinary rough housework? A trained girl israre as a nugget of gold amid the sands of the washings; but let uspersevere in trying, and one will come at last."

"Well, I hope, at any rate, you have sent off that Bridget," I said,

in high disdain. "I verily believe, if that girl stays a week longer,I shall have to leave the house."

"Compose yourself," said my mother; "Bridget's bundle is made up, andshe is going. I'm sorry for her too, poor thing; for she seemedanxious to keep the place."

At this moment the doorbell rang. "I presume that's the new girl whomthey have sent round for me to see," said my mother.



I opened the door, and there in fact stood a girl dressed in aneat-fitting dark calico, with a straw bonnet, simply tied with somedark ribbon, and a veil which concealed her face.

"Is Mrs. Seymour at home?"

"She is."

"I was told that she wanted a girl."

"She does; will you walk in?"

I pique myself somewhat on the power of judging character, and therewas something about this applicant which inspired hope; so that,before I introduced her into the room, I felt it necessary toenlighten my mother with a little of my wisdom. I therefore whisperedin her ear, with the decisive tone of an eldest son, "I think, mother,this one will do; you had better engage her at once."

"Have you lived out much?" said my mother, commencing the usualinquiries.

"I have not, ma'am. I am but lately come to the city."

"Are you Irish?""No, ma'am; I am American."

"Have you been accustomed to the care of the table,--silver, glass,and china?"

"I think, ma'am, I understand what is necessary for that."

All this while the speaker remained standing with her veil down; heranswers seemed to be the briefest possible; and yet, notwithstandingthe homely plainness of her dress, there was something about her thatimpressed both my mother and me with an idea of cultivation and

refinement above her apparent station,--there was a composure andquiet decision in her manner of speaking which produced the sameimpression on us both.

"What wages do you expect?" said my mother.

"Whatever you have been accustomed to give to a girl in that placewill satisfy me," she said.

"There is only one thing I would like to ask," she added, with aslight hesitation and embarrassment of manner; "would it be convenientfor me to have a room by myself?"

I nodded to my mother to answer in the affirmative.

The three girls who composed our establishment had usually roomed inone large apartment, but there was a small closet of a room which Ihad taken for books, fishing-rods, guns, and any miscellaneousproperty of my own. I mentally turned these out, and devoted the roomto the newcomer, whose appearance interested me.

And, as my mother hesitated, I remarked, with the assured tone ofmaster of the house, that "certainly she could have a small room to



herself."

"It is all I ask," she briefly answered. "In that case, I will comefor the same wages you paid the last girl in my situation."

"When will you come?" said my mother.

"I am ready to come immediately. I only want time to go and order mythings to be sent here."

She rose and left us, saying that we might expect her that afternoon.

"Well, sir," said my mother, "you seem to have taken it upon you tosettle this matter on your own authority."

"My dear little mother," said I, in a patronizing tone, "I have aninstinctive certainty that she will do. I wanted to make sure of aprize for you."

"But the single room."

"Never mind; I'll move all my traps out of the little third-storyroom. It's my belief that this girl or woman has seen better days; andif she has, a room to herself will be a necessity of her case,--poor

thing!""I don't know," said my mother hesitatingly. "I never wish toemploy in my service those above their station,--they always maketrouble; and there is something in this woman's air and manner andpronunciation that makes me feel as if she had been born and bredin cultivated society."

"Supposing she has," said I; "it's quite evident that she, for somereason, means to conform to this position. You seldom have a girlapply for work who comes dressed with such severe simplicity; hermanner is retiring, and she seemed perfectly willing and desirous toundertake any of the things which you mentioned as among her daily

tasks."

On the afternoon of that day our new assistant came, and mymother was delighted with the way she set herself at work. Thechina-closet, desecrated and disordered in the preceding reignsof terror and confusion, immediately underwent a most quiet butthorough transformation. Everything was cleaned, brightened, andarranged with a system and thoroughness which showed, as my motherremarked, a good head; and all this was done so silently andquietly that it seemed like magic. By the time we came down tobreakfast the next morning, we perceived that the reforms of ournew prime minister had extended everywhere. The dining-room wasclean, cool, thoroughly dusted, and freshly aired; the tablecloth

and napkins were smooth and clean; the glass glittered likecrystal, and the silver wore a cheerful brightness. Added tothis were some extra touches of refinement, which I should calltable coquetry. The cold meat was laid out with green fringes ofparsley; and a bunch of heliotrope, lemon verbena, and mignonette,with a fresh rosebud, all culled from our little back yard, stood ina wineglass on my mother's waiter.

"Well, Mary, you have done wonders," said my mother, as she took herplace; "your arrangements restore appetite to all of us."



Mary received our praises with a gracious smile, yet with a composedgravity which somewhat puzzled me. She seemed perfectly obliging andamiable, yet there was a serious reticence about her that quitepiqued my curiosity. I could not help recurring to the idea of a ladyin disguise; though I scarcely knew to what circumstance about her Icould attach the idea. So far from the least effort to play the lady,her dress was, in homely plainness, a perfect contrast to that of thegirls who had preceded her. It consisted of strong dark-blue stuff,made perfectly plain to her figure, with a narrow band of white linenaround her throat. Her dark brown hair was brushed smoothly away fromher face, and confined simply behind in a net; there was not theslightest pretension to coquetry in its arrangement; in fact, theobject seemed to be to get it snugly out of the way, rather than tomake it a matter of ornament. Nevertheless, I could not help remarkingthat there was a good deal of it, and that it waved very prettily,notwithstanding the care that had been taken to brush the curl out ofit.

She was apparently about twenty years of age. Her face was nothandsome, but it was a refined and intelligent one. The skin had asallow hue, which told of ill health or of misfortune; there werelines of trouble about the eye; but the mouth and chin had thatunmistakable look of firmness which speaks a person able and resolved

to do a quiet battle with adverse fate, and to go through to the endwith whatever is needed to be done, without fretfulness and withoutcomplaint. She had large, cool, gray eyes, attentive and thoughtful,and she met the look of any one who addressed her with an honestfirmness; she seemed to be, in fact, simply and only interested toknow and to do the work she had undertaken,--but what there might bebehind and beyond that I could not conjecture.

One thing about her dress most in contrast with that of the otherservants was that she evidently wore no crinoline. The exuberance ofthis article in the toilet of our domestics had become threatening oflate, apparently requiring that the kitchens and pantries should betorn down and rebuilt. As matters were, our three girls never could

be in our kitchen at one time without reefings and manoeuvrings oftheir apparel which much impeded any other labor, and caused some lossof temper; and our china-closet was altogether too small for theofficials who had to wash the china there, and they were constantly atodds with my mother for her firmness in resisting their tendency tocarry our china and silver to the general mélée of the kitchen sink.Moreover, our dining-room not having been constructed with an eye tomodern expansions of the female toilet, it happened that, if our tablewas to be enlarged for guests, there arose serious questions of thewaiter's crinoline to complicate the calculations; and for all thesereasons, I was inclined to look with increasing wonder on a being infemale form who could so far defy the tyranny of custom as to dress ina convenient and comfortable manner, adapted to the work which she

undertook to perform. A good-looking girl without crinoline had a sortof unworldly freshness of air that really constituted a charm. If ithad been a piece of refined coquetry,--as certainly it was not,--itcould not have been better planned.

Nothing could be more perfectly proper than the demeanor of this girlin relation to all the proprieties of her position. She seemed to giveher whole mind to it with an anxious exactness; but she appeared todesire no relations with the family other than those of a merebusiness character. It was impossible to draw her into conversation.



If a good-natured remark was addressed to her on any subject such asin kindly disposed families is often extended as an invitation to aservant to talk a little with an employer, Mary met it with thebriefest and gravest response that was compatible with propriety, andwith a definite and marked respectfulness of demeanor which hadprecisely the effect of throwing us all at a distance, likeceremonious politeness in the intercourse of good society.

"I cannot make out our Mary," said I to my mother; "she is a perfecttreasure, but who or what do you suppose she is?"

"I cannot tell you," said my mother. "All I know is, she understandsher business perfectly, and does it exactly; but she no more belongsto the class of common servants than I do."

"Does she associate with the other girls?"

"Not at all--except at meal-times, and when about her work."

"I should think that would provoke the pride of sweet Erin," said I.

"One would think so," said my mother; "but she certainly has managedher relations with them with a curious kind of tact. She always treatsthem with perfect consideration and politeness, talks with them during

the times that they necessarily are thrown together in the mostaffable and cheerful manner, and never assumes any airs of supremacywith them. Her wanting a room to herself gave them at first an ideathat she would hold herself aloof from them, and in fact, for thefirst few days, there was a subterranean fire in the kitchen ready toburst forth; but now all that is past, and in some way or other,without being in the least like any of them, she has contrived to makethem her fast friends. I found her last night in the kitchen writing aletter for the cook, and the other day she was sitting in her roomtrimming a bonnet for Katy; and her opinion seems to be law in thekitchen. She seldom sits there, and spends most of her leisure in herown room, which is as tidy as a bee's cell."

"What is she doing there?"

"Reading, sewing, and writing, as far as I can see. There are a fewbooks, and a portfolio, and a small inkstand there,--and a neat littlework-basket. She is very nice with her needle, and obliging in puttingher talents to the service of the other girls; but towards me she isthe most perfectly silent and reserved being that one can conceive. Ican't make conversation with her; she keeps me off by a most rigidrespectfulness of demeanor which seems to say that she wants nothingfrom me but my orders. I feel that I could no more ask her a questionabout her private affairs, than I could ask one of Mrs. McGregor inthe next street. But then it is a comfort to have some one so entirelytrustworthy as she is in charge of all the nice little articles which

require attention and delicate handling. She is the only girl I everhad whom I could trust to arrange a parlor and a table without anylooking after. Her eye and hand, and her ideas, are certainly those ofa lady, whatever her position may have been."

In time our Mary became quite a family institution for us, seeming tofill a thousand little places in the domestic arrangement where a handor an eye was needed. She was deft at mending glass and china, andequally so at mending all sorts of household things. She darned thenapkins and tablecloths in a way that excited my mother's admiration,



and was always so obliging and ready to offer her services that, intime, a resort to Mary's work-basket and ever ready needle became themost natural thing in the world to all of us. She seemed to have noacquaintance in the city, never went out visiting, received noletters,--in short, seemed to live a completely isolated life, and todwell in her own thoughts in her own solitary little room.

By that talent for systematic arrangement which she possessed, shesecured for herself a good many hours to spend there. My mother,seeing her taste for reading, offered her the use of our books; andone volume after another spent its quiet week or fortnight in herroom, and returned to our shelves in due time. They were mostly worksof solid information,--history, travels,--and a geography and atlaswhich had formed part of the school outfit of one of the youngerchildren she seemed interested to retain for some time. "It is myopinion," said my mother, "that she is studying,--perhaps with a viewto getting some better situation."

"Pray keep her with us," said I, "if you can. Why don't you raise herwages? You know that she does more than any other girl ever did beforein her place, and is so trustworthy that she is invaluable to us.Persons of her class are worth higher wages than common uneducatedservants."

My mother accordingly did make a handsome addition to Mary's wages,and by the time she had been with us a year the confidence which herquiet manner had inspired was such that, if my mother wished to begone for a day or two, the house, with all that was in it, was lefttrustingly in Mary's hands, as with a sort of housekeeper. She wascharged with all the last directions, as well as the keys to thejellies, cakes, and preserves, with discretionary power as to theiruse; and yet, for some reason, such was the ascendency she contrivedto keep over her Hibernian friends in the kitchen, all this confidenceevidently seemed to them quite as proper as to us.

"She ain't quite like us," said Biddy one day, mysteriously, as shelooked after her. "She's seen better days, or I'm mistaken; but she

don't take airs on her. She knows how to take the bad luck quiet like,and do the best she can."

"Has she ever told you anything of herself, Biddy?" said my mother.

"Me? No. It's a quiet tongue she keeps in her head. She is readyenough to do good turns for us, and to smooth out our ways, and hearour stories, but it's close in her own affairs she is. Maybe she don'tlike to be talkin', when talkin' does no good,--poor soul!"

Matters thus went on, and I amused myself now and then withspeculating about Mary. I would sometimes go to her to ask some ofthose little charities of the needle which our sex are always needing

from feminine hands; but never, in the course of any of these littletransactions, could I establish the slightest degree of confidentialcommunication. If she sewed on a shirt-button, she did it with asabstracted an air as if my arm were a post which she was required tohandle, and not the arm of a good-looking youth of twenty-five,--as Ifondly hoped I was. And certain remarks which I once addressed to herin regard to her studies and reading in her own apartment were metwith that cool, wide-open gaze of her calm gray eyes, that seemed tosay, "Pray, what is that to your purpose, sir?" and she merelyanswered, "Is there anything else that you would like me to do, sir?"



with a marked deference that was really defiant.

But one day I fancied I had got hold of a clue. I was standing in ourlower front hall, when I saw young McPherson, whom I used to know inNew York, coming up the doorsteps.

At the moment that he rung the doorbell, our Mary, who had seen himfrom the chamber window, suddenly grew pale, and said to my mother,"Please, ma'am, will you be so good as to excuse my going to the door?I feel faint."

My mother spoke over the banisters, and I opened the door, and let inMcPherson.

He and I were jolly together, as old classmates are wont to be, andorders were given to lay a plate for him at dinner.

Mary prepared the service with her usual skill and care, but pleadedthat her illness increased so that it would be impossible for her towait on table. Now, nobody in the house thought there was anythingpeculiar about this but myself. My mother, indeed, had noticed thatMary's faintness had come on very suddenly, as she looked out on thestreet; but it was I who suggested to her that McPherson might havesome connection with it.

"Depend upon it, mother, he is somebody whom she has known in herformer life, and doesn't wish to meet," said I.

"Nonsense, Tom; you are always getting up mysteries, and fancyingromances."

Nevertheless, I took a vicious pleasure in experimenting on thesubject; and therefore, a day or two after, when I had got Mary fairlywithin eye-range, as she waited on table, I remarked to my mothercarelessly, "By the bye, the McPhersons are coming to Boston tolive."

There was a momentary jerk of Mary's hand, as she was filling atumbler, and then I could see the restraint of self-command passingall over her. I had hit something, I knew; so I pursued my game.

"Yes," I continued, "Jim is here to look at houses; he is thinkingstrongly of one in the next block."

There was a look of repressed fear and distress on Mary's face as shehastily turned away, and made an errand into the china-closet.

"I have found a clue," I said to my mother triumphantly, going toher room after dinner. "Did you notice Mary's agitation when I spokeof the McPhersons coming to Boston? By Jove! but the girl is

plucky, though; it was the least little start, and in a minute shehad her visor down and her armor buckled. This certainly becomesinteresting."

"Tom, I certainly must ask you what business it is of yours," said mymother, settling back into the hortatory attitude familiar to mothers."Supposing the thing is as you think,--suppose that Mary is a girl ofrefinement and education, who, from some unfortunate reason, has noresource but her present position,--why should you hunt her out of it?If she is, as you think, a lady, there is the strongest reason why a



gentleman should respect her feelings. I fear the result of all thisrestless prying and intermeddling of yours will be to drive her away;and really, now I have had her, I don't know how I ever could dowithout her. People talk of female curiosity," said my mother, with aslightly belligerent air; "I never found but men had fully as muchcuriosity as women. Now, what will become of us all if yourrestlessness about this should be the means of Mary's leaving us? Youknow the perfectly dreadful times we had before she came, and I don'tknow anybody who has less patience to bear such things than you."

In short, my mother was in that positive state of mind which isexpressed by the colloquial phrase of being on her high horse. I--asthe male part of creation always must in such cases--became very meekand retiring, and promised to close my eyes and ears, and not dream,or think, or want to know, anything which it was not agreeable to Maryand my mother that I should. I would not look towards the doorbell,nor utter a word about the McPhersons, who, by the bye, decided totake the house in our neighborhood.

But though I was as exemplary as one of the saints, it did no good.Mary, for some reasons known to herself, became fidgety, nervous,restless, and had frequent headaches and long crying spells in her ownprivate apartment, after the manner of women when something is thematter with them.

My mother was, as she always is with every creature in her employ,maternal and sympathetic, and tried her very best to get into herconfidence.

Mary only confessed to feeling a little unwell, and hinted obscurelythat perhaps she should be obliged to leave the place. But it wasquite evident that her leaving was connected with the near advent ofthe McPhersons in the next block; for I observed that she alwaysshowed some little irrepressible signs of nervousness whenever thatsubject was incidentally alluded to. Finally, on the day that theirfurniture began to arrive, and to provide abundant material for gossipand comment to the other members of the kitchen cabinet, Mary's mind

appeared suddenly made up. She came into my mother's room looking as acertain sort of women do when they have made a resolution which theymean to stand by,--very pale, very quiet, and very decided. She askedto see my mother alone, and in that interview she simply expressedgratitude for all her kindness to her, but said that circumstanceswould oblige her to go to New York.

My mother now tried her best to draw from her her history, whateverthat might be. She spoke with tact and tenderness, and with therespect due from one human being to another; for my mother always heldthat every soul has its own inviolable private door which it has aright to keep closed, and at which even queens and duchesses, if theywish to enter, must knock humbly and reverently.

Mary was almost overcome by her kindness. She thanked her over andover; at times my mother said she looked at her wistfully, as if onthe very point of speaking, and then, quietly gathering herself withinherself, she remained silent. All that could be got from her was, thatit was necessary for her hereafter to live in New York.

The servants in the kitchen, with the warm-heartedness of their race,broke out into a perfect Irish howl of sorrow; and at the last moment,Biddy, our fat cook, fell on her neck and lifted up her voice and



wept, almost smothering her with her tumultuous embraces; and thewhole party of them would go with her to the New York station, onecarrying her shawl, another her hand-bag and parasol, with emulousaffection; and so our very pleasant and desirable second girldisappeared, and we saw her no more.

Six months after this, when our Mary had become only a memory of thepast, I went to spend a week or two in Newport, and took, among othermatters and things, a letter of introduction to Mrs. McIntyre, aScotch lady, who had just bought a pretty cottage there, and, as myfriend who gave it told me, would prove an interesting acquaintance.

"She has a pretty niece," said he, "who I'm told is heiress to herproperty, and is called a very nice girl."

So, at the proper time, I lounged in one morning, and found a verycharming, cosy, home-like parlor, arranged with all those littlerefined touches and artistic effects by which people of certain tastesand habits at once recognize each other in all parts of the world, asby the tokens of freemasonry. I felt perfectly acquainted with Mrs.McIntyre from the first glance at her parlor,--where the books, themusic, the birds, the flowers, and that everlasting variety of femalesmall-work prepared me for a bright, chatty, easy-going, home-lovingkind of body, such as I found Mrs. McIntyre to be. She was, as English

and Scotch ladies are apt to be, very oddly dressed in very nice andchoice articles. It takes the eye of the connoisseur to appreciatethese oddly dressed Englishwomen. They are like antique china; but adiscriminating eye soon sees the real quality that underlies theirquaint adornment. Mrs. McIntyre was scrupulously, exquisitely neat.All her articles of dress were of the choicest quality. The yellow andtumbled lace that was fussed about her neck and wrists might have beenthe heirloom of a countess; her satin gown, though very short and veryscanty, was of a fabulous richness; and the rings that glittered onher withered hands were of the fashion of two centuries ago, but ofwonderful brilliancy.

She was very gracious in her reception, as my letter was from an old

friend, and said many obliging things of me; so I was taken at once toher friendship, with the frankness characteristic of people of herclass when they make up their minds to know you at all.

"I must introduce you to my Mary," she said; "she has just gone intothe garden to cut flowers for the vases."

In a moment more "Mary" entered the room, with a little white apronfull of flowers, and a fresh bloom on her cheeks; and I was--as thereader has already anticipated--to my undisguised amazement, formallyintroduced to Miss Mary McIntyre, our second girl.

Of all things for which I consider women admirable, there is no trait

which fills me with such positive awe as their social tact andself-command. Evidently this meeting was quite as unexpected to Maryas to me; but except for a sudden flash of amused astonishment in theeyes, and a becoming flush of complexion, she met me as anythoroughbred young lady meets a young man properly presented by hermaternal guardian.

For my part, I had one of those dreamy periods of existence in whichpeople doubt whether they are awake or asleep. The world seemed allturning topsy-turvy. I was filled with curiosity, which I could with



difficulty keep within the limits of conventional propriety.

"I see, Mr. Seymour, that you are very much astonished," said Mary tome, when Mrs. McIntyre had left the room to give some directions tothe servants.

"Upon my word," said I, "I never was more so; I feel as if I were inthe midst of a fairy tale."

"Nothing so remarkable as that," she said. "But since I saw you, ahappy change, as I need not tell you now, has come over my lifethrough the coming of my mother's sister to America. When my motherdied, my aunt was in India. The letters that I addressed to her inScotland were a long time in reaching her, and then it took a longtime for her to wind up her affairs there, and find her way to thiscountry."

"But," said I, "what could"--

"What could induce me to do as I did? Well, I knew your mother'scharacter,--no matter how. I needed a support and protection, and Iresolved for a time to put myself under her wing. I knew that in caseof any real trouble I should find in her a true friend and a safeadviser, and I hoped to earn her esteem and confidence by steadily

doing my duty. Some other time, perhaps, I will tell you more," sheadded.

The return of Mrs. McIntyre put an end to our private communication,but she insisted, with true old-world hospitality, on my remaining todinner.

Here I was precipitated into a romance at once. Mary had just enoughof that perverse feminine pleasure in teasing to keep my interestalive. The fact was, she saw me becoming entangled from day to daywithout any more misgivings of conscience than the celebrated spiderof the poem felt when she invited the fly to walk into her parlor.

Mrs. McIntyre took me in a very marked way into her good graces, and Ihad every opportunity to ride, walk, sketch, and otherwise to attendupon Mary; and Mary was gracious also, but so quietly and discreetlymistress of herself that I could not for the life of me tell what tomake of her. There were all sorts of wonders and surmises boiling upwithin me. What was it about McPherson? Was there anything there? WasMary engaged? Or was there any old affair? etc., etc. Not that it wasany business of mine; but then a fellow likes to know his groundbefore--Before _what_? I thought to myself, and that unknown WHATevery day assumed new importance in my eyes. Mary had many admirers.Her quiet, easy, self-possessed manners, her perfect tact and grace,always made her a favorite; but I could not help hoping that betweenher and me there was that confidential sense of a mutually kept secret

which it is delightful to share with the woman you wish to please.

Why won't women sometimes enlighten a fellow a little in this darkvalley that lies between intimate acquaintance and the awful finalproposal? To be sure, there are kind souls who will come more thanhalfway to meet you, but they are always sure to be those you don'twant to meet. The woman you want is always as reticent as a nut, andleaves you the whole work of this last dread scene without a bit ofhelp on her part. To be sure, she smiles on you; but what of that? Yousee she smiles also on Tom, Dick, and Harry.



"Bright as the sun her eyes the gazers strike;And, like the sun, they shine on all alike."

I fought out a battle of two or three weeks with my fair foe, tryingto get in advance some hint from her as to what she would do with meif I put myself at her mercy. No use. Our sex may as well give upfirst as last before one of these quiet, resolved, little pieces offemininity, who are perfect mistresses of all the peculiar weapons,defensive and offensive, of womanhood. There was nothing for it but tosurrender at discretion; but when I had done this, I was granted allthe honors of war. Mrs. McIntyre received me with an old-fashionedmaternal blessing, and all was as happy as possible.

"And now," said Mary, "I suppose, sir, you will claim a right to knowall about me."

"Something of the sort," I said complacently.

"I know you have been dying of curiosity ever since I was waitingbehind your lordship's chair at your mother's. I knew you suspectedsomething then,--confess now."

"But what could have led you there?"

"Just hear. My mother, who was Mrs. McIntyre's sister, had by a firstmarriage only myself. Shortly after my father's death, she married awidower with several children. As long as she lived, I never knew whatwant or care or trouble was; but just as I was entering upon myseventeenth year she died. A year after her death, my stepfather, whowas one of those men devoted to matrimony at all hazards, marriedanother woman, by whom he had children.

"In a few years more, he died; and his affairs, on examination, provedto be in a very bad state; there was, in fact, scarcely anything forus to live on. Our stepmother had a settlement from her brother. Thetwo other daughters of my father were married, and went to houses of

their own; and I was left, related really to nobody, without propertyand without home.

"I suppose hundreds of young girls are from one reason or other leftjust in this way, and have, without any previous preparation in theireducation and habits, to face the question, How can I get a living?

"I assure you it is a serious question for a young girl who has grownup in the easy manner in which I had. My stepfather had always been acheery, kindly, generous man, one of those who love to see peopleenjoy themselves, and to have things done handsomely, and had kepthouse in a free, abundant, hospitable manner; so that when I came tolook myself over in relation to the great uses of life, I could make

out very little besides expensive tastes and careless habits.

"I had been to the very best schools, but then I had studied, as mostgirls in easy circumstances do, without a thought of using myknowledge for any practical purpose. I could speak very fair English;but how I did it, or why, I didn't know,--all the technical rules ofgrammar had passed from my head like a dream. I could play a little onthe piano, and sing a few songs; but I did not know enough of music toventure to propose myself as a teacher; and so with every other study.All the situations of profit in the profession of teaching are now



crowded and blocked by girls who have been studying for that expressobject,--and what could I hope among them?

"My mother-in-law was a smart, enterprising, driving woman of theworld, who told all her acquaintance that, of course, she should giveme a home, although I was no kind of relation to her, and who gave meto understand that I was under infinite obligations to her on thisaccount, and must pay for the privilege by making myself generallyuseful. I soon found that this meant doing a servant's work withoutwages. During six months I filled, I may say, the place of aseamstress and nursery governess to some very ungoverned children,varying with occasional weeks of servant's work, when either the tablegirl or the cook left a place vacant. For all this I received myboard, and some cast-off dresses and underclothes to make over formyself. I was tired of this, and begged my stepmother to find me someplace where I could earn my own living. She was astonished andindignant at the demand. When Providence had provided me a good home,under respectable protection, she said, why should I ask to leave it?For her part, she thought the situation of a young lady making herselfgenerally useful in domestic life, in the family of her nearconnections, was a delightful one. She had no words to say how muchmore respectable and proper it was thus to live in the circle offamily usefulness and protection, than to go out in the world lookingfor employment.

"I did not suggest to her that the chief difference in the cases wouldbe, that in a hired situation I should have regular wages and regularwork; whereas in my present position it was irregular work, and nowages.

"Her views on the subject were perhaps somewhat beclouded by theextreme convenience she found in being able to go into company, and torange about the city at all hours, unembarrassed by those family careswhich generally fall to the mistress, but which her views of whatconstituted general usefulness devolved upon me.

"I had no retirement, no leisure, no fixed place anywhere. My bed was

in the nursery, where the children felt always free to come and go;and even this I was occasionally requested to resign, to share thecouch of the housemaid, when sickness in the family or a surplus ofguests caused us to be crowded for room.

"I grew very unhappy, my health failed, and the demands upon me wereentirely beyond my strength, and without any consideration. The doerof all the odds and ends in a family has altogether the most work andleast praise of any, as I discovered to my cost. I found one thingafter another falling into my long list of appointed duties, by aregular progress. Thus first it would be, 'Mary, won't you see to thedusting of the parlors? for Bridget is'--etc., etc.; this would be theform for a week or two, and then, 'Mary, have you dusted the parlors?'

and at last, 'Mary, why have you not dusted the parlors?'

"As I said, I never studied anything to practical advantage; andthough I had been through arithmetic and algebra, I had never made anyparticular use of my knowledge. But now, under the influence ofmisfortune, my thoughts took an arithmetical turn. By inquiring amongthe servants, I found that, in different families in the neighborhood,girls were receiving three dollars a week for rendering just suchservices as mine. Here was a sum of a hundred and fifty-six dollarsyearly, in ready money, put into their hands, besides their board, the



privilege of knowing their work exactly, and having a control of theirown time when certain definite duties were performed. Compared withwhat I was doing and receiving, this was riches and ease and rest.

"After all, I thought to myself, why should not I find somerespectable, superior, motherly woman, and put myself under her as aservant, make her my friend by good conduct, and have some regularhours and some definite income, instead of wearing out my life inservice without pay? Nothing stood in my way but the traditionaryshadow of gentility, and I resolved it should not stop me.

"Years before, when I was only eight or ten years old, I had met yourmother with your family at the seaside, where my mother took me. I hadseen a great deal of her, and knew all about her. I remembered wellher habitual consideration for the nurses and servants in her employ.I knew her address in Boston, and I resolved to try to find a refugein her family. And so there is my story. I left a note with mystepmother, saying that I was going to seek independent employment,and then went to Boston to your house. There I hoped to find a quietasylum,--at least, till I could hear from my aunt in Scotland. Thedelay of hearing from her during those two years at your house oftenmade me low-spirited."

"But what made you so afraid of McPherson?" said I nervously. "I

remember your faintness, and all that, the day he called.""Oh, that? Why, it was merely this,--they were on intimate visitingterms with my mother-in-law, and I knew that it would be all up withmy plans if they were to be often at the house."

"Why didn't you tell my mother?" said I.

"I did think of it, but then"--She gave me a curious glance.

"But what, Mary?"

"Well, I could see plainly enough that there were no secrets between

you and her, and I did not wish to take so fine a young gentleman intomy confidence," said Mary. "You will observe I was not out seekingflirtations, but an honest independence."

* * * * *

My mother was apprised of our engagement in due form, and came toNewport, all innocence, to call on Miss McIntyre, her intendeddaughter-in-law. Her astonishment at the moment of introduction wasquite satisfactory to me.

For the rest, Mary's talents in making a home agreeable have had sincethen many years of proof; and where any of the little domestic chasms

appear which are formed by the shifting nature of the Americanworking-class, she always slides into the place with a quiet grace,and reminds me, with a humorous twinkle of the eye, that she is usedto being second girl.

A SCHOLAR'S ADVENTURES IN THE COUNTRY



"If we could only live in the country," said my wife, "how much easierit would be to live!"

"And how much cheaper!" said I.

"To have a little place of our own, and raise our own things!" said mywife. "Dear me! I am heartsick when I think of the old place at home,and father's great garden. What peaches and melons we used to have!what green peas and corn! Now one has to buy every cent's worth ofthese things--and how they taste! Such wilted, miserable corn! Suchpeas! Then, if we lived in the country, we should have our own cow,and milk and cream in abundance; our own hens and chickens. We couldhave custard and ice-cream every day."

"To say nothing of the trees and flowers, and all that," said I.

The result of this little domestic duet was that my wife and I beganto ride about the city of ---- to look up some pretty, interestingcottage, where our visions of rural bliss might be realized. Countryresidences, near the city, we found to bear rather a high price; sothat it was no easy matter to find a situation suitable to the lengthof our purse; till, at last, a judicious friend suggested a happyexpedient.

"Borrow a few hundred," he said, "and give your note; you can saveenough, very soon, to make the difference. When you raise everythingyou eat, you know it will make your salary go a wonderful dealfurther."

"Certainly it will," said I. "And what can be more beautiful than tobuy places by the simple process of giving one's note?--'tis so neat,and handy, and convenient!"

"Why," pursued my friend, "there is Mr. B., my next-door neighbor--'tisenough to make one sick of life in the city to spend a week out on hisfarm. Such princely living as one gets! And he assures me that it

costs him very little--scarce anything perceptible, in fact."

"Indeed!" said I; "few people can say that."

"Why," said my friend, "he has a couple of peach-trees for everymonth, from June till frost, that furnish as many peaches as he, andhis wife, and ten children can dispose of. And then he has grapes,apricots, etc.; and last year his wife sold fifty dollars' worth fromher strawberry patch, and had an abundance for the table besides. Outof the milk of only one cow they had butter enough to sell three orfour pounds a week, besides abundance of milk and cream; and madam hasthe butter for her pocket money. This is the way country peoplemanage."

"Glorious!" thought I. And my wife and I could scarcely sleep, allnight, for the brilliancy of our anticipations!

To be sure our delight was somewhat damped the next day by thecoldness with which my good old uncle, Jeremiah Standfast, whohappened along at precisely this crisis, listened to our visions.

"You'll find it pleasant, children, in the summer time," said thehard-fisted old man, twirling his blue-checked pocket-handkerchief;



"but I'm sorry you've gone in debt for the land."

"Oh, but we shall soon save that--it's so much cheaper living in thecountry!" said both of us together.

"Well, as to that, I don't think it is, to city-bred folks."

Here I broke in with a flood of accounts of Mr. B.'s peach-trees, andMrs. B.'s strawberries, butter, apricots, etc., etc.; to which the oldgentleman listened with such a long, leathery, unmoved quietude ofvisage as quite provoked me, and gave me the worst possible opinion ofhis judgment. I was disappointed, too; for as he was reckoned one ofthe best practical farmers in the county, I had counted on anenthusiastic sympathy with all my agricultural designs.

"I tell you what, children," he said, "a body can live in the country,as you say, amazin' cheap; but then a body must _know how_,"--and myuncle spread his pocket-handkerchief thoughtfully out upon his knees,and shook his head gravely.

I thought him a terribly slow, stupid old body, and wondered how I hadalways entertained so high an opinion of his sense.

"He is evidently getting old," said I to my wife; "his judgment is not

what it used to be."At all events, our place was bought, and we moved out, well pleased,the first morning in April, not at all remembering the ill savor ofthat day for matters of wisdom. Our place was a pretty cottage, abouttwo miles from the city, with grounds that had been tastefully laidout. There was no lack of winding paths, arbors, flower borders, androsebushes, with which my wife was especially pleased. There was alittle green lot, strolling off down to a brook, with a thick grove oftrees at the end, where our cow was to be pastured.

The first week or two went on happily enough in getting our little newpet of a house into trimness and good order; for as it had been long

for sale, of course there was any amount of little repairs that hadbeen left to amuse the leisure hours of the purchaser. Here a doorstephad given way, and needed replacing; there a shutter hung loose, andwanted a hinge; abundance of glass needed setting; and as to paintingand papering, there was no end to that. Then my wife wanted a door cuthere, to make our bedroom more convenient, and a china closet knockedup there, where no china closet before had been. We even ventured onthrowing out a bay-window from our sitting-room, because we hadluckily lighted on a workman who was so cheap that it was an actualsaving of money to employ him. And to be sure our darling littlecottage did lift up its head wonderfully for all this garnishing andfurbishing. I got up early every morning, and nailed up therosebushes, and my wife got up and watered geraniums, and both

flattered ourselves and each other on our early hours and thriftyhabits. But soon, like Adam and Eve in Paradise, we found our littledomain to ask more hands than ours to get it into shape. So says I tomy wife, "I will bring out a gardener when I come next time, and heshall lay the garden out, and get it into order; and after that I caneasily keep it by the work of my leisure hours."

Our gardener was a very sublime sort of man,--an Englishman, and ofcourse used to laying out noblemen's places,--and we became asgrasshoppers in our own eyes when he talked of Lord This and That's



estate, and began to question us about our carriage drive andconservatory; and we could with difficulty bring the gentleman down toany understanding of the humble limits of our expectations; merely todress out the walks, and lay out a kitchen garden, and plant potatoes,turnips, beets and carrots, was quite a descent for him. In fact, sostrong were his æsthetic preferences, that he persuaded my wife to lethim dig all the turf off from a green square opposite the bay window,and to lay it out into divers little triangles, resembling smallpieces of pie, together with circles, mounds, and various othergeometrical ornaments, the planning and planting of which soonengrossed my wife's whole soul. The planting of the potatoes, beets,carrots, etc., was intrusted to a raw Irishman; for as to me, toconfess the truth, I began to fear that digging did not agree with me.It is true that I was exceedingly vigorous at first, and actuallyplanted with my own hands two or three long rows of potatoes; afterwhich I got a turn of rheumatism in my shoulder, which lasted me aweek. Stooping down to plant beets and radishes gave me a vertigo, sothat I was obliged to content myself with a general superintendenceof the garden; that is to say, I charged my Englishman to see that myIrishman did his duty properly, and then got on to my horse and rodeto the city. But about one part of the matter, I must say, I was notremiss; and that is, in the purchase of seed and garden utensils. Nota day passed that I did not come home with my pockets stuffed withchoice seeds, roots, etc.; and the variety of my garden utensils was

unequaled. There was not a priming hook of any pattern, not a hoe,rake, or spade great or small, that I did not have specimens of; andflower seeds and bulbs were also forthcoming in liberal proportions.In fact, I had opened an account at a thriving seed store; for when aman is driving business on a large scale, it is not always convenientto hand out the change for every little matter, and buying things onaccount is as neat and agreeable a mode of acquisition as paying billswith one's notes.

"You know we must have a cow," said my wife, the morning of our secondweek. Our friend the gardener, who had now worked with us at the rateof two dollars a day for two weeks, was at hand in a moment in ouremergency. We wanted to buy a cow, and he had one to sell--a wonderful

cow, of a real English breed. He would not sell her for any money,except to oblige particular friends; but as we had patronized him, weshould have her for forty dollars. How much we were obliged to him!The forty dollars were speedily forthcoming, and so also was the cow.

"What makes her shake her head in that way?" said my wife, apprehensively,as she observed the interesting beast making sundry demonstrations withher horns. "I hope she's gentle."

The gardener fluently demonstrated that the animal was a pattern ofall the softer graces, and that this head-shaking was merely a littlenervous affection consequent on the embarrassment of a new position.We had faith to believe almost anything at this time, and therefore

came from the barn yard to the house as much satisfied with ourpurchase as Job with his three thousand camels and five hundred yokeof oxen. Her quondam master milked her for us the first evening, outof a delicate regard to her feelings as a stranger, and we fanciedthat we discerned forty dollars' worth of excellence in the veryquality of the milk.

But alas! the next morning our Irish girl came in with a most ruefulface. "And is it milking that baste you'd have me be after?" she said;"sure, and she won't let me come near her."



"Nonsense, Biddy!" said I; "you frightened her, perhaps; the cow isperfectly gentle;" and with the pail on my arm I sallied forth. Themoment madam saw me entering the cow yard, she greeted me with a veryexpressive flourish of her horns.

"This won't do," said I, and I stopped. The lady evidently was seriousin her intentions of resisting any personal approaches. I cut acudgel, and, putting on a bold face, marched towards her, while Biddyfollowed with her milking stool. Apparently the beast saw thenecessity of temporizing, for she assumed a demure expression, andBiddy sat down to milk. I stood sentry, and if the lady shook her headI shook my stick; and thus the milking operation proceeded withtolerable serenity and success.

"There!" said I, with dignity, when the frothing pail was full to thebrim. "That will do, Biddy," and I dropped my stick. Dump! camemadam's heel on the side of the pail, and it flew like a rocket intothe air, while the milky flood showered plentifully over me, and a newbroadcloth riding-coat that I had assumed for the first time thatmorning. "Whew!" said I, as soon as I could get my breath from thisextraordinary shower bath; "what's all this?" My wife came runningtowards the cow yard, as I stood with the milk streaming from my hair,filling my eyes, and dropping from the tip of my nose; and she and

Biddy performed a recitative lamentation over me in alternatestrophes, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. Such was our firstmorning's experience; but as we had announced our bargain with someconsiderable flourish of trumpets among our neighbors and friends, weconcluded to hush the matter up as much as possible.

"These very superior cows are apt to be cross," said I; "we must bearwith it as we do with the eccentricities of genius; besides, when shegets accustomed to us, it will be better."

Madam was therefore installed into her pretty pasture lot, and my wifecontemplated with pleasure the picturesque effect of her appearance,reclining on the green slope of the pasture lot, or standing ankle

deep in the gurgling brook, or reclining under the deep shadows of thetrees. She was, in fact, a handsome cow, which may account, in part,for some of her sins; and this consideration inspired me with somedegree of indulgence towards her foibles.

But when I found that Biddy could never succeed in getting near her inthe pasture, and that any kind of success in the milking operationsrequired my vigorous personal exertions morning and evening, thematter wore a more serious aspect, and I began to feel quite pensiveand apprehensive. It is very well to talk of the pleasures of themilkmaid going out in the balmy freshness of the purple dawn; butimagine a poor fellow pulled out of bed on a drizzly, rainy morning,and equipping himself for a scamper through a wet pasture lot, rope in

hand, at the heels of such a termagant as mine! In fact, madamestablished a regular series of exercises, which had all to be gonethrough before she would suffer herself to be captured; as, first, shewould station herself plump in the middle of a marsh, which lay at thelower part of the lot, and look very innocent and absent-minded, as ifreflecting on some sentimental subject. "Suke! Suke! Suke!" Iejaculate, cautiously tottering along the edge of the marsh, andholding out an ear of corn. The lady looks gracious, and comesforward, almost within reach of my hand. I make a plunge to throw therope over her horns, and away she goes, kicking up mud and water into



my face in her flight, while I, losing my balance, tumble forward intothe marsh. I pick myself up, and, full of wrath, behold her placidlychewing her cud on the other side, with the meekest air imaginable, aswho should say, "I hope you are not hurt, sir." I dash through swampand bog furiously, resolving to carry all by a _coup de main_. Thenfollows a miscellaneous season of dodging, scampering, and bopeeping,among the trees of the grove, interspersed with sundry occasionalraces across the bog aforesaid. I always wondered how I caught herevery day; and when I had tied her head to one post and her heels toanother, I wiped the sweat from my brow, and thought I was paying dearfor the eccentricities of genius. A genius she certainly was, forbesides her surprising agility, she had other talents equallyextraordinary. There was no fence that she could not take down;nowhere that she could not go. She took the pickets off the gardenfence at her pleasure, using her horns as handily as I could use aclaw hammer. Whatever she had a mind to, whether it were a bite in thecabbage garden, or a run in the corn patch, or a foraging expeditioninto the flower borders, she made herself equally welcome and at home.Such a scampering and driving, such cries of "Suke here" and "Sukethere," as constantly greeted our ears, kept our little establishmentin a constant commotion. At last, when she one morning made a plungeat the skirts of my new broadcloth frock coat, and carried off oneflap on her horns, my patience gave out, and I determined to sellher.

As, however, I had made a good story of my misfortunes among myfriends and neighbors, and amused them with sundry whimsical accountsof my various adventures in the cow-catching line, I found, when Icame to speak of selling, that there was a general coolness on thesubject, and nobody seemed disposed to be the recipient of myresponsibilities. In short, I was glad, at last, to get fifteendollars for her, and comforted myself with thinking that I had atleast gained twenty-five dollars worth of experience in thetransaction, to say nothing of the fine exercise.

I comforted my soul, however, the day after, by purchasing andbringing home to my wife a fine swarm of bees.

"Your bee, now," says I, "is a really classical insect, and breathesof Virgil and the Augustan age,--and then she is a domestic, tranquil,placid creature. How beautiful the murmuring of a hive near ourhoneysuckle of a calm, summer evening! Then they are tranquilly andpeacefully amassing for us their stores of sweetness, while they lullus with their murmurs. What a beautiful image of disinterestedbenevolence!"

My wife declared that I was quite a poet, and the beehive was dulyinstalled near the flower plots, that the delicate creatures mighthave the full benefit of the honeysuckle and mignonette. My spiritsbegan to rise. I bought three different treatises on the rearing of

bees, and also one or two new patterns of hives, and proposed to rearmy bees on the most approved model. I charged all the establishment tolet me know when there was any indication of an emigrating spirit,that I might be ready to receive the new swarm into my patentmansion.

Accordingly, one afternoon, when I was deep in an article that I waspreparing for the "North American Review," intelligence was brought methat a swarm had risen. I was on the alert at once, and discovered, ongoing out, that the provoking creatures had chosen the top of a tree



about thirty feet high to settle on. Now my books had carefullyinstructed me just how to approach the swarm and cover them with anew hive; but I had never contemplated the possibility of the swarmbeing, like Haman's gallows, forty cubits high. I looked despairinglyupon the smooth-bark tree, which rose, like a column, full twentyfeet, without branch or twig. "What is to be done?" said I, appealingto two or three neighbors. At last, at the recommendation of one ofthem, a ladder was raised against the tree, and, equipped with a shirtoutside of my clothes, a green veil over my head, and a pair ofleather gloves on my hands, I went up with a saw at my girdle to sawoff the branch on which they had settled, and lower it by a rope to aneighbor, similarly equipped, who stood below with the hive.

As a result of this manoeuvre the fastidious little insects were atlength fairly installed at housekeeping in my new patent hive, and,rejoicing in my success, I again sat down to my article.

That evening my wife and I took tea in our honeysuckle arbor, with ourlittle ones and a friend or two, to whom I showed my treasures, andexpatiated at large on the comforts and conveniences of the new patenthive.

But alas for the hopes of man! The little ungrateful wretches--whatmust they do but take advantage of my oversleeping myself, the next

morning, to clear out for new quarters without so much as leaving me aP. P. C.! Such was the fact; at eight o'clock I found the new patenthive as good as ever; but the bees I have never seen from that day tothis!

"The rascally little conservatives!" said I; "I believe they havenever had a new idea from the days of Virgil down, and are entirelyunprepared to appreciate improvements."

Meanwhile the seeds began to germinate in our garden, when we found,to our chagrin, that, between John Bull and Paddy, there had occurredsundry confusions in the several departments. Radishes had beenplanted broadcast, carrots and beets arranged in hills, and here and

there a whole paper of seed appeared to have been planted bodily. Mygood old uncle, who, somewhat to my confusion, made me a call at thistime, was greatly distressed and scandalized by the appearance of ourgarden. But by a deal of fussing, transplanting, and replanting, itwas got into some shape and order. My uncle was rather troublesome, ascareful old people are apt to be--annoying us by perpetual inquiriesof what we gave for this and that, and running up provokingcalculations on the final cost of matters; and we began to wish thathis visits might be as short as would be convenient.

But when, on taking leave, he promised to send us a fine young cow ofhis own raising, our hearts rather smote us for our impatience.

"'Tain't any of your new breeds, nephew," said the old man, "yet I cansay that she's a gentle, likely young crittur, and better worth fortydollars than many a one that's cried up for Ayrshire or Durham; andyou shall be quite welcome to her."

We thanked him, as in duty bound, and thought that if he was full ofold-fashioned notions, he was no less full of kindness and good will.

And now, with a new cow, with our garden beginning to thrive under thegentle showers of May, with our flower borders blooming, my wife and I



began to think ourselves in Paradise. But alas! the same sun and rainthat warmed our fruit and flowers brought up from the earth, likesulky gnomes, a vast array of purple-leaved weeds, that almost in anight seemed to cover the whole surface of the garden beds. Ourgardeners both being gone, the weeding was expected to be done byme--one of the anticipated relaxations of my leisure hours.

"Well," said I, in reply to a gentle intimation from my wife, "when myarticle is finished, I'll take a day and weed all up clean."

Thus days slipped by, till at length the article was dispatched, and Iproceeded to my garden. Amazement! Who could have possibly foreseenthat anything earthly could grow so fast in a few days! There were nobounds, no alleys, no beds, no distinction of beet and carrot, nothingbut a flourishing congregation of weeds nodding and bobbing in themorning breeze, as if to say, "We hope you are well, sir--we've gotthe ground, you see!" I began to explore, and to hoe, and to weed. Ah!did anybody ever try to clean a neglected carrot or beet bed, or bendhis back in a hot sun over rows of weedy onions! He is the man to feelfor my despair! How I weeded, and sweat, and sighed! till, when highnoon came on, as the result of all my toils, only three beds werecleaned! And how disconsolate looked the good seed, thus unexpectedlydelivered from its sheltering tares, and laid open to a broiling Julysun! Every juvenile beet and carrot lay flat down wilted, and

drooping, as if, like me, they had been weeding, instead of beingweeded.

"This weeding is quite a serious matter," said I to my wife; "the factis, I must have help about it!"

"Just what I was myself thinking," said my wife. "My flower bordersare all in confusion, and my petunia mounds so completely overgrown,that nobody would dream what they were meant for!"

In short, it was agreed between us that we could not afford theexpense of a full-grown man to keep our place; yet we must reinforceourselves by the addition of a boy, and a brisk youngster from the

vicinity was pitched upon as the happy addition. This youth was afellow of decidedly quick parts, and in one forenoon made such aclearing in our garden that I was delighted. Bed after bed appeared toview, all cleared and dressed out with such celerity that I was quiteashamed of my own slowness, until, on examination, I discovered thathe had, with great impartiality, pulled up both weeds and vegetables.

This hopeful beginning was followed up by a succession of proceedingswhich should be recorded for the instruction of all who seek for helpfrom the race of boys. Such a loser of all tools, great and small;such an invariable leaver-open of all gates, and letter-down of bars;such a personification of all manner of anarchy and ill luck, hadnever before been seen on the estate. His time, while I was gone to

the city, was agreeably diversified with roosting on the fence,swinging on the gates, making poplar whistles for the children,hunting eggs, and eating whatever fruit happened to be in season, inwhich latter accomplishment he was certainly quite distinguished.After about three weeks of this kind of joint gardening, we concludedto dismiss Master Tom from the firm, and employ a man.

"Things must be taken care of," said I, "and I cannot do it. 'Tis outof the question." And so the man was secured.



But I am making a long story, and may chance to outrun the sympathiesof my readers. Time would fail me to tell of the distresses manifoldthat fell upon me--of cows dried up by poor milkers; of hens thatwouldn't set at all, and hens that, despite all law and reason, wouldset on one egg; of hens that, having hatched families, straightway ledthem into all manner of high grass and weeds, by which means numerousyoung chicks caught premature colds and perished; and how, when I,with manifold toil, had driven one of these inconsiderate gadders intoa coop, to teach her domestic habits, the rats came down upon her andslew every chick in one night; how my pigs were always practicinggymnastic exercises over the fence of the sty, and marauding in thegarden. I wonder that Fourier never conceived the idea of having hisgarden land ploughed by pigs; for certainly they manifest quite adecided elective attraction for turning up the earth.

When autumn came, I went soberly to market, in the neighboring city,and bought my potatoes and turnips like any other man; for, betweenall the various systems of gardening pursued, I was obliged to confessthat my first horticultural effort was a decided failure. But thoughall my rural visions had proved illusive, there were some verysubstantial realities. My bill at the seed store, for seeds, roots,and tools, for example, had run up to an amount that was perfectlyunaccountable; then there were various smaller items, such ashorseshoeing, carriage mending--for he who lives in the country and

does business in the city must keep his vehicle and appurtenances. Ihad always prided myself on being an exact man, and settling everyaccount, great and small, with the going out of the old year; but thisseason I found myself sorely put to it. In fact, had not I received atimely lift from my good old uncle, I should have made a completebreak down. The old gentleman's troublesome habit of ciphering andcalculating, it seems, had led him beforehand to foresee that I wasnot exactly in the money-making line, nor likely to possess muchsurplus revenue to meet the note which I had given for my place; and,therefore, he quietly paid it himself, as I discovered, when, aftermuch anxiety and some sleepless nights, I went to the holder to askfor an extension of credit.

"He was right, after all," said I to my wife; "'to live cheap in thecountry, a body must know how.'"

TRIALS OF A HOUSEKEEPER

I have a detail of very homely grievances to present; but such as theyare, many a heart will feel them to be heavy--the trials of ahousekeeper.

"Poh!" says one of the lords of creation, taking his cigar out of hismouth, and twirling it between his two first fingers, "what a fussthese women do make of this simple matter of managing a family! Ican't see for my life as there is anything so extraordinary to be donein this matter of housekeeping: only three meals a day to be got andcleared off--and it really seems to take up the whole of their mindfrom morning till night. _I_ could keep house without so much of aflurry, I know."

Now, prithee, good brother, listen to my story, and see how much you



know about it. I came to this enlightened West about a year since, andwas duly established in a comfortable country residence within a mileand a half of the city, and there commenced the enjoyment of domesticfelicity. I had been married about three months, and had been,previously _in love_ in the most approved romantic way, with all theproprieties of moonlight walks, serenades, sentimental billets doux,and everlasting attachment.

After having been allowed, as I said, about three months to get overthis sort of thing, and to prepare for realities, I was located forlife as aforesaid. My family consisted of myself and husband, a femalefriend as a visitor, and two brothers of my good man, who were engagedwith him in business.

I pass over the first two or three days, spent in that process ofhammering boxes, breaking crockery, knocking things down and pickingthem up again, which is commonly called getting to housekeeping. Asusual, carpets were sewed and stretched, laid down, and taken up to besewed over; things were formed, and _re_formed, _trans_formed, and _con_formed, till at last a settled order began to appear. But nowcame up the great point of all. During our confusion we had cooked andeaten our meals in a very miscellaneous and pastoral manner, eatingnow from the top of a barrel, and now from a fireboard laid on twochairs, and drinking, some from teacups, and some from saucers, and

some from tumblers, and some from a pitcher big enough to be drownedin, and sleeping, some on sofas, and some on straggling beds andmattresses thrown down here and there wherever there was room. Allthese pleasant barbarities were now at an end. The house was in order,the dishes put up in their places; three regular meals were to beadministered in one day, all in an orderly, civilized form; beds wereto be made, rooms swept and dusted, dishes washed, knives scoured, andall the et cetera to be attended to. Now for getting "help," as Mrs.Trollope says; and where and how were we to get it? We knew very fewpersons in the city; and how were we to accomplish the matter? Atlength the "house of employment" was mentioned; and my husband wasdispatched thither regularly every day for a week, while I, in themean time, was very nearly _dispatched_ by the abundance of work at

home. At length, one evening, as I was sitting completely exhausted,thinking of resorting to the last feminine expedient for supportinglife, viz., a good fit of crying, my husband made his appearance, witha most triumphant air, at the door. "There, Margaret, I have got you acouple at last--cook and chambermaid." So saying, he flourished openthe door, and gave to my view the picture of a little, dry,snuffy-looking old woman, and a great, staring Dutch girl, in a greenbonnet with red ribbons, with mouth wide open, and hands and feetthat would have made a Greek sculptor open _his_ mouth too. Iaddressed forthwith a few words of encouragement to each of thiscultivated-looking couple, and proceeded to ask their names; andforthwith the old woman began to snuffle and to wipe her face withwhat was left of an old silk pocket-handkerchief preparatory to

speaking, while the young lady opened her mouth wider, and lookedaround with a frightened air, as if meditating an escape. After somepreliminaries, however, I found out that my old woman was Mrs.Tibbins, and my Hebe's name was _Kotterin_; also, that she knew muchmore Dutch than English, and not any too much of either. The old ladywas the cook. I ventured a few inquiries. "Had she ever cooked?"

"Yes, ma'am, sartain; she had lived at two or three places in thecity."



"I suspect, my dear," said my husband confidently, "that she is anexperienced cook, and so your troubles are over;" and he went toreading his newspaper. I said no more, but determined to wait tillmorning. The breakfast, to be sure, did not do much honor to thetalents of my official; but it was the first time, and the place wasnew to her. After breakfast was cleared away I proceeded to givedirections for dinner; it was merely a plain joint of meat, I said, tobe roasted in the tin oven. The experienced cook looked at me with astare of entire vacuity. "The tin oven," I repeated, "stands there,"pointing to it.

She walked up to it, and touched it with such an appearance ofsuspicion as if it had been an electrical battery, and then lookedround at me with a look of such helpless ignorance that my soul wasmoved. "I never see one of them things before," said she.

"Never saw a tin oven!" I exclaimed. "I thought you said you hadcooked in two or three families."

"They does not have such things as them, though," rejoined my oldlady. Nothing was to be done, of course, but to instruct her into thephilosophy of the case; and having spitted the joint, and givennumberless directions, I walked off to my room to superintend theoperations of Kotterin, to whom I had committed the making of my bed

and the sweeping of my room, it never having come into my head thatthere could be a wrong way of making a bed; and to this day it is amarvel to me how any one could arrange pillows and quilts to make sucha nondescript appearance as mine now presented. One glance showed methat Kotterin also was "_just caught_," and that I had as much to doin her department as in that of my old lady.

Just then the doorbell rang. "Oh, there is the doorbell," I exclaimed."Run, Kotterin, and show them into the parlor."

Kotterin started to run, as directed, and then stopped, and stoodlooking round on all the doors and on me with a wofully puzzled air."The street door," said I, pointing towards the entry. Kotterin

blundered into the entry, and stood gazing with a look of stupidwonder at the bell ringing without hands, while I went to the door andlet in the company before she could be fairly made to understand theconnection between the ringing and the phenomenon of admission.

As dinner time approached, I sent word into my kitchen to have it seton; but recollecting the state of the heads of department there, Isoon followed my own orders. I found the tin oven standing out in themiddle of the kitchen, and my cook seated _à la Turc_ in front of it,contemplating the roast meat with full as puzzled an air as in themorning. I once more explained the mystery of taking it off, andassisted her to get it on to the platter, though somewhat cooled byhaving been so long set out for inspection. I was standing holding the

spit in my hands, when Kotterin, who had heard the doorbell ring, andwas determined this time to be in season, ran into the hall, and,soon returning, opened the kitchen door, and politely ushered in threeor four fashionable looking ladies, exclaiming, "Here she is." Asthese were strangers from the city, who had come to make their firstcall, this introduction was far from proving an eligible one--the lookof thunderstruck astonishment with which I greeted their firstappearance, as I stood brandishing the spit, and the terrifiedsnuffling and staring of poor Mrs. Tibbins, who again had recourse toher old pocket-handkerchief, almost entirely vanquished their gravity,



and it was evident that they were on the point of a broad laugh; so,recovering my self-possession, I apologized, and led the way to theparlor.

Let these few incidents be a specimen of the four mortal weeksthat I spent with these "helps," during which time I did almost asmuch work, with twice as much anxiety, as when there was nobodythere; and yet everything went wrong besides. The young gentlemencomplained of the patches of starch grimed to their collars, and thestreaks of black coal ironed into their dickies, while one week everypocket-handkerchief in the house was starched so stiff that youmight as well have carried an earthen plate in your pocket; thetumblers looked muddy; the plates were never washed clean or wiped dryunless I attended to each one; and as to eating and drinking, weexperienced a variety that we had not before considered possible.

At length the old woman vanished from the stage, and was succeeded bya knowing, active, capable damsel, with a temper like a steel-trap,who remained with me just one week, and then went off in a fit ofspite. To her succeeded a rosy, good-natured, merry lass, who brokethe crockery, burned the dinner, tore the clothes in ironing, andknocked down everything that stood in her way about the house, withoutat all discomposing herself about the matter. One night she took thestopper from a barrel of molasses, and came singing off upstairs,

while the molasses ran soberly out into the cellar bottom all night,till by morning it was in a state of universal emancipation. Havingdone this, and also dispatched an entire set of tea things by lettingthe waiter fall, she one day made her disappearance.

Then, for a wonder, there fell to my lot a tidy, efficient, trainedEnglish girl; pretty, and genteel, and neat, and knowing how to doeverything, and with the sweetest temper in the world. "Now," said Ito myself, "I shall rest from my labors." Everything about the housebegan to go right, and looked as clean and genteel as Mary's ownpretty self. But, alas! this period of repose was interrupted by thevision of a clever, trim-looking young man, who for some weeks couldbe heard scraping his boots at the kitchen door every Sunday night;

and at last Miss Mary, with some smiling and blushing, gave me tounderstand that she must leave in two weeks.

"Why, Mary," said I, feeling a little mischievous, "don't you like theplace?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am."

"Then why do you look for another?"

"I am not going to another place."

"What, Mary, are you going to learn a trade?"

"No, ma'am."

"Why, then, what do you mean to do?"

"I expect to keep house myself, ma'am," said she, laughing andblushing.

"Oh ho!" said I, "that is it;" and so in two weeks I lost the bestlittle girl in the world: peace to her memory.



After this came an interregnum, which put me in mind of the chapter inChronicles that I used to read with great delight when a child, whereBasha, and Elah, and Tibni, and Zimri, and Omri, one after the other,came on to the throne of Israel, all in the compass of half a dozenverses. We had one old woman, who stayed a week, and went away withthe misery in her tooth; one young woman, who ran away and gotmarried; one cook, who came at night and went off before light in themorning; one very clever girl, who stayed a month, and then went awaybecause her mother was sick; another, who stayed six weeks, and wastaken with the fever herself; and during all this time, who can speakthe damage and destruction wrought in the domestic paraphernalia bypassing through these multiplied hands?

What shall we do? Shall we give up houses, have no furniture to takecare of, keep merely a bag of meal, a porridge pot, and a puddingstick, and sit in our tent door in real patriarchal independence? Whatshall we do?

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