MRS. STOWE'S WRITINGS 
 
 HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. 
 
 One Volume. 
 
 THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND. 
 
 One Volume. 
 
 AGNES OF SORRENTO. 
 
 One "Volume. 
 
 UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 
 One Volume. 
 
 THE MINISTER'S WOOING. 
 
 One "Volume. 
 
 TICKNOB AND FIELDS, Publishers. 
 
HOUSE AND HOME 
 
 PAPERS. 
 
 BY CHRISTOPHER CROWFIELD. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 
 1865. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by 
 
 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE, 
 in the Cfbrk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS: 
 WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY, 
 
 CAMBRIDGE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE RAVAGES OF A CARPET i 
 
 II. HOME-KEEPING vs. HOUSE-KEEPING . 23 
 
 III. WHAT is A HOME ? 48 
 
 IV. THE ECONOMY OF THE BEAUTIFUL . 79 
 V. RAKING UP THE FIRE 101 
 
 VI. THE LADY WHO DOES HER OWN WORK 125 
 
 VII. WHAT CAN BE GOT IN AMERICA . . . 148 
 
 VIII. ECONOMY 164 
 
 IX. SERVANTS ....... 195 
 
 X. COOKERY . . 225 
 
 XL OUR HOUSE 266 
 
 XII. HOME RELIGION 309 
 
 M130S11 
 
HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS. 
 
 i. 
 
 THE RAVAGES OF A CARPET. 
 
 MY dear, it's so 
 These words were spoken by my wife, as 
 she sat gracefully on a roll of Brussels carpet which 
 was spread out in flowery lengths on the floor of. 
 Messrs. Ketchem & Co. 
 
 " It 's so cheap ! " 
 
 Milton says that the love of fame is the last in- 
 firmity of noble minds. I think he had not rightly 
 considered the subject. I believe that last infirmity 
 is the love of getting things cheap ! Understand me, 
 now. I don't mean the love of getting cheap things, 
 by which one understands showy, trashy, ill-made, 
 spurious articles, bearing certain apparent resem- 
 blances to better things. All really sensible people 
 are quite superior to that sort of cheapness. But 
 those fortunate accidents which put within the power 
 of a man things really good and valuable for half or 
 a third of their value what mortal virtue and resolu- 
 i A 
 
2;: V: \ * -'f^pus? ;q%d "Home Papers. 
 
 tion can withstand ? My friend Brown has a genuine 
 Murillo, the joy of his heart and the light of his eyes, 
 but he never fails to tell you, as its crowning merit, 
 how he bought it in South America for just nothing, 
 how it hung smoky and deserted in the back of a 
 counting-room, and was thrown in as a makeweight to 
 bind a bargain, and, upon being cleaned, turned out 
 a genuine Murillo ; and then he takes out his cigar, 
 and calls your attention to the points in it ; he adjusts 
 the curtain to let the sunlight fall just in the right 
 spot; he takes you to this and the other point of 
 view ; and all this time you must confess, that, in 
 your mind as well as his, the consideration that he 
 got all this beauty for ten dollars adds lustre to the 
 painting. Brown has paintings there for which he 
 paid his thousands, and, being well advised, they are 
 worth the thousands he paid ; but this ewe-lamb that 
 he got for nothing always gives him a secret exaltation 
 in his own eyes. He seems to have credited to him- 
 self personally merit to the amount of what he should 
 have paid for the picture. Then there is Mrs. Crcesus, 
 at the party yesterday evening, expatiating to my wife 
 on the surprising cheapness of her point-lace set, 
 " Got for just nothing at all, my dear ! " and a circle 
 of admiring listeners echoes the sound. " Did you 
 ever hear anything like it ? I never heard of such a 
 thing in my life " ; and away sails Mrs. Crcesus as if 
 
The Ravages of a Carpet. 3 
 
 she had a collar composed of all the cardinal virtues. 
 In fact, she is buoyed up with a secret sense of merit, 
 so that her satin slippers scarcely touch the carpet. 
 Even I myself am fond of showing a first edition of 
 " Paradise Lost," for which I gave a shilling in a 
 London book-stall, and stating that I would not take 
 a hundred dollars for it. Even I must confess there 
 are points on which I am mortal. 
 
 But all this while my wife sits on her roll of carpet, 
 looking into my face for approbation, and Marianne 
 and Jenny are pouring into my ear a running-fire 
 of " How sweet ! How lovely ! Just like that one 
 of Mrs. Tweedleum's ! " 
 
 " And she gave two dollars and seventy-five cents a 
 yard for hers, and this is " 
 
 My wife here put her hand to her mouth, and 
 pronounced the incredible sum in a whisper, with a 
 species of sacred awe, common, as I have observed, 
 to females in such interesting crises. In fact, Mr. 
 Ketchem, standing smiling and amiable by, remarked 
 to me that really he hoped Mrs. Crowfield would not 
 name generally what she gave for the article, for posi- 
 tively it was so far below the usual rate of prices that 
 he might give offence to other customers ; but this 
 was the very last of the pattern, and they were anx- 
 ious to close off the old stock, and we had always 
 traded with them, and he had a great respect for my 
 
 ' 
 
4 House and Home Papers. 
 
 wife's father, who had always traded with their firm, 
 and so, when there were any little bargains to be 
 thrown in any one's way, why, he naturally, of 
 course And here Mr. Ketchem bowed grace- 
 fully over the yardstick to my wife, and I con- 
 sented. 
 
 Yes, I consented ; but whenever I think of my- 
 self at that moment, I always am reminded, in a 
 small way, of Adam taking the apple ; and my wife, 
 seated on that roll of carpet, has more than once 
 suggested to my mind the classic image of Pandora 
 opening her unlucky box. In fact, from the moment 
 I had blandly assented to Mr. Ketchem's remarks, 
 and said to my wife, with a gentle air of dignity, 
 " Well, my dear, since it suits you, I think you had 
 better take it," there came a load on my prophetic 
 soul, which not all the fluttering and chattering of 
 my delighted girls and the more placid complacency 
 of my wife could entirely dissipate. I presaged, I 
 know not what, of coming woe j and all I presaged 
 came to pass. 
 
 In order to know just what came to pass, I must 
 give you a view of the house and home into which 
 this carpet was introduced. 
 
 My wife and I were somewhat advanced house- 
 keepers, and our dwelling was first furnished by her 
 father, in the old-fashioned jog-trot days, when fur- 
 
The -Ravages of a Carpet. 5 
 
 niture was made with a view to its lasting from gen- 
 eration to generation. Everything was strong and 
 comfortable, heavy mahogany, guiltless of the mod- 
 ern device of veneering, and hewed out with a square 
 solidity which had not an idea of change. It was, 
 so to speak, a sort of granite foundation of the house- 
 hold structure. Then, we commenced housekeeping 
 with the full idea that our house was a thing to be 
 lived in, and that furniture was made to be used. 
 That, most sensible of women, Mrs. Crowfield, agreed 
 fully with me, that in our house there was to be noth- 
 ing too good for ourselves, no rooms shut up in 
 holiday attire to be enjoyed by strangers for three 
 or four days in the year, while we lived in holes and 
 corners, no best parlor from which we were to be 
 excluded, no silver plate to be kept in the safe in 
 the bank, and brought home only in case of a grand 
 festival, while our daily meals were served with dingy 
 Britannia. "Strike a broad, plain average," I said 
 to my wife ; " have everything abundant, serviceable ; 
 and give all our friends exactly what we have our- 
 selves, no better and no worse " ; and my wife 
 smiled approval on my sentiment. 
 
 Smile ! she did more than smile. My wife resem- 
 bles one of those convex mirrors I have sometimes 
 seen. Every idea I threw out, plain and simple, she 
 reflected back upon me in. a thousand Jittle glitters 
 
6 House and Home Papers. 
 
 and twinkles of her own ; she made my crude con- 
 ceptions come back to me in such perfectly dazzling 
 performances that I hardly recognized them. My 
 mind warms up, when I think what a home that wo- 
 man made of our house from the very first day she 
 moved into it. The great, large, airy parlor, with its 
 ample bow-window, when she had arranged it, seemed 
 a perfect trap to catch sunbeams. There was none 
 of that discouraging trimness and newness that often 
 repel a man's bachelor-friends after the first call, and 
 make them feel, " O, well, one cannot go in at 
 Crowfield's now, unless one is dressed; one might 
 put them out." The first thing our parlor said to 
 any one was, that we were not people to be put out, 
 that we were wide-spread, easy-going, and jolly folk. 
 Even if Tom Brown brought in Ponto and his shoot- 
 ing-bag, there was nothing in that parlor to strike 
 terror into man and dog; for it was written on the 
 face of things, that everybody there was to do just 
 as he or she pleased. There were my books and 
 my writing-table spread out with all its miscellaneous 
 confusion of papers on one side of the fireplace, and 
 there were my wife's great, ample sofa and work-table 
 on the other; there I wrote my articles for the 
 " North American," and there she turned and ripped 
 and altered her dresses, and there lay crochet and 
 knitting and embroidery side by side with a weekly 
 
The Ravages of a Carpet, 7 
 
 basket of family-mending, and in neighborly contigu- 
 ity with the last book of the season, which my wife 
 turned over as she took her after-dinner lounge on 
 the sofa. And in the bow-window were canaries 
 always singing, and a great stand of plants always 
 fresh and blooming, and ivy which grew and clam- 
 bered and twined about the pictures. Best of all, 
 there was in our parlor that household altar, the 
 blazing wood-fire, whose wholesome, hearty crackle 
 is the truest household inspiration. I quite agree 
 with one celebrated American author who holds that 
 an open fireplace is an altar of patriotism. Would 
 our Revolutionary fathers have gone barefooted and 
 bleeding over snows to defend air-tight stoves and 
 cooking-ranges ? I trow not. It was the memory of 
 the great open kitchen-fire, with its back-log and fore- 
 stick of cord-wood, its roaring, hilarious voice of 
 invitation, its dancing tongues of flame, that called 
 to them through the snows of that dreadful winter to 
 keep up their courage, that made their hearts warm 
 and bright with a thousand reflected memories. Our 
 neighbors said that it was delightful to sit by our fire, 
 but then, for their part, they could not afford it, 
 wood was so ruinously dear, and all that. Most of 
 these people could not, for the simple reason that 
 they felt compelled, in order to maintain the family- 
 dignity, to keep up a parlor with great pomp and 
 
8 House and Home Papers. 
 
 circumstance of upholstery, where they sat only on 
 dress-occasions, and of course the wood-fire was out 
 of the question. 
 
 When children began to make their appearance in 
 our establishment, my wife, like a well-conducted 
 housekeeper, had the best of nursery-arrangements, 
 a room all warmed, lighted, and ventilated, and 
 abounding in every proper resource of amusement to 
 the rising race ; but it was astonishing to see how, 
 notwithstanding this, the centripetal attraction drew 
 every pair of little pattering feet to our parlor. 
 
 "My dear, why don't you take your blocks up- 
 stairs ? " 
 
 " I want to be where oo are," said with a piteous 
 under-lip, was generally, a most convincing answer. 
 
 Then the small people could not be disabused of 
 the idea that certain chief treasures of their own 
 would be safer under papa's writing-table or mamma's 
 sofa than in the safest closet of their own domains. 
 My writing-table wa<3 dock-yard for Arthur's new 
 ship, and stable fjpf little Tom's pepper-and-salt-col- 
 ored pony, and carriage-house for Charley's new 
 wagon, while whole armies of paper-dolls kept house 
 in the recess behind mamma's sofa. 
 
 And then, in due time, came the tribe of pets who 
 followed the little ones and rejoiced in the blaze of 
 the firelight. The boys had a splendid Newfound- 
 I 
 
The Ravages of a Carpet. 9 
 
 land, which, knowing our weakness, we warned them 
 with awful gravity was never to be a parlor dog ; but, 
 somehow, what with little beggings and pleadings on 
 the part of Arthur and Tom, and the piteous melan- 
 choly with which Rover would look through the win- 
 dow-panes, when shut out from the blazing warmth 
 into the dark, cold, veranda, it at last came to pass 
 that Rover gained a regular corner at the hearth, a 
 regular status in every family-convocation. And then 
 came a little black-and-tan English terrier for the 
 girls ; and then a fleecy poodle, who established him- 
 self on the corner of my wife's sofa ; and for each of 
 these some little voices pleaded, and some little heart 
 would be so near broken at any slight, that my wife 
 and I resigned ourselves to live in menagerie, the more 
 so as we were obliged to confess a lurking weakness 
 towards these four-footed children ourselves. 
 
 So we grew and flourished together, children, 
 dogs, birds, flowers, and all ; and although my wife 
 often, in paroxysms of housewifeliness to which the 
 best of women are subject, woul^ declare that we 
 never were fit to be' seen, yet I comforted her with 
 the reflection that there were few people whose 
 friends seemed to consider them better worth seeing, 
 judging by the stream of visitors and loungers which 
 was always setting towards our parlor. People 
 seemed to find it good to be there ; they said it 
 
IO House and Home Papers. 
 
 was somehow home-like and pleasant, and that there 
 was a kind of charm about it that made it easy to 
 talk and easy to live ; and as my girls and boys grew 
 up, there seemed always to be some merry doing or 
 other going on there. Arty and Tom brought home 
 their college friends, who straightway took root there 
 and seemed to fancy themselves a part of us. We 
 had no reception-rooms apart, where the girls were 
 to receive young gentlemen ; all the courting and 
 flirting that were to be done had for their arena the 
 ample variety of surface presented by our parlor, 
 which, with sofas and screens and lounges and re- 
 cesses and writing- and work-tables, disposed here 
 and there, and the genuine laisser aller of the whole 
 menage, seemed, on the whole, to have offered ample 
 advantages enough; for, at the time I write of, two 
 daughters were already established in marriage, while 
 my youngest was busy, as yet, in performing that 
 little -domestic ballet of the cat with the mouse, in 
 the case of a most submissive youth of the neigh- 
 borhood. 
 
 All this time our parlor-furniture, though of that 
 granitic formation I have indicated, began to show 
 marks of that decay to which things sublunary are 
 liable. I cannot say that I dislike this look in a 
 room. Take a fine, ample, hospitable apartment, 
 where all things, freely and generously used, softly 
 
The Ravages of a Carpet. 1 1 
 
 and indefinably grow old together, there is a sort of 
 mellow tone and keeping which pleases my eye. 
 What if the seams of the great inviting arm-chair, 
 where so many friends have sat and lounged, do grow 
 white ? What, in fact, if some easy couch has an un- 
 deniable hole worn in its friendly cover? I regard 
 with tenderness even these mortal weaknesses of 
 these servants and witnesses of our good times and 
 social fellowship. No vulgar touch wore them ; they 
 may be called, rather, the marks and indentations 
 which the glittering in and out of the tide of social 
 happiness has worn in the rocks of our strand. I 
 would no more disturb the gradual toning-down and 
 aging of a well-used set of furniture by smart improve- 
 ments than I would have a modern dauber paint in 
 emendations in a fine old picture. 
 
 So we men reason ; but women do not always 
 think as we do. There is a virulent demon of house- 
 keeping, jiot wholly cast out in the best of them, and 
 which often breaks out in unguarded moments. In 
 fact, Miss Marianne, being on the lookout for furni- 
 ture wherewith to begin a new establishment, and 
 Jenny, who had accompanied her in her peregrina- 
 tions, had more than once thrown out little dispar- 
 aging remarks on the time-worn appearance of our 
 establishment, suggesting comparison with those of 
 more modern-furnished rooms. 
 
12 House and Home Papers. 
 
 " It is positively scandalous, the way our furniture 
 looks," I one day heard one of them declaring to her 
 mother ; " and this old rag of a carpet ! " 
 
 My feelings were hurt, not the less so that I knew 
 that the large cloth which covered the middle of the 
 floor, and which the women call a becking, had been 
 bought and nailed down there, after a solemn family- 
 counsel, as the best means of concealing the too evi- 
 dent darns which years of good cheer had made need- 
 ful in our stanch old household friend, the three-ply 
 carpet, made in those days when to be a three-ply was 
 a pledge of continuance and service. 
 
 Well, it was a joyous and bustling day, when, after 
 one of those domestic whirlwinds which the women 
 are fond of denominating house-cleaning, the new 
 Brussels carpet was at length brought in and nailed 
 down, and its beauty praised from mouth to mouth. 
 Our old friends called in and admired, and all seemed 
 to be well, except that I had that light and delicate 
 presage of changes to come which indefinitely brooded 
 over me. 
 
 The first premonitory symptom was the look of 
 apprehensive suspicion with which the female senate 
 regarded the genial sunbeams that had always glori- 
 fied our bow-window. 
 
 "This house ought to have inside blinds," said 
 Marianne, with all the confident decision of youth ; 
 
The Ravages of a Carpet. 13 
 
 " this carpet will be ruined, if the sun is allowed to 
 come in like that." 
 
 " And that dirty little canary must really be hung 
 in the kitchen," said Jenny ; "he always did make 
 such a litter, scattering his seed-chippings about ; and 
 he never takes his bath without flirting out some 
 water. And, mamma, it appears to me it will never 
 do to have the plants here. Plants are always either 
 leaking through the pots upon the carpet, or scatter- 
 ing bits of blossoms and dead leaves, or some acci- 
 dent upsets or breaks a pot. It was no matter, you 
 know, when we had the old carpet ; but this we really 
 want to have kept nice." 
 
 Mamma stood her ground for the plants, dar- 
 lings of her heart for many a year, but temporized, 
 and showed that disposition towards compromise 
 which is most inviting to aggression. 
 
 I confess I trembled ; for, of all radicals on earth, 
 none are to be compared to females that have once 
 in hand a course of domestic innovation and reform. 
 The sacred fire, the divine furor, burns in their bo- 
 soms, they become perfect Pythonesses, and every 
 chair they sit on assumes the magic properties of the 
 tripod. Hence the dismay that lodges in the bosoms 
 of us males at the fateful spring and autumn seasons, 
 denominated house-cleaning. Who can say whither 
 the awful gods, the prophetic fates, may drive our 
 
14 House and Home Papers. 
 
 fair household divinities ; what sins of ours may be 
 brought to light ; what indulgences and compliances, 
 which uninspired woman has granted in her ordinary 
 mortal hours, may be torn from us? He who has 
 been allowed to keep a pair of pet slippers in a con- 
 cealed corner, and by the fireside indulged with a 
 chair which he might, ad libitum, fill with all sorts of 
 pamphlets and miscellaneous literature, suddenly finds 
 himself reformed out of knowledge, his pamphlets 
 tucked away into pigeon-holes and corners, and his 
 slippers put in their place in the hall, with, perhaps, a 
 brisk insinuation about the shocking dust and dis- 
 order that men will tolerate. 
 
 The fact was, that the very first night after the 
 advent of the new carpet I had a prophetic dream. 
 Among our treasures of art was a little etching, by an 
 English artist-friend, the subject of which was the 
 gambols of the household fairies in a baronial library 
 after the household were in bed. The little people 
 are represented in every attitude of frolic enjoyment. 
 Some escalade the great arm-chair, and look down 
 from its top as from a domestic Mont Blanc ; some 
 climb about the bellows ; some scale the shaft of the 
 shovel ; while some, forming in magic ring, dance 
 festively on the yet glowing hearth. Tiny troops 
 promenade the writing-table. One perches himself 
 quaintly on the top of the inkstand, and holds col- 
 
The Ravages of a Carpet. 15 
 
 loquy with another who sits cross-legged on a paper- 
 weight, while a companion looks down on them from 
 the top of the sand-box. It was an ingenious little 
 device, and gave me the idea, which I often expressed 
 to my wife, that much of the peculiar feeling of se- 
 curity, composure, and enjoyment which seems to be 
 
 9 
 
 the atmosphere of some rooms and houses came from 
 the unsuspected presence of these little people, the 
 household fairies, so that the belief in their existence 
 became a solemn article of faith with me. 
 
 Accordingly, that evening, after the installation of 
 the carpet, when my wife and daughters had gone to 
 bed, as I sat with my slippered feet before the last 
 coals of the fire, I fell asleep in my chair, and, lo ! 
 my own parlor presented to my eye a scene of busy 
 life. The little people in green were tripping to 
 and fro, but in great confusion. Evidently something 
 was wrong among them ; for they were fussing and 
 chattering with each other, as if preparatory to a gen- 
 eral movement. In the region of the bow-window I 
 observed a tribe of them standing with tiny valises 
 and carpet-bags in their hands, as though about to 
 depart on a journey. On my writing-table another set 
 stood around my inkstand and pen-rack, who, point- 
 ing to those on the floor, seemed to debate some 
 question among themselves ; while others of them 
 appeared to be collecting and packing away in tiny 
 
1 6 House and Home Papers. 
 
 trunks certain fairy treasures, preparatory to a general 
 departure. When I looked at the social hearth, at my 
 wife's sofa and work-basket, I saw similar appear- 
 ances of dissatisfaction and confusion. It was evi- 
 dent that the household fairies were discussing the 
 question of a general and simultaneous removal. I 
 groaned in spirit, and, stretching out my hand, began 
 a conciliatory address, when whisk went the whole 
 scene from before my eyes, and I awaked to behold 
 the form of my wife asking me if I were ill or had 
 had the nightmare that I groaned so. I told her 
 my dream, and we laughed at it together. 
 
 " We must give way to the girls a little," she said. 
 " It is natural, you know, -that they should wish us to 
 appear a little as other people do. The fact is, our 
 parlor is somewhat dilapidated ; think how many years 
 we have lived in it without an article of new furni- 
 ture." 
 
 " I hate new furniture," I remarked, in the bitter- 
 ness of my soul. " I hate anything new." 
 
 My wife answered me discreetly, according to' ap- 
 proved principles of diplomacy. I was right. She 
 sympathized with me. At the same time, it was not 
 necessary, she remarked, that we should keep a hole 
 in our sofa-cover and arm-chair ; there would certainly 
 be no harm in sending them to the upholsterer's to 
 be new-covered ; she did n't much mind, for her part, 
 
The Ravages of a Carpet. 17 
 
 moving her plants to the south back-room, and the 
 bird would do well enough in the kitchen : I had 
 often complained of him for singing vociferously when 
 I was reading aloud. 
 
 So our sofa went to the upholsterer's ; but the up- 
 holsterer was struck with such horror at its clumsy, 
 antiquated, unfashionable appearance, that he felt 
 bound to -make representations to my wife and daugh- 
 ters : positively, it would be better for them to get a 
 new one, of a tempting pattern, which he showed them, 
 than to try to do anything with that. With a stitch or 
 so here and there it might do for a basement dining- 
 room ; but, for a parlor, he gave it, as his disinterested 
 opinion, he must say, if the case were his own, he 
 should get, etc., etc. In short, we had a new sofa and 
 new chairs, and the plants and the birds were ban- 
 ished, and some dark green blinds were put up to 
 exclude the sun from the parlor, and the blessed lumi- 
 nary was allowed there only at rare intervals, when my 
 wife and daughters were out shopping, and I acted 
 out my uncivilized male instincts by pulling up every 
 shade and vivifying the apartment as in days of old. 
 
 But this was not the worst of it. The new furniture 
 and new carpet formed an opposition party in the 
 room. I believe in my heart that for every little 
 household fairy that went out with the dear old things 
 there came in a tribe of discontented brownies with 
 
1 8 House and Home Papers. 
 
 the new ones. These little wretches were always 
 twitching at the gowns of my wife and daughters, jog- 
 ging their elbows, and suggesting odious comparisons 
 between the smart new articles and what remained of 
 the old ones. They disparaged my writing-table in 
 the corner ; they disparaged the old-fashioned lounge 
 in the other corner, which had been the maternal 
 throne for years ; they disparaged the work-table, the 
 work-basket, with constant suggestions of how such 
 things as these would look in certain well-kept parlors 
 where new-fashioned furniture of the same sort as 
 ours existed. 
 
 " We don't have any parlor," said Jenny, one day. 
 " Our parlor has always been a sort of log-cabin, 
 library, study, nursery, greenhouse, all combined. We 
 never have had things like other people." 
 
 " Yes, and this open fire makes such a dust ; and 
 this carpet is one that shows every speck of dust ; it 
 keeps one always on the watch." 
 
 " I wonder why papa never had a study to himself ; 
 I 'm sure I should think he would like it better than 
 sitting here among us all. Now there 's the great 
 south-room off the dining-room ; if he would only 
 move his things there, and have his open fire, we 
 could then close up the fireplace, and put lounges in 
 the recesses, and mamma could have her things in the 
 nursery, and then we should have a parlor fit to be 
 
The Ravages of a Carpet. 19 
 
 I overheard all this, though I pretended not to, 
 the little busy chits supposing me entirely buried in 
 the recesses of a German book over which I was 
 poring. 
 
 There are certain crises in a man's life when the 
 female element in his household asserts itself in domi- 
 nant forms that seem to threaten to overwhelm him. 
 The fair creatures, who in most matters have depended 
 on his judgment, evidently look upon him at these 
 seasons as only a forlorn, incapable male creature, to 
 be cajoled and flattered and persuaded out of his 
 native blindness and absurdity into the fairy-land of 
 their wishes. 
 
 " Of course, mamma," said the busy voices, " men 
 can't understand such things. What can men know of 
 housekeeping, and how things ought to look ? Papa 
 never goes into company ; he don't know and don't 
 care how the world is doing, and don't see that no- 
 body now is living as we do." 
 
 " Aha, my little mistresses, are you there ? " I 
 thought ; and I mentally resolved on opposing a 
 great force of what our politicians call backbone to 
 this pretty domestic conspiracy. 
 
 " When you get my writing-table out of this corner, 
 my pretty dears, I 'd thank you to let me know it." 
 
 Thus spake I in my blindness, fool that I was. 
 Jupiter might as soon keep awake, when Juno came 
 
2O House and Home Papers. 
 
 P 
 
 in best bib and tucker, and with the cestus of Venus, 
 to get him to sleep. Poor Slender might as well hope 
 to get the better of pretty Mistress Anne Page, as one 
 of us clumsy-footed men might endeavor to escape 
 from the tangled labyrinth of female wiles. 
 
 In short, in less than a year it was all done, without 
 any quarrel, any noise, any violence, done, I scarce 
 knew when or how, but with the utmost deference to 
 my wishes, the most amiable hopes that I would not 
 put myself out, the most sincere protestations that, if 
 I liked it better as it was, my goddesses would give 
 up and acquiesce. In fact, I seemed to do it of my- 
 self, constrained thereto by what the Emperor Napo- 
 leon has so happily called the logic of events, that 
 old, well-known logic by which the man who has once 
 said A must say B, and he who has said B must say 
 the whole alphabet. In a year, we had a parlor with 
 two lounges in decorous recesses, a fashionable sofa, 
 and six chairs and a looking-glass, and a grate always 
 shut up, and a hole in the floor which kept the parlor 
 warm, and great, heavy curtains that kept out all the 
 light that was not already excluded by the green 
 shades. 
 
 It was as proper and orderly a parlor as those of 
 our most fashionable neighbors ; and when our friends 
 called, we took them stumbling into its darkened soli- 
 tude, and opened a faint crack in one of the window- 
 
The Ravages of a Carpet. 21 
 
 shades, and came down in our best clothes, and talked 
 with them there. Our old friends rebelled at this, 
 and asked what they had done to be treated so, and 
 complained so bitterly that gradually we let them into 
 the secret that there was a great south-room which I 
 had taken for my study, where we all sat, where the 
 old carpet was down, where the sun shone in at the 
 great window, where my wife's plants flourished and 
 the canary-bird sang, and my wife had her sofa in the 
 corner, and the old brass andirons glistened and the 
 wood-fire crackled, in short, a room to which all the 
 household fairies had emigrated. 
 
 When they once had found that out, it was difficult 
 to get any of them to sit in our parlor. I had pur- 
 posely christened the new room my study, that I might 
 stand on my rights as master of ceremonies there, 
 though I opened wide arms of welcome to any who 
 chose to come. So, then, it would often come to pass, 
 that, when we were sitting round the fire in my study 
 of an evening, the girls would say, 
 
 "Come, what do we always stay here for? Why 
 don't we ever sit in the parlor ? " 
 
 And then there would be manifested among guests 
 and family-friends a general unwillingness to move. 
 
 " O, hang it, girls ! " would Arthur say ; " the parlor 
 is well enough, all right ; let it stay as it is, and let 
 a fellow stay where he can do as he pleases and feels 
 
22 House and Home Papers. 
 
 f| 
 
 at home " ; and to this view of the matter would 
 
 respond divers of the nice young bachelors who were 
 Arthur's and Tom's sworn friends. 
 
 In fact, nobody wanted to stay in our parlor now. 
 It was a cold, correct, accomplished fact ; the house- 
 hold fairies had left it, and when the fairies leave a 
 room, nobody ever feels at home in it. No pictures, 
 curtains, no wealth of mirrors, no elegance of lounges, 
 can in the least make up for their absence. They are 
 a capricious little set ; there are rooms where they will 
 not stay, and rooms where they will ; but no one can 
 ever have a good time without them. 
 
II, 
 
 HOME-KEEPING vs. HOUSE-KEEPING. 
 
 I AM a frank, open-hearted man, as, perhaps, you 
 have by this time perceived^ and you wfll not, 
 therefore, be surprised to know that I read my last 
 article on the carpet to my wife and the girls before 
 I sent it to the " Atlantic," and we had a hearty laugh 
 ov^r it together. My wife and the girls, in fact, felt 
 that they could afford to laugh, for they had carried 
 their point, their reproach among women was taken 
 away, they, had become like other folks. Like other 
 folks they had a parlor, an undeniable best parlor,, 
 shut up and darkened, with all proper carpets, cur- 
 tains, lounges, and marble-topped tables, too good for 
 human nature's daily food ; and being sustained by 
 this consciousness, they cheerfully went on receiving 
 their friends in the study, and having good times in 
 the old free-and-easy way ; for did not everybody 
 know that this room was not their best ? and if the 
 furniture was old-fashioned and a little the worse for 
 antiquity, was it not certain that they had better, which 
 they could use, if they would ? 
 
24 House and Home Papers. 
 
 " And supposing we wanted to give a party," said 
 Jenny, " how nicely our parlor would light up ! Not 
 that we ever do give parties, but if we should, and 
 for a wedding-reception, you know." 
 
 I felt the force of the necessity ; it was evident 
 that the four or five hundred extra which we had 
 expended was no more than such solemn possibili- 
 ties required. 
 
 " Now, papa thinks we have been foolish," said 
 Marianne, " and he has his own way of making a 
 good story of it ; but, after all, I desire to know if 
 people are never to get a new carpet. Must we keep 
 the old one till it actually wears to tatters ? " 
 
 This is a specimen of the rediictio ad absurdum 
 which our fair antagonists of the other sex are fond 
 of employing. They strip what we say of all delicate 
 shadings and illusory phrases, and reduce it to some 
 bare question of fact, with which they make a home- 
 thrust at us. 
 
 " Yes, that 's it ; are people never to get a new car- 
 pet ? " echoed Jenny. 
 
 " My dears," I replied, "it is a fact that to introduce 
 anything new into an apartment hallowed by many 
 home-associations, where all things have grown old 
 together, requires as much care and adroitness as 
 for an architect to restore an arch or niche in a fine 
 old ruin. The fault of our carpet was that it was in 
 
Home-Keeping vs. House-Keeping. 2$ 
 
 another style from everything in our room, and made 
 everything in it look dilapidated. Its colors, material, 
 and air belonged to another manner of life, and were 
 a constant plea for alterations ; and you see it actu- 
 ally drove out and expelled the whole furniture of the 
 room, and I am not sure yet that it may not entail on 
 us the necessity of refurnishing the whole house." 
 
 " My dear ! " said my wife, in a tone of remon- 
 strance ; but Jane and Marianne laughed and col- 
 ored. 
 
 "Confess, now," said I, looking at them, "have 
 you not had secret designs on the hall- and stair- 
 carpet?" 
 
 " Now, papa, how could you know it ? I only said 
 to Marianne that to have Brussels in the parlor and 
 that old mean-looking ingrain carpet in the hall did 
 not seem exactly the thing ; and, in fact, you know, 
 mamma, Messrs. Ketchem & Co. showed us such a 
 lovely pattern, designed to harmonize with our parlor- 
 carpet." 
 
 " I know it, girls," said my wife ; " but you know 
 I said at once that such an expense was not to be 
 thought of." 
 
 " Now, girls," said I, " let me fell you a story I 
 heard once of a very sensible old New England min- 
 ister, who lived, as our country ministers generally do, 
 rather near to the bone, but still quite contentedly. It 
 
26 House and Home Papers. 
 
 was in the days when knee-breeches and long stock- 
 ings were worn, and this good man was offered a 
 present of a very nice pair of black silk hose. He 
 declined, saying, he ' could not afford to wear them.' 
 
 "'Not afford it?' said the friend; 'why, I give 
 them to you.' 
 
 " ' Exactly ; but it will cost me- not less than two 
 hundred dollars to take them, and I cannot do it.' 
 
 " ' How is that ? ' 
 
 " ' Why, in the first place, I shall no sooner put 
 them on than my wife will say, " My dear, you must 
 have a new pair of knee-breeches," and I shall get 
 them. Then my wife will say, " My dear, how 
 shabby your coat is ! You must have a new one," 
 and I shall get a new coat. Then she will say, 
 " Now, my dear, that hat will never do," and then 
 I shall have a new hat ; and then I shall say, " My 
 dear, it will, never do for me to be so fine and you to 
 wear your old gown," and so my wife will get a new 
 gown ; and then the new gown will require a new 
 shawl and a new bonnet ; all of which we shall not 
 feel the need of, if I don't take this pair of silk stock- 
 ings, for, as long as we don't see them, our old things 
 seem very well suited to each other.' " 
 
 The girls laughed at this story, and I then added, 
 in my most determined manner, 
 
 " But I must warn you, girls, that I have compro- 
 
Home-Keeping vs. House-Keeping. 27 
 
 mised to the utmost extent of my power, and that I 
 intend to plant myself on the old stair-carpet in deter- 
 mined resistance. I have no mind to be forbidden 
 the use of the front-stairs, or condemned to get up 
 into my bedroom by a private ladder, as I should be 
 immediately, if there were a new carpet down." 
 
 " Why, papa ! " 
 
 " Would it not be so ? Can the sun shine in the 
 parlor now for fear of fading the carpet ? Can we 
 keep a fire there for fear of making dust, or use the 
 lounges and sofas for fear of wearing them out ? If 
 you got a new entry- and stair-carpet, as I said, I 
 should have to be at the expense of another stair- 
 case to get up to our bedroom." 
 
 " O no, papa," *said Jane, innocently ; " there are 
 very pretty druggets, now, for covering stair-carpets, 
 so that they can be used without hurting them." 
 
 " Put one over the old carpet, then," said I, " and 
 our acquaintance will never know but it is a new 
 one." 
 
 All the female senate laughed at this proposal, and 
 said it sounded just like a man. 
 
 " Well," said I, standing up resolutely for my sex, 
 " a man's ideas on woman's matters may be worth 
 some attention. I flatter myself that an intelligent, 
 educated man does n't think upon and observe with 
 interest any particular subject for years of his life 
 
28 House and Home Papers. 
 
 without gaining some ideas respecting it that are good 
 for something ; at all events, I have written another 
 article for the 'Atlantic,' which I will read to you." 
 
 " Well, wait one minute, papa, till we get our work," 
 said the girls, who, to say the truth, always exhibit a 
 flattering interest in anything their papa writes, and 
 who have the good taste never to interrupt his read- 
 ings with any conversations in an undertone on cross- 
 stitch and floss-silks, as the manner of some is. Hence 
 the little feminine bustle of arranging all these matters 
 beforehand. Jane, or Jenny, as I call her in my 
 good-natured moods, put on a fresh clear stick of 
 hickory, of that species denominated shagbark, which 
 is full of most charming slivers, burning with such a 
 clear flame, and emitting such a delicious perfume 
 in burning, that I would not change it with the mil- 
 lionnaire who kept up his fire with cinnamon. 
 
 You must know, my dear Mr. Atlantic, and you, 
 my confidential friends of the reading public, that 
 there is a certain magic or spiritualism which I have 
 the knack of in regard to these mine articles, in vir- 
 tue of which my wife and daughters never hear or 
 see the little personalities respecting them which form 
 parts of my papers. By a peculiar arrangement which 
 I have made with the elves of the inkstand and the 
 familiar spirits of the quill, a sort of glamour falls 
 on their eyes and ears when I am reading, or when 
 
Home-Keeping vs. House- Keeping. 29 
 
 they read the parts personal to themselves ; otherwise 
 their sense of feminine propriety would be shocked at 
 the free way in which they and their most internal 
 affairs are confidentially spoken of between me and 
 you, O loving readers. 
 
 Thus, in an undertone, I tell you that my little 
 Jenny, as she is zealously and systematically arrang- 
 ing the fire, and trimly whisking every untidy particle 
 of ashes from the hearth, shows in every movement 
 of her little hands, in the cock of her head, in the 
 knowing, observing glance of her eye, and in all her 
 energetic movements, that her small person is endued 
 and made up of the very expressed essence of house- 
 wifeliness, she is the very attar, not of roses, but of 
 housekeeping. Care-taking and thrift and neatness 
 are a nature to her ; she is as dainty and delicate 
 in her person as a white cat, as everlastingly busy as a 
 bee ; and all the most needful faculties of time, weight, 
 measure, and proportion ought to be fully developed 
 in her skull, if there is any truth in phrenology. Be- 
 sides all this, she has a sort of hard-grained little vein 
 of common sense, against which my fanciful concep- 
 tions and poetical notions are apt to hit with just a 
 little sharp grating, if they are not well put. In fact, 
 this kind of woman needs carefully to be idealized in 
 the process of education, or she will stiffen and dry. 
 as she grows old, into a veritable household Pharisee, 
 
3O House and Home Papers. 
 
 a sort of domestic tyrant. She needs to be trained in 
 artistic values and artistic weights and measures, to 
 study all the arts and sciences of the beautiful, and 
 then she is charming. Most useful, most needful, 
 these little women : they have the centripetal force 
 which keeps all the domestic planets from gyrating 
 and frisking in unseemly orbits, and properly trained, 
 they fill a house with the beauty of order, the harmony 
 and consistency of proportion, the melody of things 
 moving in time and tune, without violating the grace- 
 ful appearance of ease which Art requires. 
 
 So I had an eye to Jenny's education in my article 
 which I unfolded and read, and which was entitled, 
 
 HOME-KEEPING vs. HOUSE-KEEPING. 
 
 THERE are many women who know how to keep a 
 house, but there are but few that know how to keep 
 a home. To keep a house may seem a complicated 
 affair, but it is a thing that may be learned ; it lies in 
 the region of the material, in the region of weight, 
 measure, color, and the positive forces of life. To 
 keep a home lies not merely in the sphere of all these, 
 but it takes in the intellectual, the social, the spiritual, 
 the immortal. 
 
 Here the hickory-stick broke in two, and the two 
 
Home-Keeping vs. House-Keeping. 31 
 
 brands fell controversially out and apart on the hearth, 
 scattering the ashes and coals, and calling for Jenny 
 and the hearth : brush. Your wood-fire has this foible, 
 that it needs something to be done to it every five 
 minutes ; but, after all, these little, interruptions of 
 our bright-faced genius are like the piquant sallies of 
 a clever friend, they do not strike us as unreason- 
 able. 
 
 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 ab- 
 stract terms," said I, with a look calculated to reduce 
 her to a respectful condition. " Everything has a 
 subjective and an objective mode of presentation." 
 
 " There papa goes with subjective and objective ! " 
 said Marianne. " For my part, I never can remember 
 which is which." 
 
 " I remember," said Jenny ; " it 's what our old 
 nurse used to call internal and <?#/-ternal, I always 
 remember by that." 
 
 " Come, my dears," said my wife, " let your father 
 read " ; so I went on as follows : 
 
 I remember in my bachelor days going with my 
 boon companion, Bill Carberry, to look at the house 
 to which he was in a few weeks to introduce his bride. 
 
32 House and Home Papers. 
 
 Bill was a gallant, free-hearted, open-handed fellow, 
 the life of our whole set, and we felt that natural 
 aversion to losing him that bachelor friends would. 
 How could we tell under what strange aspects he 
 might look forth upon us, when once he had passed 
 into " that undiscovered country " of matrimony ? But 
 Bill laughed to scorn our apprehensions. 
 
 " I '11 tell you what, Chris," he said, as he sprang 
 cheerily up the steps and unlocked the door of his 
 future dwelling, " do you know what I chose this 
 house for ? Because it 's a social-looking house. Look 
 there, now," he said, as he ushered me into a pair of 
 parlors, " look at those long south windows, the 
 sun lies there nearly all day long ; see what a capital 
 corner there is for a lounging-chair ; fancy us, Chris, 
 with our books or our paper, spread out loose and 
 easy, and Sophie gliding in and out like a sunbeam. 
 I 'm getting poetical, you see. Then, did you ever 
 see a better, wider, airier dining-room ? What capital 
 suppers and things we '11 have there ! the nicest times, 
 everything free and easy, you know, just what 
 I Ve always wanted a house for. I tell you, Chris, 
 you and Tom Innis shall have latch-keys just like 
 mine, and there is a capital chamber there at the head 
 of the stairs, so that you can be free to come and go. 
 And here now 's the library, fancy this full of books 
 and engravings from, the ceiling to the floor ; here you 
 
Home-Keeping vs. Hotise-Keeping. 33 
 
 shall come just as you please and ask no questions, 
 all the same as if it were your own, you know." 
 
 " And Sophie, what will she say to all this ? " 
 
 " Why, you know Sophie is a prime friend to both 
 of you, and a capital girl to keep things going. O, 
 Sophie '11 make a house of this, you may depend ! " 
 
 A day or two after, Bill dragged me stumbling over 
 boxes and through straw and wrappings to show me 
 the glories of the parlor-furniture, with which he 
 seemed pleased as a child with a new toy. 
 
 " Look here," he said ; " see these chairs, garnet- 
 colored satin, with a pattern on each ; well, the sofa 's 
 just like them, and the curtains to match, and the 
 carpets made for the floor with centre-pieces and 
 borders. I never saw anything more magnificent in 
 my life. Sophie's governor furnishes the house, and 
 everything is to be A No. i, and all that, you see. 
 Messrs. Curtain and Collamore are coming to make 
 the rooms up, and her mother is busy as a bee getting 
 us in order." 
 
 " Why, Bill," said I, " you are going to be lodged 
 like a prince. I hope you '11 be able to keep it up ; 
 but law-business comes in rather slowly at first, old 
 fellow." 
 
 " Well, you know it is n't the way I should furnish, 
 if my capital was the one to cash the bills ; but then, 
 you see, Sophie's people do it, and let them, a girl 
 2* c 
 
34 House and Home Papers. 
 
 does n't want to come down out of the style she has 
 always lived in." 
 
 I said nothing, but had an oppressive presentiment 
 that social freedom would expire in that house, crushed 
 under a weight of upholstery. 
 
 But there came in due time the wedding and the 
 wedding-reception, and we all went to see Bill in his 
 new house splendidly lighted up and complete from 
 top to toe, and everybody said what a lucky fellow he 
 was ; but that was about the end of it, so far as our 
 visiting was concerned. The running in, and drop- 
 ping in, and keeping latch-keys, and making informal 
 calls, that had been forespoken, seemed about as 
 likely as if Bill had lodged in the Tuileries. 
 
 Sophie, who had always been one of your snap- 
 ping, sparkling, busy sort of girls, began at once to 
 develop her womanhood, and show her principles, and 
 was as different from her former self as your -careworn, 
 mousing old cat is from your rollicking, frisky kitten. 
 Not but that Sophie was a good girl. She had a cap- 
 ital heart, a good, true womanly one, and was loving 
 and obliging ; but still she was one of the desperately 
 painstaking, conscientious sort of women whose very 
 blood, as they grow older, is devoured with anxiety, 
 and she came of a race of women in whom house- 
 keeping was more than an art or a science, it was, 
 so to speak, a religion. Sophie's mother, aunts, and 
 
House-Keeping vs. Home-Keeping. 35 
 
 grandmothers, for nameless generations back, were 
 known and celebrated housekeepers. They might' 
 have been genuine descendants of the inhabitants of 
 that Hollandic town of Broeck, celebrated by Wash- 
 ington Irving, where the cows' tails are kept tied up 
 with unsullied blue ribbons, and the ends of the fire- 
 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 the neat- 
 ness of the celestial city, the unsullied crystal of its 
 walls and the polish of its golden pavement, when the 
 faces of all the housewives were set Zionward at once. 
 
 Now this solemn and earnest view of housekeeping 
 is onerous enough when a poor girl first enters on the 
 care of a moderately furnished house, where the ar- 
 ticles are not too expensive to. be reasonably renewed 
 as time and use wear them ; but it is infinitely worse 
 when a cataract of splendid* furniture is heaped upon 
 her care, when splendid crystals cut into her con- 
 science, and mirrors reflect her duties, and moth and 
 rust stand ever ready to devour and sully in every 
 room and passage-way. 
 
 Sophie was solemnly warned and instructed by all 
 the mothers and aunts, she was warned of moths, 
 warned of cockroaches, warned of flies, warned of 
 dust; all the articles of furniture had their covers, 
 
36 House and Home Papers. 
 
 made of cold Holland linen, in which they looked 
 like bodies laid out, even the curtain-tassels had 
 each its little shroud, and bundles of receipts and 
 of rites and ceremonies necessary for the preservation 
 and purification and care of all these articles were 
 stuffed into the poor girl's head, before guiltless of 
 cares as the feathers that floated above it. 
 
 Poor Bill found very soon that his house and fur- 
 niture were to be kept at such an ideal point of per- 
 fection that he needed another house to live in, for, 
 poor fellow, he found the difference between having a 
 house and a home. It was only a year or two after 
 that my wife and I started our menage on very differ- 
 ent principles, and Bill would often drop in upon us, 
 wistfully lingering in the cosey arm-chair between my 
 writing-table and my wife's sofa, and saying with a sigh 
 how confoundedly pleasant things looked there, 
 so pleasant to have a bright, open fire, and geraniums 
 and roses and birds, and 11 that sort of thing, and to 
 dare to stretch out one's legs and move without think- 
 ing what one was going to hit. " Sophie is a good 
 girl ! " he would say, " and wants to have everything 
 right, but you see they won't let her. They Ve loaded 
 her with so many things that have to be kept in lav- 
 ender, that the poor girl is actually getting thin and 
 losing her health ; and then, you see, there 's Aunt 
 Zeruah, she mounts guard at our house, and keeps up 
 
House-Keeping vs. Home- Keeping. 37 
 
 such strict police-regulations that a fellow can't do a 
 thing. The parlors are splendid, but so lonesome 
 and dismal ! not a ray of sunshine, in fact not a ray 
 of light, except when a visitor is calling, and . then 
 they open a crack. They 're afraid of flies, and yet, 
 dear knows, they keep every looking-glass and pic- 
 ture-frame muffled to its throat from March to De- 
 cember. I 'd like for curiosity to see what a fly would 
 do in our parlors ! " 
 
 " Well," said I, " can't you have some little family 
 sitting-room, where you can make yourselves cosey ? " 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Sophie and Aunt Zeruah have 
 fixed their throne up in our bedroom, and there they 
 sit all day long, except at calling-hours, and then 
 Sophie dresses herself and comes down. Aunt Zeruah 
 insists upon it that the way is to put the whole house 
 in order, and shut all the blinds, and sit in your bed- 
 room, and then, she says, nothing gets out of place ; 
 and she tells poor Sophie the most hocus-pocus 
 stories about her grandmothers and aunts, who always 
 kept everything in their houses so that they could go 
 and lay their hands on it in the darkest night. I '11 
 bet they could in our house. From end to end it is 
 kept looking as if we had shut it up and gone to 
 Europe, not a book, not a paper, not a glove, or 
 any trace of a human being, in sight. The piano shut 
 tight, the bookcases shut and locked, the engravings 
 
38 House and Home Papers. 
 
 locked up, all the drawers and closets locked. Why, 
 if I want to take a fellow into the library, in the first 
 place it smells like a vault, and I have to unbarricade 
 windows, and unlock and rummage for half an hour 
 before I can get at anything ; and I know Aunt Ze- 
 ruah is standing tiptoe at the door, ready to whip 
 everything back and lock up again. A fellow can't 
 be social, or take any comfort in showing his books 
 and pictures that way. Then there 's our great, light 
 dining-room, with its sunny south windows, Aunt 
 Zeruah got us out of that early in April, because she 
 said the flies would speck the frescos and get into 
 the china-closet, and we have been eating in a little 
 dingy den, with a window looking out on a back-alley, 
 ever since ; and Aunt Zeruah says that now the dining- 
 room is always in perfect order, and that it is such a 
 qare off Sophie's mind that I ought to be willing to 
 eat down-cellar to the end of the chapter. Now, you 
 see, Chris, my position is a delicate one, because 
 Sophie's folks all agree, that, if there is anything in 
 creation that is ignorant and dreadful and must n't be 
 allowed his way anywhere, it 's 'a man.' Why, you 'd 
 think, to hear Aunt Zeruah talk, that we were all like 
 bulls in a china-shop, ready to toss and tear and rend, 
 if we are not kept down-cellar and chained ; and she 
 worries Sophie, and Sophie's mother comes in and 
 worries, and if I try to get anything done differently, 
 
House-Keeping vs. Home-Keeping. 39 
 
 Sophie cries, and says she don't know what to do, and 
 so I give it up. Now, if I want to ask a few of our 
 set in sociably to dinner, I can't have them where we 
 eat down-cellar, O, that would never do ! Aunt 
 Zeruah and Sophie's mother and the whole family 
 would think the family honor was forever ruined and 
 undone. We must n't ask them, unless we open the 
 dining-room, and have out all the best china, and get 
 the silver home from the bank ; and if we do that, 
 Aunt Zeruah does n'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 So- 
 phie's delicate state, it really is abominable for me to 
 increase her cares, and so I invite fellows to dine with 
 me at Delmonico's, and then Sophie cries, and So- 
 phie's mother says it does n't look respectable for a 
 family-man to be dining at public places ; but, hang it, 
 a fellow wants a home somewhere ! " 
 
 My wife soothed the chafed spirit, and spake com- 
 fortably unto him, and told him that he knew there 
 was the old lounging-chair always ready for him at 
 our fireside. " And you know," she said, " our things 
 are all so plain that we are never tempted to mount 
 any guard over them ; our carpets are nothing, and 
 therefore we let the sun fade them, and live on the 
 sunshine and the flowers." 
 
 " That 's it," said Bill, bitterly. " Carpets fading ! 
 
40 House and Home Papers. 
 
 that 's Aunt Zeruah's monomania. These women 
 think that the great object of houses is to keep out 
 sunshine. What a fool I was, when I gloated over 
 the prospect of our sunny south windows ! Why, 
 man, there are three distinct sets of fortifications 
 against the sunshine in those windows : first, outside 
 blinds ; then, solid, folding, inside shutters ; and, last- 
 ly, heavy, thick, lined damask curtains, which loop 
 quite down to the floor. What 's the use of my pic- 
 tures, I desire to know ? They are hung in that room, 
 and it 's a regular campaign to get light enough to see 
 what they are." 
 
 " But, at all events, you can light them up with gas 
 in the evening." 
 
 " In the evening ! Why, do you know my wife 
 never wants to sit there in the evening ? She says 
 she has so much sewing to do that she and Aunt 
 Zeruah must sit up in the bedroom, because it would 
 n't do to bring work into the parlor. Did n't you 
 know that ? Don't you know there must n't be such 
 a thing as a bit of real work ever seen in a parlor ? 
 What if some threads should drop on the carpet ? 
 Aunt Zeruah would have to open all the fortifications 
 next day, and search Jerusalem with candles to find 
 them. No ; in the evening the gas is lighted at half- 
 cock, you know ; and if I turn it up, and bring in my 
 newspapers and spread about me, and pull down some 
 
House-Keeping vs. Home-Keeping. 41 
 
 books to read, I can feel the nervousness through the 
 chamber-floor. Aunt Zeruah looks in at eight, and at 
 a quarter past, and at half-past, and at nine, and at 
 ten, to see if I am done, so that she may fold up the 
 papers and put a book on them, and lock up the 
 books in their cases. Nobody ever comes in to spend 
 an evening. They used to try it when we were first 
 married, but I believe the uninhabited appearance of 
 our parlors discouraged them. Everybody has stopped 
 coming now, and Aunt Zeruah says ' it is such a com- 
 fort, for now the rooms are always in order. How 
 poor Mrs. Crowfield lives, with her house such a 
 thoroughfare, she is sure she can't see. Sophie never 
 would have strength for it ; but then, to be sure, some 
 folks a'n't as particular as others. Sophie was brought 
 up in a family of very particular housekeepers.' " 
 
 My wife smiled, with that calm, easy, amused smile 
 that has brightened up her sofa for so many years. 
 
 Bill added, bitterly, - 
 
 " Of course, I could n't say that I wished the whole 
 set and system of housekeeping women at the 
 what-'s-his-name ? because Sophie would have cried 
 for a week, and been utterly forlorn and disconsolate. 
 I know it 's not the poor girl's fault ; I try sometimes 
 to reason with her, but you can't reason with the whole 
 of your wife's family, to the third and fourth genera- 
 tion backwards ; but I 'm sure it 's hurting her health, 
 
42 House and Home Papers. 
 
 wearing her out. Why, you know Sophie used to 
 be "the life of our set ; and now she really seems 
 eaten up with care from morning to night, there are 
 so many things in the house that something dreadful 
 is happening to all the while, and the servants we get 
 are so clumsy. Why, when I sit with Sophie and 
 Aunt Zeruah, it 's nothing but a constant string of 
 complaints about the girls in the kitchen. We keep 
 changing our servants all the time, and they break 
 and destroy so that now we are turned out of the 
 use of all our things. We not only eat in the base- 
 ment, but all our pretty table-things are put away, 
 and we have all the cracked plates and cracked 
 tumblers and cracked teacups and old buck-handled 
 knives that can 'be raised out of chaos. I could use 
 these things and be merry, if I did n't know we had 
 better ones ; and I can't help wondering whether there 
 is n't some way that our table could be set to look 
 like a gentleman's table ; but Aunt Zeruah says that 
 ' it would cost thousands, and what difference does it 
 make as long as nobody sees it but us ? ' You see, 
 there is no medium in her mind between china and 
 crystal and cracked earthen-ware. Well, I 'm won- 
 dering how all these laws of the Medes and Persians 
 are going to work when the children come along. 
 I 'm in hopes the children will soften off the old 
 folks, and make the house more habitable." 
 
House-Keeping vs. Home- Keeping. 43 
 
 Well, children did come, a good many of them, in 
 time. There was Tom, a broad-shouldered, chubby- 
 cheeked, active, hilarious son of mischief, born in the 
 very image of his father ; and there was Charlie, and 
 Jim, and Louisa, and Sophie the second, and Frank, 
 and a better, brighter, more joy-giving household, 
 as far as temperament and nature were concerned, 
 never existed. 
 
 But their whole childhood was a long battle, chil- 
 dren versus furniture, and furniture always carried the 
 day. The first step of the housekeeping powers was 
 to choose the least agreeable and least available room 
 in the house for the children's nursery, and to fit it up 
 with all the old, cracked, rickety furniture a neigh- 
 boring auction-shop could afford, and then to keep 
 them in it. Now everybody knows that to bring up 
 children to be upright, true, generous, and religious, 
 needs so much discipline, so much restraint and cor- 
 rection, and so many rules and regulations, that it is 
 all that the parents can carry out, and all the children 
 can bear. There is only a certain amount of the vital 
 force for parents or children to use in this business of 
 education, and one must choose what it shall be used 
 for. The Aunt-Zeruah faction chose to use it for 
 keeping the house and furniture, and the children's 
 education proceeded accordingly. The rules of right 
 and wrong of which they heard most frequently were 
 
44 House and Home Papers. 
 
 all of this sort : Naughty children were those who 4 
 went up the front-stairs, or sat on the best sofa, or 
 fingered any of the books in the library, or got out 
 one of the best teacups, or drank out of the cut- 
 glass goblets. 
 
 Why did they ever want to do it ? If there ever 
 is a forbidden fruit in an Eden, will not our young 
 Adams and Eves risk soul and body to find out how 
 it tastes ? Little Tom, the oldest boy, had the cour- 
 age and enterprise and perseverance of a Captain 
 Parry or Dr. Kane, and he used them all in voy- 
 ages of discovery to forbidden grounds. He stole 
 Aunt Zeruah's keys, unlocked her cupboards and 
 closets, saw, handled, and tasted everything for him- 
 self, and gloried in his sins. 
 
 " Don't you know, Tom," said the nurse to him 
 once, " if you are so noisy and rude, you '11 disturb 
 your dear mamma ? She 's sick, and she may die, if 
 you 're not careful." 
 
 " Will she die ? " says Tom, gravely. 
 
 " Why, she may." 
 
 11 Then," said Tom, turning on his heel, " then 
 I '11 go up the front-stairs." 
 
 As soon as ever the little rebel was old enough, he 
 was sent away to boarding-school, and then there was 
 never found a time when it was convenient to have 
 him come home again. He could not come in the 
 
House-Keeping vs. Home-Keeping. 45 
 
 * 
 spring, for then they were house-cleaning, nor in the 
 
 autumn, because then they were house-cleaning ; and 
 so he spent his vacations at school, unless, by good 
 luck, a companion who was so fortunate as to have 
 a home invited him there. His associations, asso- 
 ciates, habits, principles, were as little known to his 
 mother as if she had sent him to China. Aunt Zeruah 
 used to congratulate herself on the rest there was at 
 home, now he was gone, and say she was only living 
 in hopes of the time when Charlie and Jim would be 
 big enough to send away too ; and meanwhile Charlie 
 and Jim, turned out of the charmed circle which should 
 hold growing boys to the father's and mother's side, 
 detesting the dingy, lonely play-room, used to run the 
 city streets, and hang round the railroad depots or 
 docks. Parents may depend upon it, that, if they 
 do not make an attractive resort for their boys, Satan 
 will. There are places enough, kept warm and light 
 and bright and merry, where boys can go whose 
 mothei s' parlors are too fine for them to sit in. There 
 are enough to be found to clap them on the back, and 
 tell them stories that their mothers must not hear, 
 and laugh when they compass with their little piping 
 voices the dreadful litanies of sin and shame. In 
 middle life, our poor Sophie, who as a girl was so 
 gay and frolicsome, so full of spirits, had dried and 
 sharpened into a hard-visaged, angular woman, 
 
46 House and Home Papers. 
 
 
 
 careful and troubled about many things, and forget- 
 ful that one thing is needful. One of the boys had 
 run away to sea ; 1 believe he has never been heard 
 of. As to Tom, the oldest, he ran a career wild and 
 hard enough for a time, first at school and then in 
 college, and there came a time when he came home, 
 in the full might of six feet" two, and almost broke his 
 mother's heart with his assertions of his home rights 
 and privileges. Mothers who throw away the key of 
 their children's hearts and childhood sometimes have 
 a sad retribution. As the children never were con- 
 sidered when they were little and helpless, so they 
 do not consider when they are strong and powerful. 
 Tom spread wide desolation among the household 
 gods, lounging on the sofas, spitting tobacco-juice on 
 the carpets, scattering books and engravings hither 
 and thither, and throwing all the family traditions 
 into wild disorder, as he would never have done, had 
 not all his childish remembrances of them been em- 
 bittered by the association of restraint and privation. 
 He actually seemed to hate any appearance of luxury 
 or taste or order, he was a perfect Philistine. 
 
 As for my friend Bill, from being the pleasantest 
 and most genial of fellows, he became a morose, 
 misanthropic man. Dr. Franklin has a significant 
 proverb, " Silks and satins put out the kitchen- 
 fire." Silks and satins meaning by them the lux- 
 

 
 
 House-Keeping vs. Home-keeping. 47 
 
 uries of housekeeping often put out not only the 
 parlor-fire, but that more sacred flame, the fire of 
 domestic love. It is the greatest possible misery 
 to a man and to his children to be homeless ; and 
 many a man has a splendid house, but no home. 
 
 " Papa," said jenny, " you ought to write and tell 
 what are your ideas of keeping a home" 
 
 " Girls, you have only to think how your mother 
 has brought you up." 
 
 Nevertheless, I think, being so fortunate a hus- 
 band, I might reduce my wife's system to an anal- 
 ysis, and my next paper shall be, 
 
 What is a Home, and how to keep it. 
 
III. 
 
 WHAT IS A HOME? 
 
 IT is among the sibylline secrets which lie mys- 
 teriously between you and me, O reader, that 
 these papers, besides their public aspect, have a 
 private one proper to the bosom of mine own par- 
 ticular family. 
 
 They are not merely an ex post facto protest in 
 regard to that carpet and parlor of celebrated mem- 
 ory, but they are forth-looking towards other homes 
 that may yet arise near us. 
 
 For, among my other confidences, you may recol- 
 lect I stated to you that our Marianne was busy in 
 those interesting cares and details which relate to 
 the -preparing and ordering of another dwelling. 
 
 Now, when any such matter is going on in a family, 
 I have observed that every feminine instinct is in a 
 state of fluttering vitality, every woman, old or 
 young, is alive with womanliness to the tips of her 
 fingers ; and it becomes us of the other sex, how- 
 ever consciously respected, to walk softly and put 
 forth our sentiments discreetly and with due rever- 
 
What is a Home ? 49 
 
 enee for the mysterious powers that reign in the 
 feminine breast. 
 
 I had been too well advised to offer one word of 
 direct counsel on a subject where there were such 
 charming voices, so able to convict me of absurdity 
 at every turn. I had merely so arranged my affairs 
 as to put into the hands of my bankers, subject to 
 my wife's order, the very modest marriage-portion 
 which I could place at my girl's disposal ; and Mari- 
 anne and Jenny, unused to the handling of money, 
 were incessant in their discussions with ever-patient 
 mamma as to what was to be done with it. I say 
 Marianne and Jenny, for, though the case undoubt- 
 edly is Marianne's, yet, like everything else in our 
 domestic proceedings, it seems to fall, somehow or 
 other, into Jenny's hands, through the intensity and 
 liveliness of her domesticity of nature. Little Jenny 
 is so bright and wide-awake, and with so many ac- 
 tive plans and fancies touching anything in the house- 
 keeping world, that, though the youngest sister, and 
 second party in this affair, a stranger, hearkening to 
 the daily discussions, might listen a half-hour at a 
 time without finding out that it was not Jenny's fu- 
 ture establishment that was in question. Marianne 
 is a soft, thoughtful, quiet girl, not given to many 
 words ; and though, when you come fairly at it, you 
 will find, that, like most quiet girls, she has a will 
 3 D 
 
50 House and Home Papers. 
 
 five times as inflexible as one who talks more, yet 
 in all family counsels it is Jenny and mamma that 
 do the discussion, and her own little well-considered 
 " Yes," or " No," that finally settles each case. 
 
 I must add to this family tableau the portrait of 
 the excellent Bob Stephens, who figured as future 
 proprietor and householder in these consultations. 
 So far as the question of financial possibilities is 
 concerned, it is important to remark that Bob be- 
 longs to the class of young Edmunds celebrated 
 by the poet : 
 
 " Wisdom and worth were all he had." 
 
 t 
 
 He is, in fact, an excellent-hearted and clever fel- 
 low, with a world of agreeable talents, a good tenor 
 in a parlor-duet, a good actor at a charade, a lively, 
 off-hand conversationist, well up in all the current 
 literature of the day, and what is more, in my eyes, 
 a well-read lawyer, just admitted to the bar, and with 
 as fair business prospects as usually fall to the lot of 
 young aspirants in that profession. 
 
 Of course, he and my girl are duly and truly in 
 love, in all the proper moods and tenses ; but as to 
 this work they have in hand of being householders, 
 managing fuel, rent, provision, taxes, gas- and water- 
 rates, they seem to my older eyes about as sagacious 
 as a pair of this year's robins, .Nevertheless, as the 
 
What is a Home? 51 
 
 robins of each year do somehow learn to build nests 
 as well as their ancestors, there is reason to hope as 
 much for each new pair of human creatures. But it is 
 one of the fatalities of our ill-jointed life that houses 
 are usually furnished for future homes by young peo- 
 ple in just this state of blissful ignorance of what 
 they are really wanted for, or what is likely to be 
 done with the things in them. 
 
 Now, to people of large incomes, with ready 
 wealth for the rectification of mistakes, it does n't 
 much matter how the menage is arranged at first ; 
 they will, if they have good sense, soon rid them- 
 selves of the little infelicities and absurdities of 
 their first arrangements, and bring their establish- 
 ment to meet their more instructed tastes. 
 
 But to that greater class who have only a modest 
 investment for this first start in domestic life mis- 
 takes are far more serious. I have known people 
 go on for years groaning under the weight of do- 
 mestic possessions they did not want, and pining in 
 vain for others which they did, simply from the fact 
 that all their first purchases were made in this time 
 of blissful ignorance. 
 
 I had been a quiet auditor to many animated dis- 
 cussions among the young people as to what they 
 wanted, and were to get, in which the subject of 
 prudence and economy was discussed, with quota- 
 
5 2 House and Home Papers. 
 
 tions of advice thereon given in serious good-faith 
 by various friends and relations who lived easily on 
 incomes four or five times larger than our own. Who 
 can show the ways of elegant economy more per- 
 fectly than people thus at ease in their possessions? 
 From what serene heights do they instruct the inex- 
 perienced beginners ! Ten thousand a year gives 
 one leisure for reflection, and elegant leisure ena- 
 bles one to view household economies dispassion- 
 ately ; hence the unction with which these gifted 
 daughters of upper-air delight to exhort young neo- 
 phytes. 
 
 " Depend upon it, my dear," Aunt Sophia Easygo 
 had said, " it 's always the best economy to get the 
 best things. They cost more in the beginning, but 
 see how they last ! These velvet carpets on my 
 floor have been in constant wear for ten years, and 
 look how they wear ! I never have an ingrain car- 
 pet in my house, not even on the chambers. Vel- 
 vet and Brussels cost more to begin with, but then 
 they last. Then I cannot recommend the fashion 
 that is creeping in, of having plate instead of solid 
 silver. Plate wears off, and has to be renewed, 
 which comes to about the same thing in the end 
 as if you bought all solid at first. If I were begin- 
 ning as Marianne is, I should just set aside a thou- 
 sand dollars for my silver, and be content with a 
 
WJtat is a Home? 53 
 
 few v plain articles. She should buy all her furniture 
 at Messrs. David and Saul's. People call them dear, 
 but their work will prove cheapest in the end, and 
 there is an air and style about their things that can 
 be told anywhere. Of course, you won't go to any 
 extravagant lengths, simplicity is a grace of itself." 
 
 The waters of the family council were troubled, 
 when Jenny, flaming with enthusiasm, brought home 
 the report of this conversation. When my wife pro- 
 ceeded, with her well-trained business knowledge, to 
 compare the prices of the simplest elegancies recom- 
 mended by Aunt Easygo with the sum-total to be 
 drawn on, faces lengthened perceptibly. 
 
 " How are people to go to housekeeping," said 
 Jenny, " if everything costs so much ? " 
 
 My wife quietly remarked, that we had had great 
 comfort in our own home, ' had entertained unnum- 
 bered friends, and had only ingrain carpets on our 
 chambers and a three-ply on our parlor, and she 
 doubted if any guest had ever thought of it, if 
 the rooms had been a shade less pleasant ; and as 
 to durability, Aunt Easygo had renewed her car- 
 pets oftener than we. Such as ours were, they had 
 worn longer than hers, 
 
 " But, mamma, you know everything has gone on 
 since your day. Everybody must at least approach 
 a certain style now-a-day,s. One can't furnish so far 
 behind other people." 
 
54 House and Home Papers. 
 
 My wife answered in her quiet way, setting forth 
 her doctrine of a plain average to go through the 
 whole establishment, placing parlors, chambers, kitch- 
 en, pantries, and the unseen depths of linen-closets in 
 harmonious relations of just proportion, and showed 
 by calm estimates how far the sum given could go 
 towards this result. There the limits were inexorable. 
 There is nothing so damping to the ardor of youthful 
 economies as the hard, positive logic of figures. It is 
 so delightful to think in some airy way that the things 
 we like best are the cheapest, and that a sort of rigor- 
 ous duty compels us to get them at any sacrifice. 
 There is no remedy for this illusion but to show by 
 the multiplication and addition tables what things are 
 and are not possible. My wife's figures met Aunt 
 Easygo's assertions, and there was a lull among the 
 high contracting parties for a season ; nevertheless, I 
 could see Jenny was secretly uneasy. I began to hear 
 of journeys made to far places, here and there, where 
 expensive articles of luxury were selling at reduced 
 prices. Now a gilded mirror was discussed, and 
 now a velvet carpet which chance had brought down 
 temptingly near the sphere of financial possibility. I 
 thought of our parlor, and prayed the good fairies to 
 avert the advent of ill-assorted articles. 
 
 " Pray keep common sense uppermost in the girls' 
 heads, if you can," said I to Mrs. Crowfield, "and 
 
What is a Home? 55 
 
 don't let the poor little puss spend her money for 
 what she won't care a button about by and by." 
 
 " I shall try," she said ; " but you know Marianne 
 is inexperienced, and Jenny is so ardent and active, 
 and so confident, too. Then they both, I think, have 
 the impression that we are a little behind the age. 
 To say the truth, my dear, I think your papers afford 
 a good opportunity of dropping a thought now and 
 then in their minds. Jenny was asking last night 
 when you were going to write your next paper. The 
 girl has a bright, active mind, and thinks of what she 
 hears." 
 
 So flattered, by the best of flatterers, I sat down 
 to write on my theme ; and that evening, at fire-light 
 time, I read to my little senate as follows : 
 
 WHAT is A HOME, AND HOW TO KEEP IT. 
 
 I HAVE shown that a dwelling, rented or owned by 
 a man, in which his own wife keeps house, is not 
 always, or of course, a home. What is it, then, that 
 makes a home ? All men and women have the in- 
 definite knowledge of what they want and long for 
 when that word is spoken. " Home ! " sighs the dis- 
 consolate bachelor, tired of boarding-house fare and 
 buttonless shirts. " Home ! " says the wanderer in 
 foreign lands, and thinks of mother's love, of wife 
 
56 House and Home Papers. 
 
 and sister and child. Nay, the word has in it a higher 
 meaning, hallowed by religion ; and when the Chris- 
 tian would express the highest of his hopes for a 
 better life, he speaks of his home beyond the grave. 
 The word home has in it the elements of love, rest, 
 permanency, and liberty ; but besides these it has in 
 it the idea of an education by which all that is purest 
 within us is developed into nobler forms, fit for a 
 higher life. The little child by the home-fireside was 
 taken on the Master's knee when he would explain to 
 his disciples the mysteries of the kingdom. 
 
 Of so great dignity and worth is this holy and 
 sacred thing, that the power to create a HOME ought 
 to be ranked above all creative faculties. The sculp- 
 tor who brings out the breathing statue from cold 
 marble, the painter who warms the canvas into a 
 deathless glow of beauty, the architect who built ca- 
 thedrals and hung the world-like dome of St. Peter's 
 in mid-air, is not to be compared, in sanctity and 
 worthiness, to the humblest artist, who, out of the 
 poor materials afforded by this shifting, changing, 
 selfish world, creates the secure Eden of a home. 
 
 A true home should be called the noblest work of 
 art possible to human creatures, inasmuch as it is the 
 very image chosen to represent the last and highest 
 rest of the soul, the consummation of man's blessed- 
 ness. 
 
What is a Home? 57 
 
 Not without reason does the oldest Christian church 
 require of those entering on marriage the most sol- 
 emn review of all the past life, the confession and 
 repentance of every sin of thought, word, and deed, 
 and the reception of the holy sacrament ; for thus the 
 'man and woman who approach the august duty of 
 creating a home are reminded of the sanctity and 
 beauty of what they undertake. 
 
 In this art of home-making I have set down in my 
 mind certain first principles, like the axioms of Euclid, 
 and the first is, 
 
 No home is possible without love. 
 
 All business marriages and marriages of conven- 
 ience, all mere culinary marriages and marriages of 
 mere animal passion, make the creation of a true 
 home impossible in' the outset. Love is the jewelled 
 foundation of this New Jerusalem descending from 
 God out of heaven, and takes as many bright forms 
 as the amethyst, topaz, and sapphire of that myste- 
 rious vision. In this range of creative art all things 
 are possible to him .that loveth, but without love 
 nothing is possible. 
 
 We hear of most convenient marriages in foreign 
 lands, which may better be described as commercial 
 partnerships. The money on each side is counted ; 
 there is enough between the parties to carry on the 
 firm, each having the appropriate sum allotted to 
 3* 
 
58 House and Home Papers. 
 
 each. No love is pretended, but there is great po- 
 liteness. All is so legally and thoroughly arranged, 
 that there seems to be nothing left for future quarrels 
 to fasten on. Monsieur and Madame have each their 
 apartments, their carriages, their servants, their in- 
 come, their friends, their pursuits, understand the 
 solemn vows of marriage to mean simply that they 
 are to treat each other with urbanity in those few 
 situations where the path of life must necessarily bring 
 them together. 
 
 We are sorry that such an idea of marriage should 
 be gaining foothold in America. It has its root in an 
 ignoble view of life, an utter and pagan darkness 
 as to all that man and woman are called to do in that 
 highest relation where they act as one. It is a mean 
 and low contrivance on both sides, by which all the 
 grand work of home-building, all the noble pains and 
 heroic toils of home-education, that education where 
 the parents learn more than they teach, shall be (let 
 us use the expressive Yankee idiom) shirked. 
 
 It is a curious fact that in those countries where 
 this system of marriages is the general rule there is 
 no word corresponding to our English word home. In 
 many polite languages of Europe it would be impos- 
 sible neatly to translate the sentiment with which we 
 began this essay, that a man's house is not always his 
 home. 
 

 What is a Home? 59 
 
 Let any one try to render the song, " Sweet Home," 
 into French, and one finds how Anglo-Saxon is the 
 very genius of the word. The structure of life, in all 
 its relations, in countries where marriages are matter 
 of arrangement, and not of love, excludes the idea of 
 home. 
 
 How does life run in such countries ? The girl is 
 recalled from her convent or boarding-school, and told 
 that her father has found a husband for her. No ob- 
 jection on her part is contemplated or provided for ; 
 none generally occurs, for the child is only too happy 
 to obtain the fine clothes and the liberty which she 
 has been taught come only with marriage. Be the 
 man handsome or homely, interesting or stupid, still 
 he brings these. 
 
 How intolerable such a marriage ! we say, with the 
 close intimacies of Anglo-Saxon life in our minds. 
 They are not intolerable, because they are provided 
 for by arrangements which make it possible for each 
 to go his or her several way, seeing very little of the 
 other. The son or daughter, which in due time makes 
 its appearance in this menage, is sent out to nurse 
 in infancy, sent to boarding-school in youth, and in 
 maturity portioned and married, to repeat the same 
 process for another generation. Meanwhile, father 
 and mother keep a quiet establishment, and pursue 
 their several pleasures. Such is the system. 
 
60 House and Home Papers. 
 
 Houses built for this kind of life become mere sets 
 of reception-rooms, such as are the greater proportion 
 of apartments to let in Paris, where a hearty English 
 or American family, with their children about them, 
 could scarcely find room to establish themselves. 
 Individual character, it is true, does something to 
 modify this programme. There are charming homes 
 in France and Italy, where warm and noble natures, 
 thrown together, perhaps, by accident, or mated by 
 wise paternal choice, infuse warmth into the coldness 
 of the system under which they live. There are in 
 all states of society some of such domesticity of 
 nature that they will create a home around them- 
 selves under any circumstances, however barren. Be- 
 sides, so kindly is human nature, that Love uninvited 
 before marriage, often becomes a guest after, and with 
 Love always comes a home. 
 
 My next axiom is, 
 
 There can be no true home without liberty. 
 
 The very idea of home is of a retreat where we 
 shall be free to act out personal and individual tastes 
 and peculiarities, as we cannot do before the wide 
 world. We are to have our meals at what hour we 
 will, served in what style suits us. Our hours of 
 going and coming are to be as we please. Our favor- 
 ite haunts are to be here or there, our pictures and 
 books so disposed as seems to us good, and our 
 
What is a Home? 61 
 
 whole arrangements the expression, so far as our 
 means can compass it, of our own personal ideas of 
 what is pleasant and desirable in life. This element 
 of liberty, if we think of it, is the chief charm of 
 home. " Here I can do as I please," is the thought 
 with which the tempest-tossed earth-pilgrim blesses 
 himself or herself, turning inward from the crowded 
 ways of the world. This thought blesses the man of 
 business, as he turns from his day's carCj and crosses 
 the sacred threshold. It is as restful to him as the 
 slippers and gown and easy-chair by the fireside. 
 Everybody understands him here. Everybody is well 
 content that he should take his ease in his own way. 
 Such is the case in the ideal home. That such is not 
 always the case in the real home comes often from 
 the mistakes in the house-furnishing. Much house- 
 furnishing is too fine for liberty. 
 
 In America there is no such thing as rank and 
 station which impose a sort of prescriptive style on 
 -people of certain income. The consequence is that 
 all sorts of furniture and belongings, which in the Old 
 World have a recognized relation to certain possibili- 
 ties of income, and which require certain other acces- 
 sories to make them in good keeping, are thrown in 
 the way of all sorts of people. 
 
 Young people who cannot expect by any reasonable 
 possibility to keep more than two or three servants, if 
 
62 House and Home Papers. 
 
 they happen to have the means in the outset, furnish 
 a house with just such articles as in England would 
 suit an establishment of sixteen. We have seen 
 houses in England having two or three house-maids, 
 and tables served by a butler and two waiters, where 
 the furniture, carpets, china, crystal, and silver were 
 in one and the same style with some establishments 
 in America where the family was hard pressed to keep 
 three Irish servants. 
 
 This want of servants is the one thing that must 
 modify everything in American life ; it is, and will long 
 continue to be, a leading feature in the life of a coun- 
 try so rich in openings for man and woman that do- 
 mestic service can be only the stepping-stone to some- 
 thing higher. Nevertheless, we Americans are great 
 travellers ; we are sensitive, appreciative, fond of 
 novelty, apt to receive and incorporate into our own 
 life what seems fair and graceful in that of other peo- 
 ple. Our women's wardrobes are made elaborate with 
 the thousand elegancies of French toilet, our houses - 
 filled with a thousand knick-knacks of which our plain 
 ancestors never dreamed. Cleopatra did not set sail 
 on the Nile in more state and beauty than that in 
 which our young American bride is often ushered into 
 her new homer: Her wardrobe all gossamer lace and 
 quaint frill and crimp and embroidery, her house a 
 museum of elegant and costly gewgaws; and amid 
 
What is a Home? 63 
 
 the whole collection of elegancies and fragilities,- she, 
 perhaps, the frailest. 
 
 Then comes the tug of war. The young wife be- 
 comes a mother, and while she is retired to her cham- 
 ber, blundering Biddy rusts the elegant knives, or 
 takes off the ivory handles by soaking in hot water, 
 the silver is washed in greasy soap-suds, and re- 
 freshed now and then with a thump, which cocks the 
 nose of the teapot awry, or makes the handle assume 
 an air of drunken defiance. The fragile China is 
 chipped here and there around its edges with those 
 minute gaps so vexatious to a woman's soul ; the 
 handles fly hither and thither in the wild confusion 
 of Biddy's washing-day hurry, when cook wants her 
 to help hang out the clothes. Meanwhile, Bridget 
 sweeps the parlor with a hard broom, and shakes out 
 showers of ashes from the grate, forgetting to cover 
 the damask lounges, and they directly look as rusty 
 and time-worn as if they had come from an auction- 
 store ; and all together unite in making such havoc 
 of the delicate ruffles and laces of the bridal outfit 
 and "baby-layette, that, when the poor young wife comes 
 out of her chamber after her nurse has left her, and, 
 weakened and embarrassed with the demands of 
 the new-comer, begins to look once more into the 
 affairs of her little world, she is ready to sink with 
 vexation and discouragement. Poor little princess ! 
 
64 House and Home Papers. 
 
 Her clothes are made as princesses wear them, her 
 baby's clothes like a young duke's, her house fur- 
 nished like a lord's, and only Bridget and Biddy and 
 Polly to do the work of cook, scullery-maid, butler, 
 footman,' laundress, nursery-maid, house-maid, and 
 lady's maid. Such is the array that in the Old Coun- 
 try would be deemed necessary to take care of an 
 establishment got up like hers. Everything in it is 
 too fine, not too fine to be pretty, not in bad taste 
 in itself, but too fine for the situation, too fine for 
 comfort or liberty. 
 
 What ensues in a house so furnished ? Too often 
 ceaseless fretting of the nerves, in the wife's despair- 
 ing, conscientious efforts to keep things as they 
 should be. There is no freedom in a house where 
 things are too expensive and choice to be freely 
 handled and easily replaced. Life becomes a series 
 of petty embarrassments and restrictions, something 
 is always going wrong, and the man finds his fireside 
 oppressive, the various articles of his parlor and 
 table seem like so many temper-traps and spring- 
 guns, menacing explosion and disaster. 
 
 There may be, indeed, the most perfect home-feel- 
 ing, the utmost coseyness and restfulness, in apart- 
 ments crusted with gilding, carpeted with velvet, and 
 upholstered with satin. I have seen such, where the 
 home-like look and air of free use was as genuine as 
 
What is a Home? 65 
 
 in a Western log-cabin ; but this was in a range of 
 princely income that made all these things as easy to 
 be obtained or replaced as the most ordinary of our 
 domestic furniture. But so long as articles must be 
 shrouded from use, or used with fear and trembling, 
 because their cost is above the general level of our 
 means, we had better be without them, even though 
 the most lucky of accidents may put their possession 
 in our power. 
 
 But it is not merely by the effort to maintain too 
 much elegance that the sense of home-liberty is ban- 
 ished from a house. It is sometimes expelled in 
 another way, with all painstaking and conscientious 
 strictness, by the worthiest and best of human beings, 
 
 the blessed followers of Saint Martha. Have we not 
 
 f 
 
 known them, the dear, worthy creatures, up before 
 daylight, causing most scrupulous lustrations of every 
 pane of glass and inch of paint in our parlors, in 
 consequence whereof every shutter and blind must 
 be kept closed for days to come, lest the flies should 
 speck the freshly washed windows and wainscoting? 
 Dear shade of Aunt Mehitabel, forgive our boldness ? 
 Have we not been driven for days, in our youth, to 
 read our newspaper in the front veranda, in the 
 kitchen, out in the barn, anywhere, in fact, where 
 sunshine could be found, because there was not a 
 room in the house that was not cleaned, shut up, 
 
 E 
 
66 House and Home Papers. 
 
 and darkened? Have we not shivered with cold, 
 all the glowering, gloomy month of May, because 
 the august front-parlor having undergone the spring 
 cleaning, the andirons were snugly tied up in the 
 tissue-paper, and an elegant frill of the same mate- 
 rial was trembling before the mouth of the once 
 glowing fireplace ? Even so, dear soul, full of lov- 
 ing-kindness and hospitality as thou wast, yet ever 
 making our house seem like a tomb ! And with 
 what patience wouldst thou sit sewing by a crack 
 in the shutters, an inch wide, rejoicing in thy im- 
 maculate paint and clear glass ! But was there ever 
 a thing of thy spotless and unsullied belongings 
 which a boy might use ? How I trembled to touch 
 thy scoured tins, that hung in appalling brightness ! 
 with what awe I asked for a basket to pick straw- 
 berries ! and where in the house could I find a place 
 to eat a piece of gingerbread ? How like a ruffian, 
 a Tartar, a pirate, I always felt, when I entered thy 
 domains ! and how, from day to day, I wondered at 
 the immeasurable depths of depravity which were 
 always leading me to upset something, or break or 
 tear or derange something, in thy exquisitely kept 
 premises ! Somehow, the impression was burned 
 with overpowering force into my mind, that houses 
 and furniture, scrubbed floors, white curtains, bright 
 tins and brasses were the great, awful, permanent 
 
What is a Home? 67 
 
 facts of existence, and that men and women, and 
 particularly children, were the meddlesome intruders 
 upon this divine order, every trace of whose inter- 
 meddling must be scrubbed out and obliterated in 
 the quickest way possible. It seemed evident to 
 me that houses would be far more perfect, if no- 
 body lived in them at all ; but that, as men had 
 really and absurdly taken to living in them, they 
 must live as little as possible. My only idea of a 
 house was a place full of traps and pitfalls for boys, 
 a deadly temptation to sins which beset one every 
 moment ; and when I read about a sailor's free life 
 on the ocean, I felt an untold longing to go forth 
 and be free in like manner. 
 
 But a truce to these fancies, and back again to our 
 essay. 
 
 If liberty in a house is a comfort to a husband, it 
 is a necessity to children. When we say liberty, we 
 do not mean license. We do not mean that Master 
 Johnny be allowed to handle elegant volumes with 
 bread : and-butter fingers, or that little Miss be suf- 
 fered to drum on the piano, or practise line-drawing 
 with a pin on varnished furniture. Still it is essen- 
 tial that the family-parlors be not too fine for the 
 family to sit in, too fine for the ordinary accidents, 
 , haps and mishaps, of reasonably well-trained children. 
 The elegance of the parlor where papa and mamma 
 
68 House and Home Papers. 
 
 sit and receive their friends should wear an inviting, 
 not a hostile and bristling, aspect to little people. 
 Its beauty and its order gradually form in the little 
 mind a love of beauty and order, and the insensible 
 carefulness of regard. 
 
 Nothing is worse for a child than to shut him up 
 in a room which he understands is his, because he is 
 disorderly, where he is expected, of course, to main- 
 tain and keep disorder. We have sometimes pitied 
 the poor little victims who show their faces longingly 
 at the doors of elegant parlors, and are forthwith col- 
 lared by the domestic police and consigned to some 
 attic-apartment, called a play-room, where chaos con- 
 tinually reigns. It is a mistake to suppose, because 
 children derange a well-furnished apartment, that they 
 like confusion. Order and beauty are always pleasant 
 to them as to grown people, and disorder and deface- 
 ment are painful ; but they know neither how to cre- 
 ate the one nor to prevent the other, their little 
 lives are a series of experiments, often making dis- 
 order by aiming at some new form of order. Yet, 
 for all this, I am not one of those who feel that 
 in a family everything should bend to the sway of 
 these little people. They are the worst of tyrants 
 in such houses, still, where children are, though 
 the fact must not appear to them, nothing must be 
 done without a wise thought of them. 
 
What is a Home? 69 
 
 Here, as in all high art, the old motto is in force, 
 "Ars est celare artem" Children who are taught too 
 plainly by every anxious look and word of their par- 
 ents, by every family arrangement, by the impress- 
 ment of every chance guest into the service, that 
 their parents consider their education as the one 
 important matter in creation, are apt to grow up 
 fantastical, artificial, and hopelessly self-conscious. 
 The stars cannot stop in their courses, even for our 
 personal improvement, and the sooner children learn 
 this, the better. The great art is to organize a home 
 which shall move on with a strong, wide, generous 
 movement, where the little people shall act them- 
 selves out as freely and impulsively as can consist 
 with the comfort of the whole, and where the anx- 
 ious watching and planning for them shall be kept 
 as secret from them as possible. 
 
 It is well that one of the sunniest and airiest rooms 
 in the house be the children's nursery. It is good 
 philosophy, too, to furnish it attractively, even if the 
 sum expended lower the standard of parlor-luxuries. 
 It is well that the children's chamber, which is to 
 act constantly on their impressible natures for years, 
 should command a better prospect, a sunnier aspect, 
 than one which serves for a day's occupancy of the 
 transient guest. It is well that journeys should be 
 made or put off in view of the interests of the chil- 
 
7O House and Home Papers. 
 
 dren, that guests should be invited with a view to 
 their improvement, that some intimacies should be 
 chosen and some rejected on their account. But it 
 is not well that all this should, from infancy, be daily 
 talked out before the child, and he grow up in egotism 
 from moving in a sphere where everything from first 
 to last is calculated and arranged with reference to 
 himself. A little appearance of wholesome neglect 
 combined with real care and never-ceasing watchful- 
 ness has often seemed to do wonders in this work 
 of setting human beings on their own feet for the 
 life-journey. 
 
 Education is the highest object of home, but edu- 
 cation in the widest sense, education of the parents 
 no less than of the children. In a true home the 
 man and the woman receive, through their cares,, 
 their watchings, their hospitality, their charity, the 
 last and highest finish that eartfi can put upon them. 
 From that they must pass upward, for earth can teach 
 them no more. 
 
 The home-education is incomplete, unless it include 
 the idea of hospitality and charity. Hospitality is a 
 Biblical and apostolic virtue, and not so often recom- 
 mended in Holy Writ without reason. Hospitality 
 is much neglected in America for the very reasons 
 touched upon above. We have received our ideas 
 of propriety and elegance of living from old coun- 
 
What is a Home? 71 
 
 tries, where labor is cheap, where domestic service 
 is a well-understood, permanent occupation, adopted 
 cheerfully for life, and where of course there is such 
 a subdivision of labor as insures great thoroughness 
 in all its branches. We are ashamed or afraid to 
 conform honestly and hardily to a state of things 
 purely American. We have not yet accomplished 
 what our friend the Doctor calls " our weaning," and 
 learned that dinners with circuitous courses and 
 divers other Continental and English refinements, 
 well enough in their way, cannot be accomplished 
 in families with two or three untrained servants, with- 
 out an expense of care and anxiety which makes them 
 heart-withering to the delicate wife, and too severe a 
 trial, to occur often. America is the land of subdi- 
 vided fortunes, of a general average of wealth and 
 comfort, and there ought to be, therefore, an under- 
 standing in the social basis far more simple than. in 
 the Old World. 
 
 Many families of small fortunes know this, they 
 are quietly living so, but they have not the steadi- 
 ness to share their daily average living with a friend, 
 a traveller, or guest, just as the Arab shares his tent 
 and the Indian his bowl of succotash. They cannot 
 have company, they say. Why ? Because it is such 
 a fuss to get out the best things, and then to put 
 them back again. But why get out the best things ? 
 
72 House and Home Papers. 
 
 Why not give your friend, what he would like a thou- 
 sand times better, a bit of your average home-life, a 
 seat at any time at your board, a seat at your fire ? 
 If he sees that there is a handle off your teacup, 
 and that there is a crack across one of your plates, 
 he only thinks, with a sigh of relief, " Well, mine are n't 
 the only things that meet with accidents," and he feels 
 nearer to you ever after ; he will let you come to his 
 table and see the cracks in his teacups, and you will 
 condole with each other on the transient nature of 
 earthly possessions. If it become apparent in these 
 entirely undressed rehearsals that your children are 
 sometimes disorderly, and that your cook sometimes 
 overdoes the meat, and that your second girl some- 
 times is awkward in waiting, or has forgotten a table 
 propriety, your friend only feels, "Ah, well, other 
 people have trials as well as I," and he thinks, if you 
 come to see him, he shall feel easy with you. 
 
 " Having company" is an expense that may always 
 be felt ; but easy daily hospitality, the plate always on 
 your table for a friend, is an expense that appears on 
 no account-book, and a pleasure that is daily and con- 
 stant 
 
 Under this head of hospitality, let us suppose a 
 case. A traveller comes from England ; he comes in 
 good faith and good feeling to see how Americans 
 live. He merely wants to penetrate into the interior 
 
What is a Home? 73 
 
 of domestic life, to see. what there is genuinely and 
 peculiarly American about it. Now here is Smilax, 
 who is living, in a small, neat way, on his salary from 
 the daily press. He remembers hospitalities received 
 from our traveller in England, and wants to return 
 them. He remembers, too, with dismay, a well-kept 
 establishment, the well-served table, the punctilious, 
 orderly servants. Smilax keeps two, a cook and 
 chambermaid, who divide the functions of his estab- 
 lishment between them. What shall he do ? Let him 
 say, in a fair, manly way, " My dear fellow, I 'm de- 
 lighted to see you. I live in a small way, but I '11 do 
 my best for you, and Mrs. Smilax will be delighted. 
 Come and dine with us, so and so, and we '11 bring in 
 one or two friends." So the man comes, and Mrs. 
 Smilax serves up such a dinner as lies within the 
 limits of her knowledge and the capacities of her 
 servants. All plain, good of its kind, unpretending, 
 without an attempt to do anything English or French, 
 to do anything more than if she were furnishing a 
 gala-dinner for her father or returned brother. Show 
 him your house freely, just .as it is, talk to him freely 
 of it, just as he in England showed you his larger 
 house and talked to you of his finer things. If the 
 man is a true man, he will thank you for such unpre- 
 tending, sincere welcome ; if he is a man of straw, 
 then he is not worth wasting Mrs. Smilax's health and 
 4 
 
74 House and Home Papers. 
 
 spirits for, in unavailing efforts to get up a foreign 
 dinner-party. 
 
 A man who has any heart in him values a genuine, 
 little bit of home more than anything else you can give 
 him. He can get French cooking at a restaurant ; he 
 can buy expensive wines at first-class hotels, if he 
 wants them ; but the traveller, though ever so rich and 
 ever so well-served at home, is, after all, nothing but 
 a man as you are, and he is craving something that 
 does n't seem like an hotel, some bit of real, gen- 
 uine heart-life. Perhaps he would like better than 
 anything to show you the last photograph of his wife, 
 or to read to you the great, round-hand letter of his 
 ten-year-old which he has got to-day. He is ready to 
 cry when he thinks of it. In this mood he goes to 
 see you, hoping for something like home, and you 
 first receive him in a parlor opened only on state 
 occasions, and that has been circumstantially and 
 exactly furnished, as the upholsterer assures you, as 
 every other parlor of the kind in the city is furnished. 
 You treat him to a dinner got up for the occasion, 
 with hired waiters, a dinner which it has taken 
 Mrs. Smilax a week to prepare for, and will take her 
 a week to recover from, for which the baby has 
 been snubbed and turned off, to his loud indignation, 
 and your young four-year-old sent to his aunts. Your 
 traveller eats your dinner, and finds it inferior, as a 
 
What is a Home? 75 
 
 work of art, to other dinners, a poor imitation. He 
 goes away and criticises ; you hear of it, and resolve 
 never to invite a foreigner again. But if you had 
 given him a little of your heart, a little home-warmth 
 and feeling, if you had shown him your baby, and 
 let him romp with your four-year-old, and eat a gen- 
 uine dinner with you, would he have been false to 
 that ? Not so likely. He wanted something real and 
 human, you gave him a bad dress-rehearsal, and 
 dress-rehearsals always provoke criticism. 
 
 Besides hospitality, there is, in a true home, a mis- 
 sion of charity. , It is a just law which regulates the 
 possession of great or beautiful works of art in the 
 Old World, that they shall in some sense be con- 
 sidered the property of all who can appreciate. Fine 
 grounds have hours when the public may be admitted, 
 pictures and statues may be shown to visitors ; and 
 this is a noble charity. In the same manner the for- 
 tunate individuals who have achieved the greatest of 
 all human works of art should jemploy it as a sacred 
 charity. How many, morally wearied, wandering, dis- 
 abled, are healed and comforted by the warmth of a 
 true home ! When a mother has sent her son to the 
 temptations of a distant city, what news is so glad to 
 her heart as that he has found some quiet family 
 where he visits often and is made to feel AT HOME ? 
 How many young men have good women saved from 
 
76 House and Home Papers. 
 
 temptation and shipwreck by drawing them often to 
 the sheltered corner by the fireside ! The poor artist, 
 the wandering genius who has lost his way in this 
 world, and stumbles like a child among hard realities, 
 the- many men and women who, while they have 
 houses, have no homes, see from afar, in their dis- 
 tant, bleak life-journey, the light of a true home-fire, 
 and, if made welcome there, warm their stiffened 
 limbs, and go forth stronger to their pilgrimage. Let 
 those who have accomplished this beautiful and per- 
 fect work of divine art be liberal of its influence. Let 
 them not seek to bolt the doors ancj draw the cur- 
 tains ; for they know not, and will never know till the 
 future life, of the good they may do by the ministra- 
 tion of this great charity of home. 
 
 We have heard much lately of the restricted sphere 
 of woman. We have been told how many spirits 
 among women are of a wider, stronger, more heroic 
 mould than befits the mere routine of housekeeping. 
 It may be true that there are many women far too 
 great, too wise, too high, for mere housekeeping. 
 But where is the woman in any way too great or too 
 high, or too wise, to spend herself in creating a 
 home ? What can any woman make diviner, higher, 
 better? From such homes go forth all heroisms, all 
 inspirations, all great deeds. Such mothers and such 
 homes have made the heroes and martyrs, faithful 
 
What is a Home? 77 
 
 unto death, who have given their precious lives to us 
 during these three years of our agony ! 
 
 Homes are the work of art peculiar to the genius 
 of woman. Man helps in this work, but woman leads ; 
 the hive is always in confusion without the gueen-bee. 
 But what a woman must she be who does this work 
 perfectly ! She comprehends all, she balances and 
 arranges all ; all different tastes and temperaments 
 find in her their rest, and she can unite at one hearth- 
 stone the most discordant elements. In her is order, 
 yet an order ever veiled and concealed by indulgence. 
 None are checked, reproved, abridged of privileges 
 by her love of system ; for she knows that order was 
 made for the family, and not the family for order. 
 Quietly she takes on herself what all others refuse or 
 overlook. What the unwary disarrange she silently 
 rectifies. Everybody in her sphere breathes easy, 
 feels free ; and the driest twig begins in her sunshine 
 to put out buds and blossoms. So quiet are her 
 operations and movements, that none sees that it is 
 she who holds all things in harmony ; only, alas, 
 when she is gone, how many things suddenly ap- 
 pear disordered, inharmonious, neglected ! All these 
 threads have been smilingly held in her weak hand. 
 Alas, if that .is no longer there ! 
 
 Can any woman be such a housekeeper without 
 inspiration ? No. In the words of the old church- 
 
78 House and Home Papers. 
 
 service, " Her soul must ever have affiance in God." 
 The New Jerusalem of a perfect home cometh down 
 from God out of heaven. But to make such a home 
 is ambition high and worthy enough for any woman, 
 be she what she may. 
 
 One thing more. Right on the threshold of all per- 
 fection lies the cross to be taken up. No one can go 
 over or around that cross in science or in art. With- 
 out labor and self-denial neither Raphael nor Michel 
 Angelo nor Newton was made perfect. Nor can man 
 or woman create a true home who is not willing in the 
 outset to embrace life heroically, to encounter labor 
 and sacrifice. Only to such shall this divinest power 
 be given to create on earth that which is the nearest 
 image of heaven. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE ECONOMY OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 / TT V ALKING to you in this way once a month, O 
 -L my confidential reader, there seems to be dan- 
 ger, as in all intervals of friendship, that we shall not 
 readily be able to take up our strain of conversation 
 just where we left off. Suffer me, therefore, to remind 
 you that the month past left us seated at the fireside, 
 just as we had finished reading of what a home was, 
 and how to make one. 
 
 The fire had burned low, and great, solid hickory 
 coals were winking dreamily at us from out their fluffy 
 coats of white ashes, just as if some household 
 sprite there were opening now one eye and then the 
 other, and looking in a sleepy, comfortable way at us. 
 
 The close of my piece, about the good house- 
 mother, had seemed to tell on my little audience. 
 Marianne had nestled close to her mother, and laid 
 her head on her knee ; and though Jenny sat up 
 straight as a pin, yet her ever-busy knitting was 
 dropped in her lap, and I saw the glint of a tear in 
 her quick, sparkling eye, yes, actually a little bright 
 
8o House and Home Papers. 
 
 bead fell upon her. work ; whereupon she started up 
 actively, and declared that the fire wanted just one 
 more stick to make a blaze before bedtime ; and then 
 there was such a raking among the coals, such an 
 adjusting of the andirons, such vigorous arrangement 
 of the wood, and such a brisk whisking of the hearth- 
 brush, that it was evident Jenny had something on 
 her mind. 
 
 When all was done, she sat down again and looked 
 straight into the blaze, which went dancing and crack- 
 ling up, casting glances and flecks of light on our 
 pictures and books, and making all the old, familiar 
 furniture seem full of life and motion. 
 
 " I think that 's a good piece," she said, decisively. 
 " I think those are things that should be thought 
 about." 
 
 Now Jenny was the youngest of our flock, and 
 therefore, in a certain way, regarded by my wife and 
 me as perennially " the baby " ; and these little, old- 
 fashioned, decisive ways of announcing her opinions 
 seemed so much a part of her nature, so peculiarly 
 " Jennyish," as I used to say, that my wife and I only 
 exchanged amused glances over her head, when they 
 occurred. 
 
 In a general way, Jenny, standing in the full orb of 
 her feminine instincts like Diana in the moon, rather 
 looked down on all masculine views of women's mat- 
 
The Economy of the Beautiful. 8 1 
 
 ters as " tolerabiles ineptice " / but towards her papa she 
 had gracious turns of being patronizing to the last 
 degree ; and one of these turns was evidently at its 
 flood-tide, as she proceeded to say, 
 
 "/think papa is right, that keeping house and 
 having a home, and all that, is a very serious thing, 
 and that people go into it with very little thought 
 about it. I really think those things papa has been 
 saying there ought to be thought about." 
 
 " Papa," said Marianne, " I wish you would tell 
 me exactly how you would spend that money you 
 gave me for house-furnishing. I should like just your 
 views." 
 
 " Precisely," said Jenny, with eagerness ; " because 
 it is just as papa says, a sensible man, who has 
 thought, and had experience, can't help having some 
 ideas, even about women's affairs, hat are worth 
 attending to. I think so, decidedly." 
 
 I acknowledged the compliment for my sex and 
 myself with my best bow. 
 
 " But then, papa," said Marianne, " I can't help 
 feeling sorry that one can't live in such a way as to 
 have beautiful things around one. I 'm sorry they 
 must cost so much, and take so much care, for I am 
 made so that I really want them. I do so like to see 
 pretty things ! I do like rich carpets and elegant 
 carved furniture, and fine china and cut-glass and 
 4* F 
 
82 House and Home Papers. 
 
 silver. I can't bear mean, common-looking rooms. 
 I should so like to have my house look beautiful ! " 
 
 " Your house ought not to look mean and common, 
 your house ought to look beautiful," I replied. " It 
 would be a sin and a shame to have it otherwise. No 
 house ought to be fitted up for a future home without 
 a strong and a leading reference to beauty in all its 
 arrangements. If I were a Greek, I should say that 
 the first household libation should be made to beauty ; 
 but, being an old-fashioned Christian, I would say 
 that he who prepares a home with no eye to beauty 
 neglects the example of the great Father who has 
 filled our earth-home with such elaborate ornament." 
 
 " But then, papa, there 's the money ! " .said Jenny, 
 shaking her little head wisely. " You men don't think 
 of that. You want us girls, for instance, to be pat- 
 terns of economy, but we must always be wearing 
 fresh, nice things ; you abhor soiled gloves and worn 
 shoes : and yet how is all this to be done without 
 money ? And it 's just so in housekeeping. You sit 
 in your arm-chairs and conjure up visions of all sorts 
 of impossible things to be done ; but when mamma 
 there takes out that little account-book, and figures 
 away on the cost of things, where do the visions go ? " 
 
 "You are mistaken, my little dear, and you talk 
 just like a woman," (this was my only way of 
 revenging myself,) " that is to say, you jump to 
 
The Economy of the Beautiful. 83 
 
 conclusions, without sufficient knowledge. I main- 
 tain that in house-furnishing, as well as woman-fur- 
 nishing, there 's nothing so economical as beauty." 
 
 " There 's one of papa's paradoxes ! " said Jenny. 
 
 "Yes," said I, "that is my thesis, which I shall 
 nail up over the mantel-piece there, as Luther nailed 
 his to the church-door. It is time to rake up the fire 
 now ; but to-morrow night I will give you a paper on 
 the Economy of the Beautiful." 
 
 ***** 
 
 " Come, now we are to have papa's paradox," said 
 Jenny, as soon as the tea-things had been carried out. 
 
 Entre nous, I must tell you that insensibly we had 
 fallen into the habit of taking our tea by my study- 
 fire. Tea, you know, is a mere nothing in itself, its 
 only merit being its social and poetic associations, its 
 warmth and fragrance, and the more socially and 
 informally it can be dispensed, the more in keeping 
 with its airy and cheerful nature. 
 
 Our circle was enlightened this evening by the 
 cheery visage of Bob Stephens, seated, as of right, 
 close to Marianne's work-basket. 
 
 " You see, Bob," said Jenny, "papa has undertaken 
 to prove that the most beautiful things are always the 
 cheapest." 
 
 " I 'm glad to hear that," said Bob, "for there 's 
 a carved antique bookcase and study-table that I have 
 
84 House and Home Papers. 
 
 my eye on, and if this can in any way be made to 
 appear " 
 
 " O, it won't be made to appear," said Jenny, set- 
 tling herself at her knitting, " only in some transcen- 
 dental, poetic sense, such as papa can always make 
 out. Papa is more than half a poet, and -his truths 
 turn out to be figures of rhetoric, when one comes to 
 apply them to matters of fact." 
 
 "Now, Miss Jenny, please remember my subject 
 and thesis," I replied, " that in house-furnishing 
 there is nothing so economical as beauty ; and I will 
 make it good against all comers, not by figures of 
 rhetoric, but by figures of arithmetic. I am going to 
 be very matter-of-fact and commonplace in my details, 
 and keep ever in view the addition-table. I will in- 
 stance a case which has occurred under my own obser- 
 vation." 
 
 THE ECONOMY OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 
 
 Two of the houses lately built on the new land in 
 Boston were bought by two friends, Philip and John. 
 Philip had plenty of money, and paid the cash down 
 for his house, without feeling the slightest vacancy 
 in his pocket. John, who was an active, rising young 
 man, just entering on a flourishing business, had ex- 
 pended all his moderate savings for years in the 
 
The Economy of the Beautiful. 85 
 
 purchase of his dwelling, and still had a mortgage 
 remaining, which he hoped to clear off by his future 
 successes. Philip begins the work of furnishing as 
 people do with whom money is abundant, and who 
 have simply to go from shop to shop and order all 
 that suits their fancy arid is considered ' the thing ' in 
 good society. John begins to furnish with very little 
 money. He has a wife and two little ones, and he 
 wisely deems that to insure to them a well-built house, 
 in an open, airy situation, with conveniences for warm- 
 ing, bathing, and healthy living, is a wise beginning in 
 life ; but it leaves him "little or nothing beyond. 
 
 Behold, then, Philip and his wife, well pleased, 
 going the rounds of shops and stores in fitting up 
 their new dwelling, and let us follow step by step. 
 To begin with the wall-paper. Imagine a front and 
 back parlor, with folding-doors, with two south win- 
 dows on the front, and two looking on a back court, 
 after the general manner of city houses. We will 
 suppose they require about thirty rolls of wall-paper. 
 Philip buys the heaviest French velvet, with gildings 
 and traceries, at four dollars a roll. This, by the time 
 it has been put on, with gold mouldings, according to 
 the most established taste of the best paper-hangers, 
 will bring the wall-paper of the two rooms to a figure , 
 something like two hundred dollars. Now they pro- 
 ceed to the carpet-stores, and there are thrown at 
 
86 House and Home Papers. 
 
 their feet by obsequious clerks velvets and Axmin- 
 sters, with flowery convolutions and medallion-centres, 
 as if the flower-gardens of the tropics were whirling 
 in waltzes, with graceful lines of arabesque, roses, 
 callas, lilies, knotted, wreathed, twined, with blue and 
 crimson and golden ribbons, dazzling marvels of color 
 and tracery. There is no restraint in price, four or 
 six dollars a yard, it is all the same to them, and 
 soon a magic flower-garden blooms on the floors, at a 
 cost of five hundred dollars. A pair of elegant rugs, 
 at fifty dollars apiece, complete the inventory, and 
 bring our rooms to the mark of eight hundred dollars 
 for papering and carpeting alone. Now come the 
 great mantel-mirrors for four hundred more, and our 
 rooms progress. Then comes the upholsterer, and 
 measures our four windows, that he may skilfully bar- 
 ricade them from air and sunshine. The fortifications 
 against heaven, thus prepared, cost, in the shape of 
 damask, cord, tassels, shades, laces, and cornices, 
 about two hundred dollars per window. To be sure, 
 they make the rooms close and sombre as the grave ; 
 but they are of the most splendid stuffs ; and if the 
 sun would only reflect, he would see, himself, how 
 foolish it was for him to try to force himself into a 
 window guarded by his betters. If there is anything 
 cheap and plebeian, it is sunshine and fresh air ! Be- 
 hold us, then, with our two rooms papered, carpeted, 
 
The Economy of the Beautiful. 87 
 
 and curtained for two thousand dollars ; and now are 
 to be put in them sofas, lounges, e'tageres, centre- 
 tables, screens, chairs of every pattern and device, 
 for which it is but moderate to allow a thousand more. 
 We have now two parlors furnished at an outlay of 
 three thousand dollars, without a single picture, a 
 single article of statuary, a single object of Art of any 
 kind, and without any light to see them by, if they 
 were there. We must say for our Boston upholsterers 
 and furniture-makers that such good taste generally 
 reigns in their establishments that rooms furnished -at 
 hap-hazard from them cannot fail of a certain air of 
 good taste, so far as the individual things are con- 
 cerned. But the different articles we have supposed, 
 having been ordered without reference to one another 
 or the rooms, have, when brought together, no unity 
 of effect, and the general result is scattering and con- 
 fused. If asked how Philip's parlors look, your reply 
 is, " O, the usual way of such parlors, everything 
 that such people usually get, medallion-carpets, 
 carved furniture, great mirrors, bronze mantel-orna- 
 ments, and so on." The only impression a stranger 
 receives, while waiting in the dim twilight of these 
 rooms, is that their owner is rich, and able to get 
 good, handsome things, such as all other rich people 
 get. 
 
 Now our friend John, as often happens in America, 
 
88 House and Home Papers. 
 
 is moving in the same social circle with Philip, visiting 
 the same people, his house is the* twin of the one 
 Philip has been furnishing, and how shall he, with a 
 few hundred dollars, make his rooms even presentable 
 beside those which Philip has fitted up elegantly at 
 three thousand ? 
 
 Now for the economy of beauty. Our friend must 
 make his prayer to the Graces, for, if they cannot 
 save him, nobody can. One thing John has to begin 
 with, that rare gift to man, a wife with the magic 
 cestus of Venus, not around her waist, but, if such 
 a thing could be, in her finger-ends. All that she 
 touches falls at once into harmony and proportion. 
 Her eye for color and form is intuitive : let her arrange 
 a garret, with nothing but boxes, barrels, and cast-off 
 furniture in it, and ten to one she makes it seem the 
 most attractive place in the house. It is a veritable 
 " gift of good faerie," this tact of beautifying and ar- 
 ranging, that some women have, and, on the present 
 occasion, it has a real, material value, that can be 
 estimated in dollars and cents. Come with us and 
 you can see the pair taking their survey of the yet 
 unfurnished parlors, as busy and happy as a couple 
 of bluebirds picking up the first sticks and straws for 
 their nest. 
 
 " There are two sunny windows to begin with," says 
 the good fairy, with an appreciative glance. " That 
 insures flowers all winter." 
 
The Economy of the Beautiful. 89 
 
 " Yes," says John ; " I never would look at a house 
 without a good sunny exposure. Sunshine is the best 
 ornament of a house, and worth an extra thousand a 
 year." 
 
 " Now for our wall-paper," says she. " Have you 
 looked at wall-papers, John ? " 
 
 " Yes ; we shall get very pretty ones for thirty-seven 
 cents a roll ; all you want of a paper, you know, is 
 to make a ground-tint to throw out your pictures and 
 other matters, and to reflect a pleasant tone of light." 
 
 " Well, John, you know Uncle James says that a 
 stone-color is the best, but I can't bear those cold 
 blue grays." 
 
 " Nor I," says John. " If we must have gray, let 
 it at least be a gray suffused with gold or rose-color, 
 such as you see at evening in the clouds." 
 
 " So I think," responds she ; " but, better, I should 
 like a paper with a tone of buff, something that 
 produces warm yellowish reflections, and will almost 
 make you think the sun is shining in cold gray weath- 
 er j and then there is nothing that lights up so cheer- 
 fully in the evening. In short, John, I think the color 
 of a zafferano rose will be just about the shade we 
 want." 
 
 " Well, I can find that, in good American paper, as 
 I said before, at from thirty-seven to forty cents a roll. 
 Then, our bordering : there 's an important question, 
 
90 House and. Home Papers. 
 
 for that must determine the carpet, the chairs, and 
 everything else. Now what shall be the ground-tint 
 of our rooms ? " 
 
 " There are only two to choose between," says the 
 lady, "green and marroon : which is the best for the 
 picture ? " 
 
 " I think," says John, looking above the mantel- 
 piece, as if he saw a picture there, "I think a 
 border of marroon velvet, with marroon furniture, is 
 the best for the picture." 
 
 " I think so too," said she ; " and then we will have 
 that lovely marroon and crimson carpet that I saw at 
 Lowe's ; it is an ingrain, to be sure, but has a Brus- 
 sels pattern, a mossy, mixed figure, of different shades 
 of crimson ; it has a good warm, strong color, and 
 when I come to cover the lounges and our two old 
 arm-chairs with marroon rep, it will make such a pretty 
 effect." 
 
 " Yes," said John ; " and then, you know, our pic- 
 ture is so bright, it will light up the whole. Every- 
 thing depends on the picture." 
 
 Now as to "the picture," it has a story must be 
 told. John, having been all his life a worshipper 
 and adorer of beauty and beautiful things, had never 
 passed to or from his business without stopping at the 
 print-shop windows, and seeing a little of what was 
 there. 
 
The Economy of the Beautiful. 91 
 
 On one of these occasions he was smitten to the. 
 heart with the beauty of an autumn landscape,' where 
 the red maples and sumachs, the purple and crimson 
 oaks, all stood swathed and harmonized together in 
 the hazy Indian-summer atmosphere. There was a 
 great yellow chestnut-tree, on a distant hill, which 
 stood out so naturally that John instinctively felt his 
 fingers tingling for a basket, and his heels alive with 
 a desire to bound over on to the rustling hillside and 
 pick up the glossy brown nuts. Everything was there 
 of autumn, even to the golden-rod and purple asters 
 and scarlet creepers in the foreground. 
 
 John went in and inquired. It was by an unknown 
 French artist, without name or patrons, who had just 
 come to our shores to study our scenery, and this was 
 the first picture he had exposed for sale. John had 
 just been paid a quarter's salary; he bethought him 
 of board-bill and washerwoman, sighed, and faintly 
 offered fifty dollars. 
 
 To his surprise he was taken up at once, and the 
 picture became his. John thought himself dreaming. 
 He examined his treasure over and over, and felt sure 
 that it was the work of no amateur beginner, but of a 
 trained hand and a true artist-soul. So he found his 
 way to the studio of the stranger, and apologized for 
 having got such a gem for so much less than its worth. 
 " It was all I could give, though," he said ; " and one 
 
92 House and Home Papers. 
 
 who paid four times as much could not value it more." 
 And so John took one and another of his friends, with 
 longer purses than his own, to the studio of the mod- 
 est stranger ; and now r his pieces command their full 
 worth in the market, and he works with orders far 
 ahead of his ability to execute, giving to the canvas 
 the traits of American scenery as appreciated and felt 
 by the subtile delicacy of the French mind, our 
 rural summer views, our autumn glories, and the 
 dreamy, misty delicacy of our snowy winter land- 
 scapes. Whoso would know the truth of the same, 
 let him inquire for the modest studio of Morvillier, 
 at Maiden, scarce a bow-shot from our Boston. 
 This picture had always been the ruling star of 
 
 
 
 John's house, his main dependence for brightening up 
 his bachelor-apartments ; and when he came to the 
 task of furbishing those same rooms for a fair occu- 
 pant, the picture was still his mine of gold. For a 
 picture, painted by a real artist, who studies Nature 
 minutely and conscientiously, has something of the 
 charm of the good Mother herself, something of her 
 faculty of putting on different aspects under different 
 lights. John and his wife had studied their picture at 
 all hours of the day : they had seen how it looked 
 when the morning sun came aslant the scarlet maples 
 and made a golden shimmer over the blue mountains, 
 how it looked toned down in the cool shadows of after- 
 
The Economy of the Beautiful. 93 
 
 noon, and how it warmed up in the sunset, and died 
 off mysteriously into the twilight ; and now, when 
 larger parlors were to be furnished, the picture was 
 still the tower of strength, the rallying-point of their 
 hopes. 
 
 " Do you know, John," said the wife, hesitating, " I 
 am really in doubt whether we shall not have to get 
 at least a few new chairs and a sofa for our parlors ? 
 They are putting in such splendid things at the other 
 door that I am positively ashamed of ours ; the fact 
 is, they look almost disreputable, like a heap of 
 rubbish." 
 
 " Well," said John, laughing, " I don't suppose all 
 together sent to an auction-room would bring us fifty 
 dollars, and yet, such as they are, they answer the 
 place of better things for us ; and the fact is, Mary, 
 the hard impassable barrier in the case is, that there 
 really is no money to get any more" 
 
 "Ah, well, then, if there is n't, we must see what 
 we can do with these, and summon all the good fairies 
 to our aid," said Mary. " There 's your little cabinet- 
 maker, John, will look over the things, and furbish 
 them up ; there 's that broken arm of the chair must 
 be mended, and everything revarnished ; then I have 
 found such a lovely rep, of just the richest shade of 
 marroon, inclining to crimson, and when we come to 
 cover the lounges and arm-chairs and sofas and otto- 
 
94 House and Home Papers. 
 
 mans all alike, you know they will be quite another 
 thing." 
 
 " Trust you for that, Mary ! By the by, I Ve found 
 a nice little woman, who has worked on upholstery, 
 who will come in by the day, and be the hands that 
 shall execute the decrees of your taste." 
 
 " Yes, I am sure we shall get on capitally. Do you 
 know that I 'm almost glad we can't get new things ? 
 it 's a sort of enterprise to see what we can do with 
 old ones." 
 
 " Now, you see, Mary," said John, seating himself 
 on a lime-cask which the plasterers had left, and tak- 
 ing out his memorandum-book, " you see, I 've calcu- 
 lated this thing all over ; I 've found a way by which 
 I can make our rooms beautiful and attractive without 
 a cent expended on new furniture." 
 
 " Well, let 's hear." 
 
 " Well, my way is short and simple. We must put 
 things into our rooms that people will look at, so that 
 they will forget to look at the furniture, and never 
 once trouble their heads about it. People never look 
 at furniture so long as there is anything else to look 
 at ; just as Napoleon, when away on one of his expe- 
 ditions, being told that the French populace were 
 getting disaffected, wrote back, 'Gild the dome des 
 Invalidesj and so they gilded it, and the people, look- 
 ing at that, forgot everything else." 
 
The Economy of the Beautiful. 95 
 
 " But I 'm not clear yet," said Mary, " what is com- 
 ing of this rhetoric." 
 
 " Well, then, Mary, I '11 tell you. A suit of new 
 carved black-walnut furniture, severe in taste and 
 perfect in style, such as I should choose at David 
 and Saul's, could not be got under three hundred dol- 
 lars, and I have n't the three hundred to give. What, 
 then, shall we do ? We must fall back on our re- 
 sources ; we must look over our treasures. We have 
 our proof cast of the great glorious head of the Venus 
 di Milo ; we have those six beautiful photographs of 
 Rome, that Brown brought to us ; we have the great 
 German lithograph of the San Sisto Mother and Child, 
 and we have the two angel-heads, from the same ; we 
 have that lovely golden twilight sketch of Heade's ; 
 we have some sea-photographs of Bradford's ; we have 
 an original pen-and-ink sketch by Billings ; and then, 
 as before, we have ' our picture.' What has been the 
 use of our watching at the gates and waiting at the 
 doors of Beauty all our lives, if she has n't thrown us 
 out a crust now and then, so that we might have it for 
 time of need ? Now, you see, Mary, we must make 
 the toilet of our rooms just as a pretty woman makes 
 hers when money runs low, and she sorts and freshens 
 her ribbons, and matches them to her hair and eyes, 
 and, with a bow here, and a bit of fringe there, and a 
 button somewhere else, dazzles us into thinking that 
 
96 House and Home Papers. 
 
 she has an infinity of beautiful attire. Our rooms are 
 new and pretty of ^themselves, to begin with ; the tint 
 of the paper, and the rich coloring of the border, 
 corresponding with the furniture and carpets, will 
 make them seem prettier. And now for arrangement. 
 Take this front-room. I propose to fill those two 
 recesses e"ach side of the fireplace with my 'books, in 
 their plain pine cases, just breast-high from the floor : 
 they are stained a good dark color, and nobody need 
 stick a pin in them to find out that they are not rose- 
 wood. The top of these shelves on either side to be 
 covered with the same stuff as the furniture, finished 
 with a crimson fringe. On top of the shelves on one 
 side of the fireplace I shall set our noble Venus di 
 Milo, and I shall buy at Cicci's the lovely Clytie, and 
 put it the other side. Then I shall get of Williams 
 and Everett two of their chromo-lithographs, which 
 give you all the style and charm of the best English 
 water-color school. I will have the lovely Bay of 
 Amain over my Venus, because she came from those 
 suns and skies of Southern Italy, and I will hang 
 Lake Como over my Clytie. Then, in the middle, 
 over the fireplace, shall be ' our picture.' Over each 
 door shall hang one of the lithographed angel-heads 
 of the San Sisto, to watch our going-out and coming- 
 in ; and the glorious Mother and Child shall hang 
 opposite the Venus di Milo, to show how Greek and 
 
The Economy of the Beautiful. 97 
 
 Christian unite in giving the noblest type to woman- 
 hood. And then, when we have all our sketches and 
 lithographs framed and hung here and there, and your 
 flowers blooming as they always do, and your ivies 
 wandering and rambling as they used to, and hanging 
 in the most graceful ways and places, and all those 
 little shells and ferns and vases, which you are always 
 conjuring with, tastefully arranged, I '11 venture to say 
 that our rooms will be not only pleasant, but beautiful, 
 and that people will oftener say, ' How beautiful ! ' 
 when they enter, than ' if we spent three times the 
 money on new furniture." 
 
 In the course of a year after this conversation, one 
 and another of my acquaintances were often heard 
 speaking of John Merton's house. " Such beautiful 
 rooms, so charmingly furnished, you must go and 
 see them. What does make them so much pleasanter 
 than those rooms in the other house, which have 
 everything in them that money can buy ? " So said 
 the folk, for nine people out of ten only feel the 
 effect of a room, and never analyze the causes from 
 which it flows : they know that certain rooms seem 
 dull and heavy and confused, but they don't know 
 why; that certain others seem cheerful, airy, and 
 beautiful, but they know not why. The first excla- 
 mation, on entering John's parlors, was so often, 
 " How beautiful ! " that it became rather a byword 
 5 Q 
 
98 House and Home Papers. 
 
 in the family. Estimated by their mere money-value, 
 the articles in the rooms were of very ti Ifling worth ; 
 but as they stood arranged and combined, they had 
 all the effect of a lovely picture. Although the statu- 
 ary was only plaster, and the photographs and litho- 
 graphs such as were all within the compass of limited 
 means, yet every one of them was a good thing of its 
 own kind, or a good reminder of some of the greatest 
 works of Art. A good plaster cast is a daguerrotype, 
 so to speak, of a great statue, though it may be bought 
 for five or six dollars, while its original is not to be 
 had for any namable sum. A chromo-lithograph of 
 the best sort gives all the style and manner and effect 
 of Turner or Stanfield, or any of the best of modern 
 artists, though you buy it for five or ten dollars, and 
 though the original would command a thousand guin- 
 eas. The lithographs from Raphael's immortal pic- 
 ture give you the results of a whole age of artistic 
 culture, in a form within the compass of very humble 
 means. There is now selling for five dollars at Wil- 
 liams and Everett's a photograph of Cheney's crayon 
 drawing of the San Sisto Madonna and Child, which 
 has the very spirit of the glorious original. Such a 
 picture, hung against the wall of a child's room, would 
 train its eye from infancy ; and yet how many will 
 freely spend five dollars in embroidery on its dress, 
 that say they cannot afford works of Art ! 
 
The Economy of tlie Beautiful. 99 
 
 There was one advantage which John and his wife 
 found in the way in which they furnished their house, 
 that I have hinted at before : it gave freedom to their 
 children. Though their rooms were beautiful, it was 
 not with the tantalizing beauty of expensive and frail 
 knick-knacks. Pictures hung against the wall, and 
 statuary safely lodged on brackets, speak constantly 
 to the childish eye, but are out of the reach of child- 
 ish fingers, and are not upset by childish romps. They 
 are not like china and crystal, liable to be used and 
 abused by servants j they do not wear out ; they are 
 not spoiled by dust, nor consumed by moths. The 
 beauty once there is always there ; though the mother 
 be ill and in her chamber, she has no fears that she 
 shall find it all wrecked and shattered. And this style 
 of beauty, inexpensive as it is, compared with luxu- 
 rious furniture, is a means of cultivation. No child 
 is ever stimulated to draw or to read by an Axminster 
 carpet or a carved centre-table j but a room surrounded 
 with photographs and pictures and fine casts suggests 
 a thousand inquiries, stimulates the little eye and hand. 
 The child is found with its pencil, drawing ; or he asks 
 for a book on Venice, or wants to hear the history of 
 the Roman Forum. 
 
 But I have made my article too long. I will write 
 another on the moral and intellectual effects of house- 
 furnishing. 
 
IOO House and Home Papers. 
 
 11 1 have proved my point, Miss Jenny, have I not ? 
 In house-furnishing, nothing is more economical than 
 beauty." 
 
 " Yes, papa," said Jenny ; " I give it up." 
 
V. 
 
 RAKING UP THE FIRE. 
 
 WE have a custom at our house which we call 
 raking tip the fire. That is to say, the last 
 half-hour before bedtime, we draw in, shoulder to 
 shoulder, around the last brands and embers of our 
 hearth, which we prick up and brighten, and dispose 
 for a few farewell flickers and glimmers. This is a 
 grand time for discussion. Then we talk over parties, 
 if the young people have been out of an evening, a 
 book, if we have been reading one ; we discuss and 
 analyze characters, give our views on all subjects, 
 aesthetic, theological, and scientific, in a way most 
 wonderful to hear ; and, in fact, we sometimes get so 
 engaged in our discussions that every spark of the fire 
 burns out, and we begin to feel ourselves shivering 
 around the shoulders, before we can remember that 
 it is bedtime. 
 
 So, after the reading of my last article, we had a 
 " raking-up talk," to wit, Jenny, Marianne, and I, 
 with Bob Stephens ; my wife, still busy at her work- 
 basket, sat at the table a little behind us. Jenny, of 
 
IO2 House and Home Papers. 
 
 iRirse, opened the ball in her usual incisive man- 
 ner. 
 
 " But now, papa, after all you say in your piece 
 there, I cannot help feeling, that, if I had the taste 
 and the money too, it would be better than the taste 
 alone with no money. I like the nice arrangements 
 and the books and the drawings ; but I think all these 
 would appear better still with really elegant furniture." 
 
 "Who doubts that?" said I. "Give me a large 
 tub of gold coin to dip into, and the furnishing and 
 beautifying of a house is a simple affair. The same 
 taste that could make beauty out of cents and dimes 
 could make it more abundantly out of dollars and 
 eagles. But I have been speaking for those who have 
 not, and cannot get, riches, and who wish to have 
 agreeable houses ; and I begin in the outset by saying 
 that beauty is a thing to be respected, reverenced, and 
 devoutly cared for, and then I say that BEAUTY is 
 CHEAP, nay, to put it so that the shrewdest Yankee 
 will understand it, BEAUTY is THE CHEAPEST THING 
 YOU CAN HAVE, because in many ways it is a substi- 
 tute for expense. A few vases of flowers in a room, a 
 few blooming, well-kept plants, a few prints framed in 
 fanciful frames of cheap domestic fabric, a statuette, 
 a bracket, an engraving, a pencil-sketch, above all, a 
 few choice books, all these arranged by a woman 
 who has the gift in her finger-ends often produce such 
 
Raking up the Fire. 103 
 
 an illusion on the mind's eye that one goes away 
 out once having noticed that the cushion of the arm- 
 chair was worn out, and that some veneering had 
 fallen off the centre-table. 
 
 " I have a friend, a schoolmistress, who lives in 
 a poor little cottage enough, which, let alone of the 
 Graces, might seem mean and sordid, but a few flower- 
 seeds and a little weeding in the spring make it, all 
 summer, an object which everybody stops to look at. 
 He* aesthetic soul was at first greatly tried with the 
 water-barrel which stood under the eaves-spout, a 
 most necessary evil, since only thus could her scanty 
 supply of soft water for domestic purposes be secured. 
 One of the Graces, however, suggested to her a happy 
 thought. She planted a row of morning-glories round- 
 the bottom .of her barrel, and drove a row of tacks 
 around the top, and strung her water-butt with twine, 
 like a great harpsichord. A few weeks covered the 
 twine with blossoming plants, which every morning 
 were a mass of many-colored airy blooms, waving in 
 graceful sprays, and looking at themselves in the water. 
 The water-barrel, in fact, became a celebrated stroke 
 of ornamental gardening, which the neighbors came to 
 look at." 
 
 " Well, but," said Jenny, " everybody has n't mam- 
 ma's faculty with flowers. Flowers will grow for some 
 people, and for some they won't. Nobody can see 
 
IO4 House and Home Papers. 
 
 what mamma does so very much, but her plants always 
 look fresh and thriving and healthy, her things blos- 
 som just when she wants them, and do anything else 
 she wishes them to ; and there are other people that 
 fume and fuss and try, and their things won't do any- 
 thing at all. There 's Aunt Easygo has plant after 
 plant brought from the greenhouse, and hanging-bas- 
 kets, and all sorts of things ; but her plants grow 
 yellow and drop their leaves, and her hanging-baskets 
 get dusty and poverty-stricken, while mamma's g on 
 flourishing as heart could desire." 
 
 " I can tell you what your mother puts into her 
 plants," said I, "just what she has put into her 
 children, and all her other home-things, her heart. 
 She loves them ; she lives in them ; she has in herself 
 a plant-life and a plant-sympathy. She feels for them 
 as if she herself were a plant ; she anticipates their 
 wants, always remembers them without an effort, 
 and so the care flows to them daily and hourly. She 
 hardly knows \vhen she does the things that make 
 them grow, but she gives \hern a minute a hundred 
 times a day. She moves this nearer the glass, draws 
 that back, detects some thief of a worm on one, 
 digs at the root of another, to see why it droops, 
 washes these leaves, and sprinkles those, waters, 
 and refrains from watering, all with the habitual care 
 of love. Your mother herself does n't know why her 
 
Raking up the Fire. 105 
 
 plants grow ; it takes a philosopher and a writer 
 the 'Atlantic' to tell her what the cause is." 
 
 Here I saw my wife laughing over her work-basket 
 as she answered, 
 
 " Girls, one of these days, /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, mam- 
 ma, I am afraid to begin to depend much on plants 
 for the beauty of my rooms, for fear I should not have 
 your gift, and of all forlorn and hopeless things in 
 a room, ill-kept plants are the most so." 
 
 " I would not recommend," said I, " a young house- 
 keeper, just beginning, to rest much for her home 
 ornament on plant-keeping, unless she has an experi- 
 ence of her own love and talent in this line, which 
 makes her sure of success ; for plants will not thrive, 
 if they are forgotten or overlooked, and only tended 
 in occasional intervals ; and, as Marianne says, neg- 
 lected plants are the most forlorn of all things." 
 
 "But, papa," said Marianne, anxiously, "there, in 
 those patent parlors of John's that you wrote of, 
 flowers acted a great part." 
 
 "The charm of those parlors of John's may be 
 chemically analyzed," I said. "In the first place, 
 there is sunshine, a thing that always affects the hu- 
 5* 
 
io6 House and Home Papers. 
 
 man nerves of happiness. Why else is it that people 
 are always so glad to' see the sun after a long storm ? 
 why are bright days matters of such congratulation ? 
 Sunshine fills a house with a thousand beautiful and 
 fanciful effects of light and shade, with soft, lumi- 
 nous, reflected radiances, that give picturesque effects 
 to the pictures, books, statuettes of an interior. John, 
 happily, had no money to buy brocatelle curtains, 
 and besides this, he loved sunshine too much to buy 
 them, if he could. He had been enough with artists 
 to know that heavy damask curtains darken precisely 
 that part of the window where the light proper for 
 pictures and statuary should come in, namely, the up- 
 per part. The fashionable system of curtains lights 
 only the legs of the chairs and the carpets, and leaves 
 all the upper portion of the room in shadow. John's 
 windows have shades which can at pleasure be drawn 
 down from the top or up from the bottom, so that the 
 best light to be had may always be arranged for his 
 little interior." 
 
 "Well, papa," said Marianne, "in your chemical 
 analysis of John's rooms, what is the next thing to 
 the sunshine?" 
 
 "The next," said I, "is harmony of color. The 
 wall-paper, the furniture, the carpets, are of tints that 
 harmonize with one another. This is a grace in 
 rooms always, and one often neglected. The French 
 
Raking up the Fire. 107 
 
 have an expressive phrase with reference to articles 
 which are out of accord, they say that they swear 
 at each other. I have been in rooms where I seemed 
 to hear the wall-paper swearing at the carpet, and the 
 carpet swearing back at the wall-paper, and each ar- 
 ticle of furniture swearing at the rest. These appoint- 
 ments may all of them be of the most expensive kind, 
 but with such dis-harmony no arrangement can ever 
 produce anything but a vulgar and disagreeable effect. 
 On the other hand, I have been in rooms where all 
 the material was cheap, and the furniture poor, but 
 where, from some instinctive knowledge of the recip- 
 rocal effect of colors, everything was harmonious, and 
 produced a sense of elegance. 
 
 " I recollect once travelling on a Western canal 
 through a long stretch of wilderness, and stopping to 
 spend the night at an obscure settlement of a dozen 
 houses. We were directed to lodgings in a common 
 frame-house at a little distance, where, it seemed, the 
 only hotel was kept. When we entered the parlor, 
 we were struck with utter amazement at its prettiness, 
 which affected us before we began to ask ourselves 
 how it came to be pretty. It was, in fact, only one 
 of the miracles of harmonious color working with 
 very simple materials. Some woman had been busy 
 there, who had both eyes and fingers. The sofa, the 
 common wooden rocking-chairs, and some ottomans, 
 
io8 House and Home Papers. 
 
 probably made of old soap-boxes, were all covered 
 with American nankeen of a soft yellowish-brown, 
 with a bordering of blue print. The window-shades, 
 the table-cover, and the piano-cloth, all repeated the 
 same colors, in the same cheap material. A simple 
 straw matting was laid over the floor, and, with a few 
 books, a vase of flowers, and one or two prints, the 
 room had a home-like, and even elegant air, that 
 struck us all the more forcibly from its contrast with 
 the usual tawdry, slovenly style of such parlors. 
 
 " The means used for getting up this effect were 
 the most inexpensive possible, simply the following- 
 out, in cheap material, a law of uniformity and har- 
 mony, which always will produce beauty. In the 
 same manner, I have seen a room furnished, whose 
 effect was really gorgeous in color, where the only 
 materials used were Turkey-red cotton and a simple 
 ingrain carpet of corresponding color. 
 
 " Now, you girls have been busy lately in schemes 
 for buying a velvet carpet for the new parlor that is to 
 be, and the only points that have seemed to weigh in 
 the council were that it was velvet, that it was cheaper 
 than velvets usually are, and that it was a genteel 
 pattern." 
 
 " Now, papa," said Jenny, " what ears you have ! 
 We thought you were reading all the time ! " 
 
 " I see what you are going to say," said Marianne. 
 
Raking up the Fire. 109 
 
 "You think that we have not once mentioned the 
 consideration which should determine the carpet, 
 whether it will harmonize with our other things. But, 
 you see, papa, we don't really know what our other 
 things are to be." 
 
 "Yes," said Jenny, "and Aunt Easygo said it was 
 an unusually good chance to get a velvet carpet." 
 
 " Yet, good as the chance is, it costs just twice as 
 much as an ingrain." 
 
 " Yes, papa, it does." 
 
 " And you are not sure that the effect of it, after 
 you get it down, will be as good as a well-chosen in- 
 grain one." 
 
 " That 's true," said Marianne, reflectively. 
 
 " But, then, papa," said Jenny, " Aunt Easygo said 
 she never heard of such a bargain ; only think, two 
 dollars a yard for a velvet!" 
 
 " And why is it two dollars a yard ? Is the man a 
 personal friend, that he wishes to make' you a present 
 of a dollar on the yard ? or is there some reason why 
 it is undesirable ? " said I. 
 
 " Well, you know, papa, he said those large patterns 
 were not so salable." 
 
 " To *tell the truth," said Marianne, " I never did 
 like the pattern exactly ; as to uniformity of tint, it 
 might match with anything, for there 's every color of 
 the rainbow in it." 
 
HO House and Home Papers. 
 
 " You see, papa, it 's a gorgeous flower-pattern," 
 said Jenny. 
 
 " Well, Marianne, how many yards of this wonder- 
 fully cheap carpet do you want ? " 
 
 " We want sixty yards for both rooms," said Jenny, 
 always primed with statistics. 
 
 "That will be a hundred and twenty dollars," I 
 said. 
 
 " Yes," said Jenny ; " and we went over the figures 
 together, and thought we could make it out by econo- 
 mizing in other things. Aunt Easygo said that the 
 carpet was half the battle, that it gave the air to 
 everything else." . 
 
 " Well, Marianne, if you want a man's advice in the 
 case, mine is at your service." 
 
 " That is just what I want, papa." 
 
 " Well, then, my dear, choose your wall-papers and 
 borderings, and, when they are up, choose an ingrain 
 carpet to harnionize with them, and adapt your furni- 
 ture to the same idea. The sixty dollars that you 
 save on your carpet spend on engravings, chromo- 
 lithographs, or photographs of some really good works 
 of Art, to adorn your walls." 
 
 " Papa, I '11 do it," said Marianne. 
 
 " My little dear," said I, " your papa may seem 
 to be a sleepy old book-worm, yet he has his eyes 
 open. Do you think I don't know why my girls 
 
Raking up the Fire. 1 1 1 
 
 have the credit of being the best-dressed girls on 
 the street?" 
 
 " O papa ! " cried out both girls in a breath. 
 
 " Fact, that ! " said Bob, with energy, pulling at his 
 mustache. " Everybody talks about your dress, and 
 wonders how you make it out." 
 
 " Well," said I, " I presume you do not go into a 
 shop and buy a yard of ribbon because it is selling at 
 half-price, and put it on without considering complex- 
 ion, 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. Have n't I seen you min- 
 cing down-stairs, with all your colors harmonized, 
 even to your gloves and gaiters ? Now, a room must 
 be dressed as carefully as a lady." 
 
 " Well, I 'm convinced," said Jenny, " that papa 
 knows how to make rooms prettier than Aunt Easygo ; 
 but then she said this was cheap, because it would out- 
 last two common carpets." 
 
 " But, as you pay double price," said I, " I don't 
 see that. Besides, I would rather, in the course of 
 twenty years, have two nice, fresh ingrain carpets, of 
 just the color and pattern that suited my rooms, than 
 labor along with one ill-chosen velvet that harmonized 
 with nothing." 
 
 " I give it up," said Jenny ; " I give it up." 
 
w 1 1 2 House and Home Papers. 
 
 " Now, understand me," said I ; " I am not tra- 
 ducing velvet or Brussels or Axminster. I admit that 
 more beautiful effects can be found in those goods than 
 in the humbler fabrics of the carpet-rooms. Nothing 
 would delight me more than to put an unlimited credit 
 
 % 
 
 to Marianne's account, and let her work out the prob- 
 lems of harmonious color in velvet and damask. All 
 I have to say is, that certain unities of color, certain 
 general arrangements, will secure very nearly as good 
 general effects in either material. A library with a 
 neat, mossy green carpet on the floor, harmonizing 
 with wall-paper and furniture, looks generally as well, 
 whether the mossy green is made in Brussels or in 
 ingrain. In the carpet-stores, these two materials 
 stand side by side in the very same pattern, and one 
 is often as good for the purpose as the other. A lady 
 of my acquaintance, some years since, employed an 
 artist to decorate her parlors. The walls being fres- 
 coed and tinted to suit his ideal, he immediately 
 issued his decree that her splendid velvet carpets 
 must be sent to auction, and others bought of certain 
 colors, harmonizing with the walls. Unable to find 
 exactly the color and pattern he wanted, he at last 
 had the carpets woven in a neighboring factory, where, 
 as yet, they had only the art of weaving ingrains. 
 Thus was the material sacrificed at once to the har- 
 monv." 
 
Raking up the Fire. 113 
 
 I remarked, in passing, that this was before Bige- 
 low's mechanical genius had unlocked for America the 
 higher secrets of carpet-weaving, and If^ade it possible 
 to have one's desires accomplished in Brussels or vel- 
 vet. In those days, English carpet-weavers did not 
 send to America for their looms, as they now do. 
 
 " But now to return to my analysis of John's rooms. 
 
 "Another thing which goes a great way towards 
 giving them their agreeable air is the books in them. 
 Some people are fond of treating books as others do 
 children. One room in the house is selected, and 
 every book driven into it and kept there. Yet nothing 
 makes a room so home-like, so companionable, and 
 gives it such an air of refinement, as the presence of 
 books. They change the aspect of a parlor from that 
 of a mere reception-room, where visitors perch for a 
 transient call, and give it the air of a room where one 
 feels like taking off one's things to stay. It gives the 
 appearance of permanence and repose and quiet fel- 
 lowship ; and next to pictures on the walls, the many- 
 colored bindings and gildings of books are the most 
 agreeable adornment of a room." 
 
 " Then, Marianne," said Bob, " we have something 
 to start with, at all events. There are my English 
 Classics and English Poets, and my uniform editions 
 of Scott and Thackeray and Macaulay and Prescott 
 and Irving and Longfellow and Lowell and Hawthorne 
 
114 Hotise and Home Papers. 
 
 and Holmes and a host more. We really have some- 
 thing pretty there." 
 
 " You are a lucky girl," I said, " to have so much 
 secured. A girl brought up in a house full of books, 
 always able to turn to this or that author and look for 
 any passage or poem when she thinks of it, does n't 
 know what a blank a house without books might be." 
 
 " Well," said Marianne, " mamma and I were count- 
 ing over my treasures the other day. Do you know, I 
 have one really fine old engraving, that Bob says is 
 quite a genuine thing ; and then there is that pencil- 
 sketch that poor Schone made for me the month 
 before he died, it is truly artistic." 
 
 "And I have a couple of capital things of Land- 
 seer's," said Bob. 
 
 " There 's no danger that your rooms will not be 
 pretty," said I, " now you are fairly on the right track." 
 
 " But, papa," said Marianne, " I am troubled about 
 one thing. My love of beauty runs into everything. 
 I want pretty things for my table, and yet, as you 
 say, servants are so careless, one cannot use such 
 things freely without great waste." 
 
 " For my part," said my wife, " I believe in best 
 china, to be kept carefully on an upper-shelf, and taken 
 down for high-days and holidays ; it may be a super- 
 stition, but I believe in it. It must never be taken 
 out except when the mistress herself can see that it is 
 
Raking up the Fire. 115 
 
 safely cared for. My mother always washed her china 
 herself ; and it was a very pretty social ceremony, 
 after tea was over, while she sat among us washing 
 her pretty cups, and wiping them on a fine damask 
 towel." 
 
 " With all my heart," said I ; " have your best china, 
 and venerate it, it is one of the loveliest of domestic 
 superstitions ; only do not make it a bar to hospitality, 
 and shrink from having a friend to tea with you, unless 
 you feel equaf to getting up to the high shelf where 
 you keep it, getting it down, washing, and putting it 
 up again. 
 
 " But in serving a table, I say, as I said of a house, 
 beauty is a necessity, and beauty is cheap. Because 
 you cannot afford beauty in one form, it does not fol- 
 low that you cannot have it in another. Because one 
 cannot afford to keep up a perennial supply of delicate 
 china and crystal, subject to the accidents of raw, 
 untrained servants, it does not follow that the every- 
 day table need present a sordid assortment of articles 
 chosen simply for cheapness, while t|ie whole capacity 
 of the purse is given to the set forever locked away 
 for state-occasions. 
 
 "A table-service, all of simple white, of graceful 
 forms, even though not of china, if arranged with care, 
 with snowy, well-kept table-linen, clear glasses, and 
 bright American plate in place of solid silver, may be 
 
n6 House and Home Papers. 
 
 made to look inviting ; add a glass of flowers every 
 day, and your table may look pretty ; and it is far 
 more important that it should look pretty for the 
 family every day than for company once in two 
 weeks." 
 
 " I tell my girls," said my wife, " as the result of 
 my experience, you may have your pretty china and 
 your lovely fanciful articles for the table only so long 
 as you can take all the care of them yourselves. As 
 soon as you get tired of doing this, anS put them into 
 the hands of the trustiest servants, some good, well- 
 meaning creature is sure to break her* heart and your 
 own and your very pet darling china pitcher all in one 
 and the same minute ; and then her frantic despair 
 leaves you not even the relief of scolding." 
 
 " I have become perfectly sure," said I, " that there 
 are spiteful little brownies, intent on seducing good 
 women to sin, who mount guard over the special idols 
 of the china-closet. If you hear a crash, and a loud 
 Irish wail from the inner depths, you never think 
 of its being a yellow pie-plate, or that dreadful one- 
 handled tureen that you have been wishing were 
 broken these five years ; no, indeed, it is sure to 
 be the lovely painted china bowl, wreathed with morn- 
 ing-glories and sweet-peas, or the engraved glass gob- 
 let, with quaint old-English initials. China sacrificed 
 must be a great means of saintship to women. Pope, 
 
Raking up the Fire. 117 
 
 I think, puts it as the crowning grace of his perfect 
 woman, that she is 
 
 'Mistress of herself, though china fall.'" 
 
 " I ought to be a saint by this time, then," said 
 mamma; "for in the course of my days I have lost 
 so many idols by breakage, and peculiar accidents that 
 seemed by a special fatality to befall my prettiest and 
 most irreplaceable things, that in fact it has come to 
 be a superstitious feeling now with which I regard 
 anything particularly pretty of a breakable nature." 
 
 "Well," said Marianne, "unless one has a great 
 deal of money, it seems to me that the investment in 
 these pretty fragilities is rather a poor one." 
 
 " Yet," said I, " the principle of beauty is never so 
 captivating as when it presides over the hour of daily 
 meals. I would have the room where they are served 
 one of the pleasantest and sunniest in the house. I 
 would have its coloring cheerful, and there should be 
 companionable pictures and engravings on the walls. 
 Of all things, I dislike a room that seems to be kept 
 like a restaurant, merely to eat in. I like to see in a 
 dining-room something that betokens a pleasant sit- 
 ting-room at other hours. I like there some books, a 
 comfortable sofa or lounge, and all that should make 
 it cosey and inviting. The custom in some families, 
 of adoping for the daily meals one of the two parlors 
 
n8 House and Home Papers. 
 
 which a city-house furnishes has often seemed to me 
 a particularly happy one. You take your meals, then, 
 in an agreeable place, surrounded by the little pleas- 
 ant arrangements of your daily sitting-room ; and after 
 the meal, if the lady of the house does the honors of 
 her own pretty china herself, the office may be a pleas- 
 ant and social one. 
 
 "But in regard to your table-service I have my 
 advice at hand. Invest in pretty table-linen, in deli- 
 cate napkins, have your vase of flowers, and be guided 
 by the eye of taste in the choice and arrangement of 
 *even the every-day table-articles, and have no ugly 
 things when you can have pretty ones by taking a 
 little thought. If you are sore tempted with lovely 
 china and crystal, too fragile to last, toe expensive to 
 be renewed, turn away to a print-shop and comfort 
 yourself by hanging around the walls of your dining- 
 room beauty that will not break or fade, that will meet 
 your eye from year to year, though plates, tumblers, 
 and tea-sets successively vanish. There is my advice 
 for you, Marianne." 
 
 At the same time, let me say, in parenthesis, that 
 my wife, whose weakness is china, informed me that . 
 night, when we were by ourselves, that she was order- 
 ing secretly a tea-set as a bridal gift for Marianne, 
 every cup of which was to be exquisitely painted with 
 the wild-flowers of America, from designs of her own, 
 
Raking lip the Fire. 119 
 
 a thing, by the by, that can now be very nicely exe- 
 cuted in our country, as one may find by looking in at 
 our friend Briggs's on School Street. " It will last her 
 all her life," she said, " and always be- such a pleasure 
 to look at, and a pretty tea-table is such a pretty 
 sight ! " So spoke Mrs. Crowfield, " unweaned from 
 china by a thousand falls." She spoke even with tears 
 in her eyes. Verily, these women are harps of a thou- 
 sand strings ! 
 
 But to return to my subject. 
 
 " Finally and lastly," I said, " in my analysis and 
 explication of the agreeableness of those same parlors, 
 comes the crowning grace, their homeliness. By 
 homeliness I mean not ugliness, as the word is apt to 
 be used, but the air that is given to a room by being 
 really at home in it. Not the most skilful arrange- 
 ment can impart this charm. 
 
 " It is said that a king of France once remarked, 
 ' My son, you must seem to love your people.' 
 
 " ' Father, how shall I seem to love them ? ' 
 
 " ' My son, you must love them.' 
 
 " So to make rooms seem home-like you must be at 
 home in them. Human light and warmth are so want- 
 ing in some rooms, it is so evident that they are never 
 used, that you can never be at ease there. In vain 
 the house-maid is taught to wheel the sofa and turn 
 chair towards chair ; in vain it is attempted to imitate 
 a negligent arrangement of the centre-table. 
 
I2O House and Home Papers. 
 
 " Books that have really been read and laid down, 
 chairs that have really been moved here' and there in 
 the animation of social contact, have a sort of human 
 vitality in them ; and a room in which people really 
 live and enjoy is as different from a shut-up apartment 
 as a live woman from a wax image. 
 
 " Even rooms furnished without taste often become 
 charming from this one grace, that they seem to let 
 you into the home-life and home-current. You seem 
 to understand in a moment that you are taken into 
 the family, and are moving in its inner circles, and 
 not revolving at a distance in some outer court of the 
 gentiles. 
 
 " How many people do we call on from year to year 
 and know no more of their feelings, habits, tastes, 
 family ideas and ways, than if they lived in Kamtschat- 
 ka ! And why ? Because the room which they call a 
 front-parlor is made expressly so that you never shall 
 know. They sit in a back-room, work, talk, read, 
 perhaps. After the servant has let you in and opened 
 a crack of the shutters, and while you sit waiting for 
 them to change their dress and come in, you speculate 
 as to what they may be doing. From some distant 
 region, the laugh of a child, the song of a canary-bird, 
 reaches you, and then a door claps hastily to. Do 
 they love plants ? Do they write letters, sew, em- 
 broider, crochet ? Do they ever romp and frolic ? 
 
Raking up the" Fire. 12 1 
 
 What books do they read ? Do they sketch 01* paint ? 
 Of all these possibilities the mute and muffled room 
 says nothing. A sofa and six chairs, two ottomans 
 fresh from the upholsterer's, a Brussels carpet, a cen- 
 tre-table with four gilt Books of Beauty on it, a mantel- 
 clock from Paris, and two bronze vases, all these 
 tell you only in frigid tones, ' This is the best room,' 
 only that, and nothing more, and soon she trips 
 in in her best clothes, and apologizes for keeping you 
 waiting, asks how your mother is, and you remark that 
 it is a pleasant day, and thus the acquaintance pro- 
 gresses from year to year. One hour in the little back- 
 room, where the plants and canary-bird and children 
 are, might have made you fast friends for life ; but as 
 it is, you care no more for them than for the gilt clock 
 on the mantel. 
 
 "And now, girls," said I, pulling a paper out of my 
 pocket, " you must know that your father is getting 
 to be famous by means of these * House and Home 
 Papers.' Here is a letter I have just received : 
 
 " * MOST EXCELLENT MR. CROWFIELD, Your 
 thoughts have lighted into our family-circle, and 
 echoed from our fireside. We all feel the force of 
 them, and are delighted with the felicity of your treat- 
 ment of the topic you have chosen. You have taken 
 hold of a subject that lies deep in our hearts, in a 
 6 
 
122 House and Home Papers. 
 
 genial, temperate, and convincing spirit. All must 
 acknowledge the power of your sentiments upon their 
 imaginations ; if. they could only trust to them in 
 actual life ! There is the rub. 
 
 " ' Omitting further upon these points, there is a 
 special feature of your articles upon which we wish 
 to address you. You seem as yet (we do not know, 
 of course, what you may hereafter do) to .speak only 
 of homes whose conduct depends upon the help of 
 servants. Now your principles apply, as some of us 
 well conceive, to nearly all classes of society ; yet 
 most people, to take an impressive hint, must have 
 their portraits drawn out more exactly. We therefore 
 hope that you will give a reasonable share of your 
 attention to us who do not employ servants, so that 
 you may ease us of some of our burdens, which, in 
 spite of common sense, we dare not throw off. For 
 instance, we have company, a friend from afar, (per- 
 haps wealthy,) or a minister, or some other man of 
 note. What do we do ? Sit down and receive our 
 visitor with all good-will and the freedom of a home ? 
 No ; we (the lady of the house) flutter about to clear 
 up things, apologizing about this, that, and the other- 
 condition of unpreparedness, and, having settled the 
 visitor in the parlor, set about marshalling the ele- 
 ments of a- grand dinner or supper, such as no person 
 but a gourmand wants to sit down to, when at home 
 
Raking tip the Fire. 123 
 
 and comfortable ; and in getting up this meal, clearing 
 away, and washing the dishes, we use up a goo<J half 
 of the time which our guest spends with us. We have 
 spread ourselves, and shown him what we could do ; 
 but what a paltry, heart-sickening achievement ! Now, 
 good Mr. Crowfield, thou friend of the robbed and 
 despairing, wilt thou not descend into our purgatorial 
 circle, and tell the world what thou hast seen there of 
 doleful remembrance ? Tell us how we, who must do 
 and desire to do our own work, can show forth in our 
 homes a homely, yet genial hospitality, and entertain 
 our guests without making a fuss and hurly-burly, and 
 seeming to be anxious for their sake about many 
 things, and spending too much time getting meals, 
 as if eating were the chief social pleasure. Won't you 
 do this, Mr. Crowfield ? 
 
 " ' Yours beseechingly, 
 
 "<R. H. A.'" 
 
 " That's a good letter," said Jenny. 
 
 " To be sure it is," said I. 
 
 " And shall you answer it, papa ? " 
 
 " In the very next ' Atlantic/ you may be sure I 
 shall. The class that do their own work are the 
 strongest, the most numerous, and, taking one thing 
 with another, quite as well cultivated a class as any 
 other. They are the anomaly of our country, the 
 
124 House and Home Papers. 
 
 distinctive feature of the new society that we are 
 building up here ; and if we are to accomplish our 
 national destiny, that class must increase rather than 
 diminish. I shall certainly do my best to answer the 
 very sensible and pregnant questions of that letter." 
 
 Here Marianne shivered and drew up a shawl, and 
 Jenny gaped ; my wife folded up the garment in 
 which she had set the last stitch, and the clock 
 struck twelve. 
 
 Bob gave a low whistle. "Who knew it was so 
 late ? " 
 
 " We have talked the fire fairly out," said Jenny. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE LADY WHO DOES HER OWN WORK. 
 
 "TV /TY dear Chris," said my wife, "isn't it time 
 iV J. to be writing the next ( House and Home 
 Paper'?" 
 
 I was lying back in my study-chair, with my heels 
 luxuriously propped on an ottoman, reading for the 
 two-hundredth time Hawthorne's " Mosses from an 
 Old Manse," or his "Twice-Told Tales," I forget 
 which, I only know that these books constitute 
 my cloud-land, where I love to sail away in dreamy 
 quietude, forgetting the war, the price of coal and 
 flour, the rates of exchange, and the rise and fall of 
 gold. What do all these things matter, as seen from 
 those enchanted gardens in Padua where the weird 
 Rappaccini tends his enchanted plants, and his gor- 
 geous daughter fills us with the light and magic of 
 her presence, and saddens us with the shadowy alle- 
 goric mystery of her preternatural destiny ? But my 
 wife represents the positive forces of time, place, and 
 number in our family, and, having also a chronologi- 
 cal head, she knows the day of the month, and there- 
 
126 House and Home Papers. 
 
 fore gently reminded me that by inevitable dates the 
 time drew near for preparing my which is it now ; 
 May or June number ? 
 
 " Well, my dear, you are right," I said, as by an ex- 
 ertion I came head-uppermost, and laid down the 
 fascinating volume. " Let me see, what was I to 
 write about ? " 
 
 " Why, you remember you were to answer that let- 
 ter from the lady who does her own work." 
 
 " Enough ! " said I, seizing the pen with alacrity ; 
 "you have hit the exact phrase : 
 
 " ' The lady who does her own work! " 
 
 America is the only country where such a title is 
 possible, the only country where there is a class of 
 women who may be described as ladies who do their 
 own work. By a lady we mean a woman of educa- 
 tion, cultivation, and refinement, of liberal tastes and 
 ideas, who, without any very material additions or 
 changes, would be recognized as a lady in any circle 
 of the Old World or the New. 
 
 What I have said is, that the existence of such a 
 class is a fact peculiar to American society, a clear, 
 plain result of the new principles involved in the doc- 
 trine of* universal equality. 
 
 When the colonists first came to this country, of 
 however mixed ingredients their ranks might have 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 127 
 
 been composed, and however imbued with the spirit 
 of feudal and aristocratic ideas, the discipline of the 
 wilderness soon brought them to a democratic level ; 
 the gentleman felled the wood for his log-cabin side 
 by side with the ploughman, and thews and sinews 
 rose in the market. " A man was deemed honorable 
 in proportion as he lifted his hand upon the high 
 trees of the forest." So in the interior domestic 
 circle. Mistress and maid, living in a log-cabin to- 
 gether, became companions, and sometimes the maid, 
 as the more accomplished and stronger, took prece- 
 dence of the mistress. It became natural and un- 
 avoidable that children should begin to work as early 
 as they were capable of it. The result was a genera- 
 tion of intelligent people brought up to labor from 
 necessity, but turning on the problem of labor the 
 acuteness of a disciplined brain. The mistress, out- 
 done in sinews and muscles by her maid, kept her 
 superiority by skill and contrivance. If she could 
 not lift a pail of water, she could invent methods 
 which made lifting the pail unnecessary, if she 
 could not take a hundred steps without weariness, 
 she could make twenty answer the purpose of a hun- 
 dred. 
 
 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 
 
128 House and Home Papers. 
 
 choke the good seed of self-helpfulness. Many were 
 opposed to it from conscientious principle, many 
 from far-sighted thrift, and from a love of thorough- 
 ness and well-doing which despised the rude, un- 
 skilled work of barbarians. People, having once felt 
 the thorough neatness and beauty of execution which 
 came of free, educated, and thoughtful labor, could 
 not tolerate the clumsiness of slavery. Thus it came 
 to pass that for many years the rural population of 
 New England, as a general rule, did their own work, 
 both out doors- and in. If there were a black man or 
 black woman or bound girl, they were emphatically 
 only the helps, following humbly the steps of master 
 and mistress, and used by them as instruments of 
 lightening certain portions of their toil. The mas- 
 ter and mistress with their children were the head 
 workers. 
 
 Great merriment has been excited in the Old Coun- 
 try, because years ago the first English travellers 
 found that the class of persons by them denominated 
 servants were in America denominated help or help- 
 ers. But the term was the very best exponent of the 
 state of society. There were few servants, in the 
 European sense of the word ; there was a society of 
 educated workers, where all were practically equal, 
 and where, if there was a deficiency in one family 
 and an excess in another, a helper, not a servant, was 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 129 
 
 hired. Mrs. Browne, who has six sons and no daugh- 
 ters, enters into .agreement with Mrs. Jones, who has 
 six daughters and no sons. She borrows a daughter, 
 and pays her good wages to help in her domestic toil, 
 and sends a son to help the labors of Mr. Jones. 
 These two young people go into the families in which 
 they are to be employed in all respects as equals and 
 companions, and so the work of the community is 
 equalized. Hence arose, and for many, years con- 
 tinued, a state of society more nearly solving than 
 any other ever did the problem of combining the 
 highest culture of the mind with the highest culture 
 of the muscles and the physical faculties. 
 
 Then were to be seen families of daughters, hand- 
 some, strong females, rising each day to their in-door 
 work with cheerful alertness, one to sweep the 
 room, another to make the fire, while a third prepared 
 the breakfast for ^he father and brothers who were 
 going out to manly labor; and they chatted mean- 
 while of books, studies, embroidery, discussed the last 
 new poem, or some historical topic started by graver 
 reading, or perhaps a rural ball that was to come off 
 the next week. They spun with the book tied to 
 the distaff ; they wove ; they did all manner of fine 
 needlework ; they made lace, painted flowers, and, in 
 short, in the boundless consciousness of activity, in- 
 vention, and perfect health, set themselves to any 
 
130 House and Home Papers. 
 
 work they had ever read or thought of. A bride in 
 those days was married with sheets, and table-cloths 
 of her own weaving, with counterpanes and toilet- 
 covers wrought in divers embroidery by her own and 
 her sisters' hands. The amount of fancy-work done 
 in our days by girls who have nothing else to do will 
 not equal what was done by these, who performed be- 
 sides, among them, the whole work of the family. 
 
 For many years these habits of life characterized 
 the majority of our rural towns. They still exist 
 among a class respectable in numbers and position, 
 though perhaps not as happy in perfect self-satisfac- 
 tion and a conviction of the dignity and desirableness 
 of its lot as in former days. Human nature is above 
 all things lazy. Every one confesses in the ab- 
 stract that exertion which brings out all the powers 
 of body and mind is the best thing for us all ; but 
 practically most people do all they can to get rid of 
 it, and as a general rule nobody does much more than 
 circumstances drive him to do. Even I would not 
 write this article, were not the publication-day hard 
 on my heels. I should read Hawthorne and Emer- 
 son and Holmes, and dream in my arm-chair, and 
 project in the clouds those lovely unwritten stories 
 that curl and veer and change like mist-wreaths in the 
 sun. So, also, however dignified, however invigorat- 
 ing,*however really desirable are habits of life involv- 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 131 
 
 ing daily physical toil, there is a constant evil demon 
 at every one's elbow, seducing him to evade it, or to 
 bear its weight with sullen, discontented murmurs^ 
 
 I will venture to say that there are at least, to speak 
 very moderately, a hundred houses where these hum- 
 ble lines will be read and discussed, where there are 
 no servants except the ladies of the household. I 
 will venture to say, also, that these households, many 
 of them, are not inferior in the air of cultivation and 
 refined elegance {o many which are conducted by the 
 ministration of domestics. I will venture to assert, 
 furthermore, that these same ladies who live thus find 
 quite as much time for reading, letter- writing, draw- 
 ing, embroidery, and fancy-work as the women of 
 families otherwise arranged. I am quite certain that 
 they would be found on an average to be in the en- 
 joyment of better health, and more of that sense of 
 capability and vitality which gives one confidence in 
 one's ability to look into life and meet it with cheer- 
 ful courage, than three quarters of the women who 
 keep servants, and that on the whole their domes- 
 tic establishment is regulated more exactly to their 
 mind, their food prepared and served more to their 
 taste. And yet, with all this, I will not venture to 
 assert that they are satisfied with this way of living, 
 and that they would not change it forthwith, if they 
 could. They have a secret feeling all the while that 
 
132 House and Home Papers. 
 
 they are being abused, that they are working harder 
 than they ought to, and that women who live in their 
 houses like boarders, who have only to speak and it is 
 done, are the truly enviable ones. One after another 
 of their associates, as opportunity offers and means 
 increase, deserts the ranks, and commits her domestic 
 affairs to the hands of hired servants, Self-respect 
 takes the alarm. Is it altogether genteel to live as 
 we do ? To be sure, we are accustomed to it ; we 
 have it all systematized and arranged ; the work of 
 our own hands suits us better than any we can hire ; 
 in fact, when we do hire, we are discontented and un- 
 comfortable, for who will do for us what we will do 
 for ourselves ? But when we have company ! there 's 
 the rub, to get out all our best things and put them 
 back, to cook the meals and wash the dishes in- 
 gloriously, and to make all appear as if we did n't 
 do it, and had servants like other people. 
 
 There, after all, is the rub. A want of hardy self- 
 respect, an unwillingness to face with dignity the 
 actual facts and necessities of our situation in life, 
 this, after all, is the worst and most dangerous feature 
 of the case. It is the same sort of pride which makes 
 Smilax think he must hire a waiter in white gloves, 
 and get up a circuitous dinner-party on English prin- 
 ciples, to entertain a friend from England. Because 
 the friend in England livss in such and such a style, 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 133 
 
 he must make believe for a day that he lives so too, 
 when in fact it is a whirlwind in his domestic establish- 
 ment equal to a removal or a fire, and threatens the 
 total extinction of Mrs. Smilax. Now there are two 
 principles of hospitality that people are very apt to 
 overlook. One is, that their guests like to be made 
 at home, and treated with confidence ; and another is, 
 that people are always interested in the details of a 
 way of life that is new to them. The Englishman 
 comes to America as weary of his old, easy, family- 
 coach life as you can be of yours ; he wants to see 
 something new under the sun, something Ameri- 
 can'; and forthwith we all bestir ourselves to give him 
 something as near as we can fancy exactly like what 
 he is already tired of. So city-people come to the 
 country, not to sit in the best parlor, and to see the 
 nearest imitation of city-life, but to lie on the hay- 
 mow, to swing in the barn, to form intimacy with the 
 pigs, chickens, and ducks, and to eat baked potatoes 
 exactly on the critical moment when they are done, 
 from the oven of the cooking-stove, and we remark, 
 en passant, that nobody has ever truly eaten a baked 
 potato, unless he has. seized it at that precise and for- 
 tunate moment. 
 
 I fancy you riow, my friends, whom I have in my 
 eye. You are three happy women together. You are 
 all so well that you know not how it feels to be sick. 
 
134 House and Home Papers. 
 
 You are used to early rising, and would not lie in bed, 
 if you could. Long years of practice have made you 
 familiar with the shortest, neatest, most expeditious 
 method of doing every household office, so that really 
 for the greater part of the time in your house there 
 seems to a looker-on to be nothing to do. You rise 
 in the morning and despatch your husband, father, 
 and brothers to the farm or wood-lot ; you go sociably 
 about chatting with each other, while you skim the 
 milk, make the butter, turn the cheeses. The fore- 
 noon is long ; it 's ten to one that all the so-called 
 morning work is over, and you have leisure for an 
 hour's sewing or reading before it is time to start the 
 dinner preparations. By two o'clock your house-work 
 is done, and you have the long afternoon for books, 
 needlework, or drawing, for perhaps there is among 
 you one with a gift at her pencil. Perhaps one of you 
 reads aloud while the others sew, and you manage in 
 that way to keep up with a great deal of reading. I 
 see on your book-shelves Prescott, Macaulay, Irving, 
 besides the lighter fry of poems and novels, and, if 
 I mistake not, the friendly covers of the "Atlantic." 
 When you have company, you invite Mrs. Smith or 
 Brown or Jones to tea ; you* have no trouble ; they 
 come early, with their knitting or sewing ; your particu- 
 lar crony sits with you by your polished stove while you 
 watch the baking of those light biscuits and tea-rusks 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 135 
 
 for which you are so famous, and Mrs. Somebody- 
 else chats with your sister, who is spreading the table 
 with your best china in the best room. When tea is 
 over, there is plenty of volunteering to help you wash 
 your pretty India teacups, and get them back into the 
 cupboard. There is no special fatigue or exertion in 
 all this, though you have taken down the best things 
 and put them back, because you have done all without 
 anxiety or effort, among those who would do precisely 
 the same, if you were their visitors. 
 
 But now comes down pretty Mrs. Simmons and her 
 pretty daughter to spend a week with you, and forth- 
 with you are troubled. Your youngest, Fanny, visited 
 them in New York last fall, and tells you of their cook 
 and chambermaid, and the servant in white gloves that 
 waits on table. You say in your soul, " What shall we 
 do I they never can be contented to live as we do ; 
 how shall we manage ? " And now you long for ser- 
 vants. 
 
 This is the very time that you should know that 
 Mrs. Simmons is tired to death of her fine establish- 
 ment, and weighed down with the task of keeping the 
 peace among her servants. She is a quiet soul, dearly 
 lovirig her ease, and hating strife ; and yet last week 
 . she had five quarrels to settle between her invaluable 
 cook and the other members of her staff, because 
 invaluable cook, on the Strength of knowing how to get 
 
136 House and Home Papers. 
 
 up state-dinners and to manage all sorts of mysteries 
 which her mistress knows nothing about, asserts the 
 usual right of spoiled favorites to insult all her neigh- 
 bors with impunity, and rule with a rod of iron over 
 the whole house. Anything that is not in the least 
 like her own home and ways of living will be a blessed 
 relief and change to Mrs. Simmons. Your clean, quiet 
 house, your delicate cookery, your cheerful morning 
 tasks, if you will let her follow you about, and sit 
 and talk with you while you are at your work, will 
 all seem a pleasant contrast to her own life. Of 
 course, if it came to the case of offering to change 
 lots in life, she would not do it ; but very likely she 
 thinks she would, and sighs over and pities herself, 
 and thinks sentimentally how fortunate you are, how 
 snugly and securely you live, and wishes she were as 
 untrammelled and independent as you. And she is 
 more than half right ; for, with her helpless habits, 
 her utter ignorance of the simplest facts concerning 
 the reciprocal relations of milk, eggs, butter, saleratus, 
 soda, and yeast, she is completely the victim and slave 
 of the person she pretends to rule. 
 
 Only imagine some of the frequent scenes and re- 
 hearsals in her family. After many trials, she at last 
 engages a seamstress who promises to prove a perfect^ 
 treasure, neat, dapper, nimble, skilful, and spirited. 
 The very soul of Mrs. Simmons rejoices in heaven. 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 137 
 
 Illusive bliss ! The new-comer proves to be no favor- 
 ite with Madam Cook, and the domestic fates evolve 
 the catastrophe, as follows. First, low murmur of 
 distant thunder in the kitchen ; then a day or two of 
 sulky silence, in Which the atmosphere seems heavy 
 with an approaching storm. At last comes the climax. 
 The parlor-door flies open during breakfast. Enter 
 seamstress, in tears, followed by Mrs. Cook with a 
 face swollen and red with wrath, who tersely intro- 
 duces the subject-matter of the drama in a voice trem- 
 bling with rage. 
 
 " Would you be plased, Ma'am, to suit yerself with 
 another cook ? Me week will be up next Tuesday, 
 and I want to be going." 
 
 " Why, Bridget, what 's the matter ? " 
 
 " Matter enough, Ma'am ! I niver could live with 
 them Cork girls in a house, nor I won't ; them as likes 
 the Cork girls is welcome for all me ; but it 's not for 
 the likes of me to live with them, and she been in the 
 kitchen a-upsettin' of- me gravies with her flat-irons 
 and things." 
 
 Here bursts in the seamstress with a whirlwind of 
 denial, and the altercation wages fast and furious, and 
 poor, little, delicate Mrs, Simmons stands like a kitten 
 in a thunder-storm in the midst of a regular Irish row. 
 
 Cook, of course, is sure of her victory. She knows 
 that a great dinner is to come off Wednesday, and 
 
138 House and Home Papers. 
 
 that her mistress has not the smallest idea how to 
 manage it, and that, therefore, whatever happens, she 
 must be conciliated. 
 
 Swelling with secret indignation at the tyrant, poor 
 Mrs. Simmons dismisses her seamstress with longing 
 looks. She suited her mistress exactly, but she did n't 
 suit cook ! 
 
 Now, if Mrs. Simmons had been brought up in early 
 life with the experience that you have, she would be 
 mistress in her own house. She would quietly say 
 to Madam Cook, " If my family arrangements do not 
 suit you, you can leave. I can see to the dinner 
 myself." And she could do it. Her well-trained mus- 
 cles would not break down under a little extra work ; 
 her skill, adroitness, and perfect familiarity with every- 
 thing that is to be done would enable her at once to 
 make cooks of any bright girls of good capacity who 
 might still be in her establishment ; and, above all, 
 she would feel herself mistress in her own house. 
 This is what would come of an experience in doing 
 her own work as you do. She who can at once put 
 her own trained hand to the machine in any spot 
 where a hand is needed never comes to be the slave 
 of a coarse, vulgar Irishwoman. 
 
 So, also, in forming a judgment of what is to be 
 expected of servants in a given time, and what ought 
 to be expected of a given amount of provisions, poor 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 139 
 
 Mrs. Simmons is absolutely at sea. If even for one 
 six months in her life she had been a practical cook, 
 and had really had the charge of the larder, she would 
 not now be haunted, as she constantly is, by an indefi- 
 nite apprehension of an immense wastefulness, perhaps 
 of the disappearance of provisions through secret chan- 
 nels of relationship and favoritism. She certainly 
 could not be made to believe in the absolute necessity 
 of so many pounds of sugar, quarts of milk, and doz- 
 ens of eggs, not to mention spices and wine, as are 
 daily required for the accomplishment of Madam 
 Cook's purposes. But though now she does suspect 
 and apprehend, she cannot speak with certainty. She 
 cannot say, "/ have made these things. I know 
 exactly what they require. I have done this and that 
 myself, and know it can be done, and done well, in a 
 certain time." It is said that women who have been 
 accustomed' to doing their own work become hard 
 mistresses. They are certainly more sure of the 
 ground they stand on, they are less open to impo- 
 sition, they can speak and act in their own houses 
 more as those " having authority," and therefore are 
 less afraid to exact what is justly their due, and less 
 willing to endure impertinence and unfaithfulness. 
 Their general error lies in expecting that any servant 
 ever will do as well for them as they will do for them- 
 selves, and that an untrained, undisciplined human 
 
140 House and Home Papers. 
 
 being ever can do house-work, or any other work, with 
 the neatness and perfection that a person of trained 
 intelligence can. It has been remarked in our armies 
 that the men of cultivation, though bred in delicate 
 and refined spheres, can bear up under the hardships 
 of camp-life better and longer than rough laborers. 
 The reason is, that an educated mind knows how to 
 use and save its body, to work it and spare it, as an 
 uneducated mind cannot ; and so the, college-bred 
 youth brings- himself safely through fatigues which 
 kill the unreflective laborer. Cultivated, intelligent 
 women, who are brought up to do the work of their 
 own families, are labor-saving institutions. They make 
 the head save the wear of the muscles. By fore- 
 thought, contrivance, system, and arrangement, they 
 lessen the amount to be done, and do it with less 
 expense of time and strength than others. The old 
 New England motto, Get your work done up in the 
 forenoon, applied to an amount of work which would 
 keep a common Irish servant toiling from daylight to 
 sunset. 
 
 A lady living in one of our obscure New England 
 towns, where there were no servants to be hired, at 
 last by sending to a distant city succeeded in procur- 
 ing a raw Irish maid-of-all-work, a creature of immense 
 bone and muscle, but of heavy, unawakened brain. 
 In one fortnight she established such a reign of Chaos 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 141 
 
 and old Night in the kitchen and thfough the house, 
 that her mistress, a delicate woman, encumbered with 
 the care of young children, began seriously to think 
 that she made more work each day than she per- 
 formed, and dismissed her. What was now to be 
 done ? Fortunately, the daughter of a neighboring 
 farmer was going to be married in six months, and 
 wanted a little ready money for her trousseau. The 
 lady was informed that Miss So-and-so would come 
 to her, not as a servant, but as hired "help." She 
 was fain to accept any help with gladness. Forthwith 
 came into the family-circle a tall, well-dressed young 
 person, grave, unobtrusive, self-respecting, yet not in 
 the least presuming, who sat at the family-table and 
 observed all its decorums with the 'modest self-posses- 
 sion of a lady. The new-comer took a/survey of the 
 labors of a family of ten members, inducing four or 
 five young children, and, looking, seemed at once to 
 throw them into system, matured her plans, arranged 
 her hours of washing, ironing, baking, cleaning, rose 
 early, moved deftly, and in a single day the slatternly 
 and littered kitchen assumed that neat, orderly ap- 
 pearance that so often strikes one in New England 
 farm-houses. The work seemed to be all gone. Ev- 
 erything was nicely washed, brightened, put in place, 
 and stayed in place ; the floors, when cleaned, re- 
 mained clean ; the work was always done, and not 
 
142 House and Home Papers. 
 
 doing ; and every afternoon the young lady sat neatly 
 dressed in her own apartment, either quietly writing 
 letters to her betrothed, or sewing on her bridal outfit. 
 Such is the result of employing those who have been 
 brought up to do their own work. That tall, fine-look- 
 ing girl, for aught we know, may yet be mistress of a 
 fine house on Fifth Avenue ; and if she is, she will, 
 we fear, prove rather an exacting mistress to Irish 
 Biddy and Bridget ; but she will never be threatened 
 by her cook and chambermaid, after the first one or 
 two have tried the experiment- 
 Having written thus far on my article, I laid it 
 aside till evening, when, as usual, I was- saluted by 
 the inquiry, " Has papa been writing anything to- 
 day?" and then followed loud petitions to hear it; 
 and so I read as far, reader, as you have. 
 
 " Well, papa," said Jenny, " what are you meaning 
 to make out there ? Do you really think it would be 
 best for us all to try to go back to that old style of 
 living you describe ? After all, you have shown only 
 the dark side of an establishment with servants, and 
 the bright side of the other way of nving. Mamma 
 does not have such trouble with her servants ; matters 
 have always gone smoothly in our family ; and if we 
 are not such wonderful girls as those you describe, 
 yet we may make pretty good housekeepers on the 
 modern system, after all." 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 143 
 
 " You don't know all the troubles your mamma has 
 had in your day," said my wife. " I have often, in the 
 course of my family-history, seen the day when I have 
 heartily wished for the strength and ability to manage 
 my household matters as my grandmother of notable 
 memory managed hers. But I fear that 'those remark- 
 able women of the olden times are like the ancient 
 painted glass, the art of making them is lost ; my 
 mother was less than her mother, and I am less than 
 my mother." 
 
 "And Marianne and I come out entirely at the 
 little end of the horn," said Jenny, laughing ; " yet I 
 wash the breakfast-cups and dust the parlors, and have 
 always fancied myself a notable housekeeper." 
 
 " It is just as I told you," I said. " Human nature 
 is always the same. Nobody ever is or does more 
 than circumstances fofce him to be and do. Those 
 remarkable women of old were made by circumstances. 
 There were, comparatively speaking, no servants to be 
 had, and so children were trained to habits of indus- 
 try and mechanical adroitness from the cradle, and 
 every household process was reduced to the very mini- 
 mum of labor. Every step required in a process was 
 counted, every movement calculated; and she who took 
 ten steps, when one would do, lost her reputation for 
 1 faculty.' Certainly such an early drill was of use in 
 developing the health and the bodily powers, as well 
 
144 House and Home Papers. 
 
 as in giving precision to the practical mental faculties. 
 All household economies were arranged with equal 
 nieeness in those thoughtful minds. A trained house- 
 keeper knew just how many sticks of hickory of a 
 certain size were required to heat her oven, and how 
 many of each different kind of wood. She knew by 
 a sort of intuition just what kinds of food would yield 
 the most palatable nutriment with- the least outlay of 
 accessories in cooking. She knew to a minute the 
 time when each article must go into and be withdrawn 
 from her oven ; and if she could only lie in her cham- 
 ber and direct, she could guide an intelligent child 
 through the processes with mathematical certainty. It 
 is impossible, however, that anything but early train- 
 ing and long experience can produce these results, 
 and it is earnestly to be wished that the grandmothers 
 of New England had only written down their experi- 
 ences for our children ; they would have been a mine 
 of maxims and traditions, better than any other tradi- 
 tions of the elders which we know of." 
 
 " One thing I know," said Marianne, " and that 
 is, I wish I had been brought up so, and knew all that 
 I should; and had all the strength and adroitness that 
 those women had. I should not dread to begin house- 
 keeping, as I now do. I should feel myself indepen- 
 dent. I should feel that I knew how to direct my 
 servants, and what it was reasonable and proper to 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 145 
 
 
 
 expect of them \ and then, as you say, I should n't 
 be dependent on all their whims and caprices of tem- 
 per. I dread those household storms, of all things." 
 Silently pondering these anxieties of the young 
 expectant housekeeper, I resumed my pen, and con- 
 cluded my paper as follows. 
 
 In this country, our democratic institutions have 
 removed the superincumbent pressure which in the 
 Old World confines the servants to a regular orbit. 
 They come here feeling that this is somehow a land 
 of liberty, and with very dim and confused notions of 
 what liberty is. They are for the most part the raw, 
 untrained Irish peasantry, and the wonder is, that, 
 with all the unreasoning heats and prejudices of the 
 Celtic blood, all the necessary ignorance and rawness, 
 there should be the measure of comfort and success 
 there is in our domestic arrangements. But, so long 
 as things are so, there will be constant changes and 
 interruptions in every domestic establishment, and 
 constantly recurring interregnums when the mistress 
 must put her own hand to the work, whether the hand 
 be a trained or ah untrained one. As matters now 
 are, the young housekeeper takes life at the hardest. 
 She has very little strength, no experience to teach 
 her how to save her strength. She knows nothing 
 experimentally of the simplest processes necessary to 
 7 
 
146 House and Home Papers. 
 
 *- 
 
 keep her family comfortably fed and clothed ; and she 
 has a way of looking at all these things which makes 
 them particularly hard and distasteful to her. She 
 does not escape being obliged to do house-work at 
 intervals, but she does it in a weak, blundering, con- 
 fused way, that makes it twice as hard and disagree- 
 able as it need be. 
 
 Now what I have to say is, that, if every young 
 woman learned to do house-work and cultivated her 
 practical faculties in early life, she would, in the first 
 place, be much more likely to keep her servants, and, 
 in the second place, if she lost them temporarily, would 
 avoid all that wear and tear of the nervous system 
 which comes from constant ill-success in those de- 
 partments on which family health and temper mainly 
 depend. This is one of the peculiarities of our Ameri- 
 can life which require a peculiar training. Why not 
 face it sensibly? 
 
 The second thing I have to say is, that our land is 
 now full of motorpathic institutions to which women 
 are sent at great expense to have hired operators 
 stretch and exercise their inactive muscles. They lie 
 for hours to have their feet twigged, their arms flexed, 
 and all the different muscles of the body worked for 
 them, because they are so flaccid and torpid that the 
 powers of life do not go on. Would it not be quite 
 as cheerful and less expensive a process, if young 
 
The Lady who does her own Work. 147 
 
 girls from early life developed the muscles in sweep- 
 ing, dusting, ironing, rubbing furniture, and all the 
 multiplied domestic processes which our grandmoth- 
 ers knew of? A woman who did all these, and diver- 
 sified the intervals with spinning on the great and 
 little wheel, never came to need the gymnastics of 
 Dio Lewis or of the Swedish motorpathist, which 
 really are a necessity now. Does it not seem poor 
 economy to pay servants for letting our muscles grow 
 feeble, and then to pay operators to exercise them for 
 us ? I will venture to say that our grandmothers in 
 a week went over every movement that any gymnast 
 has invented, and went over them to some productive 
 purpose too. 
 
 Lastly, my paper will not have been in vain, if those 
 ladies who have learned and practise the invaluable 
 accomplishment of doing their own work will know 
 their own happiness and dignity, and properly value 
 their great acquisition, even though it may have been 
 forced upon them by circumstances. 
 
VII. 
 
 WHAT CAN BE GOT IN AMERICA. 
 
 WHILE I was preparing my article for the "At- 
 lantic," our friend Bob Stephens burst in upon 
 us, in some considerable heat, with a newspaper in his 
 hand. 
 
 " Well, girls, your time is come now ! You women 
 have been preaching heroism and sacrifice to us, 
 'so splendid to go forth and suffer and die for our 
 country,' and now comes the test of feminine patri- 
 otism." 
 
 " Why, what 's the matter now ? " said Jenny, run- 
 ning eagerly to look over his shoulder at the paper. 
 
 " No more foreign goods," said he, waving it aloft, 
 " no more gold shipped to Europe for silks, laces, 
 jewels, kid gloves, and what-not. Here it is, great 
 movement, headed by senators' and generals' wives, 
 Mrs. General Butler, Mrs. John P. Hale, Mrs. Henry 
 Wilson, and so on, a long string of them, to buy no 
 more imported articles during the war." 
 
 " But I don't see how it can be done," said Jenny. 
 
 " Why," said I, " do you suppose that ' nothing to 
 wear' is made in America?" 
 
What can be got in America. 149 
 
 " But, dear Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Featherstone, 
 a nice girl, who was just then one of our family-circle, 
 "there is not, positively, much that is really fit to 
 use or wear made in America, is there now ? Just 
 think ; how is Marianne to furnish her house here 
 without French papers and English carpets ? those 
 American papers are so very ordinary, and as to 
 American carpets, everybody knows their colors don't 
 hold ; and then, as to dress, a lady must have gloves, 
 you know, and everybody knows no such things are 
 made in America as gloves." 
 
 " I think," I said, " that I have heard of certain 
 fair ladies wishing that they were men, that they 
 might show with what alacrity they would sacrifice 
 everything on the altar of their country : life and limb 
 would be nothing ; they would glory in wounds and 
 bruises, they would enjoy losing a right arm, they 
 would n't mind limping about on a lame leg the rest 
 of their lives, if they were John or Peter, if only they 
 might serve their dear country." 
 
 " Yes," said Bob, " that 's female patriotism ! Girls 
 are always ready to jump off from precipices, or throw 
 themselves into abysses, but as to wearing, an unfash- 
 ionable hat or thread gloves, that they can't do, 
 not even for their dear country. No matter whether 
 there 's any money left to pay for the war or not, the 
 dear souls must have twenty yards of silk in a dress, 
 it 's the fashion, you know." 
 
150 House and Home Papers. 
 
 " Now, is n't he too bad ? " said Marianne. "As if 
 w# 'd ever been asked to make these sacrifices and 
 refused ! I think I have seen women ready to give 
 up dress and fashion and everything else, for a good 
 cause." 
 
 " For that matter," said I, " the history of all wars 
 has shown women ready to sacrifice what is most 
 intimately feminine in times of peril to their country. 
 The women of Carthage not only gave up their jewels 
 in the siege of their city, but, in the last extremity, 
 cut off their hair for bow-strings. The women of 
 Hungary and Poland, in their country's need, sold 
 their jewels and plate and wore ornaments of iron and 
 lead. In the time of our own Revolution, our women 
 dressed in plain homespun and drank herb-tea, and 
 certainly nothing is more feminine than a cup of tea. 
 And in this very struggle, the women of the Southern 
 States have cut up their carpets for blankets, have 
 borne the most humiliating retrenchments and pri- 
 vations of all kinds without a murmur. So let us 
 exonerate the female sex of want of patriotism, at any 
 rate." 
 
 " Certainly," said my wife ; " and if our Northern 
 women have not retrenched and made sacrifices, it 
 has been because it has not been impressed on them 
 that there is any particular call for it. Everything has 
 seemed to be so prosperous and plentiful in the North- 
 
What can be got in America. 151 
 
 ern States, money has been so abundant and easy to 
 come by, that it has really been difficult to realize l&at 
 a dreadful and destructive war was raging. Only occa- 
 sionally, after a great battle, when the lists of the 
 killed and wounded have been sent through the coun- 
 try, have we felt that we were making a sacrifice. The 
 women who have spent such sums for laces and jewels 
 and silks have not had it set clearly before them why 
 they should not do so. The money has been placed 
 freely in their hands, and the temptation before their 
 eyes." 
 
 " Yes," said Jenny, " I am quite sure that there are 
 hundreds who have been buying foreign goods, who 
 would not do it, if they could see any connection 
 between their not doing it and the salvation of the 
 country ; but when I go to buy a pair of gloves, I nat- 
 urally want the best pair I can find, the pair that will 
 last the longest and look the best, and these always 
 happen to be French gloves." 
 
 " Then," said Miss Featherstone, " I never could 
 clearly see why people should confine their patronage 
 and encouragement to works of their own country. 
 I 'm sure the poor manufacturers of England have 
 shown the very noblest spirit with relation to our 
 cause, and so have the silk-weavers and artisans of 
 France, at least, so I have heard ; why should we 
 not give them a fair share of encouragement, particu- 
 
152 House and Home Papers. 
 
 larly when they make things that we are not in circum- 
 stances to make, have not the means to make ? " 
 
 " Those are certainly sensible questions," I replied, 
 " and ought to meet a fair answer, and I should say, 
 that, were our country in a fair ordinary state of pros- 
 perity, there would be no reason why our wealth should 
 not flow out for the encouragement of well-directed 
 industry in any part of the world ; from this point of 
 view we might look on the whole world as our coun- 
 try, and cheerfully assist in developing its wealth and 
 resources. But our country is now in the situation of 
 a private family whose means are absorbed by an ex- 
 pensive sickness, involving the life of its head ; just 
 now it is all we can do to keep the family together, 
 all our means are swallowed up by our own domestic 
 wants, w r e have nothing to give for the encouragement 
 of other families, we must exist ourselves, we must 
 get through this crisis and hold our own, and that we 
 may do it all the family expenses must be kept within 
 ourselves as far as possible. If- we drain off all the 
 gold of the country to send to Europe to encourage 
 her worthy artisans, we produce high prices and dis- 
 tress among equally worthy ones at home, and we 
 lessen the amount of our resources for maintaining 
 the great struggle for national existence. The same 
 amount of money which we pay for foreign luxuries, 
 if passed into the hands of our own manufacturers 
 
What can be got in America. 153 
 
 and producers, becomes available for the increasing 
 expenses of the war." 
 
 "But, papa," said Jenny, "I understood that a^ 
 great part of our Governmental income was derived 
 from the duties on foreign goods, and so I inferred 
 that the more foreign goods were imported the better 
 it would be." 
 
 " Well, suppose," said I, " that for every hundred 
 thousand dollars we send out of the country we pay 
 the Government ten thousand j that is about what our 
 gain as a nation would be ; we send our gold abroad 
 in a great stream, and give our Government a little 
 driblet." 
 
 " Well, but," said Miss Featherstone, " what can be 
 got in America ? Hardly anything, I believe, except 
 common calicoes." 
 
 " Begging your pardon, my dear lady," said I, 
 " there is where you and multitudes of others are 
 greatly mistaken. Your partiality for foreign things 
 has kept you ignorant of what you have at home. 
 Now I am not blaming the love of foreign things ; it 
 is not peculiar to us Americans ; all nations have it. 
 It is a part of the poetry of our nature to love what 
 comes from afar, and reminds us of lands distant and 
 different from our own. The English belles seek after 
 French laces ; the French beauty enumerates English 
 laces among her rarities ; and the French dandy piques 
 7* 
 
154 House and Home Papers. 
 
 himself upon an English tailor. We Americans are 
 great travellers, and few people travel, I fancy, with 
 more real enjoyment than we ; our domestic establish- 
 ments, as compared with those of the Old World, are 
 less cumbrous and stately, and so our money is com- 
 monly in hand as pocket-money, to be spent freely 
 and gayly in our tours abroad. 
 
 " We have such bright and pleasant times in every 
 country that we conceive a kindliness for its belong- 
 ings. To send to Pans for our dresses and our shoes 
 and our gloves may not be a mere bit .of foppery, but 
 a reminder of the bright, pleasant hours we have spent 
 in that city of Boulevards and fountains. Hence it 
 comes, in a way not very blamable, that many people 
 have been so engrossed with what can be got from 
 abroad that they have neglected to inquire what can 
 be found at home ; they have supposed) of course, that 
 to get a decent watch they must send to Geneva or to 
 London, that to get thoroughly good carpets they 
 must have the English manufacture, that a really 
 tasteful wall-paper could be found only in Paris, 
 and that flannels and broadcloths could come only 
 from France, Great Britain, or Germany." 
 
 " Well, is n't it so ? " said Miss Featherstone. " I 
 certainly have always thought so ; I never heard of 
 American watches, I 'm sure." 
 
 " Then," said I, " I 'm sure you can't have read an 
 
WJiat can be got in America. 155 
 
 article that you should have read on the Waltham 
 watches, written by our friend George W. Curtis, in 
 the "Atlantic" for January of last year. I must refer 
 you to that to learn that we make in America watches 
 superior to those of Switzerland or England, bringing 
 into the service machinery and modes of workman- 
 ship unequalled for delicacy and precision ; as I said 
 before, you must get the article and read it, and if 
 some sunny day you could make a trip to Waltham, 
 and see the establishment, it would greatly assist your 
 comprehension." 
 
 "Then, as to men's clothing," said Bob, "I know 
 to my entire satisfaction that many of the most popu- 
 lar cloths for men's wear are actually American fabrics 
 baptized with French and English names to make 
 them sell." 
 
 " Which sTiows," said I, " the use of a general com- 
 munity movement to employ American goods. It will 
 change the fashion. The demand will create the sup- 
 ply. When the leaders of fashion are inquiring for 
 American instead of French and English fabrics, they 
 will be surprised to find what nice American articles 
 there are. The work of our own hands will no more 
 be forced to skulk into the market under French and 
 English names, and we shall see, what is really true, 
 that an American gentleman need not look beyond 
 his own country for a wardrobe befitting him. I am 
 
156 House and Home Papers. 
 
 positive that we need not seek broadcloth or other 
 woollen goods from foreign lands, that better hats 
 are made in America than in Europe, and better boots 
 and shoes ; and I should be glad to send an American 
 gentleman to the World's Fair dressed from top to toe 
 in American manufactures, with an American- watch 
 in his pocket, and se*e if he would suffer in comparison 
 with- the gentlemen of any other country." 
 
 " Then, as to house-furnishing," began my wife, 
 "American carpets are getting to be every way equal 
 to the English." 
 
 "Yes," said I, "and what is more, the Brussels 
 carpets of England are woven on looms invented by 
 an American, and bought of him. Our countryman, 
 Bigelow, went to England to study carpet- weaving in 
 the English looms, supposing that all arts were gen- 
 erously open for the instruction of learners. He was 
 denied the opportunity of studying the machinery and 
 watching the processes by a short-sighted jealousy. 
 He immediately sat down with a yard of carpeting, 
 and, patiently unravelling it, thread by thread, com- 
 bined and calculated till he invented the machinery 
 on which the best carpets of the Old and New World 
 are woven. No pains which such ingenuity and en- 
 ergy can render effective are spared to make our fabrics 
 equal those of the British market, and we need only 
 to be disabused of the old prejudice, and to keep up 
 
What can be got in America. 157 
 
 with the movement of our own country, and find out 
 our own resources. The fact is, every year improves 
 our fabrics. Our mechanics, our manufacturers, are 
 working with an energy, a zeal, and a skill that carry 
 things forward faster than anybody dreams of; and 
 nobody can predicate the character of American arti- 
 cles, in any department, now, by their character even 
 five years ago." 
 
 " Well, as to wall-papers," said Miss Featherstone, 
 " there you must confess the French are and must be 
 unequalled." 
 
 " I do not confess any such thing," said I, hardily. 
 " I grant you that in that department of paper-hangings 
 which exhibits floral decoration the French designs 
 and execution are and must be for some time to come 
 far ahead of all the world, their drawing of flowers, 
 vines, and foliage has the accuracy of botanical studies 
 and the grace of finished works of art, and we cannot 
 as yet pretend in America to do anything equal to it. 
 But for satin finish, and for a variety of exquisite tints 
 of plain colors, American papers equal any in the 
 world ; our gilt papers even surpass in the heaviness 
 and polish of the gilding those of foreign countries ; 
 and we have also gorgeous velvets. All I have to say 
 is, let people who are furnishing houses inquire for 
 articles of American manufacture, and they will be 
 surprised at what they will see. We need go no 
 
158 House and Home Papers. 
 
 farther than our Cambridge glass-works to see that 
 the most dainty devices of cut-glass, crystal, ground 
 and engraved glass of every color and pattern, may be 
 had of American workmanship, every way equal to 
 the best European make, and for half the price. And 
 American painting on china is so well executed both 
 in Boston and New York, that deficiencies in the finest 
 French or English sets can be made up in a style not 
 distinguishable from the original, as one may easily 
 see by calling on our worthy next neighbor, Briggs, who 
 holds the opposite corner to our "Atlantic Monthly." 
 No porcelain, it is true, is yet made in America, 
 these decorative arts being exercised on articles im- 
 ported from Europe. Our tables must, therefore, per 
 force, be largely indebted to foreign lands for years 
 to come. Exclusive of this item, however, I believe 
 it would require very little self-denial to paper, carpet, 
 and furnish a house entirely from the manufactures 
 of America. I cannot help saying one word here in 
 favor of the cabinet-makers of Boston. There is so 
 much severity of taste, such a style and manner about 
 the best made Boston furniture, as raises it really quite 
 into the region of the fine arts. Our artisans have 
 studied foreign models with judicious eyes, and so 
 transferred to our country the spirit of what is best 
 worth imitating, that one has no need to import fur- 
 niture from Europe." 
 
What can be got in America. 159 
 
 "Well," said Miss Featherstone, "there is one 
 point you cannot make out, gloves ; certainly the 
 French have the monopoly of that article." 
 
 " I am not going to ruin my cause by asserting too 
 much," said I. " I have n't been with nicely dressed 
 women so many years not to speak with proper respect 
 of Alexander's gloves, and I confess, honestly, that 
 to forego them must be a fair, square sacrifice to 
 patriotism. But then, on the other hand, it is nev- 
 ertheless true that gloves have long been made in 
 America and surreptitiously brought into market as 
 French. I have lately heard that very nice kid gloves 
 are made at Watertown and in Philadelphia. I have 
 only heard of them, and not seen. A loud demand 
 might bring forth an unexpected supply from these 
 and other sources. If the women of America were 
 bent on having gloves made in their own country, how 
 long would it be before apparatus and factories would 
 spring into being ? Look at the hoop-skirt factories, 
 women wanted hoop-skirts, would have them or 
 die, and forthwith -factories arose, and hoop-skirts 
 became as the dust of the earth for abundance." 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Featherstone, " and, to say the 
 truth, the American hoop-skirts are the only ones fit 
 to wear. When we were living on the Champs Ely- 
 sdes, I remember we searched high and low for some- 
 'thing like them, and finally had to send home to 
 America for some." 
 
160 House and Home Papers. 
 
 "Well," said I, "that shows what I said. Let 
 there be only a hearty call for an article, and k will 
 come. These spirits of the vasty deep are not so 
 very far off, after all, as we may imagine, and women's 
 unions and leagues will lead to inquiries and demands 
 which will as infallibly bring supplies as a vacuum will 
 create a draught of air." 
 
 " But, at least, there are no ribbons made in Amer- 
 ica," said Miss Featherstone. 
 
 " Pardon, my lady, there is a ribbon-factory now in 
 operation in Boston, and ribbons of every color are 
 made in New York ; there is also in the vicinity of 
 Boston a factory which makes Roman scarfs. This 
 shows that the faculty of weaving? ribbons is not want- 
 ing to us Americans, and a zealous patronage would 
 increase the supply. 
 
 "Then, as for a thousand and one little feminine 
 needs, I believe our manufacturers can supply them. 
 The Portsmouth Steam Company makes white spool- 
 cotton equal to any in England, and colored spool- 
 cotton, of every- shade and variety, such as is not made 
 either in England or France. Pins are well made in 
 America ; so are hooks and eyes, and a variety of 
 buttons. Straw bonnets of American manufacture are 
 also extensively in market, and quite as pretty ones as 
 the double-priced ones which are imported. 
 
 "As to silks and satins, I am not going to pretend 
 
What can be got in America. 161 
 
 that they are to be found here. It is true, there are 
 silk manufactories, like that of the Cheneys in Con- 
 necticut, where very pretty foulard dress-silks are 
 made, together with sewing-silk enough to supply a 
 large demand. Enough has been done to show that 
 silks might be made in America ; but at present, as 
 compared with Europe, we claim neither silks nor 
 thread laces among our manufactures. 
 
 " But what then ? These are not necessaries of life. 
 Ladies can be very tastefully dressed in other fabrics 
 besides silks. There are many pretty American dress- 
 goods which the leaders of fashion might make fash- 
 ionable ; and certainly no leader of fashion "could wish 
 to dress for a nobler object than to aid her country in 
 deadly peril. 
 
 " It is not a life-pledge, not a total abstinence, that 
 is asked, only a temporary expedient to meet a 
 stringent crisis. We only ask a preference for Ameri- 
 can goods where they can be found. Surely, women 
 whose exertions in Sanitary Fairs have created an era 
 in the history of the world will not shrink from so 
 small a sacrifice for so obvious a good. 
 
 " Here is something in which every individual wo- 
 man can help. Every woman who goes into a shop 
 and asks for American goods renders an appreciable 
 aid to our cause. She expresses her opinion and her 
 patriotism! ; and her voice forms a part of that demand 
 
1 62 House and Home Papers. 
 
 which shall arouse and develop the resources of her 
 country. We shall learn to know our own country. 
 We shall learn to respect our own powers, and 
 every branch of useful labor will spring and flourish 
 under our well-directed efforts. We shall come out 
 of our great contest, not bedraggled, ragged, and 
 poverty-stricken, but developed, instructed, and rich. 
 Then will we gladly join with other nations in the 
 free interchange of manufactures, and gratify our eye 
 and taste with what is foreign, while we can in turn 
 send abroad our own productions in equal ratio." 
 
 " Upon my word," said Miss Featherstone, " I 
 should think it was the Fourth of July, but I yield 
 the point. I am convinced ; and henceforth you will 
 see me among the most stringent of the leaguers." 
 
 " Right ! " said I. 
 
 And, fair lady-reader, let me hope you will say the 
 same. You can do something for your country, it 
 lies right in your hand. Go to the shops, determined 
 on supplying your family and yourself with American 
 goods. Insist on having them ; raise the question of 
 origin over every article shown to you. In the Revo- 
 lutionary times, some of the leading matrons of New 
 England gave parties where the ladies were dressed in 
 homespun and drank sage-tea. Fashion makes all 
 things beautiful, and you, my charming and accom- 
 plished friend, can create beauty by creating fashion. 
 
What can be got in America. 163 
 
 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 asso- 
 ciation with style and fashion. Fair lady, give style 
 and fashion to the products of your own country, 
 resolve that the money in your hand shall go to your 
 brave brothers, to your co-Americans, now straining 
 every nerve to uphold the nation, and cause it to 
 stand high in the earth. What are you without your 
 country ? As Americans you can hope for no rank 
 but the rank of your native land, no badge of nobility 
 but her beautiful stars. It rests with this conflict to 
 decide whether- those stars shall be badges of nobil- 
 ity to you and your children in all lands. Women of 
 America, your country expects every woman to do her 
 duty! 
 
VIII. 
 
 ECONOMY. 
 
 fact is," said Jenny, as she twirled a little 
 hat on her hand, which she had been making 
 over, with nobody knows what of bows and pompons, 
 and other matters for which the women have curious 
 names, " the fact is, American women and girls 
 must learn to economize ; it is n't merely restricting 
 one's self to American goods, it is general economy, 
 that is required. Now here 's this hat, costs me 
 only three dollars, all told ; and Sophie Page bought 
 an English one this morning at Madame Meyer's for 
 which she gave fifteen. And I really don't think hers 
 has more of an air than mine. I made this over, you 
 see, with things I had in the house, bought nothing 
 but the ribbon, and paid for altering and pressing, 
 and there you see what a stylish hat I have ! " 
 
 " Lovely ! admirable ! " said Miss Featherstone. 
 " Upon my word, Jenny, you ought to marry a poor 
 parson ; you would be quite thrown away upon a rich 
 man." 
 
 " Let me see," said I. " I want to admire intelli- 
 
Economy. 165 
 
 gently. That is n't the hat you were wearing yester- 
 day '\ " 
 
 " O no, papa ! This is just done. The one I wore 
 yesterday was my waterfall-hat, with the green feather ; 
 this, you see, is an oriole." 
 
 "A what?" 
 
 "An oriole. Papa, how can you expect to learn 
 about these things ? " 
 
 "And that plain little black one, with the stiff crop 
 of scarlet feathers sticking straight up ? " 
 
 " That 's my jockey, papa, with a plume en mili- 
 taire." 
 
 "And did the waterfall and the jockey cost any- 
 thing ? " ' 
 
 " They were very, very cheap, papa, all things 
 considered. Miss Featherstone will remember that 
 the waterfall was a great bargain, and I had the feather 
 from last year ; and as to the jockey, that was made 
 out of my last year's white one, dyed over. You know, 
 papa, I always take care of my things, and they last 
 from year to year." 
 
 " I do assure you, Mr. Crowfield," said Miss Feath- 
 erstone, " I never saw such little economists as your 
 daughters ; it is perfectly wonderful what they contrive 
 to dress on. How they manage to do it I 'm sure I 
 can't see. I never could, I 'm convinced." 
 
 " Yes," said Jenny, " I' ve bought but just one new 
 
1 66 House and Home Papers. 
 
 hat. I only wish you could sit in church where we 
 do, and see those Miss Fielders. Marianne and I 
 have counted six new hats apiece of those girls', 
 new, you know, just out of the milliner's shop ; and 
 last Sunday they came out in such lovely puffed tulle 
 bonnets ! Were n't they lovely, Marianne ? And next 
 Sunday, I don't doubt, there '11 be something else." 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Featherstone, " their father, 
 they say, has made a million dollars lately on Govern- 
 ment contracts." 
 
 " For my part," said Jenny, " I think such extrava- 
 gance, at such a time as this, is shameful." 
 
 " Do you know," said I, " that I 'm quite sure the 
 Misses Fielder think they are practising rigorous econ- 
 omy?" 
 
 " Papa ! Now there you are with your paradoxes ! 
 How can you say so ? " 
 
 " I should n't be afraid to bet a pair of gloves, 
 now," said I, " that Miss Fielder thinks herself half 
 ready for translation, because she has bought only six 
 new hats and a tulle bonnet so far in the season. If 
 it were not for her dear bleeding country, she would 
 have had thirty-six, like the Misses Sibthorpe. If we 
 were admitted to the secret councils of the Fielders, 
 doubtless we should perceive what temptations they 
 daily resist ; how perfectly rubbishy and dreadful they 
 suffer themselves to be, because they feel it important 
 

 Economy. 167 
 
 now, in this crisis, to practise economy ; how they 
 abuse the Sibthorpes, who have a new hat every time 
 they drive out, and never think of wearing one more 
 than two or three times ; how virtuous and self-deny- 
 ing they feel, when they think of the puffed tulle, for 
 which they only gave eighteen dollars, when Madame 
 Caradori showed them those lovely ones, like the 
 Misses Sibthorpe's, for forty-five ; and how they go 
 home descanting on virgin simplicity, and resolving 
 that they will not allow themselves to be swept into 
 the vortex of extravagance, whatever other people 
 may do." 
 
 " Do you know," said Miss Featherstone, " I be- 
 lieve your papa is right ? I was calling on the oldest 
 Miss Fielder the other day, and she told me that she 
 positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but 
 .that she really did feel the necessity of economy. 
 * Perhaps we might afford to spend more than some 
 others,' she said ; ' but it 's so much better to^give the 
 money to the Sanitary Commission ! ' > 
 
 " Furthermore," said I, " I am going, to put forth 
 another paradox, and say that very likely there are 
 some people looking on my girls, and commenting 
 on them for extravagance in having three hats, even 
 though made over, and contrived from last year's 
 stock." 
 
 "They can't know anything about it, then," said 
 
1 68 House and Home Papers. 
 
 Jenny, decisively ; " for, certainly, nobody can be 
 decent, and invest less in millinery than Marianne 
 and I do." 
 
 " When I was a young lady," said my wife, " a well- 
 dressed girl got her a new bonnet in the spring, and 
 another in the fall ; that was the extent of her pur- 
 chases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of last 
 year, did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. 
 My father was accounted well-to-do, but I had no 
 more, and wanted no more. I also bought myself, 
 every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a light 
 pair, and wore them through the summer, and another 
 two through the winter ; one or two pair of white kids, 
 carefully cleaned, carried me through all my parties. 
 Hats had not been heard of, and the great necessity 
 which requires two or three new ones every spring 
 and fall Had not arisen. Yet I was reckoned a well- 
 appearing girl, who dressed liberally. Now, a young 
 lady who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat, and a 
 jockey, must still be troubled with anxious cares for 
 her spring and fall and summer and winter bonnets, 
 all the variety will not take the place of them. 
 Gloves are bought by the dozen ; and as to dresses, 
 there seems to be no limit to the quantity of mate- 
 rial and trimming that may be expended upon them. 
 When I was a young lady, seventy-five dollars a year 
 was considered by careful parents a liberal allowance 
 
Economy. 169 
 
 for a daughter's wardrobe. I had a hundred, and was 
 reckoned rich ; and I sometimes used a part to make 
 up the deficiencies in the allowance of Sarah Evans, 
 my particular friend, whose father gave her only fifty. 
 We all thought that a very scant allowance ; yet she 
 generally made a very pretty and genteel appearance, 
 with the help of occasional presents from friends." 
 
 " How could a girl dress for fifty dollars ? " said 
 Marianne. 
 
 " She could get a white muslin and a white cam- 
 bric, which, with different sortings of ribbons, served 
 her for all dress-occasions. A silk, in those days, 
 took only ten yards in the making, and one dark silk 
 was considered a reasonable allowance to a lady's 
 wardrobe. Once made, it stood for something, 
 always worn carefully, it lasted for years. One or two 
 calico morning-dresses, and a merino for winter wear, 
 completed the list Then, as to collars, capes, cuffs, 
 etc., we all did our own embroidering, and very pretty 
 things we wore, too. Girls looked as prettily then as 
 they do now, when four or five hundred dollars a year 
 is insufficient to clothe them." 
 
 " But, mamma, you know our allowance is n't any- 
 thing like that, it is quite a slender one, though not 
 so small as yours was," said Marianne. " Don't you 
 think the customs of society make a difference ? Do 
 you think, as things are, we could go back and dress 
 
 for the sum you did ? " 
 8 
 
170 House and Home Papers. 
 
 " You cannot," said my wife, " without a greater 
 sacrifice of feeling than I wish to impose on you. 
 Still, though I don't see how to help it, I cannot but 
 think that the requirements of fashion are becoming 
 needlessly extravagant, particularly in regard to the 
 dress of women. It seems to me, it is making the 
 support of families so burdensome that young men 
 are discouraged from marriage. A young man, in a 
 moderately good business, might cheerfully undertake 
 the world with a wife who could make herself pretty 
 and attractive for seventy-five dollars a year, when he 
 might sigh in vain for one who positively could not 
 get through, and be decent, on four hundred. Women, 
 too, are getting to be so attached to the trappings and 
 accessories of life, that they cannot think of marriage 
 without an amount of fortune which few young men 
 possess." 
 
 "You are talking in very low numbers about the 
 dress of women," said Miss Featherstone. " I do 
 assure you that it is the easiest thing in the world for 
 a girl to make away with a thousand dollars a year, 
 and not have so much to show for it either as Mari- 
 anne and Jenny." 
 
 " To be sure," said I. " Only establish certain for- 
 mulas of expectation, and it is the easiest thing in the 
 world. For instance, in your mother's day girls talked 
 of a pair of gloves, - now they talk of a pack ; then 
 
Economy. 171 
 
 it was a bonnet summer and winter, now it is a bon- 
 net spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and hats like 
 monthly roses, a new blossom every few weeks." 
 
 "And then," said my wife, "every device of the 
 toilet is immediately taken up and varied and im- 
 proved on, so as to impose an almost monthly neces- 
 sity for novelty. The jackets of May are outshone by 
 the jackets of June ; the buttons of June are anti- 
 quated in July ; the trimmings of July are passees by 
 September ; side-combs, back-combs, puffs, rats, and 
 all sorts of such matters, are in a distracted race of 
 improvement ; every article of feminine toilet is on 
 the move towards perfection. It seems to me that an 
 infinity of money must be spent in these trifles, by 
 those who make the least pretension to keep in the 
 fashion." 
 
 "Well, papa," said Jenny, "after all, it's just the 
 way things always have been since the world began. 
 You know the Bible says, ' Can a maid forget her 
 ornaments ? ' It 's clear she can't. You see, it 's a 
 law of Nature ; and you remember all that long chap- 
 ter in the Bible that we had read in church last Sun- 
 day, about the curls and veils and tinkling ornaments 
 and crimping-pins, and all that of those wicked daugh- 
 ters of Zion in old times. Women always have been 
 too much given to dress, and they always will be." 
 
 " The thing is," said Marianne, " how can any 
 
172 House and Home Papers. 
 
 woman, I, for example, know what is too much or 
 too little? In mamma's day, it seems, a girl could 
 keep her place in society, by hard economy, and 
 spend only fifty dollars a year on her dress. Mam- 
 ma found a hundred dollars ample. I have more 
 than that, and find myself quite straitened to keep 
 myself looking well. I don't want to live for dress, 
 to give all my time and thoughts to it ; I don't wish 
 to be extravagant ; and yet I wish to be lady-like ; it 
 annoys and makes me unhappy not to be fresh and 
 neat and nice ; shabbiness and seediness are my aver- 
 sion. I don't see where the fault is. Can one indi- 
 vidual resist the whole current of society? It cer- 
 tainly is not strictly necessary for us girls to have half 
 the things we do. We might, I suppose, live without 
 many of them, and, as mamma says, look just as well, 
 because girls did so before these things were invented. 
 Now, I confess, I flatter myself, generally, that I am 
 a pattern of good management and economy, be- 
 cause I get so much less than other girls I associate 
 with. I wish you could see Miss Thome's fall dresses 
 that she showed me last year when she was visiting 
 here. She had six gowns, and no one of them could 
 have cost less than seventy or eighty dollars, and 
 some of them must have been even more expensive; 
 and yet I don't doubt that this fall she will feel that 
 she must have just as many more. She runs through 
 
Economy. i/3 
 
 and wears out these expensive things, with all their 
 velvet and thread lace, just as I wear my commonest 
 ones ; and at the end of the season they are really 
 gone, spotted, stained, frayed, the lace all pulled 
 to pieces, nothing left to save or make over. I 
 feel as if Jenny and I were patterns of economy, 
 when I see such things. I really don't know what 
 economy is. What is it ? " 
 
 " There is the same difficulty in my housekeeping," 
 said my wife. " I think I am an economist. I mean 
 to be one. All our expenses are on a modest scale, 
 and yet I can see much that really is not strictly 
 necessary ; but if I compare myself with some of my 
 neighbors, I feel as if I were hardly respectable. 
 There is no subject on which all the world are cen- 
 suring one another so much as this. Hardly any one 
 but thinks her neighbors extravagant in some one or 
 more particulars, and takes for granted that she her- 
 self is an economist." 
 
 "I'll venture to say," said I, "that there isn't a 
 woman of my acquaintance that does not think she 
 is an economist." 
 
 " Papa is turned against us women, like all the rest 
 of them," said Jenny. " I wonder if it is n't just so 
 with the men?" 
 
 " Yes," said Marianne, " it 's the fashion to talk as 
 if all the extravagance of the country was perpetrated 
 
1/4 House and Home Papers. 
 
 I 
 
 by women. For my part, I think young men are just 
 as extravagant. Look at the sums they spend for 
 cigars and meerschaums, an expense which hasn't 
 even the pretence of usefulness in any way ; it 's a 
 purely selfish, nonsensical indulgence. When a girl 
 spends money in making herself look pretty, she con- 
 tributes something to the agreeableness of society ; 
 but a man's cigars and pipes are neither ornamental 
 nor useful." 
 
 " Then look at their dress," said Jenny ; " they are 
 to the full as fussy and particular about it as girls ; 
 they have as many fine, invisible points of fashion, 
 and their fashions change quite as often ; and they 
 have just as many knick-knacks, with their studs and 
 their sleeve-buttons and waistcoat-buttons, their scarfs 
 and scarf-pins, their Avatch-chains and seals and seal- 
 rings, and nobody knows what. Then they often 
 waste and throw away more than women, because 
 they are not good judges of material, nor saving in 
 what they buy, and have no knowledge of how things 
 should be cared for, altered, or mended. If their cap 
 is a little too tight, they cut the lining with a pen- 
 knife, or slit holes in a new shirt-collar, because it 
 does not exactly fit to their mind. For my part, I 
 think men are naturally twice as wasteful as women. 
 A pretty thing, to be sure, to have all the waste of the 
 country laid to us ! " 
 
Economy. 175 
 
 " You are right, child," said I ; " women are by 
 nature, as compared with men, the care-taking and 
 saving part of creation, the authors and conserva- 
 tors of economy. As a general rule, man earns and 
 woman saves and applies. The wastefulness of wo- 
 man is commonly the fault of man." 
 
 " I don't see into that," said Bob Stephens. 
 
 " In this way. Economy is the science of propor- 
 tion. Whether a particular purchase is extravagant 
 depends mainly on the income it is taken from. Sup- 
 pose a woman has a hundred and fifty a year for her 
 dress, and gives fifty dollars for a bonnet ; she gives 
 a third of her income ; it is a horrible extravagance, 
 
 while for the woman whose income is ten thousand it 
 
 i 
 
 may be no extravagance, at all. The poor clergy- 
 man's wife, when she gives five "dollars for a bonnet, 
 may be giving as much, in proportion to her income, 
 as the woman who gives fifty. Now the difficylty 
 with the greater part of women is, that the men who 
 make the money and hold it give them no kind of 
 standard by which to measure their expenses. Most 
 women and girls are in this matter entirely at sea, 
 without chart or compass. They don't know in the 
 least what they have to spend. Husbands and fa- 
 thers often pride themselves about not saying a word 
 on business-matters to their wives and daughters. 
 They don't wish them to understand them, or to 
 
176 House and Home Papers. 
 
 inquire into them, or to make remarks or suggestions 
 concerning them. 'I want you to have everything 
 that is suitable and proper/ says Jones to his wife, 
 'but don't be extravagant.' 
 
 " ' But, my dear,' says Mrs. Jones, * what is suitable 
 and proper depends very much on our means ; if you 
 could allow me any specific sum for dress and house- 
 keeping, I could tell better.' 
 
 " ' Nonsense, Susan ! I can't do that, it 's too 
 much trouble. Get what you need, and avoid foolish 
 extravagances ; that 's all I ask.' 
 
 "By and by Mrs. Jones's bills are sent in, in an 
 evil hour, when Jones has heavy notes to meet, and 
 then comes a domestic storm. 
 
 " ' I shall just be ruined, Madam, if that 's the way 
 you are going on. I can't afford to dress you and the 
 girls in the style you have set up ; look at this mil- 
 liner's bill ! ' 
 
 " 1 1 assure you,' says Mrs. Jones, ' we have n't got 
 any more than the Stebbinses, nor so much.' 
 
 "'Don't you know that the Stebbinses are worth 
 five times as much as ever I was?' 
 
 " No, Mrs. Jones did not know it ; how should 
 she, when her husband makes it a rule never to speak 
 of his business to her, and she has .not the remotest 
 idea of his income ? 
 
 "Thus multitudes of good conscientious women 
 
Economy. 1 77 
 
 and girls are extravagant from pure ignorance. The 
 male provider allows bills to be run up in his name, 
 and they have no earthly means of judging whether 
 they are spending too much or too little, except the 
 semi-annual hurricane which attends the coming in 
 of these bills. 
 
 " The first essential in the practice of economy is a 
 knowledge of one's income, and the man who refuses 
 to accord to his wife and children this information has 
 never any right to accuse them of extravagance, be- 
 cause he himself deprives them of that standard of 
 comparison which is an indispensable requisite in 
 economy. As early as possible in the education of 
 children they should pass from that state of irrespon- 
 sible waiting to be provided for by parents, and be 
 trusted with the spending of some fixed allowance, 
 that they may learn prices and values, and have some 
 notion of what money is actually worth and what it 
 will bring. The simple fact of the possession of a 
 fixed and definite income often suddenly transforms 
 a giddy, extravagant girl into a care-taking, prudent 
 little woman. Her allowance is her own ; she begins 
 to plan upon it, to add, subtract, multiply, divide, 
 and do numberless sums in her little head. She no 
 longer buys everything she fancies ; she deliberates, 
 weighs, compares. And now there is room for self- 
 denial and generosity to come in. She can do with- 
 8* 
 
178 House and Home Papers. 
 
 out this article ; she can furbish .up some older pos- 
 session to do duty a little longer, and give this money 
 to some friend poorer than she ; and ' ten to one the 
 girl whose bills last year were four or five hundred 
 finds herself bringing through this year creditably on 
 a hundred and fifty. To be sure, she goes without 
 numerous things which she used to have. From the 
 stand-point of a fixed income she sees that these are 
 impossible, and no more wants them than the green 
 cheese of the moon. She learns to make her own 
 taste and skill take the place of expensive purchases. 
 She refits" her hats and bonnets, re trims her dresses, 
 and in a thousand busy, earnest, happy little ways, sets 
 herself to make the most of her small income. 
 
 " So the woman who has her definite allowance for 
 housekeeping finds at once a hundred questions set 
 at rest Before, it was not clear to her why she should 
 not ' go and do likewise ' in relation to every purchase 
 made by her next neighbor. Now, there is a clear 
 logic of proportion. Certain things are evidently not 
 to be thought of, though next neighbors do have 
 them ; and we must resign ourselves to find some 
 other way of living." 
 
 " My dear," said my wife, " I think there is a pe- 
 culiar temptation in a life organized as ours is in 
 America. " There are here no settled classes, with 
 similar ratios of income. Mixed together in the 
 
Economy. \ 79 
 
 same society, going to the same parties, and blended 
 in daily neighborly intercourse, are families of the 
 most opposite extremes in point of fortune. In Eng- 
 land there is a very well understood expression, that 
 people should not dress or live above their station ; 
 in America none will admit that they have any par- 
 ticular station, or that they can live above it. The 
 principle of democratic equality unites in society peo- 
 ple of the most diverse positions and means. 
 
 " Here, for instance, is a family like Dr. Selden's, 
 an old and highly respected one, with an income of 
 only two or three thousand, yet they are people 
 universally sought for in society, and mingle in all the 
 intercourse of life with merchant-mnlionnaires whose 
 incomes are from ten to thirty thousand. Their sons 
 and daughters go to the same schools, the same par- 
 ties, and are thus constantly meeting upon terms of 
 social equality. 
 
 " Now it seems to me that our danger does not lie 
 in the great and evident expenses of our richer friends. 
 We do not expect to have pineries, graperies, equi- 
 pages, horses, diamonds, we say openly and of 
 course that we do not. Still, our expenses are con- 
 stantly increased by the proximity of these things, 
 unless we understand ourselves better than most peo- 
 ple do. We don't of course, expect to get a fifteen- 
 hundred-dollar Cashmere, like Mrs. So-and-so, but we 
 
i8o House and Home Papers. 
 
 begin to look at hundred-dollar shawls and nibble 
 about the hook. We don't expect sets of diamonds, 
 but a diamond ring, a pair of solitaire diamond ear- 
 rings, begins to be speculated about among the young 
 people as among possibilities. We don't expect to 
 carpet our house with Axminster and hang our win- 
 dows with damask, but at least we must have Brus- 
 sels and brocatelle, it would not do not to. And 
 so we go on getting hundreds of things that we 
 don't need, that have no real value except that they 
 soothe our self-love, and for these inferior articles 
 we pay a higher proportion of our in come, than our 
 rich neighbor does for his better ones. Nothing is 
 uglier than low-priced Cashmere shawls ; and yet a 
 young man just entering business will spend an eighth 
 of a year's income to put one on his wife, and when 
 he has put it there it only serves as a constant source 
 of disquiet, for now that the door is opened, and 
 Cashmere shawls are possible, she is consumed with 
 envy at the superior ones constantly sported around 
 her. So also with point-lace,- velvet dresses, and hun- 
 dreds of things of that sort, which belong to a certain 
 rate of income, and are absurd below it." 
 
 " And yet, mamma, I heard Aunt Easygo say that 
 velvet, point-lace, and Cashmere were the cheapest 
 finery that could be bought, because they lasted a 
 lifetime." 
 
Economy. 1 8 1 
 
 " Aunt Easygo speaks from an income of ten thou- 
 sand a year ; they may be cheap for her rate of living, 
 but for us, for example, by no magic of numbers 
 can it be made to appear that it is cheaper to have 
 the greatest bargain in the world in Cashmere, lace, 
 and diamonds, than not to have them at all. I never 
 had a diamond, never wore a piece of point-lace, 
 never had a velvet dress, and have been perfectly 
 happy, and just as much respected as if I had. Who 
 ever thought of objecting to me for not having them ? 
 Nobody, as I ever heard." 
 
 " Certainly not, mamma," said Marianne. 
 
 " The thing I have always said to you girls is, that 
 you were not to expect to live like richer people, not 
 to begin to try, not to think or inquire about certain 
 rates of expenditure, or take the first step in certain 
 directions. We have moved on all our life after a 
 very antiquated and old-fashioned mode. We have 
 had our little old-fashioned house, our little old-fash- 
 ioned ways." 
 
 " Except the parlor-carpet, and what came of it, my 
 dear," said I, mischievously. 
 
 " Yes, except the parlor-carpet," said my wife, with 
 a conscious twinkle, " and the things that came of it ; 
 there was a concession there, but one can't be wise 
 always." 
 
 " We talked mamma into that," said Jenny. 
 
182 House and Home Papers. 
 
 " But one thing is certain," said my wife, " that, 
 though I have had an antiquated, plain house, and 
 plain furniture, and plain dress, and not the begin- 
 ning of a thing such as many of my neighbors have 
 possessed, I have spent more money than many of 
 them for real comforts. While I had young children, 
 I kept more and better servants than many women 
 who wore Cashmeres and diamonds. I thought it 
 better to pay extra wages to a really good, trusty 
 woman who lived with me from year to year, and 
 relieved me of some of my heaviest family-cares, 
 than to have ever so much lace locked away in my 
 drawers. We always were able to go into the coun- 
 try to spend our summers, and to keep a good family- 
 horse and carriage for daily driving, by which means 
 we afforded, as a family, very poor patronage to the 
 medical profession. Then we built our house, and 
 while we left out a great many expensive common- 
 places that other people think they must have, we 
 put in a profusion of bathing accommodations such 
 as very few people think of having. There never 
 was a time when we did not feel able to afford to 
 do what was necessary to preserve or to .restore 
 health ; and for this I always drew on the surplus 
 fund laid up by my very unfashionable housekeep- 
 ing and dressing." 
 
 " Your mother has had," said I, " what is the great 
 
Economy. . 183 
 
 want in America, perfect independence of mind to go 
 her own way without regard to the way others go. I 
 think there is, for some reason, more false shame 
 among Americans about economy than among Euro- 
 peans. ' I cannot afford it ' is more seldom heard 
 among us. A young man beginning life, whose in- 
 come may be from five to eight hundred a year, 
 thinks it elegant and gallant to affect a careless air 
 about money, especially among ladies, to hand it 
 out freely, and put back his change without counting 
 it, to wear a watch-chain and studs and shirt-fronts 
 like those of some young millionnaire. None but the 
 most expensive tailors, shoemakers, and hatters will 
 do for him ; and then he grumbles at the dearness of 
 living, and declares that he cannot get along on his 
 salary. The same is true of young girls, and of mar- 
 ried men and women too, the whole of them are 
 ashamed of economy. The cares that wear out life 
 and health in many households are of a nature that 
 cannot be cast on God, or met by any promise from 
 the Bible, it is not care for ' food convenient,' or 
 for comfortable raiment, but care to keep up false ap- 
 pearances, and to stretch a narrow income over the 
 space that can be covered only by a wider one. 
 
 " The poor widow in her narrow lodgings, with her 
 monthly rent staring her hourly in the face, and her 
 bread and meat and candles and meal all to be paid 
 
184 House and Home Papers. 
 
 for on delivery or not obtained at all, may find com- 
 fort in the good old Book, reading of that other 
 widow whose wasting measure of oil and last failing 
 handful of meal were of such account before her 
 Father in heaven that a prophet was sent to recruit 
 them ; and when customers do not pay, or wages are 
 cut down, she can enter into her chamber, and when 
 she hath shut her door, present to her Father in 
 heaven His sure promise that with the fowls of the 
 air she shall be fed and with the lilies of the field she 
 shall be clothed : but what promises are there for her 
 who is racking her brains on the ways and means to 
 provide as sumptuous an entertainment of oysters and 
 Champagne at her next party as her richer neighbor, 
 or to compass that great bargain which shall give her 
 a point-lace set almost as handsome as that of Mrs. 
 Croesus, who has ten times her income ? " 
 
 " But, papa," said Marianne, with a twinge of that 
 exacting sensitiveness by which the child is character- 
 ized, " I think I am an economist, thanks to you and 
 mamma, so far as knowing just what my income is, 
 and keeping within it ; but that does not satisfy me, 
 and it seems that is n't all of economy ; the ques- 
 tion that haunts me is, Might I not make my little all 
 do more and better than I do ? ". 
 
 "There," said I, "you have hit the broader and 
 deeper signification of economy, which is, in fact, the 
 
Economy. 185 
 
 science of comparative values. In its highest sense, 
 economy is a just judgment of the comparative value 
 of things, money only the means of enabling one 
 to express that value. This is the reason why the 
 whole matter is so full of difficulty, why every one 
 criticises his neighbor in this regard. Human beings 
 are so various, the necessities of each are so different, 
 they are made comfortable or uncomfortable by such 
 opposite means, that the spending of other people's 
 incomes must of necessity often look unwise from 
 our stand-point For this reason multitudes of peo- 
 ple who cannot be accused of exceeding their in- 
 comes often seem to others to be spending them fool- 
 ishly and extravagantly." 
 
 " But is there no standard of value ? " said Mari- 
 anne. 
 
 "There are certain things upon which there is a 
 pretty general agreement, verbally, at least, among 
 mankind. For instance, it is generally agreed that 
 health is an indispensable good, that money is well 
 spent that secures it, and worse than ill spent that 
 ruins it. 
 
 " With this standard in mind, how much money is 
 wasted even by people who do not exceed their in- 
 come ! Here a man builds a house, and pays, in 
 the first place, ten thousand more than he need, for a 
 location in a fashionable part of the city, though the 
 
1 86 House and Home Papers. 
 
 air will be closer and the chances of health less ; he 
 spends three or four thousand more on a stone front, 
 on marble mantles imported from Italy, on plate-glass 
 windows, plated hinges, and a thousand nice points 
 of finish, and has perhaps but one bath-room for a 
 whole household, and that so connected with his 
 own apartment that nobody but himself and his wife 
 can use it. 
 
 " Another man buys a lot in an open, airy situation, 
 which fashion has not made expensive, and builds 
 without a stone front, marble mantels, or plate-glass 
 windows, but has a perfect system of ventilation 
 through his house, and bathing-rooms in every story, 
 so that the children and guests may all, without in- 
 convenience, enjoy the luxury of abundant water. 
 
 " The first spends for fashion and show, the second 
 for health and comfort. 
 
 " Here is a man that will buy his wife a diamond 
 bracelet and a lace shawl, and take her yearly to 
 Washington to show off her beauty in ball-dresses, 
 who yet will not let her pay wages which will com- 
 mand any but the poorest and most inefficient domes- 
 tic service. The woman is worn out, her life made a 
 desert by exhaustion consequent on a futile attempt to 
 keep up a showy establishment with only half the 
 hands needed for the purpose. Another family will 
 give brilliant parties, have a gay season every year at 
 
Economy. 187 
 
 the first hotels at Newport, and not be able to afford 
 the wife a fire in her chamber in midwinter, or the 
 servants enough food to keep them from constantly 
 deserting. The damp, mouldy, dingy cellar-kitchen, 
 the cold, windy, desolate attic, devoid of any comfort, 
 where the domestics are doomed to pass their whole 
 time, are witnesses to what such families consider 
 economy. Economy in the view of some is undis- 
 guised slipshod slovenliness in the home-circle for 
 the sake of fine clothes to be shown abroad; it is 
 undisguised hard selfishness to servants and depend- 
 ants, counting their every approach to comfort a 
 needless waste, grudging the Roman-Catholic cook 
 her cup of tea at dinner on Friday, when she must 
 not eat meat, and murmuring that a cracked, sec- 
 ond-hand looking-glass must be got for the servants' 
 room : what business have they to want to know how 
 they look ? 
 
 " Some families will employ the cheapest physician, 
 without regard to his ability to kill or cure ; some will 
 treat diseases in their incipiency with quack med- 
 icines, bought cheap, hoping thereby to fend off the 
 doctor's bill. Some women seem to be pursued by an 
 evil demon of economy, which, like an ignis fatuus in 
 a bog, delights constantly to tumble them over into 
 the mire of expense. They are dismayed at the quan- 
 tity of sugar in the recipe for preserves, leave out a 
 
1 88 House and Home Papers. 
 
 quarter, and the whole ferments and is spoiled. They 
 cannot by any means be induced at any one time to 
 buy enough silk to make a dress, and the dress finally, 
 after many convulsions and alterations, must be thrown 
 by altogether, as too scanty. They get poor needles, 
 poor thread, poor sugar, poor raisins, poor tea, poor 
 coal. One wonders, in looking at their blackened, 
 smouldering grates, in a freezing day, what the fire is 
 there at all for, it certainly warms nobody. The 
 only thing they seem likely to be lavish in is funeral 
 expenses^ which come in the wake of leaky shoes and 
 imperfect clothing. These funeral expenses at last 
 swallow all, since nobody can dispute an undertaker's 
 bill. One pities these joyless beings. Economy, in- 
 stead of a rational act of the judgment, is a morbid 
 monomania, eating the pleasure out of life, and haunt- 
 ing them to the grave. 
 
 " Some people's ideas of economy seem to run sim- 
 ply in the line of eating. Their flour is of an extra 
 brand, their meat the first cut ; the delicacies of every 
 season, in their dearest stages, come home to their 
 table with an apologetic smile, ' It was scanda- 
 lously dear, my love, but I thought we must just treat 
 ourselves.' And yet these people cannot afford to 
 buy books, and pictures they regard as an unthought- 
 of extravagance. Trudging home with fifty dollars' 
 worth of delicacies on his arm, Smith meets Jones, 
 
Economy. 1 89 
 
 who is exulting with a bag of crackers under one arm 
 and a choice little bit of an oil painting under the 
 other, which he thinks a bargain at fifty dollars. ' / 
 can't afford to buy pictures,' Smith says to his spouse, 
 ' and I don't know how Jones and his wife manage.' 
 Jones and his wife will live on bread and milk for a 
 month, and she will turn her best gown the third time, 
 but they will have their picture, and they are happy. 
 Jones's picture remains, and Smith's fifty dollars' worth 
 of oysters and canned fruit to-morrow will be gone 
 forever. Of all modes of spending money, the swal- 
 lowing of expensive dainties brings the least return. 
 There is one step lower than this, the consuming 
 of luxuries that are injurious to the health. If all the 
 money spent on tobacco and liquors could be spent 
 in books and pictures, I predict that nobody's health 
 would be a whit less sound, and houses would be 
 vastly more attractive. There is enough money spent 
 in smoking, drinking, and over-eating to give every 
 family in the community a good library, to hang every- 
 body's parlor-walls with lovely pictures, to set up in 
 every house a conservatory which should bloom all 
 winter with choice flowers, to furnish every dwelling 
 with ample bathing and warming accommodations, 
 even down to the dwellings of the poor ; and in the 
 millennium I believe this is the way things are to be. 
 " In these times of peril and suffering, if the inquiry 
 
190 House and Home Papers. 
 
 arises, How shall there be retrenchment ? I answer, 
 First and foremost retrench things needless, doubtful, 
 and positively hurtful, as rum, tobacco, and all the 
 meerschaums of divers colors that do accompany the 
 same. Second, retrench all eating not necessary to 
 health and comfort. A French family, would live in 
 luxury on the leavings that are constantly coming from 
 the tables of those who call themselves in middling 
 circumstances. There are superstitions of the table 
 that ought to be broken through. Why must you 
 always have cake in your closet ? why need you feel 
 undone to entertain a guest with no cake on your tea- 
 table ? Do without it a year, and ask yourselves if 
 you or your children, or any one else, have suffered 
 materially in consequence. 
 
 " Why is it imperative that you should have two or 
 three courses at every meal ? Try the experiment of 
 having but one, and that a very good one, and see if 
 any great amount of suffering ensues. Why must 
 social intercourse so largely consist in eating ? In 
 Paris there is a very pretty custom. Each family has 
 one evening in the week when it stays at home and 
 receives friends. Tea, with a -little bread and butter 
 and cake, served in the most informal way, is the 
 only refreshment. The rooms ^are full, busy, bright, 
 everything as easy and joyous as if a monstrous 
 supper, with piles of jelly and mountains of cake, 
 
Economy. 191 
 
 were waiting to give the company a nightmare at the 
 close. 
 
 " Said a lady, pointing to a gentleman and his wife 
 in a social circle of this kind, ' I ought to know them 
 we ll 3 I have seen them every week for twenty years.' 
 It is certainly pleasant and confirmative of social enjoy- 
 ment for friends to eat together ; but a little enjoyed 
 in this way answers the purpose as well as a great 
 deal, and better too." 
 
 "Well, papa," said Marianne, "in the matter of 
 dress now, how much ought one to spend just to 
 look as others do ? " 
 
 " I will tell you what I saw the other night, girls, 
 in the parlor of one of our hotels. Two middle-aged 
 Quaker ladies came gliding in, with calm, cheerful 
 faces, and lustrous dove-colored silks. By their con- 
 versation I found that they belonged to that class of 
 women among the Friends who cjevote themselves to 
 travelling on missions of benevolence. They had just 
 completed a tour of all the hospitals for wounded sol- 
 diers in the country, where they had been carrying 
 comforts, arranging, advising, and soothing by their 
 cheerful, gentle presence. They were now engaged 
 on another mission, to the lost and erring of their own 
 sex ; night after night, guarded by a policeman, they 
 had ventured after midnight into the dance-houses 
 where girls are being led to ruin, and with gentle 
 
192 House and Home Papers. 
 
 words of tender, motherly counsel sought to win them 
 from their fatal ways, telling them where they might 
 go the next day to find friends who would open to 
 them an asylum and aid them to seek a better life. 
 
 "As I looked upon these women, dressed with such 
 modest purity, I began secretly to think that the 
 Apostle was not wrong, when he spoke of women 
 adorning themselves with the ornament of a meek 
 -and quiet spirit ; for the habitual gentleness of their 
 expression, the calmness and purity of the lines in 
 their faces, the delicacy and simplicity of their apparel, 
 seemed of themselves a rare and peculiar beauty. 
 I could not help thinking that fashionable bonnets, 
 flowing lace sleeves, and dresses elaborately trimmed 
 could not have improved even their outward appear- 
 ance. Doubtless, their simple wardrobe needed but 
 a small trunk in travelling from place to place, and 
 hindered but little their prayers and ministrations. 
 
 " Now, it is true, all women are not called to such 
 a life as this ; but might not all women take a leaf at 
 least from their book ? I submit the inquiry humbly. 
 It seems to me that there are many who go monthly 
 to the sacrament, and receive it with sincere devotion, 
 and who give thanks each time sincerely that they are 
 thus made ' members incorporate in the mystical body 
 of Christ,' who have never thought of this membership 
 as meaning that they should share Christ's sacrifices 
 
Economy. 193 
 
 for lost souls, or abridge themselves of one ornament 
 or encounter one inconvenience for the sake of those 
 wandering sheep for whom he died. Certainly there 
 is a higher economy which we need to learn, that 
 which makes all things subservient to the spiritual and 
 immortal, and that not merely to the good of our own 
 souls and those of our family, but of all who are knit 
 with us in the great bonds of human brotherhood. 
 
 " There' have been from time to time, among well- 
 meaning Christian people, retrenchment societies on 
 high moral grounds, which have failed for want of 
 knowledge how to manage the complicated question 
 of necessaries and luxuries. These words have a sig- 
 nification in the case of different people as varied as 
 the varieties of human habit and constitution. It is a 
 department impossible to be bound by external rules ; 
 but none the less should every high-minded Christian 
 soul in this matter have a law unto itself. It may 
 safely be laid down as a general rule, that no income, 
 however large or however small, should be unblessed 
 by the divine touch of self-sacrifice. Something for 
 the poor, the sorrowing, the hungry, the tempted, and 
 the weak should be taken from what is our^own at the 
 expense of some personal sacrifice, or we suffer more 
 morally than the brother from whom we withdraw it. 
 Even the Lord of all, when dwelling among men, out 
 of that slender private purse which he accepted for 
 9 
 
194 . House and Home Papers. 
 
 his little family of chosen ones, had ever something 
 reserved to give to the poor. It is easy to say, ' It 
 is but a drop in the bucket. I cannot remove the 
 great mass of misery in the world. What little I could 
 save or give does nothing.' It does this, if no more, 
 it prevents one soul, and that soul your own, from 
 drying and hardening into utter selfishness and insen- 
 sibility ; it enables you to say I have done something \ 
 taken one atom from the great heap of sins and mis- 
 eries and placed it on the side of good. 
 
 "The Sisters of Charity and the Friends, each with 
 their different costume of plainness and self-denial, 
 and other noble-hearted women of no particular out- 
 ward order, but kindred in spirit, have shown to 
 womanhood, on the battle-field and in the hospital, 
 a more excellent way, a beauty and nobility before 
 which all the common graces and ornaments of the 
 sex fade, appear like dim candles by the pure, eternal 
 stars." 
 

 IX. 
 
 SERVANTS. 
 
 IN the course of my papers various domestic revo- 
 lutions have occurred. Our Marianne has gone 
 from us with a new name to a new life, and a modest 
 little establishment not many squares off claims about 
 as much of my wife's and Jenny's busy thoughts as 
 those of the proper mistress. 
 
 Marianne, as I always foresaw, is a careful and 
 - somewhat anxious housekeeper. Her tastes are fas- 
 tidious ; she is made for exactitude : the smallest 
 departures from the straight line appear to her shock- 
 ing deviations. She had always lived in a house 
 where everything had been formed to quiet and order 
 under the ever-present care and touch of her mother ; 
 nor had she ever participated in these cares more than 
 to do a little dusting of the parlor ornaments, or wash 
 the best china, or make sponge-cake or chocolate- 
 caramels. Certain conditions of life had always ap- 
 peared so to be matters of course that she had never 
 conceived of a house without them. It never occurred 
 to her that such bread and biscuit as she saw at the 
 
196 House and Home Papers. 
 
 home-table would not always and of course appear at 
 every table, that the silver would not always be as 
 bright, the glass as clear, the salt as fine and smooth, 
 the plates and dishes as nicely arranged as she had 
 always seen them, apparently without the thought or 
 care of any one, for my wife is one of those house- 
 keepers whose touch is so fine that no one feels it. 
 She is never heard scolding or reproving, never 
 entertains her company with her recipes for cookery 
 or the faults of her servants. She is so unconcerned 
 about receiving her own personal share of credit for 
 the good appearance of her establishment, that even 
 the children of the house have not supposed that there 
 is any particular will of hers in the matter, it all 
 seems the natural consequence of having very good 
 servants. 
 
 One phenomenon they had never seriously reflected 
 on, that, under all the changes of the domestic cab- 
 inet which are so apt to occur in American households, 
 the same coffee, the same bread and biscuit, the same 
 nicely prepared dishes and neatly laid table always 
 gladdened their eyes ; and from this they inferred only 
 that good servants were more abundant than most 
 people had supposed. They were somewhat surprised 
 when these marvels were wrought by professedly green 
 hands, but were given to suppose that these green 
 hands must have had some remarkable quickness or 
 
Servants. \ 97 
 
 aptitude for acquiring. That sparkling jelly, well-fla- 
 vored ice-creams, clear soups, and delicate biscuits 
 could be made by a raw Irish girl, fresh from her 
 native Erin, seemed to them a proof of the genius of 
 the race ; and my wife, who never felt it important to 
 attain to the reputation of a cook, quietly let it pass. 
 
 For some time, therefore, after the inauguration of 
 the new household, there was trouble in the camp. 
 Sour bread had appeared on the table, bitter, acrid 
 coffee had shocked and astonished the palate, lint 
 had been observed on tumblers, and the spoons had 
 sometimes dingy streaks on the brightness of their 
 first bridal polish, beds were detected made shock- 
 ingly awry, and Marianne came burning with indig- 
 nation to her mother. 
 
 " Such a little family as we have, and two strong 
 girls," said she, " everything ought to be perfect j 
 there is really nothing to do. Think of a whole batch 
 of bread absolutely sour ! and when I gave that away, 
 then this morning another exactly like it ! and when I 
 talked to cook about it, she said she had lived in 
 this and that family, and her bread had always been 
 praised as equal to the baker's ! " 
 
 " I don't doubt she is right," said I. " Many fam- 
 ilies never have anything but sour bread from one end 
 of the year to the other, eating it unperceiving, and 
 with good cheer ; and they buy also sour bread of the 
 
198 Hotise and Home Papers. 
 
 baker, with like approbation, lightness being in 
 their estimation the only virtue necessary in the ar- 
 ticle." 
 
 " Could you not correct her fault ? " suggested my 
 wife.. 
 
 " I have done all I can. I told her we could not 
 have such bread, that it was dreadful; Bob says it 
 would give him the dyspepsia in a week ; and then 
 she went and made exactly the same ; it seems to 
 me mere wilfulness." 
 
 " But," said I, " suppose, instead of such general 
 directions, you should analyze her proceedings and 
 find out just where she makes her mistake, is the 
 root of the trouble in the yeast, or in the time she 
 begins it, letting it rise too long ? the time, you 
 know, should vary so much with the temperature of 
 the weather." 
 
 "As to that," said Marianne, "I know nothing. I 
 never noticed ; it never was my business to make 
 bread ; it always seemed quite a simple process, mix- 
 ing yeast and flour and kneading it ; and our bread at 
 home was always good." 
 
 "It seems, then, my dear, that you have come to 
 your profession without even having studied it." 
 
 My wife smiled, and said, 
 
 " You know, Marianne, I proposed to you to be our 
 family bread-maker for one month of the year before 
 you married." 
 
Servants. 199 
 
 " Yes, mamma, I remember ; but I was like other 
 girls ; I thought there was no need of it. I never 
 liked to do such things ; perhaps I had better have 
 done it." 
 
 "You certainly had," said I ; "for the first business 
 of a housekeeper in America is that of a teacher. 
 She can have a good table only by having practical 
 knowledge, and tact in imparting it. If she under- 
 stands her business practically and experimentally, 
 her eye detects at once the weak spot; it requires 
 only a little tact, some patience, some clearness in 
 giving directions, and all comes right. I venture to 
 say that your mother would have exactly such bread 
 as always appears on our table, and have it by the 
 hands of your cook, because she could detect and 
 explain to her exactly her error." 
 
 " Do you know," said my wife, " what yeast she 
 uses ? " 
 
 " I believe," said Marianne, " it 's a kind she makes 
 herself. I think I heard her say so. I know she 
 makes a great fuss about it, and rather values her- 
 self upon it. She is evidently accustomed to being 
 praised for her bread, and feels mortified and angry, 
 and I don't know how to manage her." 
 
 "Well," said I, "if you carry your watch to a 
 watchmaker, and undertake to show him how to 
 regulate the machinery, he laughs and goes on his 
 
2OO , House and Home Papers. 
 
 own way; but if a brother-machinist makes sugges- 
 tions, he listens respectfully. So, when a woman who 
 knows nothing of woman's work undertakes to in- 
 struct one who knows more than she does, she makes 
 no impression ; but a woman who has been trained 
 experimentally, and shows she understands the matter 
 thoroughly, is listened to with respect." 
 
 "I think," said my wife, "that your Bridget is worth 
 teaching. She is honest, well-principled, and tidy. 
 She has good recommendations from excellent fam- 
 ilies, whose ideas of good bread it appears differ from 
 ours ; and with a little good-nature, tact, and patience, 
 she will come into your ways." 
 
 " But the coffee, mamma, you would not imagine 
 it to be from the same bag with your own, so dark 
 and so bitter ; what do you suppose she has done 
 to it?" 
 
 " Simply this," said my wife. " She has let the 
 berries stay a few moments too long over the fire, 
 they are burnt, instead of being roasted; and there 
 are people who think it essential to good coffee that 
 it should look black, and have a strong, bitter flavor. 
 A very little change in the preparing will alter this." 
 
 " Now," said I, " Marianne, if you want my advice, 
 I '11 give it to you gratis : Make your own bread for 
 one month. Simple as the process seems, I think it 
 will take as long as that to give you a thorough knowl- 
 
Servants. . 2O I 
 
 edge of all the possibilities in the case ; but after that 
 you will never need to make any more, you will be 
 able to command good bread by the aid of all sorts 
 of servants ; you will, in other words, be a thoroughly 
 prepared teacher." 
 
 " I did not think," said Marianne, " that so simple 
 a thing required so much attention." 
 
 " It is simple," said my wife, " and yet requires a 
 delicate care and watchfulness. There are fifty ways 
 to spoil good bread ; there are a hundred little things 
 to be considered and allowed for that require accurate 
 observation and experience. The same process that 
 will raise good bread in cold weather will make sour 
 bread in the heat of summer ; different qualities of 
 flour require variations in treatment, as also different 
 sorts and conditions of yeast ; and when all is done, 
 the baking presents another series of possibilities 
 which require exact attention." 
 
 "So it appears," said Marianne, gayly, "that I must 
 begin to study my profession at the eleventh hour." 
 
 "Better late than never," said I. "But there is 
 this advantage on your side : a well-trained mind, 
 accustomed to reflect, analyze, and generalize, has an 
 advantage over uncultured minds even of double ex- 
 perience. Poor as your cook is, she now knows more 
 of her business than you do. After a very brief 
 period of attention and experiment, you will not only 
 9* 
 
2O2 House and Home Papers. 
 
 know more than she does, but you will convince her 
 that you do, which is quite as much to the purpose." 
 
 " In the same manner," said my wife, " you will 
 have to give lessons to your other girl on the washing 
 of silver and the making of beds. Good servants do 
 not often come to us ; they must be made by .patience 
 and training ; and if a girl has a good disposition and 
 a reasonable .degree of handiness, and the house- 
 keeper understands her profession, she may make a 
 good servant out of an indifferent one. Some of my 
 best girls have been those who came to me directly 
 from the ship, with no preparation but docility and 
 some natural quickness. The hardest cases to be 
 managed are not of those who have been taught noth- 
 ing, but of those who have been taught wrongly, 
 who come to you self-opinionated, with ways which 
 are distasteful to you, and contrary to the genius of 
 your housekeeping. Such require that their mistress 
 shall understand at least so much of the actual con- 
 duct of affairs as to prove to the servant that there are 
 better ways than those in which she has hitherto been 
 trained." 
 
 " Don't you think, mamma," said Marianne, " that 
 
 there has been a sort - of reaction against woman's 
 
 / work in our day ? ' So much has been said of the 
 
 , higher sphere of woman, and so much has been done 
 
 to find some better work for her, that insensibly, I 
 
Servants. 203 
 
 think, almost everybody begins to feel that it is rather ' 
 degrading for a woman in good society to be much^ 
 tied down to family affairs." ) 
 
 " Especially," said my wife, " since in these Wo- 
 man's-Rights Conventions there is so much indigna- 
 tion expressed at those who would confine her ideas 
 to the kitchen and nursery." 
 
 "There is reason in all things," said I. "Woman's- 
 Rights Conventions are a protest against many former 
 absurd, unreasonable ideas, the mere physical and 
 culinary idea of womanhood as connected only with 
 puddings and shirt-buttons, the unjust and unequal 
 burdens which the laws of harsher ages had cast upon 
 the sex. Many of the women connected with these 
 movements are as superior in everything properly 
 womanly as they are in exceptional talent and cul- 
 ture. There is no manner of doubt that the sphere 
 of woman is properly to be enlarged, and that re- 
 publican governments in particular are to be saved 
 from corruption and failure only by allowing to woman 
 this enlarged sphere. Every woman has rights as a 
 human being first, which belong to no sex, and 
 ought to be as freely conceded to her as if she were 
 
 a man, and first and foremost, the great right of 
 
 
 doing anything which God and Nature evidently have 
 
 fitted her to excel in. If she be made a natural 
 orator, like Miss Dickenson, or an astronomer, like 
 
2O4 House and Home Papers. 
 
 Mrs. Somerville, or a singer, like Grisi, let not the 
 technical rules of womanhood be thrown in the way 
 of her free use of her powers. Nor can there be 
 any reason shown why a woman's vote in the state 
 should not be received with as much respect as in 
 the family. A state is but an association of families, 
 and laws relate to the rights and immunities which 
 touch woman's most private and immediate wants 
 and dearest hopes ; and there is no reason why sister, 
 wife, and mother should be more powerless in the 
 state than in the home. Nor does it make a woman 
 unwomanly to express an opinion by dropping a slip 
 of paper into a box, more than to express that same 
 opinion by conversation. In fact, there is no doubt, 
 that, in all matters relating to the interests of educa- 
 tion, temperance, and religion, the state would be a 
 material gainer by receiving the votes of women. 
 
 "But, having said all this, I must admit, per contra, 
 not only a great deal of crude, disagreeable talk in 
 these conventions, but a too great tendency of the 
 age to make the education of women anti-domestic. 
 It seems as if the world never could advance, except 
 like ships under a head-wind, tacking and going too 
 far, now in this direction, and now in the opposite. 
 Our common-school system now rejects sewing from 
 the education of girls, which very properly used 
 to occupy many hours daily in school a generation 
 
Servants. 20$ 
 
 ago. Th^" daughters of laborers and artisans are 
 put through algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and the 
 higher mathematics, to the entire neglect of that 
 learning which belongs distinctively to woman. A 
 girl cannot keep pace with her class, if she gives 
 any time to domestic matters; and accordingly she 
 is excused from them all during the whole term of 
 her education. The boy of a family, at an early age, 
 is put to a trade, or the labors of a farm ; the father 
 becomes impatient of his support, and requires of 
 him to care for himself. Hence an interrupted educa- 
 tion, learning coming by snatches in the winter 
 months or in the intervals of work. As the result, 
 the females in our country towns are commonly, in 
 mental culture, vastly in advance of the males of 
 the same household ; but with this comes a physical 
 delicacy, the result of an exclusive use of the brain 
 and a neglect of the muscular system, with great 
 inefficiency in practical domestic duties. The race 
 of strong, hardy, cheerful girls, that used to grow up 
 in country places, and made the bright, neat, New 
 England kitchens of old times, the girls that could 
 wash, iron, brew, bake, harness a horse and drive him, 
 no less than braid straw, embroider, draw, paint, and 
 read innumerable books, this race of women, pride 
 of olden time, is daily lessening ; and in their stead 
 come the fragile, easily fatigued, languid girls of a 
 
206 House and Home Papers. 
 
 modern age, drilled in book-learning, i^horant of 
 common things. The great danger of all this, and 
 of the evils that come from it, is that society by and 
 by will turn as blindly against female intellectual 
 culture as it now advocates it, and, having worked 
 disproportionately one way, will work disproportion- 
 ately in the opposite direction." 
 
 " The fact is," said my wife, " that domestic service 
 is the great problem of life here in America; the 
 happiness of families, their thrift, well-being, and 
 comfort, are more affected by this than by any one 
 thing else. Our girls, as they have been brought 
 up, cannot perform the labor of their own families, 
 as in those simpler, old-fashioned days you tell of; 
 and what is worse, they have no practical skill with 
 which to instruct servants, and servants come to us, 
 as a class, raw and untrained ; so what is to be done ? 
 In the present state of prices, the board of a domestic 
 costs double her wages, and the waste she makes is 
 a more serious matter still. Suppose you give us an 
 article upon this subject in your ' House and Home 
 Papers.' You could not have a better one." 
 
 So I sat down, and wrote thus on 
 
 SERVANTS AND SERVICE. 
 
 MANY of the domestic evils in America originate 
 in the fact, that, while society here is- professedly 
 
Servants. 207 
 
 based on fiew principles which ought to make social 
 life in every respect different from the life of the 
 Old World, yet these principles have never been so 
 thought out and applied as to give consistency and 
 harmony to our daily relations. America starts with 
 a political organization based on a declaration of the 
 primitive freedom and equality of all men. Every 
 human being, according to this principle, stands on 
 the same natural level with every other, and has the 
 same chance to rise according to the degree of power 
 or capacity given by the Creator. All our civil in- 
 stitutions are designed to preserve this equality, as 
 far as possible, from generation to generation : there 
 is no entailed property, there are no hereditary titles, 
 no monopolies, no privileged classes, all are to be 
 as free to rise and fall as the waves of the sea. 
 
 The condition of domestic service, however, still 
 retains about it something of the influences from 
 feudal times, and from the near presence of slavery 
 in neighboring States. All English literature, all the 
 literature of the world, describes domestic service in 
 the old feudal spirit and with the old feudal language, 
 which regarded the master as belonging to a privi- 
 leged class and the servant to an inferior one. There 
 is not a play, not a poem, not a novel, not a history, 
 that does not present this view. The master's rights, 
 like the rights of kings, were supposed to rest in his 
 
208 House and Home Papers. 
 
 being born in a superior rank. The good servant 
 was one who, from childhood, had learned " to order 
 himself lowly and reverently to all his betters." When 
 New England brought to these shores the theory of 
 democracy, she brought, in the persons of the first 
 pilgrims, the habits of thought and of action formed 
 in aristocratic communities. Winthrop's Journal, and 
 all the old records of the earlier colonists, show 
 households where masters and mistresses stood on 
 the " right divine " of the privileged cjasses, howso- 
 ever they might have risen up against authorities 
 themselves. 
 
 The first consequence of this state of things was 
 a universal rejection of domestic service in all classes 
 of American-born society. For a generation or two, 
 there was, indeed, a sort of interchange of family 
 strength, sons and daughters engaging in the ser- 
 vice of neighboring families, in default of a sufficient 
 working-force of their own, but always on conditions 
 of strict equality. The assistant was to share the 
 table, the family sitting-room, and every honor and 
 attention that might be claimed by son or daughter. 
 When families increased in refinement and education 
 so as to make these conditions of close intimacy 
 with more uncultured neighbors disagreeable, they 
 had to choose between such intimacies and the per- 
 formance of their own domestic toil. No wages 
 
Servants. 209 
 
 could induce a son or daughter of New England to 
 take the condition of a servant on terms which they 
 thought applicable to that of a slave. The slightest 
 hint of a separate table was resented as an insult ; 
 not to enter the front-door, and not to sit in the front- 
 parlor on state-occasions, was bitterly commented on 
 as a personal indignity. 
 
 The well-taught, self-respecting daughters of farm- 
 ers, the class most valuable in domestic service, gradu- 
 ally retired from it. They preferred any other em- 
 ployment, however laborious. Beyond all doubt, the 
 labors of a well-regulated family are more healthy, 
 more cheerful, more interesting, because less monoto- 
 nous, than the mechanical toils of a factory; yet 
 the girls of New England, with one consent, preferred 
 the factory, and left the whole business of domestic 
 service to a foreign population ; and they did it mainly 
 because they would not take positions in families as 
 an inferior laboring-class by the side of others of 
 their own age who assumed as their prerogative to 
 live without labor. 
 
 " I can't let you have one of my daughters," said 
 an energetic matron to her neighbor from the city, 
 who was seeking for a servant in her summer vaca- 
 tion ; " if you had n't daughters of your own, maybe 
 I would ; but my girls ain't going to work so that your 
 girls may live in idleness." 
 
2io House and Home Papers. 
 
 It was vain to offer money. " We don't need your 
 money, ma'am, we can support ourselves in other 
 ways ; my girls can braid straw, and bind shoes, but 
 they ain't going to be slaves to anybody." 
 
 In the Irish and German servants who took the 
 place of Americans in families, there was, to begin 
 with, the tradition of education in favor of a higher 
 class ; but even the foreign population became more 
 or less infected with the spirit of democracy. They 
 came to this country with vague notions of freedom 
 and equality, and in ignorant and uncultivated people 
 such ideas are often more unreasonable for being 
 vague. They did not, indeed, claim a seat at the 
 table and in the parlor, but they repudiated many 
 of those habits of respect and courtesy which be- 
 longed to their former condition, and asserted their 
 own will and way in the round, unvarnished phrase 
 which they supposed to be their right as republican 
 citizens. Life became a sort of domestic wrangle and 
 struggle between the employers, who secretly confessed 
 their weakness, but endeavored openly to assume the 
 air and bearing of authority, and the employed, who 
 knew their power and insisted on their privileges. 
 From this cause domestic service in America has 
 had less of mutual kindliness than in old countries. 
 Its terms have been so ill understood and denned 
 that both parties have assumed the defensive ; and 
 
Servants. 2 1 1 
 
 a common topic of conversation in American female 
 society has often been the general servile war which 
 in one form or another was going on in their different 
 families, a war as interminable as would be a strug- 
 gle between aristocracy and common people, unde- 
 fined by any bill of rights or constitution, and there- 
 fore opening fields for endless disputes. In England, 
 the class who go to service are a class, and service is 
 a profession ; the distance between them and their 
 employers is so marked and defined, and all the cus- 
 toms and requirements of the position are so perfectly 
 understood, that the master or mistress has no fear of 
 being compromised by condescension, and no need of 
 the external voice or air of authority. The higher up 
 in the social scale one goes, the more courteous seems 
 to become the intercourse of master and servant ; the 
 more perfect and real the power, the more is it veiled 
 in outward expression, commands are phrased as 
 requests, and gentleness of voice and manner covers 
 an authority which no one would think of offending 
 without trembling. 
 
 But in America all is undefined. In the first place, 
 there is no class who mean to make domestic service a 
 profession to live and die in. It is universally an ex- 
 pedient, a stepping-stone to something higher ; your 
 best servants always have something else in view as 
 soon as they have laid by a little money ; some form of 
 
212 House and Home Papers. 
 
 independence which shall give them a home of their 
 own is constantly in mind. Families look forward to 
 the buying of landed homesteads, and the scattered 
 brothers and sisters work awhile in domestic service 
 to gain the common fund for the purpose ; your seam- 
 stress intends to become a dress-maker, and take in 
 work at her own house ; your cook is pondering a 
 marriage with the baker, which shall transfer her toils 
 from your cooking-stove to her own. Young women 
 are eagerly rushing into e.very other employment, till 
 female trades and callings are all overstocked. We 
 are continually harrowed with tales of the sufferings 
 of distressed needle-women, of the exactions and ex- 
 tortions practised on the frail sex in the many branches 
 of labor and trade at which they try their hands ; and 
 yet women will encounter all these chances of ruin 
 and starvation rather than make up their minds to 
 permanent domestic service. Now what is the mat- 
 ter with domestic service ? One would think, on the 
 face of it, that a calling which gives a settled home, a 
 comfortable room, rent-free, with fire and lights, good 
 board and lodging, and steady, well-paid wages, would 
 certainly offer more attractions than the making of 
 shirts for tenpence, with all the risks of providing 
 one's own sustenance and shelter. 
 
 I think it is mainly from the want of a definite idea 
 of the true position of a servant under our democratic 
 
Servants. 213 
 
 institutions that domestic service is so shunned and 
 avoided in America, that it is the very last thing which 
 an intelligent young woman will look to for a living. 
 It is more the want of personal respect toward those 
 in that position than the labors incident to it which 
 repels our people from it. Many would be willing to 
 perform these labors, but they are not willing to place 
 themselves in a situation where their self-respect is 
 hourly wounded by the implication of a degree of infe- 
 riority which does not follow any kind of labor or service 
 in this country but that of the family. 
 
 There exists in the minds of employers an unsus- 
 pected spirit of superiority, which is stimulated into 
 an active form by the resistance which democracy in- 
 spires in the working-class. Many families think of 
 servants only as a necessary evil, their wages as exac- 
 tions, and all that is allowed them as so much taken 
 from the family ; and they seek in every way to get 
 from them as much and to give them as little as pos- 
 sible. Their rooms are the neglected, ill-furnished, 
 incommodious ones, and the kitchen is the most 
 cheerless and comfortless place in the house. Other 
 families, more good-natured and liberal, provide their 
 domestics with more suitable accommodations, and 
 are more indulgent ; but there is still a latent spirit 
 of something like contempt for the position. That 
 they treat their servants with so much consideration 
 
214 House and Home Papers. 
 
 seems to them a merit entitling them to the most 
 prostrate gratitude ; and they are constantly disap- 
 pointed and shocked at that want of sense of infe- 
 riority on the part of these people which leads them 
 to appropriate pleasant rooms, good furniture, and 
 good living as mere matters of common justice. 
 
 It seems to be a constant surprise to some em- 
 ployers that servants should insist on having the same 
 human wants as themselves. Ladies who yawn in their 
 elegantly furnished parlors, among books and pictures, 
 if they have not company, parties, or opera to diversify 
 the evening, seem astonished and half indignant that 
 cook and chambermaid are more disposed to go out 
 for an evening gossip than to sit on hard chairs in the 
 kitchen where they have been toiling all day. The 
 pretty chambermaid's anxieties about her dress, the 
 time she spends at her small and not very clear mir- 
 ror, are sneeringly noticed by those whose toilet-cares 
 take up serious hours ; and the question has never 
 apparently occurred to them why a serving-maid 
 should not want to look pretty as well as her mis- 
 tress. She is a woman as well as they, with all a 
 woman's wants and weaknesses ; and her dress is as 
 much to her as theirs to them. 
 
 A vast deal of trouble among servants arises from 
 impertinent interferences and petty tyrannical exac- 
 tions on the part of employers. Now the authority of 
 
Servants. 2 1 5 
 
 the master and mistress of a house in regard to their 
 domestics extends simply to the things they haVe con- 
 tracted to do and the hours during which they have 
 contracted to serve ; otherwise than this, they have no 
 more right to interfere with them in the disposal of 
 their time than with any mechanic whom they employ. 
 They have, indeed, a right to regulate the hours of 
 their own household, and servants can choose be- 
 tween conformity to these hours and the loss of their 
 situation but, within reasonable limits, their right to 
 come and go at their own discretion, in their own time, 
 should be unquestioned. 
 
 If employers are troubled by the fondness of their 
 servants for dancing, evening company, and late hours, 
 the proper mode of proceeding is to make these mat- 
 ters a'subject of distinct contract in hiring. The more 
 strictly and perfectly the business matters of the first 
 engagement of domestics are conducted, the more 
 likelihood there is of mutual quiet and satisfaction in 
 the relation. It is quite competent to every house- 
 keeper to say what practices are or are not consistent 
 with the rules of her family, and what will be incon- 
 sistent with the service for which she agrees to pay. 
 It is much better to regulate such affairs by cool con- 
 tract in the outset than by warm altercations and 
 protracted domestic battles. 
 
 As to the terms of social intercourse, it seems some- 
 
2i6 House and Home Papers. 
 
 how to be settled in the minds of many employers 
 that their servants owe them and their family more 
 respect than they and the family owe to the servants. 
 But do they ? What is the relation of servant to em- 
 ployer in a democratic country ? Precisely that of a 
 person who for money performs any kind of service 
 for you. The carpenter comes into your house to 
 put up a set of shelves, the cook comes into your 
 kitchen to cook your dinner. You never think that 
 the carpenter owes you any more respect than you 
 owe to him because he is in your house doing your 
 behests ; he is your fellow-citizen, you treat him with 
 respect, you expect to be treated with respect by him. 
 You have a claim on him that he shall do your work 
 according to your directions, no more. Now I ap- 
 prehend that there is a very common notion as to the 
 position and rights of servants which is quite different 
 from this. Is it not a common feeling that a servant 
 is one who may be treated with a degree of freedom 
 by every member of the family which he or she may 
 not return ? Do not people feel at liberty to question 
 servants about their private affairs, to comment on 
 their dress and appearance, in a manner which they 
 would feel to be an impertinence, if reciprocated ? 
 Do they not feel at liberty to express dissatisfaction 
 with their performances in rude and unceremonious 
 terms, to reprove them in the presence of company, 
 
Servants. 217 
 
 while yet they require that the dissatisfaction of ser- 
 vants shall be expressed only in terms of respect? 
 A woman would not feel herself at liberty to talk to 
 her milliner or her dressmaker in language as devoid 
 of consideration as she will employ towards her cook 
 or chambermaid. Yet both are rendering her a ser- 
 vice which she pays for in money, and one is no more 
 made her inferior thereby than the other. Both have 
 an equal right to be treated with courtesy. The mas- 
 ter and mistress of a house have a right to require 
 respectful treatment from all whom their roof shelters ; 
 but they have no more right to exact it of servants 
 than of every guest and every child, and they them- 
 selves owe it as much to servants as to guests. 
 
 In order that servants may be treated with respect 
 and courtesy, it is not necessary, as in simpler patri- 
 archal days, that they sit at the family-table. Your 
 carpenter or plumber does not feel hurt that you do 
 not ask him to dine with you, nor your milliner and 
 mantua-maker that you do not exchange ceremonious 
 calls and invite them to your parties. It is well un- 
 derstood that your relations with them are of a mere 
 business character. They never take it as an assump- 
 tion of superiority on your part that you do not admit 
 them to relations of private intimacy. There may be 
 the most perfect respect and esteem and even friend- 
 ship between them and you, notwithstanding. So it 
 
 10 
 
2i8 House and Home Papers. 
 
 may be in the case of servants. It is easy to make 
 any person understand that there are quite other rea- 
 sons than the assumption of personal superiority for 
 not wishing to admit servants to the family privacy. 
 It was not, in fact, to sit in the parlor or at the table, 
 in themselves considered, that was the thing aimed at 
 by New England girls, these were valued only as 
 signs that they were deemed worthy of respect and 
 consideration, and, where freely conceded, were often 
 in point of fact declined. 
 
 Let servants feel, in their treatment by their em- 
 ployers, and in the atmosphere of the family, that their 
 position is held to be a respectable one, let them feel 
 in the mistress of the family the charm of unvarying 
 consideration and good manners, let their work-rooms 
 be made convenient and comfortable, and their pri- 
 vate apartments bear some reasonable comparison in 
 point of agreeableness to those of other members of 
 the family, and domestic service will be more fre- 
 quently sought by a superior and self-respecting class. 
 There are families in which such a state of things pre- 
 vails ; and such families, akdd the many causes which 
 unite to make the tenure of service uncertain, have 
 generally been able to keep good permanent servants. 
 
 There is an extreme into which kindly disposed 
 people often run with regard to servants, which may 
 be mentioned here. They make pets of them. They 
 
Servants. 219 
 
 give extravagant wages and indiscreet indulgences, 
 and, through indolence and easiness of temper, tol- 
 erate neglect of duty. Many of the complaints of 
 the ingratitude of servants come from those who have 
 spoiled them in this way ; while many of the longest 
 and most harmonious domestic unions have sprung 
 from a simple, quiet course of Christian justice and 
 benevolence, a recognition of servants as fellow-beings 
 and fellow-Christians, and a doing to them as we would 
 in like circumstances that they should do to us. 
 
 The mistresses of American families, whether they 
 like it or not, have the duties of missionaries imposed 
 upon them by that class from which our supply of 
 domestic servants is drawn. They may as well accept 
 the position cheerfully, and, as one raw, untrained 
 hand after another passes through their family, and 
 is instructed by them in the mysteries of good house- 
 keeping, comfort themserves with the reflection that 
 they are doing something to form good wives and 
 mothers for the Republic. 
 
 The complaints made of Irish girls are numerous 
 and loud; the 'failings of green Erin, alas! are but 
 too open and manifest ; yet, in arrest of judgment, let 
 us move this consideration : let us imagine our own 
 daughters between the ages of sixteen and twenty- 
 four, untaught and inexperienced in domestic affairs 
 as they commonly are, shipped to a foreign shore to 
 
22O House and Home Papers. 
 
 seek service in families. It may be questioned whether 
 as a whole they would do much better. The girls that 
 fill our families and do our house-work are often of 
 the age of our own daughters, standing for themselves, 
 without mothers to guide them, in a foreign country, 
 not only bravely supporting themselves, but sending 
 home in every ship remittances to impoverished friends 
 left behind. If our daughters did as much for us, 
 should we not be proud of their energy and hero- 
 ism ? 
 
 When we go into the houses of our country, we find 
 a majority of well-kept, well-ordered, and even elegant 
 establishments where the only hands employed are 
 those of the daughters of Erin. True, American wo- 
 men have been their instructors, and many a weary 
 hour of care have they had in the discharge of this 
 office ; but the result on the whole is beautiful and 
 good, and the end of it, doubtless, will be peace. 
 
 In speaking of the office of the American mistress 
 as being a missionary one, we are far from recommend- 
 ing any controversial interference with the religious 
 faith of our servants. It is far better to incite them 
 to be good Christians in their own way than to run 
 the risk of shaking their faith in all religion by point- 
 ing out to them the errors of that in which they have 
 been educated. The general purity of life and pro- 
 priety of demeanor of so many thousands of unde- 
 
Servants. 221 
 
 fended young girls cast yearly upon our shores, with 
 no home but their church, and no shield but their 
 religion, are a sufficient proof that this religion exerts 
 an influence over them not to be lightly trifled with. 
 But there is a real unity even in opposite Christian 
 forms ; and the Roman Catholic servant and the Prot- 
 estant mistress, if alike possessed by the spirit of 
 Christ, and striving to conform to the Golden Rule, 
 cannot help being one in heart, though one go to 
 mass and the other to meeting. 
 
 Finally, the bitter baptism through which we are 
 passing, the life-blood dearer than our own which is 
 drenching distant fields, should remind us of the pre- 
 ciousness of distinctive American ideas. They who 
 would seek in their foolish pride to establish the pomp 
 of liveried servants in America are doing that which 
 is simply absurd. A servant can never in our country 
 be the mere appendage to another man, to be marked 
 like a sheep with the color of his owner ; he must be 
 a fellow-citizen, with an established position of his 
 own, free to make contracts, free to come and go, and 
 having in his sphere titles to consideration and re- 
 spect just as definite as those of any trade or pro- 
 fession whatever. 
 
 Moreover, we cannot in this country maintain to 
 any great extent large retinues of servants. Even 
 with ample fortunes they are forbidden by the gen- 
 
222 House and Home Papers. 
 
 eral character of society here, which makes them cum- 
 brous and difficult to manage. Every mistress of a 
 family knows that her cares increase with every addi- 
 tional servant. Two keep the peace with each other 
 and their employer ; three begin a possible discord, 
 which possibility increases with four, and becomes 
 certain with five or six. Trained housekeepers, such 
 as regulate the complicated establishments of the Old 
 World, form a class that are not, and from the nature 
 of the case never will be, found in any great numbers 
 in this country. All such women, as a general thing, 
 are keeping, and prefer to keep, houses of their own. 
 
 A moderate style of housekeeping, small, compact, 
 and simple domestic establishments, must necessarily 
 be the general order of life in America. So many 
 openings of profit are to be found in this country, that 
 domestic service necessarily wants the permanence 
 which forms so agreeable a feature of it in the Old 
 World. 
 
 This being the case, it should be an object in Amer- 
 ica to exclude from the labors of the family all that 
 can, with greater advantage, be executed out of it 
 by combined labor. 
 
 Formerly, in New England, soap and candles were 
 to be made in each separate family ; now, compara- 
 tively few take this toil upon them. We buy soap of 
 the soap-maker, and candles of the candle-factor. This 
 
Servants. 223 
 
 principle might be extended much further. In France 
 no family makes its own bread, and better bread can- 
 not be eaten than what can be bought at the appro- 
 priate shops. No family does its own washing, the 
 family's linen is all sent to women who, making this 
 their sole profession, get it up with a care and nicety 
 which can seldom be equalled in any family. 
 
 How would it simplify the burdens of the Ameri- 
 can housekeeper to have washing and ironing day ex- 
 punged from her calendar ! How much more neatly 
 and compactly could the whole domestic system be 
 arranged ! If all the money that each separate fam- 
 ily spends on the outfit and accommodations for wash- 
 ing and ironing, on fuel, soap, starch, and the other et 
 ceteras, were united in a fund to create a laundry for 
 every dozen families, one or two good women could 
 do in first rate style what now is very indifferently 
 done by the disturbance and disarrangement of all 
 other domestic processes in these families. Whoever 
 sets neighborhood laundries on foot will do much to 
 solve the American housekeeper's hardest problem. 
 
 Finally, American -women must not try with three 
 servants to carry on life in the style which in the Old 
 World requires sixteen, they must thoroughly un- 
 derstand, and be prepared to teacft, every branch of 
 housekeeping, they must study to make domestic 
 service desirable, by treating their servants in a way 
 
224 House and Home Papers. 
 
 to lead them to respect themselves and to feel them- 
 selves respected, and there will gradually be evolved 
 from the present confusion a solution of the domestic 
 problem which shall be adapted to the life of a new 
 and growing world. 
 
X. 
 
 COOKERY. 
 
 MY wife and I were sitting at the open bow- 
 window of my study, watching the tuft of bright 
 red leaves on our favorite maple, which warned us that 
 summer was over. I was solacing myself, like aU the 
 world in our days, with reading the " Schonberg Cotta 
 Family," when my wife made her voice heard through 
 the enchanted distance, and dispersed the pretty vision' 
 of German cotfage-life. 
 
 " Chris ! " 
 
 "Well, my dear." 
 
 " Do you know the day of the month ? " 
 
 Now my wife knows this is a thing that I never do 
 know, that I can't know, and, in fact, that there is no 
 need I should trouble myself about, since she always 
 knows, and what is more, always tells me. In fact, 
 the question, when asked by her, meant more than 
 met the ear. It was a delicate way of admonishing 
 me that another paper for the " Atlantic " ought to be 
 in train ; and so I answered, not to the external form, 
 but to the internal intention. 
 10* 
 
226 House and Home Papers. 
 
 " Well, you see, my dear, I have n't made up my 
 mind what my next paper shall be about." 
 "Suppose, then, you let me give you a subject." 
 " Sovereign lady, speak on ! Your slave hears ! " 
 " Well, then, take Cookery. It may seem a vulgar 
 subject, but I think more of health and happiness de- 
 pends on that than on any other one thing. You may 
 make houses enchantingly beautiful, hang them with 
 pictures, have them clean and airy and convenient ; 
 but if the stomach is fed with sour bread and burnt 
 coffee, it will raise such rebellions that the eyes will 
 see no beauty anywhere. Now in the little tour that 
 you and I have been taking this summer, I have been 
 thinking of the great abundance of splendid material 
 we have in America, compared with the poor cooking. 
 How often, in our stoppings, we have sat down to ta- 
 bles loaded with material, originally of the very best 
 kind, which had been so spoiled in the treatment that 
 there was really nothing to eat ! Green biscuits with 
 acrid spots of alkali, sour yeast-bread, meat slow- 
 ly simmered in fat till it seemed like grease itself, and 
 slowly congealing in cold grease, and above all, that 
 unpardonable enormity, strong butter ! How often I 
 have longed to show people what might have been 
 done with the raw material out of which all these mon- 
 strosities were concocted ! " 
 
 " My dear," said I, " you are driving me upon deli- 
 
Cookery. 227 
 
 cate ground. Would you have your husband appear 
 in public with that most opprobrious badge of the do- 
 mestic furies, a dishcloth pinned to his coat-tail ? It is 
 coming to exactly the point I have always predicted, 
 Mrs. Crowfield : you must write yourself. I always 
 told you that you could write far better than I, if you 
 would only try. Only sit down and write as you 
 sometimes talk to me, and I might hang up my pen 
 by the side of ' Uncle Ned's ' fiddle and bow." 
 
 " O, nonsense ! " said my wife. (' I never could 
 write. I know what ought to be said, and I could 
 say it to any one ; but my ideas freeze in the pen, 
 cramp in my fingers, and make my brain seem like 
 heavy bread. I was born for extemporary speaking. 
 Besides, I think the best things on all subjects in this 
 world of ours are said, not by the practical workers, 
 but by the careful observers." 
 
 " Mrs. Crowfield, that remark is as good as if I had 
 made it myself," said I. " It is true that I have been 
 all my life a speculator and observer in all domestic 
 matters, having them so confidentially under my eye 
 in our own household ; and so, if I write on a pure 
 woman's matter, it must be understood that I am only 
 your pen and mouth-piece, only giving tangible form 
 to wisdom which I have derived from you." 
 
 So down I sat and scribbled, while my sovereign 
 lady quietly stitched by my side. And here I tell my 
 
228 House and Home Papers. 
 
 reader that I write on such a subject under protest, 
 declaring again my conviction, that, if my wife only 
 believed in herself as firmly as I do, she would write 
 so that nobody would ever want to listen to me again. 
 
 COOKERY. 
 
 WE in America have the raw material of provision 
 in greater abundance than any other nation. There 
 is no country where an ample, well-furnished table is 
 more easily spread, and for that reason, perhaps, none 
 where the bounties of Providence are more generally 
 neglected. I do not mean to say that the traveller 
 through the length and breadth of our land could not, 
 on the whole, find an average of comfortable subsist- 
 ence ; yet, considering that our resources are greater 
 than those of any other civilized people, our results 
 are comparatively poorer. 
 
 It is said, that, a list of the summer vegetables which 
 are exhibited on New York hotel-tables being shown 
 to a French artiste, he declared that to serve such a 
 dinner properly would take till midnight. I recollect 
 how I was once struck with our national plenteous- 
 ness, on returning from a Continental tour, and going 
 directly from the ship to a New York hotel, in the 
 bounteous season of autumn. For months I had been 
 habituated to my neat little bits of chop or poultry 
 garnished with the inevitable cauliflower or potato, 
 
Cookery. 229 
 
 which seemed to be the sole possibility after the reign 
 of green-peas was over ; now I sat down all at once to 
 a carnival of vegetables : ripe, juicy tomatoes, raw or 
 cooked ; cucumbers in brittle slices ; rich, yellow 
 sweet -potatoes ; broad Lima-beans, and beans of 
 other and various names ; tempting ears of Indian- 
 corn steaming in enormous piles, and great smoking 
 tureens of the savory succotash, an Indian gift to the 
 table for which civilization need not blush ; sliced egg- 
 plant in delicate fritters ; and marrow-squashes, of 
 creamy pulp and sweetness : a rich variety, embarrass- 
 ing to the appetite, and perplexing to the choice. 
 Verily, the thought has often impressed itself on my 
 mind that the vegetarian doctrine preached in Amer- 
 ica left a man quite as much as he had capacity to eat 
 or enjoy, and that in the midst of such tantalizing 
 abundance he really lost the apology which elsewhere 
 bears him out in preying upon his less gifted and ac- 
 complished animal neighbors. 
 
 But with all this, the American table, taken as a 
 whole, is inferior to that of England or France. It 
 presents a fine abundance of material, carelessly and 
 poorly treated. The management of food is nowhere 
 in the world, perhaps, more slovenly and wasteful. 
 Everything betokens that want of care that waits on 
 abundance ; there are great capabilities and poor ex- 
 ecution. A tourist through England can seldom fail, 
 
230 House and Home Papers. 
 
 at the quietest country^inn, of finding himself served 
 with the essentials of English table-comfort, his 
 mutton-chop done to a turn, his steaming little private 
 apparatus for concocting his own tea, his choice pot 
 of marmalade or slice of cold ham, and his delicate 
 rolls and creamy butter, all served with care and neat- 
 ness. In France, one never asks in vain for delicious 
 cafe~au-lait) good bread and butter, a nice omelet, or 
 some savory little portion of meat with a French name. 
 But to a tourist taking like chance in American coun- 
 try-fare, what is the prospect ? What is the coffee ? 
 what the tea 1 and the meat ? and above all, the butter ? 
 
 In lecturing on cookery, as on house-building, I 
 divide the subject into not four, but five grand ele- 
 ments : first, Bread ; second, Butter ; third, Meat ; 
 fourth, Vegetables ; and fifth, Tea, by which I mean, 
 generically, all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served 
 out in teacups, whether they be called tea, coffee, 
 chocolate, broma, or what not. 
 
 I affirm, that, if these five departments are all per- 
 fect, the great ends of domestic cookery are answered, 
 so far as the comfort and well-being of life are con- 
 cerned. I am aware that there exists another depart- 
 ment, which is often regarded by culinary amateurs 
 and young aspirants as the higher branch and very 
 collegiate course of practical cookery ; to wit, Confec- 
 tionery, by which I mean to designate all pleasing 
 
Cookery. 231 
 
 and complicated compounds of sweets and spices, 
 devised not for health and nourishment, and strongly 
 suspected of interfering with both, mere tolerated 
 gratifications of the palate, which we eat, not with 
 the expectation of being benefited, but only with the 
 hope of not being injured by them. In this large de- 
 partment rank all sort of cakes, pies, preserves, ices, 
 etc. I shall have a word or two to say under this 
 head before I have done. I only remark now, that in 
 my tours about the country I have often had a virulent 
 ill-will excited towards these works of culinary super- 
 erogation, because I thought their excellence was at- 
 tained by treading under foot and disregarding the 
 five grand essentials. I have sat at many a table gar- 
 nished with three or four kinds of well-made cake, 
 compounded with citron and spices and all imaginable 
 good things, where the meat was tough and greasy, 
 the bread some hot preparation of flour, lard, saleratus, 
 and acid, and the butter unutterably detestable. At 
 such tables I have thought, that, if the mistress of 
 the feast had given the care, time, and labor to pre- 
 paring the simple items of bread, butter, a'nd meat, that 
 she evidently had given to the preparation of these 
 extras, the lot of a traveller might be much more com- 
 fortable. Evidently, she never had thought of these 
 common articles as constituting a good table. So 
 long as she had puff pastry, rich black cake, clear 
 
232 House and Home Papers. 
 
 jelly, and preserves, she seemed to consider that such 
 unimportant matters as bread, butter, and meat could 
 take care of themselves. It is -the same inattention 
 to common things as that which leads people to build 
 houses with stone fronts and window-caps and expen- 
 sive front-door trimmings, without bathing-rooms or 
 fireplaces or ventilators. 
 
 Those who go into the country looking for summer 
 board in farm-houses know perfectly well that a table 
 where the butter is always fresh, the tea and coffee of 
 the best kinds and well made, and the meats properly 
 kept, dressed, and served, is the one table of a hun- 
 dred, the fabulous enchanted island. It seems impos- 
 sible to get the idea into the minds of people that 
 what is called common food, carefully prepared, be- 
 comes, in virtue of that very care and attention, a del- 
 icacy, superseding the necessity of artificially com- 
 pounded 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 be- 
 tween savage and civilized bread. The savage mixes 
 simple flour and water into balls of paste, which he 
 throws into boiling water, and which come out solid, 
 glutinous masses, of which his common saying is, 
 " Man eat dis, he no die," which a facetious trav- 
 
Cookery. 233 
 
 
 
 eller who was obliged to subsist on it interpreted to 
 mean, " Dis no kill you, nothing will." In short, it 
 requires the stomach of a wild animal or of a savage 
 to digest this primitive form of bread, and of course 
 more or less attention in all civilized modes of bread- 
 making is given to producing lightness. By lightness 
 is meant simply that the particles are to be separated 
 from each other by little holes or air-cells ; and all the 
 different methods of making light bread are neither 
 more nor less than the formation in bread of these air- 
 cells. 
 
 So far as we know, there are four practicable meth- 
 ods of aerating bread ; namely, by fermentation, 
 by effervescence of an acid and an alkali, by aerated 
 e gg> or e gg which has been filled with air by the pro- 
 cess of beating, and lastly, by pressure of some 
 gaseous substance into the paste, by a process much 
 resembling the impregnation of water in a soda-foun- 
 tain. All these have one and the same object, to 
 give us the cooked particles of our flour separated by 
 such permanent air-cells as will enable the stomach 
 more readily to digest them. 
 
 A very common mode of aerating bread, in Amer- 
 ica, is by the effervescence of an acid and an alkali 
 in the flour. The carbonic acid gas thus formed 
 produces minute air-cells in the bread, or, as the cook 
 says, makes it light, When this process is performed 
 
234 Hotisc and Home Papers. 
 
 with exact attention to chemical laws, so that the acid 
 and alkali completely neutralize each other, leaving 
 no overplus of either, the result is often very pala- 
 table. The difficulty is, that this is a happy con- 
 junction of circumstances which seldom occurs. The 
 acid most commonly employed is that of sour milk, 
 and, as milk has many degrees of sourness, the rule 
 of a certain quantity of alkali to the pint must neces- 
 sarily produce very different results at different times. 
 As an actual fact, where this mode of making bread 
 prevails, as we lament to say it does to a great extent 
 in this country, one finds five cases of failure to one 
 of success. It is a woful thing that the daughters 
 of New England have abandoned the old respectable 
 mode of yeast-brewing and bread-raising for this spe- 
 cious substitute, so easily made, and so seldom well 
 made. The green, clammy, acrid substance, called 
 biscuit, which many of our worthy republicans are 
 obliged to eat in these days, is wholly unworthy of 
 the men and women of the Republic. Good patriots 
 ought not to be put off in that way, they deserve 
 better fare. 
 
 As an occasional variety, as a household conven- 
 ience for obtaining bread or biscuit at a moment's 
 notice, the process of effervescence may be retained ; 
 but we earnestly entreat American housekeepers, in 
 Scriptural language, to stand in the way and ask 
 

 Cookery. 235 
 
 for the old paths, and return to the good yeast-bread 
 of their sainted grandmothers. 
 
 If acid and alkali must be used, by all means let 
 them be mixed in due proportions. No cook should 
 be left to guess and judge for herself about this mat- 
 ter. There is an article, called " Preston's Infallible 
 Yeast-Polder," which is made by chemical rule, and. 
 produces very perfect results. The use of this obvi- 
 ates the worst dangers in making bread by efferves- 
 cence. 
 
 Of all processes of aeration in bread-making, the 
 oldest and most time-honored is by fermentation. 
 That this was known in the days of our Saviour is 
 evident from the forcible simile in which he compares 
 the silent permeating force of truth in human society 
 to the very familiar household process of raising bread 
 by a little yeast. 
 
 There is, however, one species of yeast, much used 
 in some parts of the country, against which I have to 
 enter my protest. It is called salt-risings, or milk- 
 risings, and is made by mixing flour, milk, and a 
 little salt together, and leaving them to ferment. The 
 bread thus produced is often very attractive, when 
 new and made with great care. It is white and deli- 
 cate, with fine, even air-cells. It has, however, when 
 kept, some characteristics which remind us of the 
 terms in which our old English Bible describes the 
 
236 House and Home Papers. 
 
 effect of keeping the manna of the ancient Israelites, 
 which we are informed, in words more explicit than 
 agreeable, " stank, and bred worms." If salt-rising 
 bread does not fulfil the whole of this unpleasant 
 description, it certainly does emphatically a part of 
 it. The smell which it has in baking, and when more 
 than a day old, suggests . the inquiry, whether it is the 
 saccharine or the putrid fermentation with which it is 
 raised. Whoever breaks a piece of it after a day or 
 two will often see minute filaments or clammy strings 
 drawing out from the fragments, which, with the un- 
 mistakable smell, will cause him to pause before 
 consummating a nearer acquaintance. 
 
 The fermentation of flour by means of brewer's or 
 distiller's yeast produces, if rightly managed, results 
 far more palatable and wholesome. The only requi- 
 sites for success in it are, first, good materials, and, 
 second, great care in a few small things. There are 
 certain low-priced or damaged kinds of flour which 
 can never by any kind of domestic chemistry be made 
 into good bread ; and to those persons whose stom- 
 achs forbid them to eat gummy, glutinous paste, under 
 the name of bread, there is no economy in buying 
 these poor brands, even at half the price of good flour. 
 
 But good flour and good yeast being supposed, with 
 a temperature favorable to the development of fermen- 
 tation, the whole success of the process depends on 
 
Cookery. 237 
 
 the thorough diffusion of the proper proportion of 
 yeast through the whole mass, and on stopping the 
 subsequent fermentation at the precise and fortunate 
 point. The true housewife makes her bread the sov- 
 ereign of her kitchen, its behests must be attended 
 to in all critical points and moments, no matter what 
 else be postponed. She who attends to her bread 
 when she has done this, and arranged that, and per- 
 formed the other, very often finds that the forces of 
 nature will not wait for her. The snowy mass, per- 
 fectly mixed, kneaded with care and strength, rises 
 in its beautiful perfection till the moment comes for 
 fixing the air-cells by baking. A few minutes now, 
 and the acetous fermentation will begin, and the whole 
 result be spoiled. Many bread-makers pass in utter 
 carelessness over this sacred and mysterious boun- 
 dary. Their oven has cake in it, or they are skim- 
 ming jelly, or attending to some other of the so-called 
 higher branches of cookery, while the bread is quickly 
 passing into the acetous stage. At last, when they 
 are ready to attend to it, they find that it has been 
 going its own way, it is so sour that the pungent 
 smell is plainly perceptible. Now the saleratus-bottle 
 is handed down, and a quantity of the dissolved alkali 
 mixed with the paste, an expedient sometimes mak- 
 ing itself too manifest by greenish streaks or small 
 acrid spots in the bread. As the result, we have a 
 
238 House and Home Papers. 
 
 beautiful article spoiled, bread without sweetness, 
 if not absolutely sour. 
 
 In the view of many, lightness is the only property 
 required in this article. The delicate, refined sweet- 
 ness which exists in carefully kneaded bread, baked 
 just before it passes to the extreme point of fermen- 
 tation, is something of which they have no conception ; 
 and thus they will even regard this process of spoiling 
 the paste by the acetous fermentation, and then rec- 
 tifying that acid by effervescence with an alkali, as 
 something positively meritorious. How else can they 
 value and relish bakers' loaves, such as some are, 
 drugged with ammonia and other' disagreeable things, 
 light indeed, so light that they seem to have neither 
 weight nor substance, but with no more sweetness or 
 taste than so much white cotton ? 
 
 Some persons prepare bread for the oven by sim- 
 ply mixing it in the mass, without kneading, pouring it 
 into pans, and suffering it to rise there. The air-cells 
 in bread thus prepared are coarse and uneven ; the 
 bread is as inferior in delicacy and nicety to that 
 which is well kneaded as a raw Irish servant to a 
 perfectly educated and refined lady. The process of 
 kneading seems to impart an evenness to the minute 
 air-cells, a fineness of texture, and a tenderness and 
 pliability to the whole substance, that can be gained 
 in no other way. 
 
Cookery. 239 
 
 The divine principle of beauty has its reign over 
 bread as well as over all other things ; it has its laws 
 of aesthetics ; and that bread which is so prepared 
 that it can be formed into separate and well-propor- 
 tioned loaves, each one carefully worked and mould- 
 ed, will develop the most beautiful results. After 
 being moulded, the loaves should stand a little while, 
 just long enough to allow the fermentation going on 
 in them to expand each little air-cell to the point at 
 which it stood before it was worked down, and then 
 they should be immediately put into the oven. 
 
 Many a good thing, however, is spoiled in the oven. 
 We cannot but regret, for the sake of bread, that our 
 old steady brick ovens have been almost universally 
 superseded by those of ranges and cooking-stoves, 
 which are infinite in their caprices, and forbid all 
 general rules. One thing, however, may be borne in 
 mind as. a principle, that the excellence of bread in 
 all its varieties, plain or sweetened, depends on the 
 perfection of its air-cells, whether produced by yeast, 
 egg, or effervescence ; that one of the objects of baking 
 is to fix these air-cells, and that the quicker this can 
 be done through the whole mass, the better will the 
 result be.. When cake or bread is made heavy by 
 baking too quickly, it is because the immediate for- 
 mation of the top crust hinders the exhaling of the 
 moisture in the centre, and prevents the air-cells from 
 
240 House and Home Papers. 
 
 cooking. The weight also of the crust pressing down 
 on the doughy air-cells below destroys them, pro- 
 ducing that horror of good cooks, a heavy streak. 
 The problem in baking, then, is the quick application 
 of heat rather below than above the loaf, and its 
 steady continuance till all the air-cells are thoroughly 
 dried into permanent consistency. Every housewife 
 must watch her own oven to know how this can be 
 best accomplished. 
 
 Bread-making can be cultivated to any extent as a 
 fine art, and the various kinds of biscuit, tea-rusks, 
 twists, rolls, into which bread may be made, are much 
 better worth a housekeeper's ambition than the get- 
 ting-up of rich and expensive cake or confections. 
 There are also varieties of material which are rich 
 in good effects. Unbolted flour, altogether more 
 wholesome than the fine wheat, and when properly 
 prepared more palatable, 'rye-flour and corn-meal, 
 each affording a thousand attractive possibilities,; 
 each and all of these come under the general laws 
 of bread-stuffs, and are worth a cartful attention. 
 
 A peculiarity of our American table, particularly 
 in the Southern and Western States, is the constant 
 exhibition of various preparations of hot bread. In 
 many families of the South and West, bread in loaves 
 to be eaten cold is an article quite unknown. The 
 effect of this kind of diet upon the health has formed 
 
Cookery. 241 
 
 a frequent subject of remark among travellers j but 
 only those know the full mischiefs of it who have 
 been compelled to sojourn for a length of time in 
 families where it is maintained. The unknown hor- 
 rors of dyspepsia from bad bread are a topic over' 
 which we willingly draw a veil. 
 
 Next to Bread comes Butter, on which we have 
 to say, that, when we remember what butter is in 
 civilized Europe, and compare it with what it is in 
 America, we wonder at the forbearance and lenity 
 of travellers in their strictures on our national com- 
 missariat. 
 
 Butter, in England, France, and Italy, is simply 
 solidified cream, with all the sweetness of the cream 
 in its taste, freshly churned each day, and unadul- 
 terated by salt. At the present moment, when salt 
 is five cents a pound and butter fifty, we Americans 
 are paying, I should judge from the taste, for about 
 one pound of salt to every ten of butter, and those 
 of us who have eaten the butter of France and Eng- 
 land do this with rueful recollections. 
 
 There is, it is true, an article of butter made in the 
 American style with salt, which, in its own kind and 
 way, has a merit not inferior to that of England and 
 France. Many prefer it, and it certainly takes a rank 
 equally respectable with the other. It is yellow, hard, 
 
242 House and Home Papers. 
 
 and worked so perfectly free from every particle of 
 buttermilk that it might make the voyage of the world 
 without spoiling. It is salted, but salted with care 
 and delicacy, so that it may be a question whether 
 even a fastidious Englishman might not prefer its 
 golden solidity to the white, creamy freshness of his 
 own. Now I am not for universal imitation of foreign 
 customs, and where I find this butter made perfectly, 
 I call it our American style, and am not ashamed 
 of it. I only regret that this article is the excep- 
 tion, and not the rule, on our tables. When I re- 
 flect on the possibilities which beset the delicate 
 stomach in this line, I do not wonder that my ven- 
 erated friend Dr. Mussey used to close his counsels 
 to invalids with the direction, "And don't eat grease 
 on your bread." 
 
 America must, I think, have the credit of manu- 
 facturing and putting into market more bad butter 
 than all that is made in all the rest of the world to- 
 gether. The varieties of bad tastes and smells which 
 prevail in it are quite a study. This has a cheesy 
 taste, that a mouldy, this is flavored with cabbage, 
 and that again with turnip, and another has the strong, 
 sharp savor of rancid animal fat. These varieties, I 
 presume, come from the practice of churning only at 
 long intervals, and keeping the cream meanwhile in 
 un ventilated cellars or dairies, the air of which is 
 
Cookery. 243 
 
 loaded with the effluvia of vegetable substances. No 
 domestic articles are so sympathetic as those of the 
 milk tribe : they readily take on the smell and taste 
 of any neighboring substance, and hence the infinite 
 % variety of flavors on which one mournfully muses who 
 has late in autumn to taste twenty firkins of butter in 
 hopes of finding one which will simply not be intol- 
 erable on his winter table. 
 
 A matter for despair as regards bad butter is that 
 at the tables where it is used it stands sentinel at the 
 door to bar your way to every other kind of food. 
 You turn from your dreadful half-slice of bread, which 
 fills your mouth with bitterness, to your beef-steak, 
 which proves virulent with the same poison ; you 
 think to take refuge in vegetable diet, and find the 
 butter in the string-beans, and polluting the innocence 
 of early peas, it is in" the corn, in the succotash, in 
 the squash, the beets swim in it, the onions have 
 it poured over them. Hungry and miserable, you 
 think to solace yourself at the dessert, but the 
 pastry is cursed, the cake is acrid with the same 
 plague. You are ready to howl with despair, and 
 your misery is great upon .you, especially if this is 
 a table where you have taken board for three months 
 with your delicate wife and four small children. Your 
 case is dreadful, and it is hopeless, because long 
 usage and habit have rendered your host perfectly 
 
244 House and Home Papers. 
 
 incapable of discovering what is the matter. " Don't 
 like the butter, Sir? I assure you I paid an extra 
 price for it, and it 's the very best in the market. I 
 looked over as many as a hundred tubs, and picked 
 out this one." You are dumb, but not less despair- 
 ing. 
 
 Yet the process of making good butter is a very 
 simple one. To keep the cream in a perfectly pure, 
 cool atmosphere, to churn while it is yet sweet, to 
 work out the buttermilk thoroughly, and to add salt 
 with such discretion as not to ruin the fine, delicate 
 flavor of the fresh cream, all this is quite simple, 
 so simple that one wonders at thousands and millions 
 of pounds of butter yearly manufactured which are 
 merely a hobgoblin-bewitchment of cream into foul 
 and loathsome poisons. 
 
 The third head of my discourse is that of Meat, 
 of which America furnishes, in the gross material, 
 enough to spread our tables royally, were it well 
 cared for and served. 
 
 The faults in the meat generally furnished to us 
 are, first, that it is too new. A beefsteak, which three 
 or four days of keeping might render practicable, is 
 served up to us palpitating with freshness, with all the 
 toughness of animal muscle yet warm. In the West- 
 ern country, the traveller, on approaching an hotel, 
 
Cookery. 245 
 
 is often saluted by the last shrieks of the chickens 
 which half an hour afterward are presented to him 
 a la spread-eagle for his dinner. The example of 
 the Father of the Faithful, most wholesome to be 
 followed in so many respects, is imitated only in the 
 celerity with which the young calf, tender and good, 
 was transformed into an edible dish for hospitable 
 purposes. But what might be good housekeeping in 
 a nomadic Emir, in days when refrigerators were yet 
 in the future, ought not to be so closely imitated as 
 it often is in our own land. 
 
 In the next place, there is a woful lack of nicety in 
 the butcher's work of cutting and preparing meat. 
 Who that remembers the neatly trimmed mutton-chop 
 of an English inn, or the artistic little circle of lamb- 
 chop fried in bread-crumbs coiled around a tempting 
 centre of spinach which can always be found in 
 France, can recognize any family-resemblance to these 
 dapper civilized preparations in those coarse, roughly 
 hacked strips of bone, gristle, and meat which are 
 commonly called mutton-chop in America ? There 
 seems to be a large dish of something resembling 
 meat, in which each fragment has about two or three 
 edible morsels, the rest being composed of dry and 
 burnt skin, fat, and ragged bone. 
 
 Is it not time that civilization should learn to de- 
 mand somewhat more care and nicety in the modes 
 
246 House and Home Papers. 
 
 of preparing what is to be cooked and eaten ? Might 
 not some of the refinement and trimness which char- 
 acterize the preparations of the European market be 
 with advantage introduced into our own ? The house- 
 keeper who wishes to garnish her table with some 
 of those nice things is stopped in the outset by the 
 butcher. Except in our large cities, where some for- 
 eign travel may have created the demand, it seems 
 impossible to get much in this line that is properly 
 prepared. 
 
 I am aware, that, if this is urged on the score of 
 aesthetics, the ready reply will be, " O, we can't give 
 time here in America to go into niceties and French 
 whim-whams ! " But the French mode of doing almost 
 all practical things is based on that true philosophy 
 and utilitarian good sense which characterize that 
 seemingly thoughtless people. Nowhere is economy 
 a more careful study, and their market is artistically 
 arranged to this end. The rule is so to cut their 
 meats that no portion designed to be cooked in a 
 certain manner shall have wasteful appendages which 
 that mode of cooking will spoil. The French soup- 
 kettle stands ever ready to receive the bones, the 
 thin fibrous flaps, the sinewy and gristly portions, 
 which are so often included in our roasts or broil- 
 ings, which fill our plates with unsightly debris, and 
 finally make an amount of blank waste for which we 
 
Cookery. 247 
 
 pay our butcher the same price that we pay for what 
 we have eaten. 
 
 The dead waste of our clumsy, coarse way of cut- 
 ting meats is immense. For example, at the begin- 
 ning of the present season, the part of a lamb denom- 
 inated leg and loin, or hind-quarter, sold for thirty 
 cents a pound. Now this includes, besides the thick, 
 fleshy portions, a quantity of bone, sinew, and thin 
 fibrous substance, constituting full one third of the 
 whole weight. If we put it into the oven entire, in 
 the usual manner, we have the thin parts overdone, 
 and the skinny and fibrous parts utterly dried up, by 
 the application of the amount of heat necessary to 
 cook the thick portion. Supposing the joint to weigh 
 six pounds, at thirty cents, and that one third of the 
 weight is so treated as to become perfectly useless, 
 we throw away sixty cents. Of a piece of beef at 
 twenty-five cents a pound, fifty cents' worth is often 
 lost in bone, fat, and burnt skin. 
 
 The fact is, this way of selling and cooking meat 
 in large, gross portions is of English origin, and be- 
 longs to a country where all the customs of society 
 spring from a class who have no particular occasion 
 for economy. The practice of minute and delicate 
 division comes from a nation which acknowledges 
 the need of economy, and has made it a study. A 
 quarter of lamb in this mode of division would be 
 
248 House and Home Papers. 
 
 sold in three nicely prepared portions. The thick 
 part would be sold by itself, for a neat, compact 
 little roast ; the rib-bones would be artistically sep- 
 arated, and all the edible matters scraped away would 
 form those delicate dishes of lamb-chop, which, fried 
 in bread-crumbs to a golden brown, are so orna- 
 mental and so palatable a side-dish ; the trimmings 
 which remain after this division would be destined 
 to the soup-kettle or stew-pan. In a French market 
 is a little portion for every purse, and the far-famed 
 and delicately flavored soups and stews which have 
 arisen out of French economy are a study worth a 
 housekeeper's attention. Not one atom of food is 
 wasted in the French modes of preparation ; even 
 tough animal cartilages and sinews, instead of appear- 
 ing burned and blackened in company with the roast 
 meat to which they happen to be related, are treated 
 according to their own laws, and come out either in 
 savory soups, or those fine, clear meat-jellies which 
 form a garnish no less agreeable to the eye than pal- 
 atable to the taste. 
 
 Whether this careful, economical, practical style of 
 meat-cooking can ever to any great extent be intro- 
 duced into our kitchens now is a question. Our 
 butchers are against it ; our servants are wedded to 
 the old wholesale wasteful ways, which seem to them 
 easier because they are accustomed to them. A cook 
 
Cookery. 249 
 
 who will keep and properly tend a soup-kettle which 
 shall receive and utilize all that the coarse preparations 
 of the butcher would require her to trim away, who 
 understands the art of making the most of all these 
 remains, is a treasure scarcely to be hoped for. If 
 such things are to be done, it must be primarily through 
 the educated brain of cultivated women who do not 
 scorn to turn their culture and refinement upon do- 
 mestic problems. 
 
 When meats have been properly divided, so that 
 each portion can receive its own appropriate style of 
 treatment, next comes the consideration of the modes 
 of cooking. These may be divided into two great 
 general classes : those where it is desired to keep the 
 juices within the meat, as in baking, broiling, and fry- 
 ing, and those whose object is to extract the juice 
 and dissolve the fibre, as in the making of soups and 
 stews. In the first class of operations, the process 
 must be as rapid as may consist with the thorough 
 cooking of all the particles. In this branch of cook- 
 ery, doing quickly is doing well. The fire must be 
 brisk, the attention alert. The introduction of cook- 
 ing-stoves oifers to careless domestics facilities for 
 gradually drying-up meats, and despoiling them of all 
 flavor and nutriment, facilities which appear to be 
 very generally laid hold- of. They have almost ban- 
 ished the genuine, old-fashioned roast-meat from our 
 
250 House and Home Papers. 
 
 tables, and left in its stead dried meats with their 
 most precious and nutritive juices evaporated. How 
 few cooks, unassisted, are competent to the simple 
 process of broiling a beefsteak or mutton-chop ! how 
 very generally one has to choose between these meats 
 gradually dried away, or burned on the outside and 
 raw within ! Yet in England these articles never come 
 on table done amiss ; their perfect cooking is as abso- 
 lute a certainty as the rising of the sun. 
 
 No one of these rapid processes of cooking, however, 
 is so generally abused as frying. The frying-pan has 
 awful sins to answer for. What untold horrors of dys- 
 pepsia have arisen from its smoky depths,' like the 
 ghosts from witches' caldrons ! The fizzle of frying 
 meat is as a warning knell on many an ear, saying, 
 " Touch not, taste not, if you would not burn and 
 writhe ! " 
 
 Yet those who have travelled abroad remember 
 that some of the lightest, most palatable, and most 
 digestible preparations of meat have come from this 
 dangerous source. But we fancy quite other rites and 
 ceremonies inaugurated the process, and quite other 
 hands performed its offices, than those known to our 
 kitchens. Probably the delicate cbtelettes of France 
 are not flopped down into half-melted grease, there 
 gradually to warm and soak and fizzle, while Biddy 
 goes in and out on her other ministrations, till finally, 
 
Cookery. 25 1 
 
 when thoroughly saturated, and dinner-hour impends, 
 she bethinks herself, and crowds the fire below to a 
 roaring heat, and finishes the process by a smart burn, 
 involving the kitchen and surrounding precincts in 
 volumes of Stygian gloom. 
 
 From such preparations has arisen the very cur- 
 rent medical opinion that fried meats are indigest- 
 ible. They are indigestible, if they are greasy ; 
 but French cooks have taught us that a thing has 
 no more need to be greasy because emerging from 
 grease than Venus had to be salt because she rose 
 from the sea. 
 
 There are two ways of frying employed by the French 
 cook. One is, to immerse the article to be cooked in 
 boiling fat, with an emphasis on the present participle, 
 and the philosophical principle is, so immediately 
 to crisp every pore, at the first moment or two of im- 
 mersion, as effectually to seal the interior against 
 the intrusion of greasy particles ; it can then remain 
 as long as may be necessary thoroughly to cook it, 
 without imbibing any more of the boiling fluid than if 
 it were inclosed in an egg-shell. The other method is 
 to rub a perfectly smooth iron surface with just enough 
 of some oily substance to prevent the meat from ad- 
 hering, and cook it with a quick heat, as cakes are 
 baked on a griddle. In both these cases there must 
 be the most rapid application of heat that can be made 
 
252 House and Home Papers. 
 
 without burning, and by the adroitness shown in work- 
 ing out this problem the skill of the cook is tested. 
 Any one whose cook attains this important secret will 
 find fried things quite as digestible and often more 
 palatable than any other. 
 
 I In the second department of meat-cookery, to wit, 
 the slow and gradual application of heat for the soft- 
 ening and dissolution of its fibre and the extraction 
 of its juices, common cooks are equally untrained. 
 Where is the so-called cook who understands how to 
 prepare soups and stews? These are precisely the 
 articles in which a French kitchen excels. The soup- 
 kettle, made with a double bottom, to prevent burn- 
 ing, is a permanent, ever-present institution, and the 
 coarsest and most impracticable meats distilled through 
 that alembic come out again in soups, jellies, or sa- 
 vory stews. The toughest cartilage, even the bones, 
 being first cracked, are here made to give forth their 
 hidden virtues, and to rise in delicate and appetizing 
 forms. One great law governs all these preparations : 
 the application of heat must be gradual, steady, long 
 protracted, never reaching the point of active boiling. 
 Hours of quiet simmering dissolve all dissoluble parts, 
 soften the sternest fibre, and unlock every minute cell 
 in which Nature has stored away her treasures of nour- 
 ishment. This careful and protracted application of 
 heat and the skilful use of flavors constitute the two 
 
Cookery. 253 
 
 main points in all those nice preparations of meat for 
 which the French have so many names, processes 
 by which a delicacy can be imparted to the coarsest 
 and cheapest food superior to that of the finest articles 
 under less philosophic treatment. 
 
 French soups and stews are a study, and they 
 would not be an unprofitable one to any person who 
 wishes to live with comfort and even elegance on small 
 means. 
 
 John Bull looks down from the sublime of ten thou- 
 sand a year on French kickshaws, as he calls them : 
 " Give me my meat cooked so I may know what it 
 is ! " An ox roasted whole is dear to John's soul, and 
 his kitchen-arrangements are Titanic. What magnif- 
 icent rounds and sirloins of beef, revolving on self- 
 regulating spits, with a rich click of satisfaction, be- 
 fore grates piled with roaring fires ! Let us do jus- 
 tice to the royal cheer. Nowhere are the charms of 
 pure, unadulterated animal food set forth in more 
 imposing style. For John is rich, and what does he 
 care for odds and ends and parings ? Has he not all 
 the beasts of the forest, and the cattle on a thousand 
 hills ? What does he want of economy ? But his 
 brother Jean has not ten thousand pounds a year, 
 nothing like it > but he makes up for the slenderness 
 of his purse by boundless fertility of invention and del- 
 icacy of practice. John began sneering at Jean's 
 
254" House and Home Papers. 
 
 soups and ragouts, but all John's modern sons and 
 daughters send to Jean for their cooks, and the sir- 
 loins of England rise up and do obeisance to this 
 Joseph with a white apron who comes to rule in their 
 kitchens. 
 
 There is no animal fibre that will not yield itself 
 up to long-continued, steady heat But the difficulty 
 with almost any of the common servants who call 
 themselves cooks is, that they have not the smallest 
 notion of the philosophy of the application of heat. 
 Such a one will complacently tell you concerning 
 certain meats, that the harder you boil them the 
 harder they grow, an obvious fact, which, under 
 her mode of treatment, by an indiscriminate gallop- 
 ing boil, has frequently come under her personal 
 observation. If you tell her that such meat must 
 stand for six hours in a heat just below the boiling- 
 point, she will probably answer, " Yes, Ma'am," and 
 go on her own way. Or she will let it stand till it 
 burns to the bottom of the kettle, a most common 
 termination of the experiment. The only way to 
 make sure of the matter is either to import a French 
 kettle, or to fit into an ordinary kettle a false bottom, 
 such as any tinman may make, that shall leave a 
 space of an inch or two between the. meat and the 
 fire. This kettle may be maintained as a constant 
 habitue of the range, and into it the cook may be 
 
Cookery. 255 
 
 instructed to throw all the fibrous trimmings of meat, 
 all the gristle, tendons, and bones, having previously 
 broken up these last with a mallet. 
 
 Such a kettle will furnish the basis for clear, rich 
 soups or other palatable dishes. Clear soup consists 
 of the dissolved juices of the meat and gelatine of 
 the bones, cleared from the fat and fibrous portions 
 by straining when cold. The grease, which rises to 
 the top of the fluid, may thus be easily removed. In 
 a stew, on the contrary, you boil down this soup till 
 it permeates the fibre which long exposure to heat 
 has softened. All that remains, after the proper 
 preparation of the fibre and juices, is the flavor- 
 ing, and it is in this, particularly, that French soups 
 excel those of America and England and all the 
 world. 
 
 English and American soups are often heavy and 
 hot with spices. There are appreciable tastes in 
 them. They burn your mouth with cayenne or clove 
 or allspice. You can tell at once what is in them, 
 oftentimes to your sorrow. But a French soup has 
 a flavor which one recognizes at once as delicious, 
 yet not to be characterized as due to any single 
 condiment ; it is the just blending of many things. 
 The same remark applies to all their stews, ragouts, 
 and other delicate preparations. No cook will ever 
 study these flavors ; but perhaps many cooks' mis- 
 
256 House and Home Papers. 
 
 tresses may, and thus be able to impart delicacy 
 and comfort to economy. 
 
 As to those things called hashes, commonly man- 
 ufactured by unwatched, untaught cooks, out of the 
 remains of yesterday's repast, let us not dwell too 
 closely on their memory, compounds of meat, gris- 
 tle, skin, fat, and burnt fibre, with a handful of 
 pepper and salt flung at them, dredged with lumpy 
 flour, watered from the spout of the tea-kettle, and 
 left to simmer at the cook's convenience while she 
 is otherwise occupied. Such are the best perform- 
 ances a housekeeper can hope for from an untrained 
 cook. 
 
 But the cunningly devised minces, the artful prep- 
 arations choicely flavored, which may be made of 
 yesterday's repast, by these is the true domestic 
 artist known. No cook untaught by an educated 
 brain ever makes these, and yet economy is a great 
 gainer by them. 
 
 As regards the department of Vegetables, their num- 
 ber and variety in America are so great that a table 
 might almost be furnished by these alone. Generally 
 speaking, their cooking is a more simple art, and 
 therefore more likely to be found satisfactorily per- 
 formed, than that of meats. If only they are not 
 drenched with rancid butter, their own native excel- 
 
Cookery. 257 
 
 lence makes itself known in most of the ordinary 
 modes of preparation. 
 
 There is, however, one exception. 
 
 Our stanch old friend, the potato, is to other vege- 
 tables what bread is on the table. Like bread, it is 
 held as a sort of sine-qua-non ; like that, it may be 
 4fiade invariably palatable by a little care in a few 
 plain particulars, through neglect of which it often 
 becomes intolerable. The soggy, waxy, indigestible 
 viand that often appears in the potato-dish is a down- 
 right sacrifice of the better nature of this vegetable. 
 
 The potato, nutritive and harmless as it appears, 
 belongs to a family suspected of very dangerous traits. 
 It is a family-connection of the deadly-nightshade and 
 other ill-reputed gentry, and sometimes shows strange 
 proclivities to evil, now breaking out uproariously, 
 as in the noted potato-rot, and now jmore covertly, 
 in various evil affections. For this reason scientific 
 directors bid us beware of the water in which pota- 
 toes are boiled, into which, it appears, the evil 
 principle is drawn off; and they caution us not to 
 shred them into stews without previously suffering 
 the slices to lie for an hour or so in salt and water. 
 These cautions are worth attention. 
 
 The most usual modes of preparing the potato for 
 the table are by roasting or boiling. These processes 
 are so simple that it is commonly supposed every 
 
258 House and Home Papers. 
 
 cook understands them without special directions ; 
 and yet there is scarcely an uninstructed cook who 
 can boil or roast a potato. 
 
 A good roasted potato is a delicacy worth a dozen 
 compositions of the cook-book ; yet when we ask for 
 it, what burnt, shrivelled abortions are presented to 
 us! Biddy rushes to her potato-basket and pours 
 out two dozen of different sizes, some having in them 
 three times the amount of matter of others. These 
 being washed, she tumbles them into her oven at a 
 leisure interval, and there lets them lie till it is time 
 to serve breakfast, whenever that may be. As a 
 result, if the largest are cooked, the smallest are 
 presented in cinders, and the intermediate sizes are 
 withered and watery. Nothing is so utterly ruined 
 by a few mpments of overdoing. That which at the 
 right moment. was plump with mealy richness, a quar- 
 ter of an hour later shrivels and becomes watery, 
 and it is in this state that roast potatoes are most 
 frequently served. 
 
 In the same manner we have seen boiled potatoes 
 from an untaught cook coming upon the table like 
 lumps of yellow wax, and the same article, the day 
 after, under the directions of a skilful mistress, ap- 
 pearing in snowy balls of powdery lightness. In the 
 one case, they were thrown in their skins into water, 
 and suffered to soak or boil, as the case might be, at 
 
Cookery. 259 
 
 the cook's leisure, and after they were boiled to stand 
 in the water till she was ready to peel them. In the 
 other case, the potatoes being first peeled were boiled 
 as quickly as possible in salted water, which the mo- 
 ment they were done was drained off, and then they 
 were gently shaken for a minute or two over the fire 
 to dry them still more thoroughly. We have never 
 yet seen the potato so depraved and given over to 
 evil that could not be reclaimed by this mode of 
 treatment. 
 
 As to fried potatoes, who that remembers the crisp, 
 golden slices of the French restaurant, thin as wafers 
 and light as snow-flakes, does not speak respectfully 
 of them ? What cousinship with these have those 
 coarse, greasy masses of sliced potato, wholly soggy 
 and partly burnt, to which we are treated under the 
 name of fried potatoes d la America? In our cities 
 the restaurants are introducing the French article to 
 great acceptance, and to the vindication of the fair 
 fame of this queen of vegetables. 
 
 Finally, I arrive at the last great head of my 
 subject, to wit, TEA, meaning thereby, as before 
 observed, what our Hibernian friend did in the in- 
 quiry, " Will y'.r Honor take ' tay tay ' or coffee 
 Jay?" 
 
 I am not about to enter into the merits of the 
 
260 House and Home Papers. 
 
 great tea-and-coffee controversy, or say whether these 
 substances are or are not wholesome. I treat of 
 them as actual existences, and speak only of the 
 modes of making the most of them. 
 
 The French coffee is reputed the best in the world ; 
 and a thousand voices have asked, What is it about 
 the French coffee ? 
 
 In the first place, then, the French coffee is coffee, 
 and not chiccory, or rye, or beans, or peas. In the 
 second place, it is freshly roasted, whenever made, 
 roasted with great care and evenness in a little revolv- 
 ing cylinder which makes part of the furniture of every 
 kitchen, and which keeps in the aroma of the berry. 
 It is never overdone, so as to destroy the coffee-flavor, 
 which is in nine cases out of ten the fault of the coffee 
 we meet with. Then it is ground, and placed in a 
 coffee-pot with a filter, through which it percolates in 
 clear drops, the Coffee-pot standing on a heated stove to 
 maintain J;he temperature. The nose of the coffee-pot 
 is stopped up to prevent the escape of the aroma during 
 this process. The extract thus obtained is a perfectly 
 clear, dark fluid, known as cafe ?ioir, or black coffee. 
 It is black only because of its strength, being in fact 
 almost the very essential oil of coffee. A table-spoon- 
 ful of this in boiled milk would make what is ordi- 
 narily called a strong cup of coffee. The boiled milk; 
 is prepared with no less care. It must be fresh and 
 
Cookery. 261 
 
 new, not merely warmed or even brought to the boil- 
 ing-point, but slowly simmered till it attains a thick, 
 creamy richness. The coffee mixed with this, and 
 sweetened with that sparkling beet-root sugar which 
 ornaments a French table, is the celebrated cafe-au- 
 lait, the name of which has gone round the world. 
 
 As we look to France for the best coffee, so we 
 must look to England for the perfection of tea. The 
 tea-kettle is as much an English institution as aris- 
 tocracy or the Prayer-Book; and when one wants to 
 know exactly how tea should be made, one has only 
 to ask how a fine old English housekeeper makes it. 
 
 The first article of her faith is that the water must 
 not merely be hot, not merely have boiled a few mo- 
 ments since, but be actually boiling at the moment it 
 touches the tea. Hence, though servants in Eng- 
 land are vastly better trained than with us, this deli- 
 cate mystery is seldom left to their hands. Tea-mak- 
 ing belongs to the drawing-room, and high-born ladies 
 preside at " the bubbling and loud-hissing urn," and 
 see that all due rites and solemnities are properly 
 performed, that the cups are hot, and that the in- 
 fused tea waits the exact time before the libations 
 commence. O, ye dear old English tea-tables, resorts 
 of the kindest-hearted hospitality in the world ! we 
 still cherish your memory, even though you do not 
 say pleasant things of us there. One of these days 
 
262 House and Home Papers. 
 
 you will think better of us. Of late, the introduction ' 
 of English breakfast-tea has raised a new sect among 
 the tea-drinkers, reversing some of the old canons. 
 Breakfast-tea must be boiled ! Unlike the delicate 
 article of olden time, which required only a momen- 
 tary infusion to develop its richness, this requires a 
 longer and severer treatment to bring out its strength, 
 thus confusing all the established usages, and 
 throwing the work into the hands of the cook in the 
 kitchen. 
 
 The faults of tea, as too commonly found at our 
 hotels and- boarding-houses, are that it is made in 
 every way the reverse of what it should be. The 
 water is hot, perhaps, but not boiling; the tea has 
 a general flat, stale, smoky taste, devoid of life or 
 spirit ; and it is served, usually, with thin milk, instead 
 of cream. Cream is as essential to the richness of 
 tea as of coffee. We could wish that the English 
 fashion might generally prevail, of giving the traveller 
 his own kettle of boiling water and his own tea-chest, 
 and letting him make tea for himself. At all events, 
 he would then be sure of one merit in his tea, it 
 would be hot, a very simple and obvious virtue, but 
 one very seldom obtained. 
 
 Chocolate is a French and Spanish article, and one 
 seldom served on American tables. We, in America, 
 however, make an article every way equal to any 
 
Cookery. 263 
 
 which can be imported from Paris, and he who buys 
 Baker's best vanilla-chocolate may rest assured that 
 no foreign land can furnish anything better. A very 
 rich and delicious beverage may be made by dissolv- 
 ing this in milk slowly boiled down after the French 
 fashion. 
 
 I have now gone over all the ground I laid out, 
 as comprising the great first principles of cookery; 
 and I would here modestly offer the opinion that a 
 table where all these principles are carefully observed 
 would need few dainties. The struggle after so-called 
 delicacies comes from the poorness of common things. 
 Perfect bread and butter would soon drive cake out 
 of the field ; it has done so in many families. Never- 
 theless, I have a word to say under the head of Con- 
 fectionery^ meaning by this the whole range of orna- 
 mental cookery, or pastry, ices, jellies, preserves, 
 etc. The art of making all these very perfectly is far 
 better understood in America than the art of common 
 cooking. 
 
 There are more women who know how to make 
 good cake than good bread, more who can furnish 
 you with a good ice-cream than a well-cooked mutton- 
 chop ; a fair charlotte-russe is easier to come by than 
 a perfect cup of coffee, and you shall find a sparkling 
 jelly to your dessert where you sighed in vain for so 
 simple a luxury as a well-cooked potato. 
 
264 House and Home Papers. 
 
 Our fair countrywomen might rest upon their laurels 
 in these higher fields, and turn their great energy and 
 ingenuity to the study of essentials. To do common 
 things perfectly is far better worth our endeavor than 
 to do uncommon things respectably. We Americans 
 in many things as yet have been a little inclined to 
 begin making our shirt at the ruffle ; but, neverthe- 
 less, when we set about it, we can make the shirt 
 as nicely as anybody, it needs only that we turn 
 our attention to it, resolved, that, ruffle or no ruffle, 
 the shirt we will have. 
 
 I have also a few words to say as to the prevalent 
 ideas in respect to French cookery. Having heard 
 much of it, with no very distinct idea what it is, our 
 people have somehow fallen into the notion that its 
 forte lies in high spicing, and so, when our cooks 
 put a great abundance of clove, mace, nutmeg, and 
 cinnamon into their preparations, they fancy that they 
 are growing up to be French cooks. But the fact is, 
 that the Americans and English are far more given 
 to spicing than the French. Spices in our made 
 dishes are abundant, and their taste is strongly pro- 
 nounced. In living a year in France I forgot the 
 taste of nutmeg, clove, and allspice, which had met 
 me in so many dishes in America. 
 
 The thing may be briefly denned. The English 
 and Americans deal in spices, the French in flavors, 
 
Cookery. 265 
 
 flavors many and subtile, imitating often in their deli- 
 cacy those subtile blendings which Nature produces 
 in high-flavored fruits. The recipes of our cookery- 
 books are most of them of English origin, coming 
 down from the times of our phlegmatic ancestors, 
 when the solid, burly, beefy growth of the foggy isl- 
 and required the heat of fiery condiments, and could 
 digest heavy sweets. Witness the national recipe for 
 plum-pudding, which may be rendered, Take a 
 pound of every indigestible substance you can think 
 of, boil into a cannon-ball, and serve in flaming 
 brandy. So of the Christmas mince-pie and many 
 other national dishes. But in America, owing to our 
 brighter skies and more fervid climate, we have de- 
 veloped an acute, nervous delicacy of temperament 
 far more akin to that of France than of England. 
 
 Half of the recipes in our cook-books are mere 
 murder to such constitutions and stomachs as we 
 grow here. We require to ponder these things, and 
 think how we in our climate and under our circum- 
 stances ought to live, and in doing so, we may, 
 without accusation of foreign foppery, take some 
 leaves from many foreign books. 
 
 But Christopher has prosed long enough. I must 
 now read this to my wife, and see what she says. 
 
 12 
 
XL 
 
 OUR HOUSE. 
 
 OUR gallant Bob Stephens, into whose life-boat 
 our Marianne has been received, has lately 
 taken the mania of housebuilding into his head. Bob 
 is somewhat fastidious, difficult to please, fond of 
 domesticities and individualities; and such a man 
 never can fit himself into a house built by another, 
 and accordingly house-building has always been his 
 favorite mental recreation. During all his courtship 
 as much time was taken up in planning a future house 
 as if he had money to build one ; and all Marianne's 
 patterns, and the backs of half their letters, were 
 scrawled with ground-plans and elevations. But lat- 
 terly this chronic disposition has been quickened into 
 an acute form by the falling-in of some few thousands 
 to their domestic treasury, left as the sole re- 
 siduum of a painstaking old aunt, who took it into 
 her head to make a will in Bob's favor, leaving, among 
 other good things, a nice little bit of land in a rural 
 district half an hour's railroad-ride from Boston. 
 
 So now ground-plans thicken, and my wife is being 
 
Our House. 267 
 
 consulted morning, noon, and night ; and I never 
 come into the room without finding their heads close 
 together over a paper, and hearing Bob expatiate on 
 his favorite idea of a library. He appears to have 
 got so far as this, that the ceiling is to be of carved 
 oak, with ribs running to a boss over head, and 
 finished mediaevally with ultramarine blue and gilding, 
 and then away he goes sketching Gothic patterns 
 of book-shelves which require only experienced carv- 
 ers, and the wherewithal to pay them, to be the 
 divinest things in the world. 
 
 Marianne is exercised about china-closets and pan- 
 tries, and about a bedroom on the ground-floor, 
 for, like all other women of our days, she expects not 
 to have strength enough to run up-stairs oftener than 
 once or twice a week ; and my wife, who is a native 
 genius in this line, and has planned in her time doz- 
 ens of houses for acquaintances, wherein they are at 
 this moment living happily, goes over every day with 
 her pencil and ruler the work of rearranging the plans, 
 according as the ideas of the young couple veer and 
 vary. 
 
 One day Bob is importuned to give two feet off 
 from his library for a closet in the bedroom, but 
 resists like a Trojan. The next morning, being mol- 
 lified by private domestic supplications, Bob yields, 
 and my wife rubs out the lines of yesterday, two feet 
 
268 House and Home Papers. 
 
 come off the library, and a closet is constructed.* But 
 now the parlor proves too narrow, the parlor-wall 
 must be moved two feet into the hall. Bob declares 
 this will spoil the symmetry of the latter ; and if there 
 is anything he wants, it is a wide, generous, ample hall 
 to step into when you open the front-door. 
 
 " Well, then," says Marianne, " let 's put two feet 
 more into the width of the house." 
 
 "Can't on account of the expense, you see," says 
 Bob. " You see every additional foot of outside wall 
 necessitates so many more bricks, so much more floor- 
 ing, so much more roofing, etc." 
 
 And my wife, with thoughtful brow, looks over the 
 plans, and considers how two feet more are to be got 
 into the parlor without moving any of the walls. 
 
 "I say," says Bob, bending over her shoulder, 
 " here, take your two feet in the parlor, and put two 
 more feet on to the other side of the hall-stairs " ; 
 and he dashes heavily with his pencil. 
 
 " O, Bob ! " exclaims Marianne, " there are the 
 kitchen-pantries ! you ruin them, and no place for 
 the cellar-stairs ! " 
 
 " Hang the pantries and cellar-stairs ! " says Bob. 
 " Mother must find a place for them somewhere else. 
 I say the house must be roomy and cheerful, and pan- 
 tries and those things may take care of themselves ; 
 they can be put somewhere well enough. No fear 
 
Ottr House. 269 
 
 but you will find a place for them somewhere. What 
 do you women always want such a great enormous 
 kitchen for ? " 
 
 " It is not any larger than is necessary," said my 
 wife, thoughtfully ; " nothing is gained by taking off 
 from it." 
 
 " What if you should put it all down into a base- 
 ment," suggests Bob, " and so get it all out of sight 
 together ? " 
 
 " Never if it can be helped," said my wife. " Base- 
 ment-kitchens are necessary evils, only to be tolerated 
 in cities where land is too dear to afford any other." 
 
 So goes the discussion till the trio agree to sleep 
 over it. The next morning an inspiration visits my 
 wife's pillow. She is up and seizes plans and paper, 
 and before six o'clock has enlarged the parlor very 
 cleverly, by throwing out a bow-window. So waxes 
 and wanes the prospective house, innocently battered 
 down and rebuilt with India-rubber and black-lead. 
 Doors are cut out to-night, and walled up to-morrow ; 
 windows knocked out here and put in there, as some ob- 
 server suggests possibilities of too much or too little 
 draught. Now all seems finished, when, lo, a discovery ! 
 There is no fireplace nor stove-flue in my lady's bed- 
 room, and can be none without moving the bathing- 
 room. Pencil and India-rubber are busy again, and for 
 a while the whole house seems to threaten to fall to 
 
270 House and Home Papers. 
 
 pieces with the confusion of the moving; the bath-room 
 wanders like a ghost, now invading a closet, now threat- 
 ening the tranquillity of the parlor, till at last it is 
 laid by some unheard-of calculations of my wife's, 
 and sinks to rest in a place so much better that every 
 body wonders it never was thought of before. 
 
 "Papa," said Jenny, "it appears to me people 
 don't exactly know what they want when they build ; 
 why don't you write a paper on house-building ? " 
 
 " I have thought of it," said I, with the air of a man 
 called to settle some great reform. " It must be en- 
 tirely because Christopher has not written that our 
 young people and mamma are tangling themselves 
 daily in webs which are untangled the next day." 
 
 "You see," said Jenny, "they have only just so 
 much money, and they want everything they can think 
 of under the sun. There 's Bob been studying archi- 
 tectural antiquities, and nobody knows what, and 
 sketching all sorts of curly- whorlies ; and Marianne has 
 her notions about a parlor and boudoir and china- 
 closets and bedroom-closets ; and Bob wants a baro- 
 nial hall ; and mamma stands out for linen-closets and 
 bathing-rooms and all that ; and so among them all it 
 will just end in getting 'them head over ears in debt." 
 
 The thing struck me as not improbable. 
 
 "I don't know, Jenny, whether my writing an ar- 
 ticle is going to prevent all this ; but as my time in the 
 
Our House. 271 
 
 'Atlantic' is coming round, I may as well write on 
 what I am obliged to think of, and so I will give a 
 paper on the subject to enliven our next evening's 
 session." 
 
 So that evening, when Bob and Marianne had 
 dropped in as usual, and while the customary work 
 of drawing and rubbing-out was going on at Mrs. 
 Crowfield's sofa, I produced my paper and read as 
 follows : 
 
 OUR HOUSE. 
 
 THERE is a place called " Our House," which every- 
 body knows of. The sailor talks of it in his dreams 
 at sea. The wounded soldier, turning in his uneasy 
 hospital-bed, brightens at the word ; it is like the 
 dropping of cool water in the desert, like the touch 
 of cool fingers on a burning brow. " Our house," he 
 says feebly, and the light conies back into Jiis dim 
 eyes, for all homely charities, all fond thoughts, all 
 purities, all that man loves on earth or hopes for in 
 heaven, rise with the word. 
 
 " Our house " may be in any style of architecture, 
 low or high. It may be the brown old farm-house, 
 with its tall well-sweep ; or the one-story gambrel-roofed 
 cottage ; or the large, square, white house, with green 
 blinds, under the wind-swung elms of a century ; or 
 it may be the log-cabin of the wilderness, with its one 
 
272 House and Home Papers. 
 
 room, still there is a spell in the memory of it be- 
 yond all conjurations. Its stone and brick and mortar 
 are like no other; its very clapboards and shingles 
 are dear to us, powerful to bring back the memories 
 of early days, and all that is sacred in home-love. 
 
 " Papa is getting quite sentimental," whispered Jen- 
 ny, loud enough for me to hear. I shook my head at 
 her impressively, and went on undaunted. 
 
 There is no one fact of our human existence that 
 has a stronger influence upon us than the house we 
 dwell in, especially that in which our earlier and 
 more impressible years are spent. The building and 
 arrangement of a. house influence the health, the com- 
 fort, the morals, the religion. There have been houses 
 built so devoid of all consideration for the occupants, 
 so rambling and hap-hazard in the disposal of rooms, 
 so sunless and cheerless and wholly without snugness 
 or privacy, as to make it seem impossible to live a 
 joyous, generous, rational, religious family-life in them. 
 
 There are, we shame to say, in our cities things 
 called houses, built and rented by people who walk 
 erect and have the general air and manner of civilized 
 and Christianized men, which are so inhuman in their 
 building that they can only be called snares and traps 
 for souls, places where children cannot well escape 
 
Our Hoiise. 273 
 
 growing up filthy and impure, places where to form 
 a home is impossible, and to live a decent, Christian 
 life would require miraculous strength. 
 
 A celebrated British philanthropist, who had de- 
 voted much study to the dwellings of the poor, gave 
 it as his opinion that temperance-societies were a 
 hopeless undertaking in London, unless these dwell- 
 ings underwent a transformation. They were so 
 squalid, so dark, so comfortless, so constantly press- 
 ing upon the senses foulness, pain, and inconven- 
 ience, that it was only by being drugged with gin and 
 opium that their miserable inhabitants could find heart 
 to drag on life from day to day. He had himself tried 
 the experiment of reforming a drunkard by taking him 
 from one of these loathsome dens, and enabling him 
 to rent a tenement in a block of model lodging-houses 
 which had been built under his supervision. The 
 young man had been a designer of figures for prints ; 
 he was of a delicate frame, and a nervous, susceptible 
 temperament. Shut in one miserable room with his 
 wife and little children, without the possibility of pure 
 air, with only filthy, fetid water to drink, with the 
 noise of other miserable families resounding through 
 the thin partitions, what possibility was there of doing 
 anything except by the help of stimulants, which for 
 a brief hour lifted him above the perception of these 
 
 miseries ? Changed at once to a neat flat, where, for 
 12* 
 
274 House and Home Papers. 
 
 the same rent as his former den, he had three good 
 rooms, with water for drinking, house-service, and 
 bathing freely supplied, and the blessed sunshine and 
 air coming in through windows well arranged for ven- 
 tilation, he became in a few weeks a new man. In 
 the charms of the little spot which he could call home, 
 its quiet, its order, his former talent came back to him, 
 and he found strength, in pure air and pure water and 
 those purer thoughts of which they are the emblems, 
 to abandon burning and stupefying stimulants. 
 
 The influence of dwelling-houses for good or for 
 evil their influence on the brain, the nerves, and, 
 through these, on the heart and life is one of those 
 things that cannot be enough pondered by those who 
 build houses to sell or rent. 
 
 Something more generous ought to inspire a man. 
 than merely the percentage which he can get for his 
 money. He who would build houses should think 
 a little on the subject. He should reflect what houses 
 are for, what they maybe made to do for human 
 beings. The great majority of houses in cities are 
 not built by the indwellers themselves, they are 
 built for them by those who invest their money in 
 this way, with little other thought than the percentage 
 which the investment will return. 
 
 For persons of ample fortune there are, indeed, 
 palatial residences, with all that wealth can do to 
 
Our House. 275 
 
 render life delightful. But in that class of houses 
 which must be the lot of the large majority, those 
 which must be chosen by young men in the begin- 
 ning of life, when means are comparatively restricted, 
 there is yet wide room for thought and the judicious 
 application of money. 
 
 In looking over houses to be rented by persons of 
 moderate means, one cannot help longing to build, 
 one sees so many ways in which the same sum which 
 built an inconvenient and unpleasant house, might 
 have been made to build a delightful one. 
 
 "That's so!" said Bob, with emphasis. "Don't 
 you remember, Marianne, how many dismal, com- 
 monplace, shabby houses we trailed through?" 
 
 ""Yes," said Marianne. "You remember those 
 houses with such little squeezed rooms and that flour- 
 ishing staircase, with the colored-glass china-closet win- 
 dow, and no butler's sink ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Bob ; " and those astonishing, abom- 
 inable stone abortions that adorned the door-steps. 
 People do lay out a deal of money to make houses 
 look ugly, it must be confessed." 
 
 "One would willingly," said Marianne, "dispense 
 with frightful stone ornaments in front, and with heavy 
 mouldings inside, which are of no possible use or 
 beauty, and with showy plaster cornices and centre 
 
276 House and Home Papers. 
 
 pieces in the parlor-ceilings, and even with marble 
 mantels, for the luxury of hot and cold water in each 
 chamber, and a couple of comfortable bath-rooms. 
 Then, the disposition of windows and doors is so 
 wholly without regard to convenience ! How often 
 we find rooms, meant for bedrooms, where really there 
 is*no good place for either bed or dressing-table ! " 
 
 Here my wife looked up, having just finished re- 
 drawing the plans to the latest alteration. 
 
 " One of the greatest reforms that could be, in these 
 reforming days," she observed, "would be to have 
 women architects. The mischief with houses built 
 to rent is that they are all mere male contrivances. 
 No woman would ever plan chambers where there 
 is no earthly place to set a bed except against a win- 
 dow or door, or waste the room in entries that might 
 be made into closets. I don't see, for my part, apro- 
 pos to the modern movement for opening new profes- 
 sions to the female sex, why there should not be 
 well-educated female architects. The planning and 
 'arrangement of houses, and the laying-out of grounds, 
 are a fair subject of womanly knowledge and taste. 
 It is the teaching of Nature. What would anybody 
 think of a bluebird's nest that had been built entirely 
 by Mr. Blue, without the help of his wife ? " 
 
 "My dear," said I, "you must positively send a 
 paper on this subject to the next Woman's-Rights 
 Convention." 
 
Our House. 277 
 
 
 
 " I am of Sojourner Truth's opinion," said my wife, 
 " that the best way to prove the propriety of one's 
 doing anything is to go and do it. A woman who 
 should have energy to go through the preparatory 
 studies and set to work in this field would, I am sure, 
 soon find employment." 
 
 " If she did as well as you would do, my dear," said 
 I. " There are plenty of young women in our Boston 
 high-schools who are going through higher fields of 
 mathematics than are required by the architect, and 
 the schools for design show the flexibility and fertil- 
 ity of the female pencil. The thing appears to me 
 altogether more feasible than many other openings 
 which have been suggested to woman." 
 
 " Well," said Jenny, " is n't papa ever to go on 
 with his paper?" 
 
 I continued : 
 
 What ought " our house " to be ? Could any other 
 question be asked admitting in its details of such 
 varied answers, answers various as the means, the 
 character, and situation of different individuals ? But 
 there are great wants pertaining to every human being, 
 into which all lesser ones run. There are things in a 
 house that every one, high or low, rich or poor, ought, 
 according to his means, to seek. I think I shall class 
 them according to the elemental division of the old 
 
278 House and Home Papers. 
 
 philosophers, Fire, Air, Earth, and Water. These 
 form the groundwork of this need-be, the sine-qua- 
 nons of a house. 
 
 " Fire, air, earth, and water ! I don't understand," 
 said Jenny. 
 
 " Wait a little till you do, then," said I. " I will 
 try to make my meaning plain." 
 
 The first object of a house is shelter from the ele- 
 ments. This object is effected by a tent or wigwam 
 which keeps off rain and wind. The first disadvan- 
 tage of this shelter is, that the vital air which you take 
 into your lungs, and on the purity of which depends 
 the purity of blood and brain and nerve, is vitiated. 
 In the wigwam or tent you are constantly taking in 
 poison, more or less active, with every inspiration. 
 Napoleon had his army sleep without tents. He 
 stated, that from experience, he found it more healthy ; 
 and wonderful have been the instances of delicate per- 
 sons gaining constantly in vigor from being obliged, 
 in the midst of hardships, to sleep constantly in the 
 open air. Now the first problem in house-building is 
 to combine the advantage of shelter with the fresh 
 elasticity of out-door air. I am not going to give here 
 a treatise on ventilation, but merely to say, in general 
 terms, that the first object of a house-builder or con- 
 
Our House. 279 
 
 triver should be to make a healthy house ; and the first 
 requisite of a healthy house is a pure, sweet, elastic air. 
 
 I am in favor, therefore, of those plans of house- 
 building which have wide central spaces, whether 
 halls or courts, into which all the rooms open, and 
 which necessarily preserve a body of fresh air for the 
 use of them all. In hot climates this is the object 
 of the central court which cuts into the body of the 
 house, with its fountain and flowers, and its galleries, 
 into which the various apartments open. When peo- 
 ple are restricted for space, and cannot afford to give 
 up wide central portions of the house for the mere 
 purposes of passage, this central hall can be made 
 a pleasant sitting-room. With tables, chairs, book- 
 cases, and sofas comfortably disposed, this ample 
 central room above and below is, in many respects, 
 the most agreeable lounging-room of the house ; while 
 the parlors below and the chambers above, opening 
 upon it, form agreeable withdrawing-fooms for pur- 
 poses of greater privacy. 
 
 It is customary with many persons to sleep with 
 bedroom windows open, a very imperfect and often 
 dangerous mode of procuring that supply of fresh air 
 which a sleeping-room requires. In a house con- 
 structed in the manner indicated, windows might be 
 freely left open in these central halls, producing there 
 a constant movement of air, and the doors of the bed- 
 
280 House and Home Papers. 
 
 rooms placed ajar, when a very slight opening in the 
 windows would create a free circulation through the 
 apartments. 
 
 In the planning of a house, thought should be had 
 as to the general disposition of the windows, and the 
 quarters from which favoring breezes may be expected 
 should be carefully considered. Windows should be 
 so arranged that draughts of air can be thrown quite 
 through and across the house. . How often have we 
 seen pale mothers and drooping babes fanning and 
 panting during some of our hot days on the sunny 
 side of a house, while the breeze that should have 
 cooled them beat in vain against a dead wall ! One 
 longs sometimes to knock holes through partitions, 
 and let in the air of heaven. 
 
 No other gift of God, so precious, so inspiring, is 
 treated with such utter irreverence and contempt in 
 the calculations of us mortals as this same air of 
 heaven. A sermon on oxygen, if one had a preacher 
 who understood the subject, might do more to repress 
 sin than the most orthodox discourse to show when 
 and how and why sin came. A minister gets up in 
 a crowded lecture-room, where the mephitic air almost 
 makes the candles burn blue, and bewails the dead- 
 ness of the church, the church the while, drugged 
 by the poisoned air, growing sleepier and sleepier, 
 though they feel dreadfully wicked for being so. 
 
Our House. 281 
 
 Little Jim, who, fresh from his afternoon's ramble 
 in the fields, last evening said his prayers dutifully, 
 and lay down to sleep in a most Christian frame, this 
 morning sits up in bed with his hair bristling with 
 crossness, strikes at his nurse, and declares he won't 
 say his prayers, that he don't want to be good. 
 The simple difference is, that the child, having slept 
 in a close box of a room, his brain all night fed by 
 poison, is in a mild state of moral insanity. Deli- 
 cate women remark that it takes them till eleven or 
 twelve o'clock to get up their strength in the morning. 
 Query, Do they sleep with closed windows and 
 doors, and with heavy bed-curtains? 
 
 The houses built by our ancestors were better ven- 
 tilated in certain respects than modern ones, with. all 
 their improvements. The great central chimney, with 
 its open fireplaces in the different rooms, created a 
 constant current which carried off foul and vitiated 
 air. In these days, how common is it to provide 
 rooms with only a flue for a stove ! This flue is kept 
 shut in summer, and in winter opened only to admit 
 a close stove, which burns away the vital portion of 
 the air quite as fast as the occupants breathe it away. 
 The sealing-up of fireplaces and introduction of air- 
 tight stoves may, doubtless, be a saving of fuel : it 
 saves, too, more than that; in thousands and thou- 
 sands of cases it has saved people from all further 
 
282 House and Home Papers. 
 
 human wants, and put an end forever to any needs 
 short of the six feet of narrow earth which are man's 
 only inalienable property. In other words, since the 
 invention of air-tight stoves, thousands have died of 
 slow poison. It is a terrible thing to reflect upon, 
 that our northern winters last from November to 
 May, six long months, in which many families confine 
 themselves to one room, of which every window-crack 
 has been carefully calked to make it air-tight, where 
 an air-tight stove keeps the atmosphere at a tempera- 
 ture between eighty and ninety, and the inmates sit- 
 ting there with all their winter clothes on become 
 enervated both by the heat and by the poisoned air, 
 for which there is no escape but the occasional open- 
 ing of a door. 
 
 It is no wonder that the first result of all this is 
 such a delicacy of skin and lungs that about half the 
 inmates are obliged to give up going into the open 
 air during the six cold months, because they invari- 
 ably catch cold, if they do so. It is no wonder that 
 the coJd caught about the first of December has by 
 the first of March become a fixed consumption, and 
 that the opening of the spring, which ought to bring 
 life and health, in so many cases brings death. 
 
 We hear of the lean condition in which the poor 
 bears emerge from their six-months' wintering, during 
 which they subsist on the fat which they have acquired 
 
Our House. 283 
 
 the previous summer. Even so in our long winters, 
 multitudes of delicate people subsist on the daily 
 waning strength which they acquired in the season 
 when windows and doors were open, and fresh air 
 was a constant luxury. No wonder we hear of spring 
 fever and spripg biliousness, and have thousands of 
 nostrums for clearing the blood in the spring. All 
 these things are the pantings and palpitations of a 
 system run down under slow poison, unable to get 
 a step farther. Better, far better, the old houses of 
 the olden time, with their great roaring fires, and their 
 bedrooms where the snow came in and the wintry 
 winds whistled. Then, to be sure, you froze your 
 back while you burned your face, your water froze 
 nightly in your pitcher, your breath congealed in ice- 
 wreaths on the blankets, and you could write your 
 name on the pretty snow-wreath that had sifted in 
 through the window-cracks. But you woke full of life 
 and vigor, you looked out into whirling snow-storms 
 without a shiver, and thought nothing of plunging 
 through drifts as high as your head on your daily way 
 to school. You jingled in sleighs, you snowballed, 
 you lived in snow like a snow-bird, and your blood 
 coursed and tingled, in full tide of good, merry, real 
 life, through your veins, none of the slow-creeping, 
 black blood which clogs the brain and lies like a 
 weight on the vital wheels ! 
 
284 House and Home Papers. 
 
 " Mercy upon us, papa ! " said Jenny, " I hope we 
 need not go back to such houses ! " 
 
 " No, my dear," I replied. " I only said that such 
 houses were better than those which are all winter 
 closed by double windows and burnt-out air-tight 
 stoves." 
 
 The perfect house is one in which there is a con- 
 stant escape of every foul and vitiated particle of air 
 through one opening, while a constant supply of fresh 
 out-door air is admitted by another. In winter, this 
 out-door air must pass through some process by which 
 it is brought up to a temperate warmth. 
 
 Take a single room, and suppose on one side a cur- 
 rent of out-door air which has been warmed by pass- 
 ing through the air-chamber of a modern furnace. Its 
 temperature need not be above sixty-five, it answers 
 breathing purposes better at that. On the other side 
 of the room let there be an open wood- or coal-fire. 
 One cannot conceive the purposes of warmth and 
 ventilation more perfectly combined. 
 
 Suppose a house with a great central hall, into 
 which a current* of 'fresh, temperately warmed air is 
 continually pouring. Each chamber opening upon 
 this hall has a chimney up whose flue the rarefied air 
 is constantly passing, drawing up with it all the foul 
 and poisonous gases. That house is well ventilated, 
 
Our House. 285 
 
 and in a way that need bring no dangerous draughts 
 upon the most delicate invalid. For the better se- 
 curing of privacy in sleeping-rooms, we have seen two 
 doors employed, one of which is made with slats, like 
 a window-blind, so that air is freely transmitted with- 
 out exposing the interior. 
 
 When we speak of fresh air, we insist on the full 
 rigor of the term. It must not be the air of a cellar, 
 heavily laden with the poisonous nitrogen of turnips 
 and cabbages, but good, fresh, out-door air from a cold- 
 air pipe, so placed as not to get the lower stratum 
 near the ground, where heavy damps and exhalations 
 collect, but high up, in just the clearest and most elas- 
 tic region. 
 
 The conclusion of the whole matter is, that as all of 
 
 / 
 man's and woman's peace and comfort, all their love, 
 
 all their amiability, all their religion, have got to come 
 to them, while they live in this world, through the 
 medium of the brain, and as black, uncleansed 
 blood acts on the brain as a poison, and as no other 
 than black, uncleansed blood can be got by the lungs 
 out of impure air, the first object of the man who 
 builds a house is to secure a pure and healthy atmos- 
 phere therein. 
 
 Therefore, in allotting expenses, set this down as a 
 must-be: " Our house must have fresh air, every- 
 where, "at all times, winter and summer." Whether 
 
286 House and Home Papers. 
 
 we have stone facings or no, whether our parlor has 
 cornices or marble mantles or no, whether our 
 doors are machine-made or hand-made. All our fix- 
 tures shall be of the plainest and simplest, but we 
 will have fresh air. We will open our door with a 
 latch and string, if we cannot afford lock and knob 
 and fresh air too, but in our house we will live 
 cleanly and Christianly. We will no more breathe 
 the foul air rejected from a neighbor's lungs than 
 we will use a neighbor's tooth-brush and hair-brush. 
 Such is the first essential of "our house," the 
 first great element of human health and happiness, 
 AIR. 
 
 "I say, Marianne," said Bob, "have we got fire- 
 places in our chambers ? " 
 
 " Mamma took care of that," said Marianne. 
 
 " You may be quite sure," said I, "if your .mother 
 has had a hand in planning your house, that the ven- 
 tilation is cared for." 
 
 It must be confessed that Bob's principal idea in a 
 house had been a Gothic library, and his mind had 
 labored more on the possibility of adapting some fa- 
 vorite bits from the baronial antiquities to modern 
 needs than on anything so terrestrial as air. There- 
 fore he awoke as from a dream, and taking two or 
 three monstrous inhalations, he seized the pla"ns and 
 
Our House. 287 
 
 began looking over them with new energy. Mean- 
 while I went on with my prelection. 
 
 The second great vital element for which provision 
 must be made in " our house " is FIRE. By which I 
 do not mean merely artificial fire, but fire in all its 
 extent and branches, the heavenly fire which God 
 sends us daily on the bright wings of sunbeams, as 
 well as the mimic fires by which we warm our dwell- 
 ings, cook our food, and light our nightly darkness. 
 
 To begin, then, with heavenly fire or sunshine. If 
 God's gift of vital air is neglected and undervalued, 
 His gift of sunshine appears to be hated. There are 
 many houses where not a cent has been expended on 
 ventilation, but where hundreds of dollars have been 
 freely lavished to keep out the sunshine. The cham- 
 ber, truly, is tight as a box, it has no fireplace, not 
 even a ventilator opening into the stove-flue j but, oh, 
 joy and gladness ! it has outside blinds and inside 
 folding-shutters, so that in the brightest of days we 
 may create there a darkness that may be felt. To 
 observe the generality of New-England houses, a 
 spectator might imagine they were planned for the 
 torrid zone, where the great object is to keep out a 
 furnace-draught of burning air. 
 
 But let us look over the months of our calendar. 
 In which of them do we not need fires on our hearths ? 
 
288 House and Home Papers. 
 
 We will venture to say that from October to June all 
 families, whether they actually have it or not, would 
 be the more comfortable for a morning and evening 
 fire. For eight months in the year the weather varies 
 on the scale of cool, cold, colder, and freezing ; and 
 for all the four other months what is the number of 
 days that really require the torrid-zone system of 
 shutting up houses ? We all know that extreme heat 
 is the exception, and not the rule. 
 
 Yet let anybody travel, as I did last year, through 
 the valley of the Connecticut, and observe fhe houses. 
 All clean and white and neat and well-to-do, with 
 their turfy yards and their breezy great elms, but 
 all shut up from basement to attic, as if the inmates 
 had all sold out and gone to China. Not a window- 
 blind open above or below. Is the house inhabited ? 
 No, yes, there is a faint stream of blue smoke 
 from the kitchen-chimney, and half a window-blind 
 open in some distant back-part of the ho^use. They 
 are living there in the dim shadows, bleaching like 
 potato-sprouts in the cellar. 
 
 " I can tell you why they do it, papa," said Jenny, 
 " It 's the flies, and flies are certainly worthy to be 
 one of the plagues of Egypt I can 't myself blame 
 people that shut up their rooms and darken their 
 houses in fly-time, do you, mamma ? " 
 
Our House. 289 
 
 " Not in extreme cases ; though I think there is but 
 a short season when this is necessary ; yet the habit 
 of shutting up lasts the year round, and gives to New- 
 England villages that dead, silent, cold, uninhabited 
 look which is so peculiar. 
 
 " The one fact that a traveller would gather in pass- 
 ing through our villages would be this," said I, " that 
 the people live in their houses and in the dark. 
 Rarely do you see doors and windows open, people 
 sitting at them, chairs in the yard, and signs that the 
 inhabitants are living out-of-doors." 
 
 " Well," said Jenny, " I have told you why, for I 
 have been at Uncle Peter's in summer, and aunt does 
 her spring-cleaning in May, and then she shuts all the 
 blinds and drops all the curtains, and the house stays 
 clean till October. That's the whole of it. If she 
 -had all her windows open, there would be paint and 
 windows to be cleaned every week; and who is to 
 do it ? For my part, I can 't much blame her." 
 
 " Well," said I, " I have my ddubts about the sov- 
 ereign efficacy of living in the dark, even if the great 
 object of existence were to be rid of flies. I remem- 
 ber, during this same journey,, stopping for a day or 
 two at a country boarding-house which was dark as 
 Egypt from cellar to garret. The long, dim, gloomy 
 dining-room was first closed by outside blinds, and 
 then by impenetrable paper curtains, notwithstanding 
 
290 House and Home Papers. 
 
 which it swarmed and buzzed like a beehive. You 
 found where the cake-plate was by the buzz which your 
 hand made, if you chanced to reach in that direction. 
 It was disagreeable, because in the darkness flies 
 could not always be distinguished from huckleberries ; 
 and I could n't help wishing, that, since we must have 
 the flies, we might at last have the light and air to 
 console us under them. People darken their rooms 
 and shut up every avenue of out-door enjoyment, and 
 sit and think of nothing but flies ; in fact, flies are all 
 they have left. No wonder they become morbid on 
 the subject." 
 
 " Well, now, papa talks just like a man, doesn't 
 he ? " said Jenny. " He has n't the responsibility of 
 keeping things clean. I wonder what he would do, 
 if he were a housekeeper." 
 
 "Do? I will tell you. I would do the best I 
 could. I would shut my eyes on fly-specks, and 
 open them on the beauties of Nature. I would let 
 the cheerful sun in all day long, in all but the few 
 summer days when coolness is the one thing needful : 
 those days may be soon numbered every year. I 
 would make a calculation in the spring how much it 
 would cost to hire a woman to keep my windows 
 and paint clean, and I would do with one less gown 
 and have her ; and when I had spent all I could afford 
 on cleaning windows and paint, I would harden my 
 
Our House. 291 
 
 heart and turn off my eyes, and enjoy my sunshine, 
 and my fresh air, my breezes, and all that can be seen 
 through the picture-windows of an open, airy house, 
 and snap my fingers at the flies. There you have it." 
 
 " Papa's hobby is sunshine," said Marianne. 
 
 " Why shouldn't it be ? Was God mistaken, when 
 He made the sun ? Did He make him for us to hold 
 a life's battle with ? Is that vital power which reddens 
 the cheek of the peach and pours sweetness through 
 the fruits and flowers of no use to us ? Look at 
 plants that grow without sun, Wan, pale, long-vis- 
 aged, holding feeble, imploring hands of supplication 
 towards the light. Can human beings afford to throw 
 away a vitalizing force so pungent, so exhilarating? 
 You remember the experiment of a prison, where 
 one row of cells had daily sunshine, and the others 
 none. With the same regimen, the same cleanliness, 
 the same care, the inmates of the sunless cells were 
 visited with sickness and death in double measure. 
 Our whole population in New England are groaning 
 and suffering under afflictions, the result of a depressed 
 vitality, neuralgia, with a new ache for every day 
 of the year, rheumatism, consumption, general de- 
 bility; for all these a thousand nostrums are daily 
 advertised, and money enough is spent on them to 
 equip an army, while we are fighting against, wasting, 
 and throwing away with both hands that blessed 
 
292 House and Home Papers. 
 
 influence which comes nearest to pure vitality of any- 
 thing God has given. 
 
 " Who is it that the Bible describes as a sun, arising 
 with healing in his wings ? Surely, that sunshine 
 which is the chosen type and image of His love must 
 be healing through all the recesses of our daily life, 
 drying damp and mould, defending from moth and 
 rust, sweetening ill smells, clearing from the nerves 
 the vapors of melancholy, making life cheery. If I 
 did not know Him, I should certainly adore and wor- 
 ship the sun, the most blessed and beautiful image of 
 Him among things visible ! In the land of Egypt, in 
 the day of God's wrath, there was darkness, but in the 
 land of Goshen there was light. I am a Goshenite, 
 and mean to walk in the light, and forswear the works 
 of darkness. But to proceed with our reading." 
 
 " Our house " shall be set on a southeast line, so 
 that there shall not be a sunless room in it, and win- 
 dows shall be so arranged that it can be traversed and 
 transpierced through and through with those bright 
 shafts of light which come straight from God. 
 
 " Our house " shall not be blockaded with a dank, 
 dripping mass of shrubbery set plumb against the win- 
 dows, keeping out light and air. There shall be room 
 all round it for breezes to sweep, and sunshine to 
 sweeten and dry and vivify ; and I would warn all 
 
Our House. 293 
 
 good souls who begin life by setting out two little ever- 
 green-trees within a foot of each of their front-windows, 
 that these trees will grow and increase till their front- 
 rooms will be brooded over by a sombre, stifling 
 shadow fit only for ravens to croak in. 
 
 One would think, by the way some people hasten to 
 convert a very narrow front-yard into a dismal jungle, 
 that the only danger of our New England climate was 
 sunstroke. Ah, in those drizzling months which form 
 at least one half of our life here, what sullen, censo- 
 rious, uncomfortable, unhealthy thoughts are bred of 
 living in dark, chilly rooms, behind such dripping 
 thickets ? Our neighbors' faults assume a deeper hue, 
 life seems a dismal thing, our very religion grows 
 mouldy. 
 
 My idea of a house is, that, as far as is consistent 
 with shelter and reasonable privacy, it should give you 
 on first entering an open, breezy, out-door freshness of 
 sensation. Every window should be a picture; sun 
 and trees and clouds and green grass should seem 
 never to be far from us. " Our house " may shade but 
 not darken us. " Our house " shall have bow-windows, 
 many, sunny, and airy, not for the purpose of being 
 cleaned and shut up, but to be open and enjoyed. 
 There shall be long verandahs above and below, where 
 invalids may walk dry-shod, and enjoy open-air recre- 
 ation in wettest weather. In short, I will try to have 
 
294 House and Home Papers. 
 
 " our house " combine as far as possible the sunny, joy- 
 ous, fresh life of a gypsy in the fields and woods with 
 the quiet and neatness and comfort and shelter of a 
 roof, rooms, floors, and carpets. 
 
 After heavenly fire, I have a word to say of earthly, 
 artificial fires. Furnaces, whether of hot water, steam, 
 or hot air, are all healthy and admirable provisions for 
 warming our houses during the eight or nine months 
 of our year that we must have artificial heat, if only, 
 as I have said, fireplaces keep up a current of ventila- 
 tion. 
 
 The kitchen-range with its water-back I humbly sa- 
 lute. It is a great throbbing heart, and sends its warm 
 tides of cleansing, comforting fluid all through the 
 house. One could wish that this friendly dragon could 
 be in some way moderated in his appetite for coal, 
 he does consume without mercy, it must be confessed, 
 but then great is the work he has to do. At any 
 hour of day or night, in the most distant part of your 
 house, you have but to turn a stop-cock and your red 
 dragon sends you hot water for your needs ; your 
 washing-day becomes a mere play-day; your pantry 
 has its ever-ready supply ; and then, by a little judi- 
 cious care in arranging apartments and economizing 
 heat, a range may make two or three chambers com- 
 fortable in winter weather. A range with a water- 
 back is among the must-bes in "our house." 
 
Our House. 295 
 
 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 ob- 
 jection to it is the danger of its escape through imper- 
 fect fixtures. But it must not do this ; a fluid that kills 
 a tree or a plant with one breath must certainly be a 
 dangerous ingredient in the atmosphere, and if admit- 
 ted into houses, must be. introduced with every safe- 
 guard. 
 
 There are families living in the country who make 
 their own gas by a very simple process. This is worth 
 an inquiry from those who build. There are also con- 
 trivances now advertised, with good testimonials, of 
 domestic machines for generating gas, said to be 
 perfectly safe, simple to be managed, and producing a 
 light superior to that of the city gas-works. This 
 also is worth an inquiry when " our house " is to be 
 in the country. 
 
 And now I come to the next great vital element for 
 which " our house " must provide, WATER. " Water, 
 water, everywhere," it must be plentiful, it must be 
 easy to get at, it must be pure. Our ancestors had 
 some excellent ideas in home-living and house-build- 
 ing. Their houses were, generally speaking, very sen- 
 sibly contrived, roomy, airy, and comfortable; but 
 
 
 
 in their water- arrangements they had little mercy on 
 
296 Hoiise and Home Papers. 
 
 womankind. The well was out in the yard ; and in 
 winter one must flounder through snow and bring up 
 the ice-bound bucket, before one could fill the tea- 
 kettle for breakfast. For a sovereign princess of the 
 republic this was hardly respectful or respectable. 
 Wells have come somewhat nearer in modern times ; 
 but the idea of a constant supply of fresh water by the 
 simple turning of a stop-cock has not yet visited the 
 great body of our houses. Were we free to build 
 " our house " just as we wish it, there should be a 
 bath-room to every two or three inmates, and the hot 
 and cold water should circulate to every chamber. 
 
 Among our must-bes, we would lay by a generous 
 sum for plumbing. Let us have our bath-rooms, and 
 our arrangements for cleanliness and health in kitchen 
 and pantry; and afterwards let the quality of our 
 lumber and the style of our finishings be according to 
 the sum we have left. The power to command a 
 warm bath in a house at any hour of day or night is 
 better in bringing up a family of children than any 
 amount of ready medicine. In three-quarters of 
 childish ailments the warm bath is an almost im- 
 mediate remedy. Bad colds, incipient fevers, rheu- 
 matisms, convulsions, neuralgias imnumerable, are 
 washed off in their first beginnings, and run down the 
 lead pipes into oblivion. Have, then, O friend, all 
 the water in your house that you can afford, and en- 
 
Our House. 297 
 
 large your ideas of the worth of it, that you may afford 
 a great deal. A bathing-room is nothing to you that 
 requires an hour of lifting and fire-making to prepare 
 it for use. The apparatus is too cumbrous, you do 
 not turn to it. But when your chamber opens upon" 
 a neat, quiet little nook, and you have only to turn 
 your stop-cocks and all is ready, your remedy is at 
 hand, you use it constantly. You are waked in the 
 night by a scream, and find little Tom sitting up, wild 
 with burning fever. In three, minutes he is in the 
 bath, quieted and comfortable; you get him back, 
 cooled and tranquil, to his little crib, and in the morn- 
 ing he wakes as if nothing had happened. 
 
 Why should not so invaluable and simple a remedy 
 for disease, such a preservative of health, such a com- 
 fort, such a stimulus, be considered as much a matter- 
 ter-of-course in a house as a kitchen-chimney? At 
 least there should be one bath-room always in order, 
 so arranged that all the family can have access to it, 
 if one cannot afford the luxury of many. 
 
 A house in which water is universally and skilfully 
 distributed is so much easier to take care of as almost 
 to verify the* saying of a friend, that his house was so 
 contrived that it did its own work : one had better do 
 without carpets on the floors, without stuffed sofas and 
 rocking-chairs, and secure this. 
 
298 Hotise and Home Papers. 
 
 " Well, papa," said Marianne, " you have made out 
 all your four elements in your house, except one. I 
 can't imagine what you want of earth" 
 
 " I thought," said Jenny, " that the less of our com- 
 'mon mother we had in our houses, the better house- 
 keepers we were." 
 
 "My dears," said I, "we philosophers must give 
 an occasional dip into the mystical, and say something 
 apparently absurd for the purpose of explaining that 
 we mean nothing in particular by it. It gives com- 
 mon people an idea of our sagacity, to find how clear 
 we come out of our apparent contradictions and ab- 
 surdities. Listen." 
 
 For the fourth requisite of " our house," EARTH, let 
 me point you to your mother's plant-window, and beg 
 you to remember the fact that through our long, dreary 
 winters we are never a month without flowers, and the 
 vivid interest which always attaches to growing things. 
 The perfect house, as I conceive it, is to combine as 
 many of the advantages of living out of doors as may 
 be consistent with warmth and shelter, and one ' of 
 these is the sympathy with green and growing things. 
 Plants are nearer in their relations to human health 
 and vigor than is often imagined. The cheerfulness 
 that well-kept plants impart to a room comes not 
 merely from gratification of the eye, there is a 
 
Our House. 299 
 
 healthful exhalation from them, they are a corrective 
 of the impurities of the atmosphere. Plants, too, are 
 valuable as tests of the vitality of the atmosphere ; 
 their drooping and failure convey to us information 
 that something is amiss with it. A lady once told me 
 that she could never raise plants in her parlors on 
 account of the gas and anthracite coal. I answered, 
 " Are you not afraid to live and bring up your children 
 in an atmosphere which blights your plants ? " If the 
 gas escapes from the pipes, and the red-hot anthracite 
 coal or the red-hot air-tight stove burns out all the 
 vital part of the air, so that healthy plants in a few 
 days wither and begin to drop their leaves, it is a sign 
 that the air must be looked to and reformed. It is a 
 fatal augury for a room that plants cannot be made 
 to thrive in it. Plants should not turn pale, be long- 
 jointed, long-leaved, and spindling ; and where they 
 grow in this way, we may be certain that there is a 
 want of vitality for human beings. But where plants 
 appear as they do in the open air, with vigorous, stocky 
 growth, and short-stemmed, deep-green leaves, we may 
 believe the conditions of that atmosphere are healthy 
 for human lungs. 
 
 It is pleasant to see how the custom of plant-grow- 
 ing has spread through our country. In how many 
 farm-house windows do we see petunias and nastur- 
 tiums vivid with bloom while snows are whirling with- 
 
3OO House and Home Papers. 
 
 out, and how much brightness have those cheap en- 
 joyments shed on the lives of those who cared for 
 them ! We do not believe there is a human being 
 who would not become a passionate lover of plants, 
 if circumstances once made it imperative to tend upon 
 and watch the growth of one. The history of Picciola 
 for substance has been lived over and over by many 
 a man and woman who once did not know that there 
 was a particle of plant-love in their souls. But to the 
 proper care of plants in pots there are many hin- 
 drances and drawbacks. The dust chokes the little 
 pores of their green lungs, and they require constant 
 showering ; and to carry all one's plants to a sink or 
 porch for this purpose is a labor which many will not 
 endure. Consequently plants often do not get a show- 
 ering once a month ! We should try to imitate more 
 closely the action of Mother Nature, who washes 
 every green child of hers nightly with dews, which lie 
 glittering on its leaves till morning. 
 
 " Yes, there it is ! " said Jenny. " I think I could 
 manage with plants, if it were not for this eternal 
 showering and washing they seem to require to keep 
 them fresh. They are always tempting one to spatter 
 the carpet and surrounding furniture, which are not 
 equally benefited by the libation." 
 
 " It is partly for that very reason," I replied, " that 
 
Our House. 301 
 
 the plan of ' our house ' provides for the introduction 
 of Mother Earth, as you will see." 
 
 A perfect house, according to my idea, should al- 
 ways include- in it a little compartment where plants 
 can be kept, can be watered, can be defended from 
 the dust, and have the sunshine and all the conditions 
 of growth. 
 
 People have generally supposed a conservatory to 
 be one of the last trappings of wealth, something 
 not to be thought of for those in modest circumstances. 
 But is this so ? You have a bow-window in your par- 
 lor. Leave out the flooring, fill the space with rich 
 earth, close it from the parlor by glass doors, and you 
 have room for enough plants and flowers to keep you 
 gay and happy all winter. If on the south side, where 
 the sunbeams have power, it requires no heat but that 
 which warms the parlor ; and the comfort of it is in- 
 calculable, and the expense a mere trifle greater than 
 that of the bow-window alone. 
 
 In larger houses a larger space might be appro- 
 priated in this way. We will not call it a conser- 
 vatory, because that name suggests ideas of garden- 
 ers, and mysteries of culture and rare plants, which 
 bring all sorts of care and expense in their train. 
 We would rather call it a greenery, a room floored 
 with earth, with glass sides to admit the sun, and 
 
302 House and Home Papers. 
 
 let it open on as many other rooms of the house as 
 possible. 
 
 Why should not the dining-room and parlor be all 
 winter connected by a spot of green and flowers, with 
 plants, mosses, and ferns for the shadowy portions, 
 and such simple blooms as petunias and nastur- 
 tiums garlanding the sunny portion near the windows ? 
 If near the water-works, this greenery might be en- 
 livened by the play of a fountain, whose constant 
 spray would give that softness to the air which is 
 so often burned away by the dry heat of the fur- 
 nace. 
 
 " And do you really think, papa, that houses built 
 in this way are a practical result to be aimed at?" 
 said Jenny. " To me it seems like a dream of the 
 Alhambra." 
 
 " Yet I happen to have seen real people in our day 
 living in just such a house," said I. "I could point 
 you, this very hour, to a cottage, which in style of 
 building is the plainest possible, which unites many 
 of the best ideas of a true house. My dear, can 
 you sketch the ground plan of that house we saw in 
 Brighton ? " 
 
 " Here it is," said my wife, after a few dashes with 
 her pencil, " an inexpensive house, yet one of the 
 pleasantest I ever saw." 
 
Our House. 
 
 303 
 
 Q NS E RVATOfty 
 Ib({NTAt)N 
 
 HAII ^ 
 
 i 
 
 P* 
 
 WASH 
 
 " ROOM 
 
 
 a 
 
 l 
 
 :*-- 
 
 
 1 L 
 
 T 
 
 c, China-closet. /, Passage, d, Kitchen-closet 
 
 "This cottage, which might, at the rate of prices 
 before the war, have been built for five thousand dol- 
 lars, has many of the requirements which I seek for 
 a house. It has two stories, and a tier of very pleas- 
 ant attic-rooms, two bathing-rooms, and the water 
 carried into each story. The parlor and dining-room 
 both look into a little bower, where a fountain is ever 
 playing into a little marble basin, and which all the 
 year through has its green and bloom. It is heated 
 simply from the furnace by a register, like any other 
 room of the house, and requires no more care than a 
 delicate woman could easily give. The brightness and 
 cheerfulness it brings during our long, dreary winters is 
 incredible." 
 
 But one caution is necessary in all such appendages. 
 The earth must be thorougly underdrained to prevent 
 
304 House and Home Papers. 
 
 the vapors of stagnant water, and have a large admix- 
 ture of broken charcoal to obviate the consequences 
 of vegetable decomposition. Great care must be taken 
 that there be no leaves left to fall and decay on the 
 ground, since vegetable exhalations poison the air. 
 With these precautions such a plot will soften and 
 purify the air of a house. 
 
 Where the means do not allow even so small a con- 
 servatory, a recessed window might be fitted with a 
 deep box, which should have a drain-pipe at the bot- 
 tom, and a thick layer of broken charcoal and gravel, 
 with a mixture of fine wood-soil and sand, for the top 
 stratum. Here ivies may be planted, which will run 
 and twine and strike their little tendrils here and there, 
 and give the room in time the aspect of a bower ; the 
 various greenhouse nasturtiums will make winter gor- 
 geous with blossoms. In windows unblest by sun- 
 shine and, alas, such are many ! one can cultivate 
 ferns and mosses ; the winter-growing ferns, of which 
 there are many varieties, can be mixed with mosses 
 and woodland flowers. 
 
 Early in February, when the cheerless frosts of winter 
 seem most wearisome, the common blue violet, wood- 
 anemone, hepatica, or rock-columbine, if planted in 
 this way, will begin to bloom. The common partridge- 
 berry, with its brilliant scarlet fruit and dark green 
 leaves, will also grow finely in such situations, and 
 
Our House. 305 
 
 have a beautiful effect. These things require daily 
 showering to keep them fresh, and the moisture aris- 
 ing from them will soften and freshen the too dry air 
 of heated winter rooms. 
 
 Thus I have been through my four essential ele- 
 ments in house-building, air, fire, water, and earth. 
 I would provide for these before anything else. After 
 they are secured, I would gratify my taste and fancy 
 as far as possible in other ways. I quite agree with 
 Bob in hating commonplace houses, and longing for 
 some little bit of architectural effect; and I grieve 
 profoundly that every step in that direction must 
 cost so much. I have also a taste for niceness of 
 finish. I have no objection to silver-plated door- 
 locks and hinges, none to windows which are an 
 entire plate of clear glass. I congratulate neighbors 
 who are so fortunate as to be able to get them ; and 
 after I have put all the essentials into a house, I would 
 have these too, if I had the means. 
 
 But if all my wood-work were to be without groove 
 or moulding, if my mantels were to be of simple wood, 
 if my doors were all to be machine-made, and my 
 lumber of the second quality, I would have my bath- 
 rooms, my conservatory, my sunny bow-windows, and 
 my perfect ventilation ; and my house would then 
 be so pleasant, and every one in it in such a cheerful 
 
 T 
 
House and Home Papers. 
 
 mood, that it would verily seem to be ceiled with 
 cedar. 
 
 Speaking of ceiling with cedar, I have one thing 
 more to say. We Americans have a country abound- 
 ing in beautiful timber, of whose beauties we know 
 nothing, on account of the pernicious and stupid habit 
 of covering it with white paint. 
 
 The celebrated /ebra wood with its golden stripes 
 cannot exceed in quaint beauty the grain of unpainted 
 chestnut, prepared simply with a coat or two of oil. 
 The butternut has a rich golden brown, the very dar- 
 ling color of painters, a shade so rich, and grain so 
 beautiful, that it is of itself as charming to look at as 
 a rich picture. The black-walnut, with its heavy depth 
 of tone, works in well as an adjunct ; and as to oak, 
 what can we say enough of its quaint and many shad- 
 ings? Even common pine, which has been consid- 
 ered not decent to look upon till hastily shrouded 
 in a friendly blanket of white paint, has, when oiled 
 and varnished, the beauty of satin-wood. The second 
 quality of pine, which has what are called shakes in it, 
 under this mode of treatment often shows clouds and 
 veins equal in beauty to the choicest woods. The 
 cost of such a finish is greatly less than that of the old 
 method ; and it saves those days and weeks of cleaning 
 which are demanded by white paint, while its general 
 tone is softer and more harmonious. Experiments in 
 
Our House. 307 
 
 color may be tried in the combination of these woods, 
 which at small expense produce the most charming 
 effects. 
 
 As to paper-hangings, we are proud to say that our 
 American manufacturers now furnish all that can be 
 desired. There are some branches of design where 
 artistic, ingenious France must still excel us ; but 
 whoso has a house to fit up, let him first look at 
 what his own country has to show, and he will be 
 astonished. 
 
 There is one topic in house-building on which I 
 would add a few words. The difficulty of procuring 
 and keeping good servants, which must long be one 
 of our chief domestic troubles, warns us so to arrange 
 our houses that we shall need as few as possible. 
 There is the greatest conceivable difference in the 
 planning and building of houses as to the amount of 
 work which will be necessary to keep them in respect- 
 able condition. Some houses require a perfect staff 
 of house-maids ; there are plated hinges to be 
 rubbed, paint to be cleaned, with intricacies of mould- 
 ing and carving which daily consume hours of dust- 
 ing to preserve them from a slovenly look. Simple 
 finish, unpainted wood, a general distribution of watei 
 through the dwelling, will enable a very large house to 
 be cared for by one pair of hands, and yet maintain 
 a creditable appearance. 
 
308 House and Home Papers. 
 
 In kitchens one servant may perform the work of 
 two by a close packing of all the conveniences for 
 cooking and such arrangements as shall save time and 
 steps. Washing-day may be divested of its terrors by 
 suitable provisions for water, hot and cold, by wring- 
 ers, which save at once the strength of the linen and 
 of the laundress, and by drying-closets connected with 
 ranges, where articles can in a few moments be per- 
 fectly dried. These, with the use of a small mangle, 
 such as is now common in America, reduce the labors 
 of the laundry one half. 
 
 There are many more things which might be said 
 of "our house," and Christopher may, perhaps, find 
 some other opportunity to say them. For the present 
 his pen is tired and ceaseth. 
 

 XII. 
 
 HOME RELIGION. 
 
 T T was Sunday evening, and our little circle were 
 convened by my study-fireside, where a crackling 
 hickory fire proclaimed the fall of the year to be 
 coming on, and cold weather impending. Sunday 
 evenings, my married boys and girls are fond of com- 
 ing home and gathering round the old hearthstone, 
 and " making believe " that they are children again. 
 We get out the old-fashioned music-books, and sing 
 old hymns to very old tunes, and my wife and her 
 matron daughters talk about the babies in the inter- 
 vals ; and we discourse of the sermon, and of the 
 choir, and all the general outworks of good pious 
 things which Sunday suggests. 
 
 " Papa," said Marianne, " you are closing up your 
 House and Home Papers, are you not?" 
 
 " Yes, I am come to the last one, for this year 
 at least." 
 
 "My dear," said my wife, "there is one subject 
 you have n't touched on yet ; you ought not to close 
 the year without it ; no house and home can be com- 
 plete without Religion : you should write a paper on 
 Home Religion." 
 
3io Hoiise and Home Papers. 
 
 My wife, as you may have seen in these papers, 
 is an old-fashioned woman, something of a. conserva- 
 tive. I am, I confess, rather given to progress and 
 speculation; but I feel always as if I were going on 
 in these ways with a string round my waist, and my 
 wife's hand steadily pulling me back into the old 
 paths. My wife is a steady, Bible-reading, Sabbath- 
 keeping woman, cherishing the memory of her fathers, 
 and loving to do as they did, believing, for the most 
 part, that the paths well beaten by righteous feet are 
 safest, even though much walking therein has worn 
 away the grass and flowers. Nevertheless, she has an 
 indulgent ear for all that gives promise of bettering 
 anybody or anything, and therefore is not severe on 
 any new methods that may arise in our progressive 
 days of accomplishing old good objects. 
 
 "There must be a home religion," said my wife. 
 
 " I believe in home religion," said Bob Stephens, 
 "but not in the outward show of it. The best sort 
 of religion is that which one keeps at the bottom of 
 his heart, and which goes up thence quietly through 
 all his actions, and not the kind that comes through 
 a certain routine of forms and ceremonies. Do you 
 suppose family prayers, now, and a blessing at meals, 
 make people any better?" 
 
 " Depend upon it, Robert," said my wife, she 
 always calls him Robert on Sunday evenings, " de- 
 
Home Religion. 311 
 
 pend upon it, we are not so very much wiser than our 
 fathers were, that we need depart from their good old 
 ways. Of course I would have religion in the heart, 
 and spreading quietly through the life ; but does this 
 interfere with those outward, daily acts of respect and 
 duty which we owe to our Creator ? It is too mucl 
 the slang of our day to decry forms, and to e 
 the excellency of the spirit in opposition to them ; but 
 tell me, are you satisfied with friendship that has none 
 of the outward forms of friendship, or love that has 
 none of the outward forms of love ? Are you satisfied 
 of the existence of a sentiment that has no outward 
 mode of expression ? Even the old heathen had their 
 pieties ; they would not begin a feast without a liba- 
 tion to their divinities, and there was a shrine in every 
 well-regulated house for household gods." 
 
 " The trouble with all these things," said Bob, " is 
 that they get to be mere forms. I never could see 
 that family worship amounted to much more in most 
 families." 
 
 " The outward expression of all good things is apt 
 to degenerate into mere form," said I. " The out- 
 ward expression of social good feeling becomes a mere 
 form ; but for that reason must we meet each other like 
 oxen? not say, 'Good morning/ or 'Good evening,' 
 or ' I am happy to see you ' ? Must we never use 
 any of the forms of mutual good-will, except in those 
 
cry 
 
 312 House and Home Papers. 
 
 moments when we are excited by a real, present emo- 
 tion? What would become of society? Forms are, 
 so to speak, a daguerrotype of a past good feeling, 
 meant to take and keep the impression of it when it 
 is gone. Our best and most inspired moments are 
 
 stallized in them ; and even when the spirit that 
 created them is gone, they help to bring it back. 
 Every one must be conscious that the use of the 
 forms of social benevolence, even towards those who 
 are personally unpleasant to us, tends to ameliorate 
 prejudices. We see a man entering our door who is a 
 weary bore, but we use with him those forms of civil- 
 ity which society prescribes, and feel far kinder to 
 him than if we had shut the door in his face, and said, 
 * Go along, you tiresome fellow ! ' Now why does 
 not this very obvious philosophy apply to better and 
 higher feelings? The forms of religion are as much 
 more necessary than the forms of politeness and social 
 good-will as religion is more important than all other 
 things." 
 
 " Besides," said my wife, " a form of worship, kept 
 up from year to year in a family, the assembling 
 of parents and children for a few sacred moments 
 each day, though it may be a form many times, 
 especially in the gay and thoughtless hours of life, 
 often becomes invested with deep sacredness in times 
 of trouble, or in those crises that rouse our deeper 
 
Home Religion. 313 
 
 feelings. In sickness, in bereavement, in separation, 
 the daily prayer at home has a sacred and healing 
 power. Then" we remember the scattered and wander- 
 ing ones j and the scattered and wandering think 
 tenderly of that hour when they know they are remem- 
 bered. I know, when I was a young girl, I was often 
 thoughtless and careless about family-prayers j but 
 now that my father and mother are gone forever, 
 there is nothing I recall more often. I remember the 
 great old Family Bible, the hymn-book, the chair where 
 father used to sit. I see him as he looked bending 
 over that Bible more than in any other way; and 
 expressions and sentences in his prayers which fell 
 unheeded on my ears in those days have often come 
 back to me like comforting angels. We are not aware 
 of the influence things are having on us till we have 
 left them far behind in years. When we have sum- 
 mered and wintered them, and look back on them from 
 changed times and other days, we find that they were 
 making their mark upon us, though we knew it not." 
 
 "I have often admired," said I, "the stateliness 
 and regularity of family-worship in good old families 
 in England, the servants, guests, and children all 
 assembled, the reading of the Scriptures and the 
 daily prayers by the master or mistress of the family, 
 ending with the united repetition of the Lord's Prayer 
 by all." 
 
 14 
 
314 House and Home Papers. 
 
 "No such assemblage is possible in our country," 
 said Bob. " Our servants are for the most part Ro- 
 man Catholics, and forbidden by their religion to join 
 with us in acts of worship." 
 
 " The greater the pity," said I. " It is a pity that 
 all Christians who can conscientiously repeat the 
 Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer together should 
 for any reason be forbidden to do so. It would do 
 more to harmonize our families, and promote good 
 feeling between masters and servants, to meet once a 
 day on the religious ground common to both, than 
 many sermons on reciprocal duties." 
 
 " But while the case is so," said Marianne, " we 
 can't help it. Our servants cannot unite with us ; our 
 daily prayers are something forbidden to them." 
 
 "We cannot in this country," said I, "give to fam- 
 ily prayer that solemn stateliness which it has in a 
 country where religion is a civil institution, and mas- 
 ters and servants, as a matter of course, belong to 
 one church. Our prayers must resemble more a pri- 
 vate interview with a father than a solemn act of 
 homage to a king. They must be more intimate 
 and domestic. The hour of family devotion should 
 be the children's hour, held dear as the interval 
 when the busy father drops his business and cares, 
 and, like Jesus of old, takes the little ones in his 
 arms and blesses them. The child should remember 
 
Home Religion. 315 
 
 it as the time when the father always seemed most 
 accessible and loving. The old family .worship ef 
 New England lacked this character of domesticity and 
 intimacy, it was stately and formal, distant and 
 cold ; but whatever were its defects, I cannot think 
 it an improvement to leave it out altogether, as too 
 many good sort of people in our day are doing. There 
 may be practical religion where its outward daily 
 forms are omitted, but there is assuredly no more of it 
 for the omission. No man loves God and his neighbor 
 less, is a less honest and good man, for daily prayers 
 in his household, the chances are quite the other 
 way; and if the spirit of love rules the family hour, 
 it may prove the source and spring of all that is 
 good through the day. It seems to be a solemn duty 
 in the parents thus to make the Invisible Father- 
 hood real to their children, who can receive this idea 
 at first only through outward forms and observances. 
 The little one thus learns that his father has a Father 
 in heaven, and that the earthly life he is living is on- 
 ly a sacrament and emblem, a type of the eternal 
 life which infolds it, and of more lasting relations there. 
 Whether, therefore, it be the silent grace and silent 
 prayer of the Friends, or the form of prayer of ritual 
 churches, or the extemporaneous outpouring of those 
 whose habits and taste lead them to extempore prayer, 
 in one of these ways there should be daily out- 
 ward and visible acts of worship in every family." 
 
316 House and Home Papers. 
 
 "Well, now," said Bob, "about this old question 
 of Sunday-keeping, Marianne and I are much divided. 
 I am always for doing something that she thinks is n't 
 the thing." 
 
 " Well, you see," said Marianne, " Bob is always 
 talking against our old Puritan fathers, and saying all 
 manner of hard things about them. He seems to 
 think that all their ways and doings must of course 
 have been absurd. For my part, I don't think we are 
 in any danger of being too strict about anything. It 
 appears to me that in this country there is a general 
 tendency to let all sorts of old forms and observances 
 float down-stream, and yet nobody seems quite to have 
 made up his mind what shall come next." 
 
 "The fact is," said I, "that we realize very fully 
 all the objections and difficulties of the experiments 
 in living that we have tried ; but the difficulties in 
 others that we are intending to try have not yet 
 come to light. The Puritan Sabbath had great and 
 very obvious evils. Its wearisome restraints and over- 
 strictness cast a gloom on religion, and arrayed against 
 the day itself the active prejudices that now are under- 
 mining it and threatening its extinction. But it had 
 great merits and virtues, and produced effects on 
 society that we cannot well afford to dispense with. 
 The clearing of a whole day from all possibilities ^f 
 labor and amusement necessarily produced a grave 
 
Home Religion. 317 
 
 and thoughtful people j and a democratic republic 
 can be carried on by no other. In lands which have 
 Sabbaths of mere amusement, mere gala-days, repub- 
 lics rise and fall as fast as children's card-houses ; 
 and the reason is, they are built by those whose polit- 
 ical and religious education has been childish. The 
 common people of Europe have been sedulously nursed 
 on amusements by the reigning powers, to keep them 
 from meddling with serious matters ; their religion has 
 been sensuous and sentimental, and their Sabbaths 
 thoughtless holidays. The common people of New 
 England are educated to think, to reason, to examine 
 all questions of politics and religion for themselves ; 
 and one deeply thoughtful day every week baptizes 
 and strengthens their reflective and reasoning facul- 
 ties. The Sunday schools of Paris are whirligigs 
 where Young France rides round and round on little 
 hobby-horses till his brain spins even faster than Na- 
 ture made it to spin ; and when he grows up, his politi- 
 cal experiments are as whirligig as his Sunday educa- 
 tion. If I were to choose between the Sabbath of 
 France and the old Puritan Sabbath, I should hold 
 up both hands for the latter, with all its objection- 
 able features." 
 
 " Well," said my wife, " cannot, we contrive to re- 
 tail, all that is really valuable of the Sabbath, and to 
 ameliorate and smooth away what is forbidding ? " 
 
318 House and Home Papers. 
 
 " That is the problem of our day," said I. " We do 
 not want the Sabbath of Continental Europe : it does 
 not suit democratic institutions ; it cannot be made 
 even a quiet or a safe day, except by means of that ever- 
 present armed police that exists there. If the Sabbath 
 of America is simply to be a universal loafing, pic- 
 nicking, dining-out day, as it is now with all our foreign 
 population, we shall need what they have in Europe, 
 the gendarmes at every turn, to protect the fruit on our 
 trees and the melons in our fields. People who live 
 a little out from great cities see enough, and more than 
 enough, of this sort of Sabbath-keeping, with our loose 
 American police. 
 
 " The fact is, our system of government was organ- 
 ized to go by moral influences as much as mills by 
 water, and Sunday was the great day for concentrat- 
 ing these influences and bringing them to bear j and 
 we might just as well break down all the dams and let 
 out all the water of the Lowell mills, and expect still 
 to work the looms, as to expect to work our laws and 
 constitution with European notions of religion. 
 
 " It is true the Puritan Sabbath had its disagreeable 
 points. So have the laws of Nature. They are of a 
 most uncomfortable sternness and rigidity ; yet for all 
 that, we would hardly join in a petition to have them 
 repealed, or made wavering and uncertain for hur^an 
 convenience. We can bend to them in a thousand 
 ways, and live very comfortably under them." 
 
Home Religion. 319 
 
 " But," said Bob, " Sabbath-keeping is the iron rod 
 of bigots ; they don't allow a man any liberty of his 
 own. One says it's wicked to write a letter Sun- 
 day ; another holds that you must read no book but 
 the Bible ; and a third is scandalized, if you take a 
 walk, ever so quietly, in the fields. There are all sorts 
 of quips and turns. We may fasten things with pins 
 of a Sunday, but it 's wicked to fasten with needle and 
 thread, and so on, and so on ; and each one, planting 
 himself on his own individual mode of keeping Sun- 
 day, points his guns and frowns severely over the bat- 
 tlements on his neighbors whose opinions and prac- 
 tice are different from his." 
 
 " Yet," said I, " Sabbath-days are expressly men- 
 tioned by Saint Paul as among those things concern- 
 ing which no man should judge another. It seems 
 to me that the error as regards the Puritan Sabbath 
 was in representing it, not as a gift from God to man, 
 but as a tribute of man to God. Hence all these hag- 
 glings and nice questions and exactions to the utter- 
 most farthing. The holy time must be weighed and 
 measured. It must begin at twelve o'clock of one 
 night, and end at twelve o'clock of another; and 
 from beginning to end, the mind must* be kept in a 
 state of tension by the effort not to think any of its 
 usual thoughts or do any of its usual works. The fact 
 is, that the metaphysical, defining, hair-splitting mind 
 
320 House and Home Papers. 
 
 of New England, turning its whole powers on this 
 one bit of ritual, this one only day of divine service, 
 which was left of all the feasts and fasts of the old 
 churches, made of it a thing straiter and stricter than 
 ever the old Jews dreamed of. 
 
 "The old Jewish Sabbath entered only into the 
 physical region, merely enjoining cessation from physi- 
 cal toil. ' Thou shalt not labor nor do any work] cov- 
 ered the whole ground. In other respects than this it 
 was a joyful festival, resembling, in the mode of keep- 
 ing it, the Christmas of the modern Church. It was 
 a day of social hilarity, the Jewish law strictly for- 
 bidding mourning and gloom during festivals. The 
 people were commanded on feast-days to rejoice 
 before the Lord their God with all their might. We 
 fancy there were no houses where children were afraid 
 to laugh, where the voice of social cheerfulness qua- 
 vered away in terror lest it should awake a wrathful 
 God. The Jewish Sabbath was instituted, in the ab- 
 sence of printing,, of books, and of all the advan- 
 tages of literature, to be the great means of preserv- 
 ing sacred history, a day cleared from all possi- 
 bility of other employment than social and family 
 communion, when the heads of families and the elders 
 of tribes might instruct the young in those religious 
 traditions which have thus come down to us. 
 
 "The Christian Sabbath is meant to supply the 
 
Home Religion. 321 
 
 same moral need in that improved and higher state of 
 society which Christianity introduced. Thus it was 
 changed from the day representing the creation of 
 the world to the resurrection-day of Him who came 
 to make all things new. The Jewish Sabbath was 
 buried with Christ in the sepulchre, and arose with 
 Him, not a Jewish, but a Christian fe.stival, still hold- 
 ing in itself that provision for man's needs which the 
 old institution possessed, but with a wider and more 
 generous freedom of application. It was given to the 
 Christian world as a day of rest, of refreshment, of 
 hope and joy, and of worship. The manner of 
 making it such a day was left open and free to the 
 needs and convenience of the varying circumstances 
 and characters of those for whose benefit it was in- 
 stituted." 
 
 " Well," said Bob, " don't you think there is a deal 
 of nonsense about Sabbath-keeping ? " 
 
 " There is a deal of nonsense about everything 
 human beings have to deal with," said I. 
 
 "And," said Marianne, "how to find out what is 
 nonsense ? " 
 
 " By clear conceptions," said I, " of what the day 
 is for. I should define the Sabbath as a divine and 
 fatherly gift to man, a day expressly set apart for 
 the cultivation of his moral nature. Its object is not 
 merely physical rest and recreation, but moral im- 
 14* u 
 
322 House and Home Papers. 
 
 provement The former are proper to the day only 
 so far as they are subservient to the latter. The 
 whole human race have the conscious need of being 
 made better, purer, and more spiritual ; the whole 
 human race have one common danger of sinking to a 
 mere animal life under the pressure of labor or in the 
 dissipations of pleasure ; and of the whole human race 
 the proverb holds good, that what may be done any 
 time is done at no time. Hence the Heavenly Father 
 appoints one day as a special season for the culture of 
 man's highest faculties. Accordingly, whatever ways 
 and practices interfere with the purpose of the Sab- 
 bath as a day of worship and moral culture should 
 be avoided ; and all family arrangements for the day 
 should be made with reference thereto." 
 
 " Cold dinners on Sunday, for example," said Bob. 
 " Marianne holds these as prime articles of faith." 
 
 " Yes, they doubtless are most worthy and merci- 
 ful, in "giving to the poor cook one day she may call 
 her own, and rest from the heat of range and cooking- 
 stove. For the same reason, I would suspend as far as 
 possible all travelling, and all public labor, on Sunday. 
 The hundreds of hands that these things require to 
 carry them on are the hands of human beings, whose 
 right to this merciful pause of rest is as clear as their 
 humanity. Let them have their day to look upward." 
 
 " But the little ones," said my oldest matron daugh- 
 
Home Religion. 323 
 
 ter, who had not as yet spoken, " they are the prob- 
 lem. Oh, this weary labor of making children keep 
 Sunday ! If I try it, I have no rest at all myself. If 
 I must talk to them or read to them to keep them 
 from play, my Sabbath becomes my hardest working- 
 day." 
 
 "And, pray, what commandment of the Bible ever 
 said children should not play on Sunday ? " said I. 
 " We are forbidden to work, and we see the reason 
 why; but lambs frisk and robins sing on Sunday; 
 and little children, who are as yet more than half 
 animals, must not be made to keep the day in the 
 manner proper to our more developed faculties. As 
 much cheerful, attractive religious instruction as they 
 can bear without weariness may be given, and then 
 they may simply be restrained from disturbing others. 
 Say to the little one, * This day we have noble and 
 beautiful things to think of that interest us deeply; 
 you are a child ; you cannot read and think and enjoy 
 such things as much as we can ; you may play softly 
 and quietly, and remember not to make a disturbance/ 
 I would take a child to public worship at least once of 
 a Sunday ; it forms a good habit in him. If the ser- 
 mon be long and unintelligible, there are the little 
 Sabbath-school books in every child's hands ; and while 
 the grown people are getting what they understand, 
 who shall forbid a child's getting what is suited to 
 
324 House and Home Papers. 
 
 him in a way that interests him and disturbs nobody ? 
 The Sabbath school is the child's church ; and happily 
 it is yearly becoming a more and more attractive insti- 
 tution. I approve the custom of those who ..beautify 
 the Sabbath school-room with plants, flowers, and 
 pictures, thus making it an attractive place to the 
 childish eye. The more this custom prevails, the 
 more charming in after years will be the memories 
 of Sunday. 
 
 " It is most especially to be desired that the whole 
 air and aspect of the day should be one of cheer- 
 fulness. Even the new dresses, new bonnets, and 
 new shoes, in which children delight of a Sunday, 
 should not be despised. They have their value in 
 marking the day as a festival; and it is better for 
 the child to long for Sunday for the sake of his little 
 new shoes than that he should hate and dread it as 
 a period of wearisome restraint. All the latitude 
 should be given to children that can be, consistently 
 with fixing in their minds the idea of a sacred sea- 
 son. I would rather that the atmosphere of the day 
 should resemble that of a weekly Thanksgiving than 
 that it should make its mark on the tender mind 
 only by the memory of deprivations and restric- 
 tions." 
 
 "Well," said Bob, "here's Marianne always break- 
 ing, her heart about my reading on Sunday. Now I 
 
Home Religion. 325 
 
 hold that what is bad on Sunday is bad on Monday, 
 and what is good on Monday is good on Sunday." 
 
 " We cannot abridge other people's liberty," said I. 
 "The generous, confiding spirit of Christianity has 
 imposed not a single restriction upon us in reference 
 to Sunday. The day is put at our disposal as a good 
 Father hands a piece of money to his child : 'There 
 it is ; take it and spend it well.' The child knows 
 from his father's character what he means by spend- 
 ing it well ; but he is left free to use his own judgment 
 as to the mode. 
 
 " If a man conscientiously feels that reading of this 
 or that description is the best for him as regards his 
 moral training and improvement, let him pursue it, 
 and let no man judge him. It is difficult, with the 
 varying temperaments of men, to decide what are or 
 are not religious books. One man is more religiously 
 impressed by the reading of history or astronomy than 
 he would be by reading a sermon. There may be 
 overwrought and wearied states of the brain and 
 nerves which require and make proper the diversions 
 of light literature ; and if so, let it be used. The 
 mind must have its recreations as well as the body." 
 
 " But for children and young people," said- my 
 daughter, " would you let them read novels on 
 Sunday ? " 
 
 "That is exactly like asking, Would you let them 
 
326 House and Home Papers. 
 
 talk with people on Sunday ? Now people are differ- 
 ent; it depends, therefore, on who they are. Some 
 are trifling and flighty, some are positively bad-prin- 
 cipled, some are altogether good in their influence. 
 So of the class of books called novels. Some are 
 merely frivolous, some are absolutely noxious and 
 dangerous, others again are written with a strong 
 moral and religious purpose, and, being vivid and 
 interesting, produce far more religious effect on the 
 mind than dull treatises and sermons. The parables 
 of Christ sufficiently establish the point that there is 
 no inherent objection to the use of fiction in teaching 
 religious truth. Good religious fiction, thoughtfully 
 read, may be quite as profitable as any other reading." 
 
 " But don't you think," said Marianne, " that there 
 is danger in too much fiction ? " 
 
 " Yes," said I. " But the chief danger of all that 
 class of reading is its easiness , and the indolent, care- 
 less mental habits it 'induces. A great deal of the read- 
 ing of young people on all days is really reading to no 
 purpose, its object being merely present amusement 
 It is a listless yielding of the mind to be washed over 
 by a stream which leaves no fertilizing properties, and 
 carries away by constant wear the good soil of thought. 
 I should try to establish a barrier against this kind of 
 reading, not only on Sunday, but on Monday, on Tues- 
 day, and on all days. Instead, therefore, of objecting 
 
Home Religion. 327 
 
 to any particular class of books for Sunday reading, 
 I should say in general, that reading merely for 
 pastime, without any moral aim, is the thing to be 
 guarded against. That which inspires no thought, 
 no purpose, which steals away all our strength and 
 energy, and makes the Sabbath a day of dreams, is 
 the reading I would object to. 
 
 "So of music. I do not see the propriety of 
 confining one's self to technical sacred music. Any 
 grave, solemn, thoughtful, or pathetic music has a 
 proper relation to our higher spiritual nature', whether 
 it be printed in a* church service-book or on secular 
 sheets. On me, for example, Beethoven's Sonatas 
 have a far more deeply religious influence than much 
 that has religious names and words. Music is to be 
 judged of by its effects." 
 
 " Well," said Bob, " if Sunday is given for our own 
 individual improvement, I for one should not go to 
 church. I think I get a great deal more good in stay- 
 ing at home and reading." 
 
 "There are two considerations to be taken into 
 account in reference to this matter of church-going," 
 I replied. "One relates to our duty as members of 
 society in keeping up the influence of the Sabbath, 
 and causing it to be respected in the community ; the 
 other, to the proper disposition of our time for our 
 own moral improvement. As members of the com- 
 
328 House and Home Papers. 
 
 munity, we should go to church, and do all in our 
 power to support the outward ordinances of religion. 
 If a conscientious man makes up his mind that Sun- 
 day is a day for outward acts of worship and rever- 
 ence, he should do his own part as an individual 
 towards sustaining these observances. Even though 
 he may have such mental and moral resources that 
 as an individual he could gain much more in solitude 
 than in a congregation, still he owes to the congre- 
 gation the influence of his presence and sympathy. 
 But I have never yet seen the man, however finely 
 gifted morally and intellectually, whom I thought in 
 the long run a gainer in either of these respects by 
 the neglect of public worship. I have seen many 
 who in their pride kept aloof from the sympathies 
 and communion of their brethren, who lost strength 
 morally, and deteriorated in ways that made them- 
 selves painfully felt. Sunday is apt in such cases to 
 degenerate into a day of mere mental idleness and 
 reverie, or to become a sort of waste-paper box for 
 scraps, odds and ends of secular affairs. 
 
 " As to those very good people and many such 
 there are who go straight on with the work of life on 
 Sunday, on the plea that " to labor is to pray," I sim- 
 ply think they are mistaken. In the first place, to 
 labor is not the same thing as to pray. It may some- 
 times be as good a thing to 0, and in some cases 
 
Home Religion. 329 
 
 even a better thing ; but it is not the same thing. A 
 man might as well never write a letter to his wife on 
 the plea that making money for her is writing to her. 
 It may possibly be quite as great a proof of love to 
 work for a wife as to write to her, but few wives would 
 not say that both were not better than either alone. 
 Furthermore, there is no doubt that the intervention 
 of one day of spiritual rest and aspiration so refreshes 
 a man's whole nature, and oils the many wheels of 
 existence, that he who allows himself a weekly Sab- 
 bath does more work in the course of his life for the 
 omission of work on that day. 
 
 " A young student in a French college, where the 
 examinations are rigidly severe, found by experi- 
 ence that he succeeded best in his examination by 
 allowing one day of entire rest just before it. His 
 brain and nervous system refreshed in this way carried 
 him through the work better than if taxed to the 
 last moment. There are men transacting a large 
 and complicated business who can testify to the same 
 influence from the repose of the Sabbath. 
 
 "I believe those Christian people who from con- 
 science and principle turn their thoughts most entirely 
 out of the current of worldly cares on Sunday fulfil 
 unconsciously a great law of health ; and that, whether 
 their moral nature be thereby advanced or not, their 
 brain will work more healthfully and actively for it 
 
330 House and Home Papers. 
 
 even in physical and worldly matters. It is because 
 the Sabbath thus harmonizes the physical and moral 
 laws of our being, that the injunction concerning it is 
 placed among the ten great commandments, each of 
 which represents some one of the immutable needs of 
 humanity. 
 
 " There is yet another point of family religion that 
 ought to be thought of," said my wife : " I mean the 
 customs of mourning. If there is anything that ought 
 to distinguish Christian families from Pagans, it should 
 be their way of looking at and meeting those inev- 
 itable events that must from time to time break the 
 family chain. It seems to be the peculiarity of Chris- 
 tianity to shed hope on such events. And yet it 
 seems to me as if it were the very intention of many 
 of the customs of society to add tenfold to their gloom 
 and horror, such swathings of black crape, such 
 funereal mufflings of every pleasant object, such dark- 
 ening of rooms, and such seclusion from society and 
 giving up to bitter thoughts and lamentation. How 
 can little children that look on such things believe 
 that there is a particle of truth in 'all they hear about 
 the joyous and comforting doctrines which the Bible 
 holds forth for such times?" 
 
 " That subject is a difficult one," I rejoined. " Na- 
 ture seems to indicate a propriety in some outward 
 expressions of grief when we lose our friends. All 
 
Home Religion. 331 
 
 nations agree in these demonstrations. In a certain 
 degree they are soothing to sorrow; they are the 
 language of external life made to correspond to the 
 internal. Wearing mourning has its advantages. It 
 is a protection^ to the feelings of the wearer, for 
 whom it procures sympathetic and tender considera- 
 tion ; it saves grief from many a hard jostle in the 
 ways of life ; it prevents the necessity of many a try- 
 ing explanation, and is the ready apology for many 
 an omission of those tasks to which sorrow is unequal. 
 For all these reasons I never could join the cru- 
 sade which some seem disposed to wage against it. 
 Mourning, however, ought not to be continued for 
 years. Its uses are more for the first few months 
 of sorrow, when it serves the mourner as a safeguard 
 from intrusion, insuring quiet and leisure, in which 
 to reunite the broken threads of life, and to gather 
 strength for a return to its duties. But to wear 
 mourning garments and forego society for two or three 
 years after the loss of any friend, however dear, I 
 cannot but regard as a morbid, unhealthy nursing of 
 sorrow, unworthy of a Christian." 
 
 " And yet," said my wife, " to such an unhealthy 
 degree does this custom prevail, that I have actually 
 known young girls who have never worn any other 
 dress than mourning, and consequently never been 
 into society, during the entire period of their girlhood. 
 
332 House and Home Papers. 
 
 First, the death of a father necessitated three years 
 of funereal garments and abandonment of social rela- 
 tions ; then the death of a brother added two years 
 more j and before that mourning was well ended, an- 
 other of a wide circle of relatives being taken, the 
 habitual seclusion was still protracted. What must a 
 child think of the Christian doctrine of life and death, 
 who has never seen life except through black crape ? 
 We profess to believe in a better life to which the 
 departed good are called, to believe in the shortness 
 of our separation, the certainty of reunion, and that 
 all these events are arranged in all their relations by 
 an infinite tenderness which 'cannot err. Surely, Chris- 
 tian funerals too often seem to say that affliction 
 " cometh of the dust," and not from above. 
 
 But," said Bob, " after all, death is a horror ; you 
 can make nothing less of it. You can't smooth it 
 over, nor dress it with flowers ; it is what Nature shud- 
 ders at." 
 
 " It is precisely for this reason," said I, " that Chris- 
 tians should avoid those customs which aggravate 
 and intensify this natural dread. Why overpower the 
 senses with doleful and funereal images in the hour of 
 weakness and bereavement, when the soul needs all 
 her force to rise above the gloom of earth, and 
 to realize the mysteries of faith? Why shut the 
 friendly sunshine from the mourner's room? Why 
 
Home Religion. 333 
 
 muffle in a white shroud every picture that speaks a 
 cheerful household word to the eye? Why make a 
 house look stiff and ghastly and cold as a corpse ? In 
 some of our cities, on the occurrence of a death in 
 the family, all the shutters on the street are closed 
 and tied with black crape, and so remain for months. 
 What an oppressive gloom must this bring on a house' ! 
 how like the very shadow of death'! It is enlisting the 
 nerves and the senses against our religion, and making 
 more difficult the great duty of returning to life and 
 its interests. I would have flowers and sunshine in 
 the deserted rooms, and make them symbolical of 
 the cheerful mansions above, to which our beloved 
 ones are gone. Home ought to be so religiously 
 cheerful, so penetrated by the life of love and hope 
 and Christian faith, that the other world may be 
 made real by it. Our home life should be a type 
 of the higher life. Our home should be so sancti- 
 fied, its joys and its sorrows so baptized and hal- 
 lowed, that it shall not be sacrilegious to think 
 of heaven as a higher form of the same thing, a 
 Father's house in the better country, whose man- 
 sions are many, whose love is perfect, whose joy is 
 eternal." 
 
 Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 
HOME USE 
 
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