"^How ^0 m UtiPPy / mjm .^fiT-^STL ^^-^ Ex Lib r is C. K. OGDEN p '. gf" "V^ 1 ^~. ^^^ /^m^ I ^^?3 ' /i^ ippMRrj^ r ■^^''jiy jfTO 1 "^rv ipl'Wc| ] ^''^"■^Sl vV2>^^^'^-<'iy/ %(1 L>i^ ^^\#^ ^^ ^^ r 1 j^ 1 THE LIBRARY f OF ( THE UNIVERSITY l OF CALIFORNIA ' € ^ LOS ANGELES 1 r 'J ■^ ^ "^V^^^^^^ti^^rSsf^if^ r:^^, "JL 'o*-" P^ 1 ;H iJflli^v^' ; t4£7^^/^ ^^i^rtt*' 1 #!'■' ''^ I ■' ^^^^ ^^ i 1^ ^s I/OJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. PRESS NOTICES ON THE FIRST EDITION. ■'' I/'jiholesovte advice yon can brook, \yhen shi^le too long you have tarried^ If coinjort y07t d gai)i J)-ovi a book, Wheti vety iiznch wedded and /tarried ; Ko doubt you should speedily look. In ' How to be Happy tliou^h Married ! ' "— PuNXH. "We strongly recommend this book as one of the best of wedding presents. It is a complete handbook to an earthly Paradise, and its author may be regarded as the Murray of Matrimony and the Baedeker of Bliss."— /'a// Mall Gazette. " The author has successfully accomplished a difficult task in writing a clever and practical book on the important subject of matrimony. . . . This book, which is at once entertaining and full of wise precepts, deserves to be widely read." — Morning Post "An entertaining volume. . , . The new guide to matri. monial felicity." — Standard, Leader. " A clever, readable, and entertaining book This delicious hook."— Literary Churchman. "This most elucidatory treatise As a 'companion to the honeymoon,' this orange blossom, true-love-knot ornamen- ted volume should no doubt be highly esteemed." — Whitehall Review. "The book is tastefully got up, and its contents adapt it very well for a present to a young hi'ids."— Queen. "One of the cleverest, best written books on the subject we have read at any time. To girls contemplating marriage, the volume should be presented as a wedding gift. . . . Grave and gay, but never for a moment dull or tiresome. Each page sparkles with anecdote or suggestive illustration." — Ladies^ Treasury. " A highly ornamental yet handy, well printed, and admirably written volume." — The Lady. "A rich store of entertaining anecdote, and full of thoughts beautiful, pious, and wise. Has a tasteful hinimz-"— -Bookseller. _Hg now TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED BEING A lI5au^^)ooU to ni^arriaGe EY A GRADUATE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MATRIMONY, " Domestic happiness, tliou only bliss Of Paradise that hast survived the fall ! Though few now taste thee, unimpaired and pure, Or, tasting, long enjoy thee, too infirm Or too incautious to preserve thy sweets Unmixed with drops of bitters, which neglect Or temper sheds into thy crystal cup."— Cc7K// from her husband a knowledge of some secret political events. The matter is best described in her own words : " And now I thought myself a perfect queen, and my husband so glorious a crown, that I more valued myself to be called by his name than born a princess, for I knew him very wise and very good, and his soul doted on me ; upon which confi- dence I will tell you what happened. My Lady Rivers, a brave woman, and one that had suffered many thousand pounds' loss for the King, and whom I had a great reverence for, and she a kindness for me as a kinswoman — in discourse she tacitly com- mended the knowledge of State affairs, and that sonr; women 'Arere very happy in a good understanding thereof, af. my Lady Aubingny, Lady Isabel Thynne, and divers others, and yet none was at first more capable than 1 ; that in the night she knew there came a post from Paris from the Queen, and that io8 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. she would be extremely glad to hear what the Queen com- manded the King in order to his affairs ; saying, if I would ask my husband privately, he would tell me what he found in the packet, and I might tell her. I that was young and innocent, and to that day had never in my mouth, what news ? — began to think there was more in inquiring into public affairs than I thought of, and that it being a fashionable thing, would make me more beloved of my husband, if that had been possible, than I was. When my husband returned home from council, after wel- coming him, as his custom ever was, he went with his handful of papers into his study for an hour or more ; I followed him : lie turned hastily and said, ' What would'st thou have, my life ? ' I told him, ' I heard the Prince had received a packet from the Queen, and I guessed it was that in his hands, and I desired to know what was in it.' He smilingly replied, *My love, I will immediately come to thee; pray thee go, for I am very busy.' When he came out of his closet I revived my suit; he kissed me and talked of other things. At supper, I would eat nothing ; he as usual sat by me, and drank often to me, which was his custom, and was full of discourse to company that was at table. Going to bed I asked again, and said I could not believe he loved me, if he refused to tell me all he knew ; but he answered nothing, but stopped my mouth with kisses. So we went to bed ; I cried, and he went to sleep. Next morning early, as his custom was, he was called to rise^ but began to discourse with me first ; to which I made no reply; he rose, came on the other side of the bed and kissed me, and drew the curtain softly and went to court. When he came home to dinner, he presently came to me as was usual, and " DRIVE GENTL V VER THE STO.XES / •■' 1 09 when I had him by the hand, I said, ' Thou dost not care to sec me troubled ; ' to which he, taking me in his arms, answered, ' My dearest soul, nothing upon earth can afflict me like that ; and when you asked me of my business, it was wholly out of my power to satisfy thee, for my life and fortune shall be thine and every thought of my heart in which the trust I am in may not be revealed ; but my honour is my own, which I cannot preserve if I communicate the Prince's affairs ; and pray thee with this answer rest satisfied.' So great was his reason and goodness, that upon consideration it made my folly appear to me so vile, that from that day until the day of his death, I never thought fit to ask him any business but what he com- municated freely to me, in order to his estate and family." V/hen a man comes home tired, hungry, and put out about something that has gone wrong in business, this is not the time for his wife to order him to stand and deliver his secret troubles. Rather, she should give him a well-cooked dinner and say little or nothing. Later on in the evening, when he is rested and has smoked a pipe of peace, he will be only too glad to give her his confidence in return for her sympathetic treatment of him. It seems to me that there is more of vulgar familiarity than of confidence in a man and wife at all times opening each other's letters. A sealed letter is sacred : and all persons like to have the first reading of their own letters. Why should a close relationship abrogate respectful courtesy ? Aitemus Ward tells us that when he was at Salt Lake he was introduced to Brigham Young's mother-in-law. " I can't exactly tell you how many there is of her, but it's a good deal." Married people require to drive gently when there is in the way no HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. the stumbling-block of *' a good deal " of mother- or othei relations-in-law. Certainly Adam and Eve were in paradise in this respect. " When I want a nice snug day all to myself," •says an ingenuous wife, " I tell George dear mother is coming, and then I see nothing of him till one in the morning." " Are vour domestic relations agreeable ? " was the question put to an unhappy-looking specimen of humanity. " Oh, my domestic relations are all right ; it is my wife's relations that are causing the trouble." It is true we read in the GrapJiic a year or two ago an exception to the usual dislike to mothers-in-law, but the exception was scarcely reassuring. A well-dressed young woman of nineteen informed a magistrate that her own mother had run away with her husband. This mater pHlchrior came to stay with \iQX filia pulchra, won the affections of the husband, and, at last, withdrew him from his hearth and home. Still it is the duty of people to keep on terms of at least friendly neutrality with their relations-in-law. Where there is disunion there are generally faults on both sides. We know of a working-man who on the eve of his marriage signed a promise to abstain from intoxicating liquor. He put the document into a frame and presented it to his wife after the wedding as a marriage settlement. And certainly there cannot be a better marriage settlement than for a young hus- band to settle his habits. The young husband or wife who is in the least degree careless in the use ot intoxicating drinks should read the following ac- count which Mr. Gough gives of a case which he met in one of the convict prisons of America. *'I was attracted, while speaking to the prisoners in the chapel, by the patient, gentle " DRIVE GENTL V O VER THE STONES / " 1 1 1 look of one of the convicts who sat before me, whose whole ■appearance was that of a niild-tempcred, quiet man. After the service, one of the prison officers, in reply to my question, stated that this same man was serving out a life term, I asked ■what was the possible crime for which he was serving a life term in a State prison. ' Murder.' * Murder?' 'Yes , he murdered his wife.' Having asked if I might have an interview with him, my request was granted, and I held a conversation wath him. ' My friend, I do not wish to ask you any questions that will be annoying ; but I was struck by your appearance, and was so much surprised when I heard of your crime, that I thought I would like to ask you a question. May I ? ' ' Cer- tainly, sir.' * Then why did you commit the crime ? What led you to it ? ' Then came such a pitiful story. He said ; *I loved my wife, but I drank to excess. She was a good woman ; she never complained ; come home when or how I might, she never scolded. I think I never heard a sharp word from her. She would sometimes look at me with such a pitying look that went to my heart; sometimes it made me tender, and I would cry, and promise to do better ; at other times it would make me angry. I almost wished she would scold me, rather than look at me with that patient earnestness. I knew I was breaking her heart ; but I was a slave to drink. Though I loved her, I knew I was killing her. One day I came home <3runk, and as I entered the room I saw her sitting at the table, her face resting on her hand. Oh, my God I I think I see her now • As I came in she lifted up her face ; there were tears there; but she smiled and said, "Well, William." I remember just enough to know that I was mad. The devil entered into 112 HO IV TO BE HAPP V THO UGH MARRIED. me, I rushed into the kitchen, seized my gun, and dehberately shot her as she sat by that table. I am in prison for life, and have no desire to be released. If a pardon was offered me, I think I should refuse it. Buried here in this prison, I wait till the end comes. I trust God has forgiven me for Christ's sake. I have bitterly repented ; I repent every day. Oh, the nights when in the darkness I see her face — see her just as she looked on me that fatal day ! I shall rejoice when the time comes, I pray that I may meet her in heaven.' This was said with sobbings and tears that were heart-breaking to hear." ** There goes me but for the grace of God 1 " " What, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? " No ! not a dog, but a young man or a young woman who is liable to forget that " small habits well pursued betimes may reach the dignity of crimes," If you do not measure your liquor with as much care as strong medicine ; if you are not on your guard against those drinking habits of society and business which first draw, then drag, and then haul — beware lest tyrant custom make you a slave to what has been called " the most authentic incarnation of the principle of evil" CHAPTER XII. FURNISHING. " By wisdom is a house built ; by understanding it is es'alhishcd ; and by knowledge the chambers arc filled with all pleasant and precious treasures." — Solomon^ s Practical Wisdovi, "We cannot arrest sunsets nor carve mountains, but we may turn even' English home, if we choose, into a picture which shall be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed." — Riiskin. CONDITION of pleasantness in a house has a real power in refining and raising the characters of its inmates ; so home should not only be a haven of rest, peace, and sympathy, but should have an element of beauty in all its details. Ugliness and discomfort blunt the sensibilities and lower the spirits. Disraeli said, " Happiness is atmosphere," and from this point of view a icw words about furnishing may not be out of place in our inquiry as to how to be happy though married. Certainly the fitting up and arranging of a home 9 114 HO IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. will not appear unimportant to those who think with Dr. Johnson that it is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. " Pound St. Paul's church into atoms and consider any single atom ; it is, to be sure, good for nothing ; but put these atoms together, and you have St. Paul's church. So it is with human felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shown to be very insignificant." The expense of furnishing is often a source of considerable anxiety to young people about to marry. We think, however, that this matrimonial care is, or should be, niuch more lightly felt than in past years. Competition has made furniture cheaper, and it is now considered "bad form" to crowd rooms or to have in them the large heavy things that were so expen- sive. Elegance displayed in little things is the order of the day. A few light chairs of different sizes and shapes, a small lounge, one or two little tables, the floor polished round the edges and covered in the centre with a square of carpet, or, if the whole room be stained, with Oriental rugs where required ; the windows hung with some kind of light drapery — what more do newly-married people require in their drawing-room? Oh ! we have forgotten the piano, and we suppose it is inevitable, but it can easily be hired. It is a great gain for a young couple to be compelled to economize, for, rich as they may become afterwards, habits of thrift never quite leave them. Their furniture may be scanty and some of it not very new, but common things can be prettily covered, and the dullest of rooms is set off by the Vnick- acks that came in so plentifully among the bridal FURNISHING. spoils. Besides, if they start with everything they want, there is nothing to wish for, and no pleasure in adding to their possessions. George Eliot has a subtle remark about the ""best society, where no one makes an invidious display of anything in particular, and the advantages of the world are taken with that high-bred depreciation which follows from being accustomed to them." No doubt there will be pictures and photographs, the hanging of which occasions considerable discussion, and perhaps involves the first serious divergence of opinion. We must remember, however, that it is much better to have no pictures than bad ones, and that photographs of scenery are rarely decorative. As regards one's relations when they are really decorative, even Mr. Oscar Wilde can see no reason why their photographs should not be hung on the walls, though he hopes that, if called on to make a stand between the principles of domestic affection and decorative art, the latter may have the first place. It is a safe rule to have nothing in our houses that we do •not know to be useful or think to be beautiful. We should show our love of art and beauty in our surroundings, and bring to bear in the selection of the smallest household trifle. To .lave things tasteful and pretty costs no more than to have •them ugly ; but it costs a great deal more trouble. Simplicity, ■appropriateness, harmony of colour — these produce the best results. When we enter a room, the first feeling ought to be, "How comfortable !" and the second, as we glance quickly jound to discover li'/iy, ought to be, " How beautiful ! " Not a touch too much nor too little. The art is to conceal art. Ii6 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. Directly affectation enters, beauty goes out. But while there should be nothing bizarre in our method of furnishing, rooms should reflect the individuality of their owners. They should never look as if they were furnished by contract. People should allow their own taste to have its way. Whatever we have, let it not be flimsy, but good of its kind. Good things are cheapest in the end, and it is economy to employ good dependable tradespeople. When he heard of the occurrence of some piece of mischief^ George the Fourth used to ask, " Who is she ? " This ques- tion may be asked with much more reason when we enter a pretty room. Who is she whose judgment and fingers have so arranged these unconsidered trifles as to make out of very little an effect so charming ? Compare a bachelor's house with the same house after its master has taken to himself a helpmate. " Bless thee, Bottom I bless thee ! thou art translated !" the friends of his former state may well exclaim. Of course we are supposing the lady's head to be furnished^ for if that do not contain a certain amount of common sense,, good taste, and power of observation, the result will soon be observed in her house. A drawing-room should be for use and not for show merely, and should be furnished accordingly. It should be tidy, but not painfully tidy. Self-respect should lead us to have things nice in our homes, whether the eyes of company are to see them or not. It was surely right of Robinson Crusoe to make his solitary cave look as smart as possible. Who does not respect the wife whose dinner-table is prettily adorned with flowers even on days when no one but her husband has the honour of dinino; with her ? FURXISHIXG. 117 To furnish the kitchen is a troublesome and unsatisfactory business. It is unsatisfactory because one expends on kitchen utensils, which are rather dear, a considerable amount of money Avithout having much to show. And it is troublesome to have to distinguish between the many implements a cook really does require and those which she only imagines to be neces- sary. Still, cook must be supplied with every appliance that is really necessary. Without these there may be an expenditure of time out of all proportion to her task. On the equipoise of that lady's temper depends to a not inconsiderable extent the comfort of the house. Have in the kitchen a good clock, and teach your servants to take a pleasure in making sweet and bright their own special chambers. Our present sanitary ideas will tolerate no longer curtains on beds, or heavy carpets on the floors of sleeping apartments. Both foster dust, and dust conceals the germs of disease. That carpets are sometimes made a too convenient receptacle for dust is evident from the answer that was once given by a house- maid. Professing to have become converted to religion, she was asked for a proof of the happy change, and thus replied : *'Now," she said, "I sweep under the mats." For bedrooraf there should be narrow, separate, tight-woven strips of carpet around the bed and in front of furniture only. These are easy to shake, and in every sense in harmony with the simplicity and cleanliness which, if health is to be preserved, must per- -vade the bedroom. The more air it contains the better, and iience everything superfluous should be banished from it. But we shall not specify the different things which, in our opinion, should, or should not, be found in the several rooms ii8 110 J V TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. of a house, for after all it is the arrangement of furniture rather than the furniture itself that makes the difference. If the question be asked, Is it better to pick up furniture at auctions or to buy it in shops ? we reply, Avoid auctions. Things are varnished up to the eye, and it is seldom possible to examine them. So you generally find on returning home from a sale that your purchases are by no means what they seemed. As regards the expense of furnishing a small house such as- young housekeepers of the middle class usually hire when firsti they settle down in life, this of course varies with circumstances, but even one hundred pounds ought nearly to suffice. To estimate the cost rightly, one should know the tastes of the people concerned, their social position, the size of their house, and the style of the locality in which they propose to live- Very good furniture can sometimes be obtained secondhand, but one must be on their guard against "bargains" that are worthless. There are certain articles, such as lamps, beds, and bedding, that should as a general rule be purchased new. People are generally in too great haste when furnishing. They should be prudent, deliberate, and wait with their eyes open until they see the sort of things that will suit them. They should buy the most instantly necessary articles first with ready money, and add to these as they can afford it to carry out ideas formed by observation. They should buy what can be easily replaced after legitimate wear and tear, what their servants can properly attend to, and what will save labour and time. CHAPTER XIII. MARRIED people's MOXEY. 'Never treat money afTnirs with levity — money is character." — Sir E. Biihi'cr Lyiion. SCOTCH minister, preaching against the love of money, had frequently repeated that it was " the root of all evil.'' Walking home from the church one old person said to another, " An wasna the minister Strang upon the money?" " Xae doubt," said the other, and added, " Ay, but it's grand to hae the wee bit siller in your hand when ye gang an errand." So too, in spite of all that love-in-a-cottage theorists may say, "it's grand to hae the wee bit siller" when marrying; unless, indeed, we believe that mortality is one of the effects of matrimony as did the girl, who, on meeting a lady whose service she had lately left, and being asked, "Well, Mary, where do you live now ? " answered, " Please, ma'am, I don't live now — I'm married." To marry for love and work for silver is quite right, but there should be a reasonable chance of getting work f20 110 IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. to do and some provision for a rainy day. It is only the stupidity which is without anxiely, that complacently marries on "nothing a week; and that uncertain — very!" And yet such flying in the face of Providence is often spoken of as being disinterested and heroic, and the quiverfuls of children resulting from it are supposed to be blessed. As if it were a blessing to give children appetites of hunger and thirst, and nothing to satisfy them. On the other hand, there is some truth in the saying that ** what will keep one will keep two." There are bachelors who are so ultra-prudent, and who hold such absurd opinions as to the expense of matrimony that, although they have enough money they have not enough courage to enter the state. Pitt used to say that he could not afford to marry, yet his butcher's bill was so enormous that some one has calculated it as affording his servants about fourteen pounds of meat a day, each man and woman ! For the more economical regulation of his household, if for no other reason, he should have taken to himself a wife. Newly-married people should be careful not to pitch their rate of expenditure higher than they can hope to continue it ; and they should remember that, as Lord Bacon said, "it is less dishonourable to abridge petty charges (expenses) than to stoop to petty gettings." That was excellent advice which Dr. Johnson gave to Boswell when the latter inb.erited his paternal estate : *' You, dear sir, have now a new station, and have, therefore, new cares and new employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought to resemble a well-ordered poem ; of which one rule generally received is, that the exordium should be simple, and MARRIED PEOPLES MONK Y. 1 2 r should promise little. Begin your new course of life with the least show, and the least expense possible ; you may at pleasure Mcrease both, but you cannot easily diminish them. Do not think your estate your own, while any man can call upon you for money which you cannot pay ; therefore begin with timorous parsimony. Let it be your first care not to be in any man's debt." The thrifty wife of Ecnjamin Franklin felt it a gala day indeed when, by long accumulated small savings, she was able to surprise her husband one morning with a china cup and a silver spoon, from which to take his breakfast. Franklin was shocked : " You see how luxury creeps into families in spite of principles," he said. When his meal was over he went to the store, and rolled home a wheelbarrow full of papers through the streets with his own hands, lest folks should get wind of the china cup, and say he was above his business. Although the creeping in of luxury is to be guarded against at the commencement of married life, people should learn to grow rich gracefully. It is no part of wisdom to depreciate the little elegances and social enjoyments of our homes. Those who can afford it act wisely when they furnish their houses with handsome furniture, cover the vralls with suggestive paintings, and collect expensive books, for these things afford refined enjoyment. One day a gentleman told Dr. Johnson that he had bought a suit of lace for his wife. Jo/inson : " Well, sir, you have done a good thing, and a wise thing." " I have done a good thing," said the gentleman, *' but I do not know that I have done a wise thing." Johnson : " Yes, sir, no money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A 122 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people ; and a wife is pleased that she is dressed." We should be particular about money matters, but not penurious. The penny soul never, it is said, came to twopence. There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth tO' poverty. People are often saving at the wrong place, and spoil the ship for a halfpenny worth of tar. They spare at the spigot, and let all run away at the bunghole. She is the wise wife who can steer between penuriousness and such recklessness as is described in the following cutting from an American periodical. " My dear fellow," said Lavender, "it's all very nice to talk about economizing and keeping a rigid account of expenses, and that sort of thing, but I've tried it. Two weeks ago I stepped in on my way home Saturday night, and I bought just the gayest little Russian leather, cream-laid account-book you ever saw, and a silver pencil to match it. I said to my wife after supper : ' My dear, it seems to me it costs a lot of money to keep house.' She sighed and said : * I know it does, Lavvy ; but I'm sure I can't help it. I'm just as economical as I can be. I don't spend half as much for candy as you do for cigars.' I never take any notice of personalities, so I sailed right ahead. ' I believe, my dear, that if we were to keep a strict account of everything we spend we could tell just where to cut down. I've bought you a little account-book, and every IMonday morning I'll give you some money, and you can set it down on one side; and then, during the week, you can set down on the other side everything you spend. And then on Saturday night we can go overjit and see just where the money goes, and MARRIED PEOPLE'S MOAEY. 123 J:ow we can boil things down a little.' Well, sir, she was just delighted — thought it was a first-rate plan, and the pocket account-book was lovely — regular David Copperfield and Dora business. Well, sir, the next Saturday night we got through supper, and she brought out that account-book as proud as possible, and handed it over for inspection On one side was, ' Received from Lavvy, 50 dols.' That's all right ! Then I looked on the other page, and what do you think was there i* *■ Spent it all!' Then I laughed, and of course she cried; and we gave up the account-book racket on the spot by mutual consent. Yes, sir, I've been there, and I know what domestic economy means, I tell you. Let's have a cigar." It is the fear of this sort of thing, and especially of extrava- gance in reference to dress, that confirms many men in bachelor- ship. A society paper tells us that at a recent dance given at the West-end, a married lady of extravagant habits imperti- nently asked a wealthy old bachelor if he remained single because he could not afford to keep a wife. " ISIy innocent young friend," was the reply, " I could afford to keep three ; but I'm not rich enough to pay the milliner's bills of one." A wife who puts conscience into the management of her husband's money should not be obliged to account to him for the exact manner in which she lays out each penny in the pound. An undue interference on his part will cause much domestic irritation, and may have a bad influence on social morals. In " Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson," his wife says, " So liberal was he to her, and of so generous a temper, that he hated the mention of severed purses ; his estate being 124 HO IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. so much at her disposal that he never would receive an account of anything she expended," No one can feel dignified, free, and happy without the control of a certain amount of money for the graces, the elegant adorn- ments, and, above all, for the charities of life. The hard-drawn line of simply paying the bills closes a thousand avenues to gentle joys and pleasures in a woman's daily Hfe. We would advise all wives to strike the iron when hot, so to speak, by getting their husbands, before the ardour of the honeymoon cools, to give them an annual allowance. The little unavoidable demands on a husband's purse, to which a wife is so frequently compelled to have recourse, are very apt to create bickering and discord ; and when once good-humour is put out of the way, it is not such an easy matter to bring it back again. A Chicago young lady, on being asked the usual question in which the words " love, honour, and obey " occur, made the straightforward reply : " Yes, I will, if he does what he promises me financially." The conduct of some husbands almost justified this answer. As regards the important subject of Life Insurance there are few husbands and fathers who can afford to be indifferent to the possibility of making adequate and immediate provision for those dependent upon them, in case of their sudden removal This matter of Life Insurance should be settled before marriage, as well as all other monetary and legal arrangements that have to be made either with the wife that is to be, or with her relations, because post-matrimonial business details may introduce notes of discord into what might have been a MARRIED PEOPLES MONEY. 125 harmonious home. "When I courted her, I took lawyer's advice, and signed every letter to my love — ' Yours, without prejudice ! '' " It may not be necessary to be quite so cautious as the lover who tells us this ; but he was certainly right in transacting his legal business before marriage rather than after* wards. " Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience ; you will find it a calamity." Douglas Jerrold says that " the shirt of Nessus was a shirt not paid for." Those who would be happy though married must pitch their scale of living a degree below their means, rather than up- to them ; but this can only be done by keeping a careful account of income and expenditure. John Locke strongly advised this course : " Nothing," he said, " is likelier to keep a man within compass than having constantly before his eyes the state of his affairs in a regular course of account." The Duke of Wellington kept an accurate detailed account of all the moneys received and expended by him. "I make a point," he said, "of paying my own bills, and I advise every one to do the same. Formerly I used to trust a confidential servant to pay them, but I was cured of that folly by receiving one morn- ing, to my great surprise, dues of a year or two's standing. The fellow had speculated with my money, and left my bills unpaid." Talking of debt, his remark was, " It makes a slave of a man." Washington was as particular as Wellington was in matters of business detail. He did not disdain to- scrutinize the smallest outgoings of his household, even when holding the office of President of the American Union. When Maginn, always drowned in debt, was asked what he 126 IIOIV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED, paid for his vrine, he replied that he did not know ; but he believed they " put something down in a bcoic." This "putting down in a book" has proved the ruin of a great many people. The regular weekly payment of tradesmen is not only more honest, but far more economical. I know a wife who says that she cannot afford to get into the books of tradesmen, and who prides herself upon the fact that she will never haunt her husband after her death in the shape of an unpaid bill. These principles will induce married people to always try to have a fund reserved for sickness, the necessity of a change of abode, and other contingencies. Perfect confidence as regards money matters should exist between married people. In a letter to a young lady upon her marriage, Swift says, " I think you ought to be well informed how much your husband's revenue amounts to, and be so good a computer as to keep within it that part of the management which falls to your share, and not to put yourself in the number of those polite ladies who think they gain a great point when they have teased their husbands to buy them a new equipage, a laced head, or a fine petticoat, without once considering what long score remamed unpaid to the butcher." With regard to keeping up appearances it must be remem- bered that few people can afford to disregard them entirely. A shabby hat that in a rich man would pass for perhaps an amiable eccentricity, might conceivably cause the tailor to send in his bill to a poorer customer. In this matter, as in so many others, we may act from a right or from a wrong motive. Nowhere is the attempt to keep up appearances more praise- worthy than in the case of those who have to housekeep upon MARRIED PEOPLES JWXEV. 127 very small incomes. The cotter's wife in Burns's poem who — '• Wi' her needle and her sheers, Gars aiild claes look amaist as weel's the new " — deserves the title of heroine for her efforts to keep up ap- pearances. But the senseless competition that consists in giving large entertainments, the huge '' meat-shows " which got under the name of dinner-parties, have no tendency to promote true happiness. Homes are made sweet by simplicity and freedom from affectation, and these are also the qualities that put guests at their ease, and make them feel at home. A Dublin lady took a world of trouble to provide a variety of dishes, and have all cooked with great skill, for an entertainment she was to give in honour of Dean Swift. But from the first bit that was tasted she did not cease to undervalue the courses, and to beg in- dulgence for the shortcomings of the cook. *' Hang it," said Swift, after the annoyance had gone on a little, " if everything is as bad as you say, I'll go home and get a herring dressed for myself." I once heard of a lady, who, not being prepared for the un- expected visitors, sent to the confectioner's for some tarts to help out the dinner. All would have gone off well, but that the lady, wishing to keep up appearances, said to the servant : "Ah! what are those tarts?" "Fourpence apiece, ma'am," was the reply. There are thousands of women in these islands who cannot marry. But why can they not marry? Because they have false notions about respectability. And so long as this is the I2S HO IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. case, young men will do well to decline the famous advice^ " Marry early — yes, marry early, and marry often." "Why," asked a Sussex labourer, "should I give a woman half my victuals for cooking the other half?" Imagine the horror of this anti-matrimonial reasoner if it were proposed that he should give half his victuals for not cooking at all, or doing anything except keeping up appearances. *' He was reputed," says Bacon, ■'' one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marry ? A yotmg man not yet, 071 elder man not at all." This answer would not appear so wise, if we had less erroneous notions on the subject of keeping up appearances. CHAPTER XIV. THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS. 'A good mistress makes a good servant." — rroverb. X England materfaviilias is always complaining of servant difficulties. Those, however, who have lived in some of our colonies know that the very thought of an English servant conveys a certain soothing sensation to feelings that have been harassed by the servants — if we may so name such tyrants — in these places. A friend of mine in Bermuda wished to hire a nurse. One day, as she was sitting in her verandah, a coloured person appeared before her and suggested, laying great emphasis on the words in italics, "Are you the woman that wants a lady to nurse your baby ? " The servants in this and some other parts of the world con- sider themselves not merely equal but much superior to their employers, and there is a consequent difficulty in managing thom. If you show any disinclination to their giving to friends lO ISO now TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. much of the food with which you had hoped to sustain your family, they will disappear from your establishment without :giving the slightest warning. A servant wishes to keep one or two members of her family in your house. If you dare to object, your widely-spread reputation for meanness will prevent ai?y other servant applying for your situation for months. In a word, the employers of these helpful beings are every day reminded of the servant who said to his master : " I don't wish to be unreasonable, but I want three things, sir : more wages, less work, and I should like to have the keys of the wine- cellar." Though matters are not quite so bad at home, there are nevertheless many much-tried masters and mistresses. Certainly some of them deserve to suffer. They have not given the very least attention to the art of managing servants. As parents spoil their children and wonder at the results, so do these masters and mistresses their servants. At one time they provoke them to anger about trifles, at other times they allow them to do as they like. Now they treat them with extreme coldness, on other occasions undue familiarity is permitted. In a word, they forget the fact that there is a common human nature between the kitchen and the parlour which must be admitted and well studied. The ancient Romans, though they were heathen, and though with them servants meant slaves, included in the idea of familia their servants as well as their children. So, too, it was once amongst ourselves. Servants used to " enter the family," and share to some degree its joys and cares, while they received from it a corresponding amount of interest and sympathy. All THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS. 131 this is changed. Sen'ants are now rolhng-stones that gather 110 nioss either for themselves or their employers. They never dream of considering themselves members of the family, to stick to it as it to them through all difficulties not absolutely ■overwhelming. To them "master" is merely the man who pays, and "missis" the woman who "worrits." They think that they should change their employers as readily as theii •dresses, and never imagine that there could be between them- selves and them any common interest. Only the other day I lieard of a lady who had in one year as many as fourteen cooks i How could this mistress be expected to take any interest in or to consider herself responsible for the well-being of such birds ■of passage ? And yet surely the heads of a household are nearly as responsible for their servants as they are for their own children. We are the keepers of these our brothers and sisters, and are in a great measure guilty of the vices we tempt them to commit. A lady was engaged in domestic affairs, when some one rang •the street-door bell, and the Roman Catholic servant-girl was bidden to say that her mistress was not at home. She answered, " Yes, ma'am, and when I confess to the priest, shall I confess it as your sin or mine ? " It is an unquestioned fact that many of the faults of servants -are due to a want of due care on the part of their mistresses, who put up with badly-done work and make dishonesty easy by leaving things about. If we want really good servants we must make them ourselves; so even from selfish motives we should do all we can to influence them for good. But it is much easier to mar than to 132 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. make, and with servants the easiest way of doing this is to let them see thn.t v.'C are afraid of them. People spoil their servants from fear oftener than from regard. Some are afraid of the manner of their servants. They pass over many faults because they do not like the sulky looks and impertinent reply with which a rebuke is received. Fifty years ago servants might be allowed to consider the warning of masters as a poor attempt at wit, as the Scotch coachman evidently did who, on being dismissed, replied, ''Na, na; I drove ye to your christening, and I'll drive ye yet to your burial ; " and the cook who answered in similar circumstances, "It's nae use ava gieing me warning; gif ye dinna ken when ye hae gotten a gude servant, I ken when I hae a gude master." As, however, servants are now seldom attached to a family by old associations they look upon the withdrawal of notice as a sign of weakness, and give themselves airs accordingly. We should give our orders in a polite but firm manner, like one accustomed to be obeyed. It sometimes simplifies matters considerably to make a servant understand that she must either give in or go out. When fault has to be found, let it be done sharply and once for all, but nagging is dispiriting and in- tolerable. "Why do you desire to leave me?" said a gen- tleman to his footman. " Because, to speak the truth, I cannot bear your temper." " To be sure, I am passionate, but my passion is no sooner on than it's off." "Yes," replied the sen^ant, "but it's no sooner off than it's on." Still we must never forget that the greatest firmness is the greatest mercy. Here is an illustration. The Rev. H. Lansdell tells us in his THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS. 133 book " Through Siberia," that a Siberian friend of his had a convict servant, whom he had sent away for drunkenness. The man came back entreating that he might be reinstated, but his master said, " No ; I have warned you continually, and done everything I could to keep you sober, but in vain." "Yes, sir," said the man; "but then, sir, you should have given me a good thrashing." Many a servant girl has gone to the bad because at some critical moment her mistress did not give her a good tongue-thrashing. It cannot spoil tried servants to ask their opinion and advice on certain occasions, but we should not expect them to think for us altogethen To do this makes them as conceited as the Irish servant who replied to his master when that inferior being suggested his views as to the way some work should be done, " Well, sir, you may know best, but I know better ! " Still, it is well to let servants know as often as we conveniently can the (reason of our commands. This gives them an interest in their work, and proves to them that they are not considered mere machines. Never let a mistress be afraid of insisting upon that respect which her position demands. In turn she can point out that every rank in life has its own peculiar dignity, and that no one is more worthy of respect than a good servant. We should feel just as thankful to our servants for serving us, as we expect them to be for the shelter and care of the home which we offer them. There is a perfectly reciprocal obligation, and the manner of the employer must recognize it. " Whereas thy ser\-ant workcth truly, entreat him not evil, nor the hireling that bestoweth himself wholly for thee. Let thy soul love a ^ood servant, and defraud him not of liberty." We have no 134 //C^i^r TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. right to every moment of a servant's time, and he or she will work all the better for an occasional holiday. Those who feel that they are responsible for the character of their servants will endeavour to provide them with innocent amusements. When papers and books are read above stairs they might be sent down to the kitchen. If this were done, literature of the "penny dreadful " description would to a great extent be excluded. Many employers behave as if the laws of good manners did not apply to their dealings with servants. Apparently they consider that servants should not be allowed any feelings. This was not the opinion of Chesterfield, who observes: " I am more upon my guard as to my behaviour to my servants, and to others who are called my inferiors, than I am tOAvards my equals, for fear of being suspected of that mean and ungenerous sentiment of desiring to make others feel that difference which fortune has, perhaps too undeservedly, made between us." It is difficult, perhaps, to strike the exact mean between super- ciliousness and excessive familiarity, but we must make every effort to arrive at it. There is nothing more keenly appreciated by servants than that evenness of temper which respects itself at the same time that it respects others. A lady visited a dying servant who had lived with her for thirty years. " How do you find yourself to-day, Mary ? " said her mistress, taking hold of the withered hand which was held out. " Is that you, my darling mistress ? " and a beam of joy overspread the old woman's face. " O yes ! " she added, looking up, " it is you, my kind, my mannerly mistress ! " Part of Miss Harriet Martineau's ideal of happiness was to THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS. 135 have young servants whom she might train and attach to her- self. In later life, when settled in a house of her own, she was in the habit of calling her maids in the evening and pointing out to them on the map the operations of the Crimean war, for she thought that young English women should take an intelli- gent interest in the doings of their country. j\Irs. Carlyle was another tender mother-mistress to her servants, though her letters have made the world acquainted with the incessan contests which she was obliged to wage with " mutinous maids of all work " as Carlyle used to call them. " One of these maids was untidy, useless in all ways, but ' abounding in grace,' and in consequent censure of every one above or below her, and of everything she couldn't understand. After a long apostrophe one da)', as she was bringing in dinner, Carlyle ended with, ' And this I can tell you, that if you don't carry the dishes straight, so as not to spill the gravy, so far from being tolerated in heaven, you won't be even tolerated on earth.' " It was better to teach the poor creature even in this rough way than not at all, that she ought to put her religion into the daily round and common tasks of her business ; that " A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine : Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws Makes that and the action fine." So much of the comfort of home depends upon servants that a wise mistress studies them and values their co-operation. " She heedeth well their ways, Upon her tongue the law of kindness dwells, \Vith wisdom she dispenses blame or praise, And ready sympathy her bosom swells," 136 HO IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. She sees that their meals are regularly served, and that they are undisturbed during the time set apart for them. She does not think that any hole will do for a servant's bedroom. When caring for the children that they may have their little entertain- ments and enjoyments to brighten their lives, she includes the servants in the circle of her sympathies ; and is always on the watch to make them feel that they are an integral part of the home, and that, if they have to work for it and to bear its burden, they are not excluded from a real share in its interests and joys. In a word, she feels for them and with them, and as a rule they do their best for her. That servants are not always ungrateful every good mistress is well aware. Among the inscriptions to the early Christian martyrs found in the catacombs at Rome there is one which proves that there were in those days, as no doubt there are now, grateful servants. "Here lies Gordianus, deputy of Gaul, who was murdered, with all his family, for the faith. They rest in peace. His handmaid, Theophila, set up this." Gentle, loving Theophila 1 There was no one left but thee to remember poor Gordianus, and perhaps his little children, whom thou didst tend. In managrng servants a little judicious praise is a wonderful incentive. The Duke of Wellington once requested the con- noisseur whom the author of " Tancred " terms " the finest )udge in Europe," to provide him a chef. Felix, whom the late Lord Seaford was reluctantly about to part with on economical grounds, was recommended and received. Some months after- wards his patron was dining with Lord Seaford, and before the first course was half over he observed, " So I find you have got the duke's cook to dress your dinner." " I have got Felix," THE MANAGEMENT OF SERVANTS. 137 replied Lord S., " but he is no longer the duke's cook. The poor fellow came to me with tears in his eyes, and begged me to take him back again, at reduced wages or no wages at all, for he was determined not to remain at Apsley House. * Has the duke been finding fault ? ' said I. ' Oh no, my lord, I would stay if he had ; he is the kindest and most liberal of masters ; but I serve him a dinner that would make Ude or Francatelli burst with envy, and he says nothing ; I go out and leave him to dine on a dinner badly dressed by the cookmaid, and he says nothing. Dat hurt my feelings, my lord.' " On the vexed question of " visitors," mistresses might say to their servants, " When we stay in a lady's house, we cannot ask visitors without an invitation from our hostess, and we wish you to observe the same courtesy towards us. When we think it advisable, we will tell you to invite your friends, but we reserve to ourselves the right to issue the invitation; and if your friends come to see you, we expect that you shall ask our permission if you may receive them." A mistress who does not forget the time when she used to meet her affianced thus writes. " I always invite their confidence, and if I find any servants of my household are respectably engaged to be married, I allow the young men to come occasionally to the house, and perhaps on Christmas Day, or some festival of the kind, invite them to dine in the kitchen, and I have never yet found my trust misplaced. I should not like my own daughters only to see their affianced husbands out of doors, and, though the cir- cumstances in the two cases differ materially, as a woman I consider we ought to enter into the feelings of those other women who are serving under us." 138 HOJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. Half the domestic difficulties arise from a want of honesty among mistresses in the characters which they give each other of the servants they discharge. Many a servant receives, flattering recommendations who does not deserve any better than the following : " The bearer has been in my house a year — minus eleven months. During this time she has shown herself diligent— at the house door; frugal— in work; mind- ful — of herself; prompt — in excuses; friendly — towards men; faithful— to her lovers; and honest — when everything had vanished." It is often advocated that training-schools should be estab- lished for domestic servants, as a remedy to meet the domestic- servant difficulty. But improvement must begin at the head. If we are to have training-schools for domestic servants, the. servants may very well say that there ought to be a training- school for mistresses. To rule well is even more difficult than to serve well. The mistress then should learn how and when ever}-thing ought to be done, so that in the first place she can instruct, and, in the second, correct, if her orders be not carried out. If she does any of the household work herself, let it be to save keeping a servant, not to help those she has. The more you do in the way of help, the worse very often you are served. Let your servants understand that you also have your duties^ and that your object in employing them is to enable you to carry on your work in comfort. So much have young women been spoiled by this system of auxiliary labour, that one cook who came to be engaged asked who was to fill her kitchen scuttle, as she would not do it herself. Mistresses must unite THE MA NA GEM EXT OF SER J A XTS. 139- in the interest of the servants themselves, as much as in> their own, to put down this sort of thing, for the demands' have become so insolent, that, as a smart little maid once expressed it, *' They're all wanting places where the work is put out." CHAPTER XV. PREPARATION FOR PAREXTHOOD. " If a merchant commenced business without any knowledge of arith- Tnetic and book-keeping, we should exclaim at his folly and look for disastrous consequences. Or if, before studying anatomy, a man set up as a surgical operator, we should wonder at his audacity and pity his patients. .T5ut that parents should begin the difficult task of rearing •children without ever having given a thought to the principles — physical, moral, or intellectual — which ought to guide them, excites neither surprise at the actors nor pity for their victims." — Herbert Spencer, HETHER as bearing on the happiness of parents themselves, or as affecting the characters and lives of their children, a knowledge of the right methods of juvenile culture — physical, intellec- tual, and moral — is a knowledge of extreme im- portance. This topic should be the final one in the course of instruction passed through by each man and woman, but it is entirely neglected. " If by some strange chance," says IMr. Herbert Spencer, ■" not a vestige of us descended to the remote future save a pile PREPARA TIOX FOR PARENTHOOD. 141 of our school-books or some college examination-papers, we may imagine how puzzled an antiquary of the period would be on finding in them no sign that the learners were ever likely to be parents. " This must have been the curriculum for their celibates," we may fancy him concluding : " I perceive here an elaborate preparation for many things, but I find no refer- ence whatever to the bringing up of children. They could not have been so absurd as to omit all training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evidently, then, this was the school-course of one of their monastic orders." Parents go into their office with zeal and good intentions^ but without any better knowledge than that which is supplied by the chances of unreasoning custom, impulse, fancy, joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers. " Against stupidity the gods them- selves are powerless ! " We all understand that some kind of preparation is necessary for the merchant, the soldier, the sur- geon, or even for making coats and boots ; but for the great responsibility of parenthood all preparation is ignored, and people begin the difficult task of rearing children without ever having given a thought to the principles that ought to guide ihem. How fatal are the results ! Who shall say how many early deaths of children and enfeebled constitutions, implying moral and intellectual weakness, are caused by ignorance on the part of parents of the commonest laws of life ? Every one can think of illustrations. Oar clothing is, in reference to the temperature of tlie body, merely an equivalent for a certain amount of food, for by diminishing the loss of heat, it di:ninishe& 142 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. ■the amount of fuel needful for maintaining heat. Those parents cannot be aware of this who give their children scanty ■clothing in order to harden them, or who only allow a dawdling walk beside a grown-up person instead of the boisterous play which all young animals require and wliich would produce ^varmth. Fathers who pride themselves on taking prizes at cattle- shows for their sheep and pigs are not at all ashamed never to ascertain the best kind of food for feeding children. They do not care if their children are fed with monotonous food, though ■change of diet is required for the preservation of health. And then as to the intellects of children. Ignorance puts -books into their hands full of abstract matter in those early years when the only lessons they are capable of learning are those taught by concrete objects. Not knowing that a child's restless observation and sense of wonder are for a few years its best instructors, parents endeavour to occupy its atten- tion with dull abstractions. It is no wonder that few grown- aip people know anything about the beauties and wonders of nature. During those years when the child should have ibeen spelling out nature's primer and pleasurably exercising his powers of observation, grammar, languages, and other abstract studies have occupied most of his attention. Having been " presented with a universal blank of nature's works " he learns to see everything through books, that is, through other mea's eyes, and the greater part of his knowledge in after life consists of mere words. We are aware that it will provoke laughter to hint that for the proper bringing up of children a knowledge of the elemen- PREP A RA TION FOR PARENTHOOD. 143 tary principles of physiology, psychology, and ethics are indispensable. I^Iay we not, however, hold up this ideal of ^Ir. Herbert Spencer to ourselves and to others ? " Here are," he says, " the indisputable facts : that the development of children in mind and body follows certain laws ; that unless these laws are in some degree conformed to by parents, death is inevitable ; that unless they are in a great degree conformed to, there must result serious physical and mental defects, and that only when they are completely conformed to can a perfect maturity be reached. Judge, then, whether all who may one day be parents should not strive with some anxiety to learn what these laws are." " I was not brought up, but dragged up," said the poor girl in the tale ; and she touched unconsciously the root of nine-tenths of the vice and misery of the world. Great as is the importance of some information, if children are to be properly reared, still knowledge is by no means all that preparation for parenthood should include. While Doctor Johnson was musing over the fire one evening in Thrale's drawing-room, a young gentleman suddenly, and, as Johnson seems to have fancied, somewhat disrespectfully, called to him : " Mr. Johnson, would you advise me to marry ? " Johnson (angrily) : " Sir, I would advise no man to marry who is not likely to propagate understanding." Would the doctor have extended this restriction to all men and women who are not likely to propagate good bodies and souls ? AVe know that there are people whose misfortunes and vices will spoil and ruin, not merely the lives of those they marry, but the lives of their cliildrcn too. The miserable inheritance of their imperfections will be transmitted to coming 144 ^OW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. generations. If it were only possible to keep all these people single, those who will be living thirty years hence would be living in a very different world from this. The only restriction public opinion now puts to any marriage is that it should not be forbidden by the " Table of Kindred and Affinity " contained in the Prayer Book. When will all improvident marriages be equally illegal ? When will scrofula, madness, drunkenness, or even bad temper and excessive self- ishness be considered as just causes and impediments why parties should not be joined together in holy matrimony. Only the best men and women of this generation — could these be discovered — should become the parents of the next. It has been flippantly asked why we should consult the interests of the next generation since the next generation has done nothing for us. The answer is plain. We have no right to bequeath to it an heritage of woe. Every man and woman can do much to make themselves worthy of the honour and responsibility of being a parent. Let them preserve their health, cultivate their social affections, and, above all, abstain from those sins which science and bitter experience assure us are visited on children. It is only when they do this that a new edition of themselves is called for. •' Who is the happy husband ? He WIio, scanning his unweddcd life, Thanks Heaven, with a conscience free, 'Twas faithful to his future wife." And who are the happy parents ? Those who, scanning their unweddcd lives, thank Heaven they were faithful to fulure children. PREPARA TION FOR PA RE NT HO OD. 145 It is to be hoped that few men now are as careless or a? ignorant of consequences to children as was IMr. TuUiver in George Eliot's " Mill on the Floss," when he picked his wife from her sisters "o' purpose, 'cause she was a bit weak, like.'' We have come to see that, in order to be good mothers, women must be very unlike J^Irs. Pullet in the same story, who was bent on proving her gentility and wealth by the delicacy of her health, and the quantity of doctor's stuff she could afford to imbibe. But parents have not altogether given up sacrificing their own health and the health of their children to the IMoloch of fashion. They have not quite ceased to burn incense to vanity. We have still to complain, as did Frances Kemble, that the race is ruined for the sake of fashion. " I cannot believe that women were intended to suffer as much as they do, and be as helpless as they are, in child-bearing; but rather that both are the consequences of our many and various abuses of our constitu- tions and infractions of God's natural laws. Tight stays, tight garters, tight shoes, and similar concessions to the vagaries of feminine fashion, are accountable for many of the ills that afflict both mother and child." When King David was forbidden to build a temple for God's service because he had shed blood abundantly, with noble sclf- forgetfulness he laid up before his death materials with which Solomon his son might have the honour of building it. If parents would imitate his example and lay up the m.aterials of good character and health, what glorious temples they might erect to God in the bodies, minds, and souls of their children ! CHAPTER XVI. " WHAT IS THE USE OF A CHILD." " A dreary place would be this earth Were there no little people in it ; The song of life would lose its mirth Were there no children to begin it. ' No babe within our arms to leap, No little feet toward slumber tending ; No little knee in prayer to bend, Our lips the sweet words lending. " The sterner souls would grow more stem. Unfeeling natures more inhuman, And man to stoic coldness turn. And woman would be less than woman, " Life's song, indeed, would lose its charm, Were there no babies to begin it ; A doleful place this world would be, Were there no little people in it." — John Grecnlcaf XVhittier, HEN Franklin made his discovery of the identity of hghtning and electricity, people asked, " Of what use is it ? " The philosopher's retort was : " What is the use of a child ? It may become a man ! " This question — " \Vhat is the use of a child?" is not likely to be asked by our young married friends in reference to the first miniature pledge who is about to crown their wishes. They believe that one day he will become "the guardian of the liberties of Europe, the bulwark and honour of his aged parents." What a bond of union ! What an in- centive to tenderness ! That husband has an unfeeling disposi- " WHAT JS THE USE OF A CHILD?" 147 tion who docs not find himself irresistibly drawn by the new and tender tie that now exists. I hope I appreciate the value of children. We should soon come to nothing without them. \\'hat is a house without a baby ? It may be comparatively quiet, but it is very dull. A childless home misses its discipline and loses its music. Children are not " certain sorrows and uncertain pleasures " when properly managed. If some parents taste the stream bitter it is very often they themselves who have poisoned the fountain. They treated their children when very young merely as playthings, humouring every caprice, and sacrificing to present fancies future welfare ; then, when the charm of infancy had passed, they commenced a system of restraint and severity, and displayed displeasure and irritability at the very defects of •which they themselves laid the foundation. " In an evening spent with Emerson," says one who knew •him, " he made one remark which left a memorable impression on my mind. Two children of the gentleman at whose house we met were pla)'ing in the room, when their father remarked, ■* Just the interesting age.' ' And at what age,' asked ?ilr. Emerson, ' are children not interesting ? ' " He regarded them with the eye of a philosopher and a poet, and saw the possi- bilities that surround their very being with infinite interest Each of his own children was for him a harbinger of sunny hours, an angel sent from God with tidings of hope. Jeremy Taylor says," No man can tell but he that loves his children how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges ; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their inno 148 HOJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. cence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society." And what shall be said of the man who- does not love his children ? That he, far more than the unmu- sical man — ■ " Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted." "Civic virtues, unless they have their origin and consecration, in private and domestic virtues, are but the virtues of the- theatre. He who has not a loving heart for his child, cannot pretend to have any true love for humanity." " I do not wonder," said Dr. Arnold, " that it was thought a great misfortune to die childless in old times, when they hadi not fuller light — it seems so completely wiping a man out of existence." "Write ye this man child-less." Cuvier's four children died before him. In his sixty-seventh year we find Moore writing, "The last of our five children is now gone, and we are left desolate and alone. Not a single relative have I left now in the world." How Hallam was successively bereaved of sons so rich in promise is well known. There is a touching gravestone in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey with the inscription, "Jane Lister, deare child, died Oct. 7, 1688."' These parents knew only too well the value of a child. A merchant in the city was accustomed to demand an excuse from his clerks whenever they arrived late. The excuse given,, he invariably added, "Very well; but don't let it happen again." One morning a married clerk, being behind time, v* " IVHAT IS THE USE OF A CHILD?'' 149 — _ — j promptly interrogated as to the cause. Slightly embarrassed, he replied, "The truth is, sir, I had an addition to my family this morning, and it was not convenient to be here sooner." "Very well," said the merchant, in his quick, nervous manne, "very well; but don't let it happen again." There are people who think one, or, at most, two children very well, but they don't wish it to happen again and again. So frequently do additions happen at Salt Lake City that nine families can, it is said, fill the theatre. One must love children very much to see the use of possessing the ninth part of a theatre-ful. And yet a family that is too small is almost as great an evil as one that is too large. It may be called a "large little family," Often an only child gives as much trouble as a large family. Dr. Smiles tells us that a lady who, with her husband, had inspected most of the lunatic asylums of England and the Continent, found the most numer- ous class of patients was almost always composed of those who had been only children, and whose wills had therefore rarely been thwarted or disciplined in early life. What constitutes a large family ? Upon this point there is much difference of opinion. A poor woman was complaining one day that she did not receive her piuper share of charitable doles. Her neighbour Airs. Hawke, in the next court, came in for everything and " got more than ever she was entitled to ; for Mrs. Hawke had no family — not to speak of; only nine." "Only nine! how many then have you?" was the natural rejoinder. " Fourteen living," she replied. But even fourteen is not such a very large number when one is used to it. Some one is said to have begun a story of some trilling adventiure I50 BOJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. which had befallen him with the words, "As I was crossing Oxford Street the other day with fourteen of my daughters " — Laughter followed, and the narrator never got beyond those introductory words. We do not believe this anecdote, but if it were true, was there not something heroic in the contented, matter-of-fact way in which the man spoke of his belongings ? "Fourteen of my daughters!" An unsympathizing spectator might have said that any one with such a following ought to- have been crossing not Oxford Street, but the Atlantic. A nursery-maid was leading a little child up and down a garden. " Is't a laddie or a lassie ? " asked the gardener. " A laddie," said the maid. "Weel," said he, "I'm glad o' that, for there's ower mony women in the world." "Heck, man," was the reply, " did ye no ken there's aye maist sown o' the best crap ? " This rejoinder was more ready than correct, for as- a matter of fact more boys are born than girls. It is natural for parents to desire offspring of both sexes. Both are required to complete a family. Being brought up together the boys acquire something of their sisters' delicacy and tact, while the girls learn? something of their brothers' self-reliance and independence. "Desire not a multitude of unprofitable children, neither delight in ungodly sons. Though they multiply, rejoice not in them, except the fear of the Lord be with them. Trust not thou in their life, neither respect their multitude : for one that is just is better than a thousand ; and better it is to die without children, than to have them that are ungodly." In reference to children quality is far more to be desired than quantity. With- out accepting pessimism, we may deny that the mere propaga- ^n of the human race is an object which presents itself as 'm> " WHAT IS THE USE OF A CHH.D?" 151 itself a good. The chief end of man is not simply to have " the hope and the misfortune of being," but to glorify God and to serve humanity. AVhat is the use of a child who is likely to do neiiher? If it be the will of God to withhold offspring from a young couple, nothing should be said either by the husband or v/ife that could give the other pain on the subject. To do so is more than reprehensible ; it is odious and contemptible. How unlike Elkanah, when, with sentiments at once manly and tender, he thus addresses his weeping wife — " Hannah, why weepest thou ? and why eatest thou not ? and why is thy heart grieved ? am not I better to thee than ten sons?" " We, ignorant of ourselves, Beg often our own harms which the wise powers Deny us for our good ; so find we profit By losing of our prayers." Writing on this subject a lady tells us that she had a relation who was married some years without having a child. Her feel- ings partook not only of grief, but of anguish : at length, a lovely boy was granted her. "Spare, O God, the life oi viy bkssifig," was her constant prayer. Her blessing icas spared : he grew to the years of manhood ; squandered a fine fortune ; married a servant-maid ; and broke his mother's heart ! x\nother intimate friend of the author's was inconsolable for not having children. At length, the prospect of her becoming a mother was certain, and her joy was extreme. The moment of trial arrived : for four days and nights her sufferings and torture were not to be allayed by medical skill or human aid. At length her cries ceased; and, at the same moment that she HOW TO BL HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. gave birth to tivo children, she herself had become a corpse. " Give me children," said the impatient and weeping Rachel, " or else I die" (Gen. xxx. i). Her prayer was heard, and in giving birth to her boy the mother expired. Another impassioned mother, as she bent over the bed of her sick infant, called out, " Oh, no ; I cannot resign him. It is impossible; I cannot resign him." A person present, struck with her words, noted them down in a daily journal which he kept. The boy recovered ; and that day one-and-twenty years he was hanged as a murderer ! How terrible it is when a much-desired child is born to a comparatively useless existence by reason of some deficiency or deformity. Very touching is the story of a lady who, though deaf and dumb, became the wife of an earl through her beauty. In due course the king o' the world, the baby, presented him- self — a fine child, of course, and a future earl Soon after its birth, as the nurse sat watching the babe, she saw the countess mother approach the cradle with a huge china vase, lift it above the head of the sleeping child, and poise it to dash it down. Petrified with horror, wondering at the strange look of the mother's face, the nurse sat powerless and still ; she dared not even cry out; she was not near enough to throw herself between the victim and the blow. The heavy mass was thrown down with a tremendous force and crash on the floor beside the cradle, and the babe awoke terrified and screaming, clung to his delighted mother, who had made the experiment to dis- cover whether her child had the precious gift of voice and hearing, or was like herself, a mute. In his " Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married " WHAT IS THE USE OF A CHILD ?» 153 People," Charles Lamb speaks of " the airs which these creatures give themselves when they come, as they generally do, to have children. When I consider how little of a rarity children are — that every street and blind alley swarms with them — that the poorest people commonly have them in most abundance — that there are few marriages that are not blest with at least one of these bargains — how often they turn out ill and defeat the fond hopes of their parents, taking to vicious courses, which end in poverty, disgrace, the gallows, &c, — I cannot for my life tell what cause for pride there can possibly be in having them. If they were young phoenixes, indeed, that were born but one in a hundred years, there might be a pretext. But when they are so common " It is, however, far better for married people to take pride in their children than to be as indifferent to them as was a certain old lady who had brought up a family of children near a river. A gentleman once said to her, " I should think you would have lived in constant fear that some of them would have got drowned." " Oh no," responded the old lady, " we only lost three or four in that way." What is the use of a child? Not very much unless its parents accept it, not as a plaything, much less as a nuisance, but as a most sacred trust — a talent to be put to the best account. It is neither to be spoiled nor buried in the earth — how many careless mothers do this literally ! — but to be made the most of for God and for man. Perhaps there was only One who perfectly understood the use of a child. " Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.'' In some lines to a child 154 HOW 70 BE HAPPY TPIOUGH MARRIED. Longfellow has well answered the question we have been considering. " Enough ! I will not play the Seer ; I will no longer strive to ope The mystic volume, where appear The herald Hope, forerunning Fear, And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope. Thy destiny remains untold." In the next chapter we shall point out how useful children are in educating their parents. CHAPTER XVII. THE EDUCATION OF PARENTS. " O dearest, dearest boy ! my heart For better lore would seldom yearn. Could I but teach the hundredth part Of what from thee I learn." — IVordsziwih, "How admirable is the arrangement through which human beings are led by their strongest affections to subject themselves to a discipline they would else elude." — Herbert Spencer. Y friend," said an old Quaker, to a lady who contemplated adopting a child, "I know not how far thou wilt succeed in educating her, but I am quite certain she will educate you." How encouraging and strengthening it should be for parents to reflect that, in training up their children in the way they should go, they are at the same time training up them- selves \\\ the way they should go; that along with the education of their children their own higher education cannot but be carried on. In "Silas Marner," George Eliot has shown how t^S HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. '\iy means of a little child a human soul may be redeemed hom •cold, petrifying isolation; how all its feelings may be freshened, rejuvenated, and made to flutter with new hope and activity. Very simple is the pathos of this matchless work of art. Nothing but the story of a faithless love and a false friend and the loss of trust in all things human or divine. Nothing but the story of a lone, bewildered weaver, shut out from his kind, concentrating every baulked passion into one — the all-engross- ing passion for gold. And then the sudden disappearance of the hoard from its accustomed hiding-place, and in its stead the startling apparition of a golden-haired little child found one ^nowy winter's night sleeping on the floor in front of the glimmering hearth. And the gradual reawakening of love in the heart of the solitary man, a love " drawing his hope and joy continually onward beyond the money," and once more "bringing him into sympathetic relations with his fellow men. "In old days," says the story, "there were angels •who came and took men by the hand and led them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruc- tion ; a hand is put into theirs which leads them forth gently towards a calm and bright land, so that they look no more iDackward, and the hand may be a little child's." Children renew the youth of their parents and enable them to mount up with wings as eagles, instead of becoming chained to the rock of selfishness. We do not believe that "all chil- dren are born good," for it is the experience of every one that the evil tendencies of fathers are visited upon their children unto the third and fourth generation. Nevertheless all men THE EDUCATION Ol' PARENTS. 157 are exhorted by the highest authority to follow their innocency>. which is great indeed as compared to our condition ^Yho — "Through life's drear road, so dim and dirty, Have dragged on to three-and-thirty." '' Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little- child, he shall not enter therein." Evil tendencies are checked and good ones are educated or drawn out by children, for they call to remembrance — • *' Those early days, when I Shined in my angel-infancy, Before I taught my tongue to wound My conscience with a sinful sound. Or had the black art to dispense A several sin to every sense, Eut felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness." When daily farther from the east — from God who is our home — we have travelled, children are sent to recall us or at least to make us long "to travel back, and tread again that ancient track." Whatever we attempt to teach children we must first practise ourselves. Whatever a parent wishes his child to avoid he must make up his mind to renounce, and, on the other hand, if we leave off any good habit, we need not expect our children to continue it. Only the other day I heard a boy of five say to his father, " You must not be cross, for if you are, I shall be that when I grow up." '* Mother," said a small urchin, who had just been saying his prayers at her knees ; " Mother,, when may I leave off my prayers ? " *' Oh, Tommy, what a [58 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. notion! What do you mean?" "Well, mother, father never ■says his prayers, and I thought I was old enough to leave them off." In young children the capacity for mimicry is very strong. They imitate whatever they see done by their elders. How •tvrong, then, is it for people to say or do before even a very young child what they would not say or do before an adult, -supposed to be more observant! We must not say, "Oh, there's no one present but the child," for "the child" is reading, marking, and inwardly digesting character as it is exhibited in words, looks, and deeds. For the sake, then, of their children, if not for their own sakes, parents should seek ito be very self-restrained, truthful, and, above all things, just. Right habits are imparted to children almost as easily as wrong ones. The education of parents begins from the day their first •child is born. A young man and woman may be selfish and egotistical enough until the "baby" comes as a teacher of •practical Christianity into their home. Now they have to think of somebody beside themselves, to give up not a few of their •comforts and individual " ways," for the one important thing -in the house is King " Baby." If they really love their children, parents will become truthful in act as well as in word, knowing •that truthful habits must be learned in childhood or not at all They will be so just that " You'r' not fair " will never be rightly charged against them. And, as regards sympathy, they will ■try to be the friends and companions in sorrow and in joy as ^vell as the parents of their children. Nor is it only the moral nature that is developed in the THE ED UCA TION OF PA RENTS, 1 59 •school of parenthood. Even to attempt to answer the wise -questions of children is a task difficult enough to afford healthy •exercise to the greatest minds. When a child begins to cross- examine its parents as to why the fire burns, how his carte-de- •visite was taken, how many stars there are, why people suffer, why God does not kill the devil — grown-up ignorance or want of sympathy too often laughs at h'm, says that children should not ask tiresome questions, and not only checks the inquiring spirit within him, but misses the intellectual improvement that would have come from endeavouring to answer his questions. "Little people should be seen and not heard" is a stupid saying, which makes young observers shy of imparting to their elders the things that arrest their attention. Children would gladly learn and gladly teach, but if they are frequently snubbed they will do neither. Men such as Professor Robinson of Edinburgh, the first editor of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," have not been above receiving intellectual improvement and pleasure from a little child. " I am delighted," he wrote in reference to his grandchild, " with observing the growth of its little soul, and particularly with its numberless instincts, which formerly passed unheeded. I thank the French theorists for more forcibly directing my attention to the finger of God, -■^vhich I discern in every awkward movement and every wayward whim. They are all guardians of his life and growth -and power. I regret indeed that I have not time to make infancy and the development of its powers my sole study." Some parents seem to imagine that they sufficiently perform .their duty when they give their children a good education. They forget that there is the education of the fireside as i6o HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. well as of the school. At schools and academies there is no cultivation of tlie affections, but often very much of the reverse. Hence the value to the young of kindly home influences that touch the heart and understanding. Among the poems of George Macdonald are the following^ pretty and playful lines called simply " The Baby " — *' Where did you come from, baby dear? Out of the everywhere into here. Where did you get your eyes so blue ? Out of the skies as I came through. What makes your forehead smooth and high ? A soft hand stroked it as I went by. What makes your cheek like a warm white rose ? I saw something better than any one knows. Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss ? Three angels gave me at once a kiss. Where did you get that coral ear? God spoke, and it came out to hear. Where did you get those arms and har'.:ls? Love made itself into bonds and bands. Whence came your feet, dear little things ? From the same box as the cherubs' wings. How did they all first come to be you ? God thought about me, and so I grew. Eut how did you come to us, you dear ? God thought about you, and so I am here. Yes, God is thinking about our highest interests when He sends children to us. They are sent as little missionaries to turn us from evil and to develop within us the Divine image. When we see sin stirring in our children, no stroke seems too heavy to crush the noxious passion before it grows to fell dimensions and laughs to scorn the sternest chastisement. Heaven is saying to us, " Physician, heal thyself; strike hardy. THE EDUCATION OE PARENTS. i6i strike home ; purge thine own heart of the evil. Lest }-our children should suffer, restrain your temper, curb your passions, master your unholy desires," This, then, is one of the most important reasons why God •'setteth the solitary in families." He desires not only that they should train up children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but also that they may by doing so be brought to Him themselves. When the day of account comes, after life's brief stormy passage is over, He wishes them to be able to say, " Here am I, for I have been educated by the children whom Thou hast given me." v..^^ CHAPTER XVIII. WANTED ! — MOTHERS. " The of voice, and action, sink into the heart and memory of her child and are presently repro- duced in its own life. From this point of view the throne of motherhood ought, as iMadame Lcetitia Buonaparte believed, to take precedence of that of kings. When her son, on becoming an emperor, half playfully, half gravely offered her his hand to kiss, she flung it back to him indignantly, sa}ing, in the presence of his courtiers, " It is your duty to kiss the hand of her who gave you life." No wonder that a good mother has been called nature's chef d'ocuvre, for she is not only the perfection of womanhood, but the most beautiful and valuable of nature's productions. To her the world is indebted for the work done by most of its great and gifted men. As letters cut in the bark of a young tree grow and widen with age, so do the ideas which a mother implants in the mind of her talented child. Thus Scott is said to have received his first bent towards ballad literature from his mother's and grandmother's recitations in his hearing long ■before he himself had learned to read. Goethe owed the bias •of his mind and character to his mother, who possessed in a high degree the art of stimulating young and active minds, instructing them in the science of life out of the treasures of her abundant experience. After a lengthened interview with 'her a traveller said, " Now do I understand how Goethe has l64 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. become the man he is." Goethe himself affectionately cherished her memory. " She was worthy of life ! " he once said of her ;: and when he visited Frankfort, he sought out every individual who had been kind to his mother, and thanked them. The- poet Gray was equally grateful to his mother. On the memorial which he erected over her remains he described her as "the careful, tender mother of many children, one of whom- alone had the misfortune to survive her." In a corner of his room there was a trunk containing the carefully foMed dresses of his dead mother, whom he never mentioned without a sigh. When a mother once asked a clergyman when she should begin the education of her child, then four years old, he replied : " Madam, if you have not begun already, you have lost those four years. From the first smile that gleams upon an infant's cheek, your opportunity begins." Cowper's mother must have well used this opportunity considering the impres- sion her brief companionship made upon the poet. She died when he was six years old, and yet in after-life he could say that not a week passed in which he did not tliink of her. Whei-i his cousin one day presented him with a portrait of his mother he said : " I had rather possess that picture than the richest jewel in the British crown ; for I loved her with an afifectiort that her death, fifty-two years since, has not in the least abated."" Surely it is better for a mother to merit such love than to leave the care of her children almost entirely to servants because all her time is occupied "serving divers lusts and pleasures." "Give your child to be educated by a slave," said an ancient Greek, "and instead of one slave, you will then have two.'" On the other hand, " happy is he whom his mother teacheth.'* J I 'A NT ED f—MO THERS. 165 One good mother is worth a hundred nurses or teacliers. If from any cause, whether from necessity, or from indolence, or from desire for company, children are deprived of a mother's •care, instruction, and influence, it is an incalculable loss. Curran spoke with great affection of his mother, as a woman of strong original understanding, to whose wise counsel, con- sistent piety, and lessons of honourable ambition, which she •diligently enforced on the minds of her children, he himself principally attributed his success in life. " The only inherit- ance," he used to say, " that I could boast of from my poor father, was the very scanty one of an unattractive face and person, like his own; and if the world has ever attributed to me something more valuable than face or person, or than ■earthly wealth, it was because another and a dearer parent gave her child a portion from the treasure of her mind." Mrs. AVesley, the mother of John Wesley, made it a rule to converse alone with one of her little ones every evening, listening to their childish confessions, and giving counsel in their childish perplexities. She was the patient teacher as well as the cheerful companion of her children. When some one said to her, " Why do you tell that blockhead the same thing twenty times over?" she replied, "Because if I ■had told him only nineteen times I should have lost all my labour." So deep was the hold this mother had on the hearts of her sons, that in his early manhood she had tenderly to rebuke John for that "fond wish of his, to die before she died." It was through the bias given by her to her sons' minds in religious matters that they acquired the tendency which, even dn ca.rly years, drew to them the name of Methodists. In a iC6 nO]V TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. letter to her son, Samuel, when a scholar at Westminster, she 3aid : " I would advise you as much as possible to throw your business into a certain method, by which means you will learn to improve every precious moment, and find an unspeakable facility in the performance of your respective duties." This " method " she went on to describe, exhorting her son *' in all things to act upon principle;" and the society which the brothers John and Charles afterwards founded at Oxford i& supposed to have been in a great measure the result of her exhortations. The example of such mothers as Lord Byron's serves for a warning, for it shows that the influence of a bad mother is quite as hurtful as that of a good one is beneficial. She is said to have died in a fit of passion, brought on by reading her uphol- sterer's bills. She even taunted her son with his personal' deformity ; and it was no unfrequent occurrence, in the violent quarrels which occurred between them, for her to take up the poker or tongs, and hurl them after him as he fled from her presence. It was this unnatural treatment that gave a morbid turn to Byron's after-life ; and, careworn, unhappy, great, and yet weak as he was, he carried about with him the mother's poison which he had sucked in his infancy. Hence he ex.- claims, in "ChilJe Harold'' — " Vet must I think less wildly : — I have though Too long and darkly, till my biain became, In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame : And thus, iinlaiight in jj oiith my lieart to tame, £/)' springs of life -^vercjoisoncii," WANTED .'—MO TITERS. 1 67 In like manner, though in a different way, the character ot Mrs. Foote, the actor's mother, was curiously repeated in the life of her joyous, jovial-hearted son. Though she had been heiress to a large fortune, she soon spent it all, and was at length imprisoned for debt. In this condition she wrote to Sam, who had been allowing her a hundred a year out of the proceeds of his acting : " Dear Sam, I am in prison for debt ; come and assist your loving mother, E. Foote." To which hei son characteristically replied — " Dear mother, so am I ; which prevents his duty being paid to his loving mother by her affec- tionate son, Sam Foote." Mothers ought not to deceive themselves so far as to think that when they over-indulge their children they are exhibiting genuine mothers' love. In reality they are merely shifting their method of self-pleasing. We believe the love of God to be the supreme love ; but have we ever reflected that in that awful love of God for His poor children of clay there must be mingled at once infinite tenderness and pity, and at the same time a severity which never shrinks from any suffering needed to recall us from sin ? This is the ideal of all love towards which we should strive to lift our poor, feeble, short sighted, selfish affec- tions ; and which it above all concerns a parent to strive to translate into the language of human duty. This is the truest love, the love which attaches itself to the very soul of the child, which repents with it, with tears bitterer than its own, for it? faults, and, while heaping on it so far as may be every innocent pleasure, never for an instant abandons the thought of its highest and ultimate welfare. Tlie loving instruction of a mother may seem to have been 1 63 HO IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. thrown away, but it will appear after many days. " "When I was a little child," said a good old man, "my mother used to bid me kneel down beside her, and place hei hand upon my head while she prayed. Ere I was old enough to know her worth she died, and I v,-as left too much to my own guidance. Like others, I v;as inclined to evil passions, but often felt myself checked and, as it were, drawn back by a soft hand upon my head. "When a young man I travelled in foreign lands, and was exposed to many temptations ; but, when I would have yielded, that same hand was upon my head, and I was saved. I seemed to feel its pressure as in the happy days of infancy ; and sometimes there came with it a voice in my heart, a voice that was obeyed : * Oh do not this wickedness, my son, nor sin against God.' " With children you must mix gentleness with firmness. " A man who is learning to play on a trumpet and a petted child are two very disagreeable companions." If a mother never has headaches through rebuking her little children, she shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up. At the same time, a mother should not hamper her child with unnecessary, foolish restrictions. It is a great mistake to fancy that your boy is made of glass, and to be always telling him not to do this and not to do that for fear of his breaking himself. On the prin- ciple never to give pain unless it is to prevent a greater pain, you should grant every request which is at all reasonable, and let him see that your denial of a thing is for his own good, and not simply to save trouble; but once having settled a thing hold to it. Unless a child learns from the first that his mother's yea is yea, and her nay nay, it will get into the habit of whining and WANTED I— MO THERS. 169 enJcavouring to coax her out of her refusal, and her authority \sill soon be gone. Unselfish mothers must be careful not to make their children selfish. The motlier who is continually giving up her own time, money, strength, and pleasure for the gratification of her children teaches them to expect it always. They learn to be importunate in their demands and to ex^xict more and more. If the mother wears an old dress that her idle son may have a new coat, if she works that he may play, she is helping to make him vain, selfish, and good-for-nothing. The wise mother will insist upon being the head of her household, and with quiet unobtrusive dignity she will hold that place. She should never become the subject of her own children. Even in such mere external matters as dress and furniture her life should be better equipped. The crown should be on her head, not on theirs. Thus from babyhood they should be habituated to look up to, not down on, their mother. She should find time, or make it, to care for her own culture ; to keep her intellectual and her art nature alive. The children may advance beyond her know- ledge ; let her look to it that they do not advance beyond her intellectual sympathies. Woe to both her and them if she does not keep them well in sight ! Happmess is the natural condition of every nornird child, and if the small boy or girl has a peculiar facility for any one thing, it is for self-entertainment. One of the greatest defects in our modern method of treating children is to overload them with costly and elaborate toys, by which we cramp their native ingenuity or perhaps force their tastes into the wrong channel. The children of the humbler and the unpampered classes are I70 I/O IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. far happier than are those children ^vhose created v/anls are legion and require a fortune for their satisfaction. Some mothers believe that they are exhibiting the proper *' maternal feelings " in keeping their children at home wher> they should send them forth into the world, where alone they can be taught the virtue of self-dependence. A time will come when the active young man who is checked by foolish fondness will exclaim with bitterness — •' Prison'd and kept, and coax'd and whistled to^ Since the good mother holds me still a child, Good mother is bad mother unto me ! A worse were better ! " Far more truly loving is the mother who sends her son into the battle of life preferring anything for him rather than a soft, indolent, useless existence. Such a mother is like those Spartan mothers who used to say to their sons as they handed to them their shields, " With it or upon it, my son ! " Better death than dishonour was also the feeling of the mother of the successful missionary William Knibb. Her parting words to him were " William, William ! mind, William, I had rather hear that you had perished at sea, than that you had dishonoured the Society you go to serve." Never promise a child and then fail to perform, whether you promise him a bun or a beating, for if once you lose your child's confidence you will find it all but impossible to regain it. Happy is the mother who can say, " I never told my child a lie, nor ever deceived him, even for what seemed his good."' Robert Hall once reproved a young mother because, in putting a little baby to bed, she put on her own nightcap, and lay down JFA NTED /—I\IO TIIERS. 1711 by it till it went to sleep. " Madam," said the eloquent preacher, " you are acting a lie, and teaching the child to lie." It was in vain that the mother pleaded that the child would' not go to sleep. " That," said Hall, *' is nonsense. Properly brought up it must sleep. Make it know what you want'; obedience is necessary on its part, but not a lie on yours." CHAPTER XIX. NURSING FATHERS. ** And kings shnll be thy nursing fathers." — Isaiah xlix. 23. T is an old saying, '•' Praise the child and 5'cu make love to the mother;" and it is a thing that no husband ought to overlook, for if the ^vife wish her child to be admired by others, what must be the ardour of her wishes with regard to his admiration ! Cobbctt tells us that there was a drunken man in his regiment, who used to say that his wife would forgive him for spending all the pay, and the washing money into the bargain, " if he would but kiss her ugly brat, and say it was pretty." Though this was a profligate he had philosophy in !him ; and certain it is that there is nothing worthy of the name of conjugal happiness unless the husband clearly evince that he is fond of his children. Where you find children loving and helpful to their mothers, 3'OU generally find their father at tlie bottom of it. If the "KURSLXG fathers:-' 175 husband respect his wife the children will respect their mother. If the husband rises to offer her a chair, they will not sit stilt when she enters the room ; if he helps to bear her burdens,, they will not let her be the pack-horse of the household. If to- her husband the wife is but an upper servant, to her children she will easily become but a waiting-maid. The first care of the true, wise husband will be to sustain the authority of the- wife and mother. It must be a very remarkable exigency which- allows him to sit as a court of appeal from her decisions, and reverse them. But although husbands ought not to vexatiously^ interfere with their wives in the management of children,, especially of young children, still they must not shirk their share of care and responsibility. It was not without reason that Diogenes struck the father when the son swore, because he- had taught him no better There is no effeminacy in the title " nursing fathers," but the contrary. Fondness for children arises from compassionate feeling for creatures that are helpless and innocent. Napoleon loved the man who held with a steel hand, covered' with a silk glove; so should the father be gentle but firm. Happy is he who is happy in his children, and happy are the children who are happy in their father. All fathers are not wise. Some are like Eh, and spoil their children. Not to cross our children is the way to make a cross of them. But, "Ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath." That is, do not irritate them by unwise or capricious rules and ways. Help your wives to make the home hvely and pleasant, so as to keep the children from seeking pleasure and excitement elsewhere. The proverb says that " Clergymen's sons always 174 U'OIV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. ■turnout badly." Why? Because the children are surfeited with -severe rehgion, not with the true rehgion of Christ, who was Himself reproved by the prototypes of such severe men. "Where," asks Mr. James Payn, "is the children's fun? Boys are now crammed with knowledge like turkeys (but un- fortunately not killed at Christmas), and there is absolutely no Toom in them for a joke." An idol called "success " is put up for worship, and fathers are ready to sacrifice the health and happiness of their children upon its altar. "The educational abomination of desolation of the present day," says Professor Huxley, " is the stimulation of young people to work at high pressure by incessant examinations." Some wise man (who probably was not an early riser) has said of early risers in general, that they are " conceited all the forenoon, and stupid all the afternoon." Now whether this is true of early risers in the common acceptation of the word or not, I will not pretend to say ; but it is too often true of the unhappy children who are forced to rise too early in their classes. They are " con- ceited all the forenoon of life, and stupid all its afternoon." How much unhappiness might children be spared if fathers would goad them less, and sometimes cheer up that dulness which has fallen to most of us, by saying : •'Be good, dear child, and let who will be clever ; Do noble things — nor dream them all day long ; And so make life, death, and that vast for ever One grand, sweet song." What to do with our boys and girls is certainly a serious question, but the last thing we should do with them is to make •them miserable. Why not disregard all false notions of gentility. "A'UI^S/NG FA THEIRS, i7> nnd have each child well taught a manual trade? Then they will have riches in their arms, and you will have escaped the unpleasant alternative of the Jewish proverb, which says that he who does not teach his son a trade teaches him to steal. We give here a sketch of Canon Kingsley as a father, because we do not remember any home life more beautiful and instruc- tive. Because the Rectory-house was on low ground, the rector of Eversley, who considered violation of the divine laws of health a sort of acted blasphemy, built his children an out- door nursery on the " Mount," where they kept books, toys, and tea-things, spending long, happy days on the highest and loveliest point of moorland in the glebe ; and there he would join them when his parish work was done, bringing them some fresh treasure picked up in his walk, a choice wild-flower or fern or rare beetle, sometimes a lizard or a field-mouse ; ever waking up their sense of wonder, calling out their powers of obsei"vation, and teaching them lessons out of God's great green book, ivithout their kno'cuing they were learning. Out-of-doors ^nd indoors, the Sundays were the happiest days of the week to the children, though to their father the hardest. When his ■day's work was done, there was always the Sunday walk, in which each bird and plant and brook was pointed out to the ■children, as preaching sermons to Eyes, such as were not ever, •dreamt of by people of the No-eyes species. Indoors the Sunday picture-books were brought out, and each child chose its subject for the father to draw, either some Bible story, oi bird or beast or flower. In all ways he fostered in his children * love of animals. They were taught to handle without disgust Jjads, frogs, beetles, as works from the hr.nd of a living God. 176 IIOIV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. His guests were surprised one morning at breakfast when his Httle girl ran up to the open window of the dining-room, hold- ing a long, repulsive -looking worm in her hand : " Oh, daddy, look at this delightful worm ! " Kingsley had a horror of corporal punishment, not merely because it tends to produce antagonism between parent and child, but because he considered more than half the lying of children to be the result of fear of punishment. " Do not train a child," he said, " as men train a horse, by letting anger and punishment be the first announcement of his having sinned. If you do, you induce two bad habits : first, the boy regards his parent with a kind of bhnd dread, as a being who may be offended by actions which to ////// are innocent, and whose wrath he expects to fall upon him at any moment in his most pure and unselfish happiness. Next, and worst still, the boy learns not to fear sin, but the punishment of it, and thus he learns to lie." He was careful too not to confuse his children by a multiplicity of small rules. " It is difiicult enough to keep the Ten Commandments," he would say, "without making an eleventh in every direction." He had no "moods" with his family, for he cultivated, by strict self-discipline in the midst of worries and pressing business, a disengaged temper, that always enabled him to enter into other people's interests, and especially into children's playfulness. "I wonder," he would say, "if there is so much laughing in any other home in England as in ours." He became a light-hearted boy in the presence of his children. AVhen nursery griefs and broken toys were taken ta his study, he was never too busy to mend the toy and dry the tears. He h^ld wii'i Jean Paul Richter, that children have " AZ'TiSLVG FA THERS:' 177 their "days and hours of rain," which parents should not take much notice of, eitlicr for anxiety or sermons, but should lightly pass over, except when they are symptoms of coming illness. And his knowledge of physiology enabled him to detect such symptoms. He recognized the fact, that weariness at lessons and sudden fits of obstinacy arc not hastily to be treated as moral delinquencies, springing as they so often do from physical causes, which are best counteracted by cessation from work and change of scene. How blessed is the son who can speak of his father as Charles Kingsley's eldest son does. " ' Perfect love casteth out fear, was the motto," he says, " on which my father based his theory of bringing up children. From this and from the interests he took in their pursuits, their pleasures, trials, and even the petty details of their everyday life, there sprang up a friendship between father and children, that increased in intensity and depth with years. To speak for myself, he was the best friend — the only true friend I ever had. At once he was the most fatherly and the most unfatherly of fathers — fatherly in that he was our intimate friend and our self-constituted adviser; un- fatherly in that our feeling for him lacked that fear and restraint that make boys call their father ' the governor.' Ours was the only household I ever saw in which there was no favouritism. It seemed as if in each of our different characters he took an equal pride, while he fully recognized their different traits of good or evil ; for instead of having one code of social, moral, and physical laws laid down for one and all of us, each child became a separate study for him; and its little 'diseases au moral/ as he called theni, were treated difterently, according to 13 lyS I/OJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. each different temperament. . . . Perhaps the brightest picture of the past that I look back to now is the drawing-room at Eversley, in the evenings, when we were all at home and by ourselves. There he sat, with one hand in mother's, forgetting his own hard work in leading our fun and frolic, with a kindly smile on his lips, and a loving light in that bright gray eye, that made us feel that, in the broadest sense of the word, he was our father." Of this son, when he was an undergraduate at Cambridge, his father (then Professor of History) writes : " Ah ! what a blessing to be able to help him at last by teaching him some- thing one's self!" And to a learned "F.G.S."he says very seriously : "My eldest son is just going off to try his manhood in Colorado, United States. You will understand, therefore, that it is somewhat important to me just nov; whether the world be ruled by a just and wise God, or by o. It is also important to me with regard to my own boy's future, whether what is said to have happened to-morrow (Good Friday) be true or false." "Writing to his wife from the seaside, where he had gone in search of health, he says : "This place is perfect; but it seems a dream and imperfect without you. Kiss the darling ducks of children for me. How I long after them and their prattle ! I delight in all the little ones in the street, for their sake, and continually I start and fancy I hear their voices outside. You do not know how I love them ; nor did I hardly till I came h.cre. Absence quickens love into consciousness. Tell Rose and ^laurice that I have got two pair of bucks' horns — one for each of them, huge old fellows, almost as big as baby." Writing from France to "my dear little man," as he calls his " .Y[//^S/NG FA TIIERS:' 1 79 youngest son (for whom he wrote the " Water Babies "), he says : " There is a httle Egyptian vulture here in the inn ; ask mother to show you his picture in the beginning of the bird- book." There was Httle danger that the sons of such a clergy- man as this would turn out badly. A companion picture of Dr. Arnold as a father, has been drawn by Dean Stanley : " It is impossible adequately to describe the union of the whole family round him, who was not only the father and guide, but the elder brother and playfellow of his <:hildren ; the gentleness and tenderness which marked his whole feeling and manner in the privacy of his domestic inter- course. Enough, however, may perhaps be said to recall some- thing at least of its outward aspect. There was the cheerful voice that used to go sounding through the house in the early morning, as he went round to call his children ; the new spirits which he seemed to gather from the mere glimpses of them in the midst of his occupations — the increased merriment of all in any game in which he joined — the happy walks on which he would take them in the fields and hedges, hunting for flowers — the yearly excursion to look in the neighbouring clay-pit for the earnest coltsfoot, with the mock siege that followed. Nor, again, was the sense of his authority as a father ever lost in his playfulness as a companion. His personal superintendence of their ordinary instructions was necessarily limited by his other engagements, but it was never wholly laid aside. In the later years of his life it was his custom to read the Psalms and Lessons of the day with his family every morning; and the common reading of a chapter in the Bible every Sunday evening, with repetition -of hymns or parts of Scripture by every member of the family i8o HOJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. — the devotion with which he would himself repeat his favourite poems from the Christian Year, or his favourite passages from the Gospels — the same attitude of deep attention in listening to- the questions of his youngest children, the same reverence in answering their difficulties that he would have shown to the most advanced of his friends or his scholars— form a picture not soon to pass away from the mind of any one who was ever present. But his teaching in his family was naturally not con- fined to any particular occasions ; they looked to him for infor- mation and advice at all times ; and a word of authority from him v.-as a law not to be questioned for a moment. And witli the tenderness which seemed to be alive to all their wants and wishes, there was united that peculiar sense of solemnity, with which, in his eyes, the very idea of a family life was invested. The anniversaries of domestic events — the passing away of successive generations — the entrance of his sons on the several stages of their education, struck on the deepest chords of his nature, and made him blend with ever}' prospect of the future the keen sense of the continuance (so to speak) of his own existence in the good and evil fortunes of his children, and to unite the thought of them with the yet more solemn feeling, with which he was at all times wont to regard ' the blessing of ' a whole house transplanted entire from earth to heaven,, without one failure.' " What Luther was as a father may be imagined from a letter which he wrote when absent at the Diet of Augsburg, to his little boy, aged five years. The mother had written the home news, especially telling the loving father about his first-born, so to him, as well as to her, Luther wrote the following letter, full of fatherly fondness and charming naturalness. "KURSLVG FA THE 7^ S." igi " Grace and peace in Christ, my dear liltle boy. I ata pleased to see that thou learnest thy lessons well, and prayest "well. Go on thus, my dear boy, and when I come home I will ■bring you a fine fairing. I know of a pretty garden where are merry children that have gold frocks, and gather nice apples .and plums and clierries under the trees, and sing and dance, and ride on pretty horses with gold bridles and silver saddles. I asked the man of the place whose the garden was, and who the children were. He said, 'These are the children who pray and learn and are good.' Then I answered, * I also have a ■son, who is called Hans Luther. ]\Iay he come to this garden, and eat pears and apples, and ride a little horse, and play with the others?' The man said, ' If he says his prayers, and learns and is good, he may come; and Lippus and Jost [Melanchthon's son Philip, and Jonas' son, Jodecus] may •come, and they shall have pipes and drums and lutes and fiddles, and they shall dance, and shoot with little crossbows. Then he showed me a smooth lawn in the garden laid out for ■dancing, and there the pipes and crossbows hung. But it was still early, and the children had not dined, and I could not wait for the dance. So I said, ' Bear sir, I will go straight home and write all this to my little boy ; but he has an aunt, Lene (great-aunt Magdalen) that he must bring with him.' And the man answered, 'So it shall be! go and write as you say.' Therefore, dear little boy, learn and pray with a good heart, •and tell Lippus and Jost to do the same, and then you will all •come to the garden together. Almighty God guard you. Give my love to Aunt Lene, and give her a kiss for me. — Your loving father, Martin Luther." ^82 BO IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. What is chiefly wanted ia the education of children is a wise mixture of love and firmness. Parental authority should be regarded as vicegerent authority, set up by God and ruling in His stead, A parent is to a child what God is to a good man. He is the moral governor of the world of childhood. Parental government is therefore only genuine when it rules for the same ends as God pursues. When children accord willing obedience the end of family government is gained. To attain this end a parent should be careful to observe the following rules. First, never to hamper a child with arbitrary restrictions, but, if possible, always to let the reasons of each command or prohibition be apparent ;: secondly, to let every punishment have some relation to the offence, and so imitate the great laws of nature, which entail definite consequences on every act of wrong ; and, thirdly, never to threaten a punishment and afterwards shrink from inflicting it ; finally, punishments should be severe enough to serve their purpose, and gentle enough to ensure the continuance of affection. Nor should the child be left alone until he feels that the punishment has been for his own good, and gives assurance of this feeling by putting on a pleasant face. Human nature requires amusement as well as teaching and' correction. One of the first duties of a parent is to sympathize with the play of his children. How much do little children crave for sympathy ! They hold out every new object for you to see it with them, and look up after each gambol for you \o rejoice with them. Let play-time and playthings be given liberally. Invite suitable companions, and do everything in your power to make home sweet. Authority, so unbent, will " XURShXG FA T/IERS." l S3 be all the stronger and more welcome from our display of real sympathy. If family government were well carried out in every home, children would be happier and better than they are now. Then there would be, even in our own great towns, a partial realization of the words of the prophet Zechariah, in reference to Jerusalem delivered : "And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls, playing in the streets thereof" The home of our children ought never to be a prison where there is plenty of rule and order, but no love and no pleasure. We should remember that "he who makes a little child happier for an hour is a fellow-worker with God." It was bitterly said of a certain Pharisaical household that in it "no one should please himself, neither should he please any one else; for in either case he would be thought to be dis- pleasing God." This reminds us of the Scotchman who, having gone back to his country after a long absence, declared that the whole kingdom was on the road to perdition. " People," he said, " used to be reserved and solemn on the sabbath, but now they look as happy on that day as on any other." It is a blessed thing for the rising generation that such grotesque perversions of religion are seldom presented to them now ; for every well-instructed Christian ought to be aware that religion does not banish mirth, but only moderates and sets rules to it. CHAPTER XX. rOLITENESS AT HOME. " Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon these, in a great measure, the laws depend. The law teaches us but here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and colour to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply laws, or they totally destroy them."—Bujh: BOUT twelve thousand police in London are able to take care of about four million people. How is it done ? Chiefly by moral force, and, above all, by civility. Sir Edmund Henderson, the Chief Commissioner of the force, said on a recent occasion that it was by " strict attention to duty, by sobriety, and, above all, by civility," that the police endeavoured to do their duty. *' I lay great stress upon civility," said the Chief Commissioner, " for I think it is the great characteristic of the metropolitan police force." POLITEXESS A T HOME. 185 If civility and politeness have such an influence upon the hard, rough world of London how much greater will be the effect of good manners or beautiful behaviour, not only in rendering comparatively safe the many difficult crossings in the path of newly-married people, but also in adorning even the smallest details of family life ! True courtesy exhibits itself in a disposition to contribute to the happiness of others, and in refraining from all that may annoy them. And the cultivation day by day of this sweet reasonableness is almost as necessary to the comfort of those who live together as the daily calls of the milkman and the baker. If no two people have it so much in their power to torment each other as husband and vrife, it is their bounden duty to guard against this liability by cultivating the habit of domestic politeness. It is a mistake to suppose that the forms of courtesy can be safely dispensed with in the family circle. With the disappearance of the forms the reality will too often disappear. The very effort of appearing bright under adverse circumstances is sure to render cheerfulness easier on another occasion. Good manners like good words cost little and are worth much. They oil the machinery of social life, but more especially of domestic life. If a cheerful "good morning" and "good evening " conciliate strangers they are not lost upon a wife. Hardness and repulsivcness of manner originate in want of respect for the feelings of others. " Remember," says Sydney Smith, " that your children, your wife, and your servants have rights and feelings ; treat them as you would treat persons who could turn again. Do not attempt to frighten children and inferiors by passion; it does more harm 1 86 HOJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. to your own character than it does good to them. Passion get? less and less powerful after every defeat. Husband energy fo! the real demand which the dangers of life make upon it." Good manners are more than "surface Christianity." Row- land Hill was right when he said, " I do not think much of a man's religion unless his dog and cat are the happier for it." *' Woman was made out of a rib from the side of Adam — not out of his head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal to him : under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved." *' Use the woman tenderly, tenderly ; From a crooked rib God made her slenderly : Straight and strong He did not make her, So if you try to bend you'll break her." !Men are cautioned by the Jewish Talmud to be careful lest they cause women to weep, " for God counts their tears," There are some people who stretch their manners to such an unnatural degree in society that they are pretty sure to go to the opposite extreme when relaxing at home. Feeling released from something that was hanging over them they run wild and become rude in consequence of their late re- straint. Is it not, to say the least, probable that such patient humility as the following would be followed by a reaction? Bishop Thirlwall was generally regarded, except by the small circle of those who knew him intimately, with much awe by his clergy, who thought that they had better keep as far as possible out of rOLITENESS AT HOME. \Zj the way of their terribly logical and rather sarcastic diocesan.. The legend was that he had trained a highly sagacious dog into the habit of detecting and biting intrusive curates. An amusing story is told of a humble-minded Levite who was staying at Abergwili Palace on the occasion of an ordination. An egg was placed before him, which, on tapping, proved a very bad one indeed. The Bishop made a kindly apology^ and told a servant to bring a fresh one. " No, thank you, my lord," replied the young clergyman, with a penitential expres- sion of countenance ; " it is quite good enough for me." We think that the clerg)'man's wife would have acted rashly if, soon after this occurrence, she should have tried the patience of her Job with an antiquated egg. The proverb "familiarity breeds contempt" suggests another reason why the manners displayed at home are not, generally speaking, as good as they should be. There is generally greater harmony when a husband's duties necessitate his remaining several hours of the day from home. " For this relief, much thanks ! " will be the not unnatural sentiment of a grateful wife. And to the husband, on his return, home will appear far sweeter than if he had idled about the house all day with nothing to do but torment his wife. Richter says that distance injures love less than nearness. People are more polite when they do not see too much of each- other. Madam ! no gentleman is entitled to such distinguished consideration as your husband. Sir ! no lady is entitled to- such deferential treatment as your wife. Awkward consequences that could not have been foreseen iS3 now TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. have sometimes followed domestic rudeness. It is related of Lord Ellenborough that, when on one occasion he was about to set out on circuit, his wife expressed a wish to accompany him ; a proposition to which his lordship assented, provided there were no bandboxes tucked under the seat of his carriage, as he had too often found there had been when honoured with her ladyship's company before. Accordingly they both set out together, but had not proceeded very far before the judge, stretching out his legs under the seat in front of him, kicked against one of the flimsy receptacles which he had specially prohibited. Dov\-n went the window with a bang and out v/ent the bandbox into the ditch. The startled coachman imme- diately commenced to pull up, but was ordered to drive on and let the thing lie where it was. They reached the assize town in due course, and his lordship proceeded to robe for the court. " And now, where's my wig ? — where's my wig ? " he demanded, when everything else had been donned. "Your wig, my lord," replied the servant, tremulously, " was in that bandbox your lordship threw out of the window as v/e came along." Sir Robert Walpole used to say that he never despaired of making up a quarrel between women unless one of them had called the other old or ugl)'. In the same way married people need not despair of realizing truly united and therefore happy lives if they will only study each other's weak points, as skaters look out for the weak parts of the ice, in order to keep off them. Nothing is more unmanly as well as unmannerly than for a husband to speak disparagingly of either his wife or of the POLITENESS AT HOME. 189 marriage state before strangers. Lord Erskine once declared at a large party that " a wife was a tin canister tied to one's tail ; " upon which Sheridan, who was present when the remark was made, presented to Lady Erskine the following lines : " Lurd Erskine, at woman presuming to rail', Calls a wife a tin canister tied to one's tail ; And fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries on, Seems hurt at his lordship's degrading comparison. But wherefore degrading? Considered aright, A canister's polished and useful and briglit ; And should dirt its original purity hide, That's the fault of the puppy to whom it is tied." The "puppy" only got what he deserved. When a husband happens to be a mere goose, happy if only a goose, though he may keep up the delusion that he is the- " head of the family," it becomes the wife's duty to exercise real control. Eut she may be a responsible Prime Minister without usurping, much less parading, the insignia of Royalty, And if she have the feelings of a gentlewoman she will not allow every one to see the reins of government in her hand as did a colonel's wife known to me, of whom even the privates and drummer boys in her husband's (?) regiment used to say : "Mrs. , she's the colonel." What Burke said of his wife's eyes describe woman's proper place in the domestic Cabinet : " Her eyes have a mild light, but they awe when she pleases ; they command, like a good man out of office, not by authority, but by virtue." Too often it is the poor wife who has to bear the heaviest part of the burdens of domestic life while the im- «93 now TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. •chivalrous husband struts before as head of the house quite unencumbered. Even the youngest child may claim to be treated with politeness. "I feel," said President Garfield, "a profounder reverence for a boy than for a man. I never meet a ragged boy in the street without feeling that I may owe him a salute, for I know not what possibilities may be buttoned up under his coat." Fathers should look upon their children with xespect, for he who is " only a child " may become a much better and greater man than his father. Without spoiling our children we should make their lives as pleasant as we possibly can, always remembering that the poor things never asked to be born, and that they may " not long remain." The boy dies perhaps at the age of ten or twelve. Of what use then all the restraints, all the privations, all the pain, that you have inflicted upon him ? He falls, and leaves your mind to brood over the possibility of your having abridged .a life so dear to you. For good and for evil home is a school of manners. Chil- ■dren reflect, as in a mirror, not only the general habits and characters of their parents, but even their manner of gesture and of speech. " A fig-tree looking on a fig-tree becometh fruitful." If "a gentleman always a gentleman" and "a lady always a lady " are the examples set by papa and mamma, the children will take them in almost through the pores of the skin. "For the child," says Richter, "the most important era of life is that of childhood, when he begins to colour and mould liimself by companionship with others. Every new educator POLITENESS AT HOME. 191 affects less than his predecessor, until at last, if we regard all ilife as an educational institution, a circumnavigator of the ■world is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his nurse." CHAPTER XXr. SUNSHINE. " Love is sunshine -Lon^fellozu, "God wishes us to have sunlight in our homes. He would have in- them a tender play of laughter and humour, a pleasant interchange of light and colour and warmth, in word and mirth, which makes the brightness perfect, and is as much the work of the sunlight in the house, as the delightful gaiety of nature is the doing of the i\xn"—SioJ>ford Brooke. T is a comparatively easy thing to preserve a. clieerful appearance when away from home, or even to present a brave front to meet the great emergencies of life. And yet the most genial- hearted of diners-out may be a domestic bully in the privacy of his own household; and the hero who has faced a battery without shrinking may be unable to take a cup- of lukewarm coffee from his wife's hands without a grumble. The real happiness of a home depends upon a determination to lay no undue stress upon little matters, and a resolve to bold SUNSHINE. 193 one's own irritability in constant check. For it is the sum of trivial affairs that make up the day's account, and it is the — " Cares that fcily shadaTcs cast, By which our lives are chiefly proved." True home sunshine, if it consistently brighten the features of one member in a family, is pretty sure to be reflected from the faces of the rest. " I thought," said a father, the other day, " as I sat in the railway carriage on my way home, of my impatience with the members of my family, and I felt ashamed. As soon as they are out of my sight I see clearly where my mistakes are ; but when they are around me I forget my good resolutions." It is quite true that the dear ones at home are more to us than Kings and Queens, than House of Lords or House of Commons, than the mightiest and noblest in the world. And yet we often treat them worse than we treat strangers. With others, whom we meet in business or in society, we are half un- consciously on our guard. Hasty words are repressed, and frowns are banished. But the dear ones at home usually have the pleasure or the pain of seeing us precisely as we are in the mood of the moment. To their sorrow we " make no strangers " of them. If our nerves are overstrung, or our tempers tried, so far from endeavouring to conceal the fact we make them feel it. The hero in great crises may be moved by the pressure of small annoyances to throw a boot at his valet dc cliainhre, or to snarl at his wife. Individually these faults of temper may be small, but so are the locusts that collectively conceal the sun. " Only perfection can bear with imperfection." The better p 14 194 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. man becomes the more allowance will he make for the short- comings of others. In order to have sunlight at home, it is not enough nega- lively to abstain from fault-finding and general peevishness. We should recognize praise as a positive duty. If a thing is done wrongly, better sometimes to say nothing about it. Wait until it happens to be done rightly, and then give marked praise. The third time, the charm of your approbation will produce a much better performance. If it is possible to " damn v.-ith faint praise," how much more damaging must be — no praise at all. How much potential goodness and greatness would become actual but for the wet blanket of sullen silence ! " As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence." This saying of Franklin should suggest speech in season to ungrateful husbands who never throw a word of encouragement to their wives however deserving. In military riding schools may often be heard the command — " INIake much of your horses ! " The horses have been trotting, galloping, and jumping. They have had to stand quietly while the men dismounted and fired their carbines kneeling before them. They have gone through their parts well, so after tlie uien have again mounted, the order is given — " Make much of your horses!" and all the riders pat simultaneously the proudly- arched necks of their deserving steeds. Husbands, take the hint and make much of your wives ! We may here introduce some words of Aliss Cobbe in reference to the moral atmosphere of the house, which depends so immensely on the tone of the mistress. *' I conceive that good, and even high animal spirits are among the most blessed SUNSHINE. 195 of possessions — actual wings to bear us up over the dusty or muddy roads of life ; and I think that to keep up the spirits of a household is not only indefinitely to add to its happiness, but xilso to make all duties comparatively light and easy. Thus, however naturally depressed a mistress may be, I think she ■ought to struggle to be cheerful, and to take pains never to •quench the blessed spirits of her children or guests. All of us who live long in great cities get into a sort of subdued-cheer- fulness tone. We are neither very sad nor very glad; we neither cry, nor ever enjoy that delicious experience of helpless laughter, the fou rira which is the joy of youth. I wish we •could be more really light of heart." We all share this wish ; Lut how is it to be realized ? By living simple, well-regulated lives, and by casting all our anxiety upon God who careth for us. Professor Llaikie commences a paper on " How to Get Rid of Trouble," by saying that once he had occasion to call on the chief of the constabulary force in one of our largest cities. *' The conversation having turned on the arrangements for • extinguishing fire, the chief constable entered with great alacrity ■into the subject, and after some verbal explanations, added, ■• If you can spare half an hour, I will call out my men, and you shall see how we proceed.' I was taken aback at the idea of the firemen and engines being called out on a fine summer •day to let a stranger see them at work ; so I thanked him for his offer, but added that I could not think of giving him so much trouble. 'Trouble!' said he; 'what's that? That's a word I don't know.' ' You are a happy man,' was the reply, ' if you don't know the meaning of trouble.' ' No, indeed,' he said. ' I 196 I/OJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. assure you I do not. The word is not in my dictionar}-.' As I was still incredulous, and wondering whether or not he had lost his senses, he rang the bell, and bade his clerk fetch him an English dictionary. Handing it to me, he said, ' Now, sir> please look and see whether you can find the word "trouble." I turned to the proper place, and there, to be sure, where the word had been, I found it carefully erased by three lines of red ink. Of course I caught the idea at once. In a great work like that of the police in such a place, trouble was never to be thought of. No inroad that might be required on the ease, or the sleep, or the strength of any member of the force was ever to be grudged on the score that it was too much trouble. In the work of that office the thought of trouble was to be unknown. I felt that I had got a sermon from the chief of police, and a notable sermon, too. The three lines of red ink were as clear and telling as any three heads into which I had ever divided my discourse. It was a thrilling sermon^ too — it set something vibrating within me." This incident refers to trouble in the active sense ; but even trouble in the sense of sorrow and disappointment may be to a large extent effaced from the family circle by certain red lines. Here is one of them. Do not viahe the trouble worse than it really is. Rather let us resolve to look at the bright side of things. If we had nothing more to think of, the proverbs that have been coined in the mint of hope ought to encourage us. " Nothing so bad but it might have been worse ; " " 'Tis always- morning somewhere in the world; " "When things are at the- worst they mend ; " " The darkest hour of night is that which, precedes the dawn." Let us try to form the habit of thinking. SUNSHINE. 197 how much there is to cheer us even when there may be much to depress ; how often, on form.er occasions of trouble, we have been wonderfully helped ; how foolish it is to anticipate €vil before it comes. '* How dismal you look ! " said a bucket to his companion, as they were going to the well. " Ah ! " replied the other, " I was reflecting on the uselessness of our being filled, for let us go away ever so full, we always come back empty." " Dear me ! how strange to look at it in that way ! " said the other bucket. " Now I enjoy the thought that however ciiij)iy we come, we always go away/////. Only look at it in that light, and you will be as cheerful as I am." Another red line which effaces trouble h patience. Speaking of the cheerful submission and trust of the London poor a well- known clergyman says : " Come with me ; turn under this low doorway ; climb these narrow creaking stairs ; knock at the door. A pleasant voice bids you enter. You see a woman sixty-four years of age, her hands folded and contracted, her whole body crippled and curled together, as cholera cramped, and rheumatism fixed it twenty-eight years ago. For sixteen years she has not moved from her bed, nor looked out of the window ; and has been in constant pain, while she cannot move a limb. Listen — she is thankful. For what ? For the use of one thumb ; with a two-pronged fork, fastened to a stick, she can turn over the leaves of an old-fashioned Bible, when placed within her reach. Hear her : ' Fm content to lie here as long as it shall please Him, and to go when He shall call me.' " The third red line v/e would suggest is — T?y to get good out ■ 198 HOIV TO BE HAPPY THUuGH MARRIED. of your troubles. Undoubtedly it is to be got, if the right way be taken to extract it. Scarcely any loss is without compen- sation. How often has the dignity of self-support and self- respect been gained when an external prop has been removed !' How often have we been eventually glad that our wishes were- not fulfilled! Plato tells us that "just penalties are the best gifts of the gods," and Goethe said he never had an affliction that he did not turn into a poem. The daylight must fade before we can behold the shining worlds around us, and the rigour of winter must be endured before our hearts can thrill with delight at the approach of Spring. For the sake of household sunshine we should endeavour to keep in health. Lowness of tone, nervous irritability, the state of being ill-at-ease — these and many other forms of ill- health may, as a general rule, be avoided by those who endeavour to preserve their health as a sacred dut}-. If most people have but little health, it is because they transgress the laws of nature, alternately stimulating and depressing themselves. For our own sake and for the sake of others whom we trouble by irrita- bility, we are bound to obey these laws — fresh air, exercise^ moderate work, conquest of appetite. " The deception," says Sydney Smith, " as practised upoi'^ human creatures, is curious and entertaining. ISIy friend sups late; he eats some strong soup, then a lobster, then some tart,. and he dilutes these esculent varieties with wine. The next day I call upon him. He is going to sell his house in London^ and to retire into the country. He is alarmed for his eldest daughter's health. His expenses are hourly increasing, and nothing but a timely retreat can save him from ruin. All this SUNSHINE. 199 is the lobster : and wlien over-excited nature has had time to manage this testaceous encumbrance, the daughter recovers, the finances are in good order, and every rural idea effectually excluded from the mind. In the same manner old friendships are destroyed by toasted cheese, and hard, salted meat has led to suicide. Unpleasant feelings of the body produce correspon- dent sensations in the mind, and a great scene of wretchedness is sketched out by a morsel of indigestible and misguided food. Of such infinite consequence to happiness is it to study the body!" On the other hand, " A merry heart doeth good like a medi- cine." We should "laugh and be well," as enjoined by an old English versifier. " To cure the mind's wrong bias, spleen, Some recommend the bowling-green ; Some, hilly walks ; all, exercise ; Fling but a stone, the giant dies ; Laugh and be zcelL Monkeys have been Extreme good doctors for the spleen ; And kitten, if the humour hit, Has harlequined away the fit." It is the bounden duty of those who live together to cultivate the sunny side of life. To rejoice with those who rejoice is as much a duty as to weep with those that weep. Many have not that "great hereditary constitutional joy " which springs from a natural genius for happiness, but all may at least try to add to the stock of the household's cheerfulness. It is about the most useful contribution that any member of a family can make. " As, although in the season of rainstorms and showers, The tree may strike deeper its roots ; It needs the warm brightness of sunshiny hours, To ripen the blossoms and fruits." 2O0 now TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. Sunlike pleasures never shine in idle homes. If a use- ful occupation or innocent hobby be not provided for the several members of a family, they are sure to spend their time in maliciously tormenting each other. Those whose only care in life is to avoid care make a great mistake. They forget that even roses have thorns, and that pleasure is appreciated and enjoyed for its variety and contrast to pain. After all there is but one way of producing sunshine in our homes. We must first let the light into our own souls, and then like burning glasses we shall give it out to others, but especially to those of our own household. And whence comes the soul's calm sunshine and joy in right doing but from the Sun of Righteousness? If there are many unhappy homes, many wretched families' — more by far than is generally supposed — what is the cure for this ? "■ Sweet reasonableness " as taught by Jesus Christ. If ft-e would let Him into our houses to dwell with us, and form owe of our family circle, He would turn our homes into little Edens. CHAPTER XXir. THEY HAD A FEW WORDS. " Something light as air — a look, A word unkind or wrongly taken — Oh, love, that tempests never shook, A breath, a touch like this hath shaken, And ruder words will soon rush in To spread the breach that words begin." — Moore. " Married life should be a sweet, harmonious song, and, like one of Mendelssohn's, ' without Tvorc/s.' "—Judy, HEN the sunshine of domestic bliss has become more or less clouded by quarrels between a husband and wife, observers very often describe the state of affairs by the euphemism at the head of this chapter. " They had a few words " — this Es the immediate cause of many a domestic catastrophe. A young man was sent to Socrates to learn oratory. On being introduced to the philosopher he talked so incessantly tha'. Socrates asked for double fees. " Why charge me double?'* 202 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. said the young fellow. " Because," said Socrates, " I must teach you two sciences ; the one how to hold your tongue, and the other how to speak." It is impossible foi people to be happy in matrimony who will not learn the first of these sciences. We do not know whether Simonides was or was not a. married man, but we fancy he must have been, for he used to say that he never regretted holding his tongue, but very often was sorry for having spoken. " Seest thou a man that is hasty in his words ? There is more hope of a fool than of him." Sober second thoughts suggest palliatives and allowances that temper prevents us from noticing. The simple act of self- denial in restraining the expression of unpleasant feelings or harsh thoughts is the foundation stone of a happy home. For nothing draws people so closely together as the constant expe- rience of mutual pleasure, and nothing so quickly drives them asunder as the frequent endurance of pain caused by one another's presence. " One doth not l-:now IIow much an ill word may empoison liking." Sometimes the husband blames the wife and the wife the husband when neither of them is at fault. This always reminds us of Pat's mistake. Two Irishmen walking along the same street, but coming from opposite directions, ap- proached, both smiling and apparently recognizing one another. As they came closer they discovered that it was a mutual mistake. Equal to the occasion one of them said,. "Och, my friend, I see how it is. You thought it was me, and I thought it was you, and now it's naythur of us." TIIEY HAD A FEW WORDS. 203 Burton tells of a woman \\\\o, hearing one of her "gossips^f complain of her husband's impatience, told her an excellent remedy for it. She gave her a glass of water, which, when he brawled, she should hold still in her mouth. She did so two 01 three times with great success, and at length, seeing her neighbour, she thanked her for it, and asked to know the ingredients. She told her that it was "fair water," and nothing more, for it was not the water, but her silence which, performed the cure. There are people who are kind in their actions and yet brutal in their speech, and they forget that it is not every one who can bear, like Boswell, to be told he is a fool. A woman' may think she is always right and her husband always wrong,, but it does not make the wheels of domestic life run smoother to say this in plain English. A man may have a contempt for his wife's dearest brother, but to tell the wife or brother so is not conducive to harmony. It has sometimes been remarked that the marriage of a deaf and dumb man to a blind woman would have obvious advan- tages. Each of the parties would acquire an opportunity ta practise little pantomimic scenes from which ordinary married folks are debarred. When they quarrelled, for instance — the wife being unable to sec, while the husband could not hear or speak — she could hurl at him broadside after broadside of steel-pointed invective ; and the poor man could but stand there, study the motion of her lips, and fondly imagine she was telling him how sorry she was that anything should come, between them. He, on the other hand, could sit down, shake his fists, and make hideous grimaces, she all the while thinking 204 ^--^OJJ' TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. *he was sitting with his face buried in his hands, and hot remorseful tears streaming from his eyes. Husbands and ■^vives who are not deprived of the use of their faculties might take the hint and resolve not to use them too keenly on certain occasions. In a matrimonial quarrel they need not hear or see everything. " If 3-011 your lips would keep from slips, Five things obsers-e with care : C/"whom you speak, to whom you speak And hoiv, and zuhcit, and tvhcre. The "last word" is the most dangerous of infernal machines. Husband and wife should no more fight to get it than they would struggle for the possession of a lighted bomb-shell. What is the use of the last word ? After getting it a husband might perhaps, as an American newspaper suggests, advertise to whistle for a wager against a locomotive ; but in every other respect his victory would be useless and painful. It would be a Cadmean victory in which the victor would suffer as much as the vanquished. A farmer cut down a tree which stood so near the boundary line of his farm that it was doubtful whether it belonged to him or to his neighbour. The neighbour, however, claimed the tree, and prosecuted the man who cut it for ■damages. The case was sent from court to court. Time was •^vasted and temper lost ; but the case was finally gained by the prosecutor. The last of the transaction was that the man who gained the cause went to the lawyer's office to execute a deed •of his whole farm, which he bad been compelled to sell to pay his costs ! Then, houseless and homeless, he thrust his hands into his pockets, and triumphantly exclaimed, "I've beat THEY HAD A FEW WORDS. 205 liim!" In fhe same way husband and wife may become bankrupt of hcail-wealth by endeavouring to get the last word. Men sometimes become fractious from pure monotony. When they are unable to find subjects for profitable conversa- tion there arises a propensity to " nag " and find fault. In a Russian story, the title of which in English is "Buried Alive," two prisoners are talking in the night, and one relates : *' I had got, somehow or other, in the way of beating her (his wife). Some days I would keep at it from morning till night. I did not know what to do with myself when I was not beating her. She used to sit crying, and I could not help feeling sorry for her, and so I beat her." Subsequently he murdered her. Are there not men above the class of wife-beaters who indulge in fault-finding, "nagging," and other forms of tongue-casti- gation ? They have got into the habit. They do not know what to do with themselves when not so employed. The tears of their wives only irritate them. Of course some wives are quite capable of giving as much as they get. It is said that at a recent fashionable wedding, after the departure of the happy pair, a dear little girl, whose papa and mamma were among the guests, asked, with a child's innocent inquisitivcness : "Why do they throw things at the pretty lady in the carriage?" " For luck, dear," replied one of the bridesmaids. "And why," again asked the child,. " doesn't she throw them back ? " " Oh," said the young lady,. " that would be rude." " No it wouldn't," persisted the dear litde thing to the delight of her doting parents who stood by : " ma does." *' As the climbing up a sandy way is to the feet of the aged,. 2o6 BOJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. so is a wife full of words to a quiet man." She who " has a tongue of her own " has always more last words to say, and, if she ever does close her mouth, the question" suggests itself whether she should not be arrested for carrying concealed ^Yeapons. On the tombs of such wives might be inscribed •epitaphs like the following, which is to be found in a church- jard in Surrey — " Here lies, retnrncd to clay, Miss Arabella Young, Yv'ho on the first of May Eegan to hold her tongue." Poor Caudle, as a rule, thought discretion the better part of valour, and sought refuge in the arms of soothing slumber ; but there are some men who do not allow their wives to have it all their own way without at least an occasional protest. "Do you pretend to have as good a judgment as I have?" said an enraged wife to her husband. " Well, no," he replied, •deliberately; "our choice of partners for life shows that my judgment is not to be compared to yours." When they have "a few words," however, the woman usually has the best of it. "See here," said a fault-finding husband, "we must have things arranged in this house so that we shall know where tvcrylhing is kept." " With all my heart," sweetly answered Jus wife, "and let us begin with your late hours, my love. I should much like to know where they are kept." Such matrimonial word-batdes may amuse outsiders as the skill of gladiators used to amuse, but the combatants make themselves very miserable. Far better to be incapable of making a repartee if we only use the power to wound the TilEY HAD A FEW WORDS. 207 feelings of the one whom we liave vowed to love. There is an art of putting things that should be studied by married people. How many quarrels would be avoided if we could always say with courtesy and tact any unpleasant thing that may have to be said ! It is related of a good-humoured celebrity that when a man once stood before him and his friend at the theatre, completely shutting out all view of the stage, instead of asking 'him to sit down, or in any way giving offence, he simply said, ''I beg your pardon, sir; but when you see or hear anything particularly interesting on the stage, will you please let us know, as we are entirely dependent on your kindness ? " That was sufficient. With a smile and an apology that only the art of putting things could have extracted, the gentleman took his seat. There is a story of a separation which took place simply because a gracious announcement had been couched by a husband in ungracious terms. *' My dear, here is a little present I have brought to make you good-tempered." "Sir," was the indignant reply, "do you dare to say that it is necessary to bribe me into being good-tempered? "\Miy, I am .always good-tempered ; it is your violent temper, sir ! " And so the quarrel went on to the bitter end. It is a very difficult thing to find fault well. We all have to find fault at times, in reference to servants, children, husband, or wife ; but in a great number of cases the operation lose«s 'half its effect, or has no effect at all, perhaps a downright bad effect, because of the way in which it is done. Above all things remember this caution, never to find lault when out of temper. Again, there is a time not to find fault, and in the right perception of when that time is lies no small part of the 2o8 HO IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED, art. The reproof which has most sympathy in it will be most effectual. It understands and allows for infirmity. It was this sympathy that prompted Dr. Arnold to take such pains in studying the characters of his pupils, so that he might best adapt correction to each particular case. The very worst time for a husband and wife to have " a few words " is dinner-time, because, if we have a good dinner, our attention should be bestowed on what we are eating. He who bores us at dinner robs us of pleasure and injures our health, a fact which the alderman realized when he exclaimed to a stupid interrogator, "With your confounded questions, sir, you've made me swallow a piece of green fat without tasting it." ISIany a poor wife has to swallow her dinner without tasting it because her considerate husband chooses this time to find fault with herself, the children, the servants, and with everything except himself. The beef is too much done, the vegetables too little, everything is cold. "I think you might look after something ! Oh ! that is no excuse," and so on, to the great disturbance of his own and his wife's digestion. God sends food, but the devil sends the few cross r.'ords that prevent it from doing us any good. We should have at least three laughs during dinner, and every one is bound to contribute a share of agreeable table-talk, good ■ humour, and cheerfulness. "In politics," said Cavour, "nothing is so absurd as rancour." In the same way we may say that nothing is so absurd in matrimony as sullen silence. Reynolds in his " Life and Times " tells of a free-and-easy actor who passed three festive days at the seat of the INTarquis and Marchioness of THEY HAD A FEW WORDS. 209 without any invitation, convinced (as proved to be the case) that, my lord and my lady not being on speaking ten/is, each would suppose the other had asked him, A soft answer turns away wrath, and when a wife or a husband is irritated there is nothing like letting a subject drop. Then silence is indeed golden. But the silence persisted in — as by the lady in the old comedy, who, in reply to her husband's " For heaven's sake, my dear, do tell me what you mean," obsti- nately keeps her lips closed — is an instrument of deadly torture. "A wise man by his words makelh himself beloved." To this might be added that on certain occasions a fool by his obstinate silence maketh himself hated. " According to Milton, ' Eve kept silence in Eden to hear her husband talk,' " said a gentleman to a lady friend ; and then added, in a melancholy tone, "Alas ! there have been no Eves since," "Because," quickly retorted the lady, "there have been no husbands worth listening to," Certainly there are too few men who exert themselves to be as agreeable to their wives (their best friends), as they are to the comparative strangers or secret enemies whom they meet at clubs and other places of resort. And yet if it is true that "to be agreeable in our family circle is not only a positive duty but an absolute morality," then every husband and wife should say on their wedding day — "To balls and routs for fame let others roam, Be mine the happier lot to please at home," In one of the letters of Robertson, of Brighton, he tells of ;i lady who related to him " the delight, the tears of gratitude 15 2IO HOW 70 BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. vrhxch. she had witnessed in a poor girl to whom, in passing, 1 gave a kind look on going out of church on Sunday. \Vhat a lesson ! How cheaply happiness can be given ! What oppor- tunities we miss of doing an angel's work ! I remember doing it, full of sad feelings, passing on, and thinking no more about it ; and it gave an hour's sunshine to a human life, and light- ened the load of life to a human heart for a time ! " If even a look can do so much, who shall estimate the power of kind or unkind words in making married life happy or miserable ? In the home circle more than anywhere else — " Words are mighty, words are living: Serpents with their venomous stings, Or bright angels, crowding round us, With heaven's light upon their wings ; Every word has its own sp'ri^, True or false that never dies ; Every word man's lips have uttered Echoes in God's skies." CHAPTER XXIII. PULLING TOGETHER. 'AVIicn souls, that should agree to will the same, To have one common object for their wishes, LooU different ways, regardless of each other, Think what a train of wretchedness ensues ! " AID a husband to his angry wife: "Look at Carlo and Kitty asleep on the rug; I wish men lived half as agreeably with their wives." " Stop ! " said the lady. " Tie them together, and see how they will agree ! " If men and •women when tied together sometimes agree very badly what is the reason ? Because instead of pulling together each of them ■wishes to have his or her own way. But when they do pull •together what greater thing is there for them than " to feel that they are joined for life, to strengthen each other in all labour, ■to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other '\n all pain, to be one with each other in the silent unspeakable jnemories at the moment of the last parting ? " 2ii HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. What is meant by pulling together may be explained by- referring to the custom of the " Dunmow flitch," which was. founded by Juga, a noble lady, in a.d. iiii, and restored by- Robert de Fitzwalter, in 1244, It was that any person from. any part of England going to Dunmow in Essex, and humbly kneeling on two stones at the church door, may claim a gammon, of bacon if he can swear that for twelve months and a day he has never had a household brawl or wished himself unmarried. Hence the phrase "He may fetch a flitch of bacon fron> Dunmow," i.e., He is so amiable and good-tempered that he- will never quarrel with his wife. To eat Dunmow bacon is ta live in conjugal amity. There were only eight claimants ad- mitted to eat the flitch between the years 1244-1772, a number that seems to justify Prior's sarcastic connlet: " Ah, madam, cease to be mistaken, Few married fowl peck Dunmow bacon." It is a great pity that ^^^ew married fowl peck Dunmow bacon," for those that do are so happy that they may be called birds of Paradise. " A well-matched couple carry a joyful life between them, as the two spies carried the cluster of Eshcol. They multiply their joys by sharing them, and lessen their troubles by dividing. Vhem : this is fine arithmetic. The waggon of care rolls lightly along as they pull together, and when it drags a little heavily,, or there's a hitch anywhere, they love each other all the more,, and so lighten the labour." When there is wisdom in the- husband there is generally gentleness in the wife, and betweeni them the old wedding wish is worked out : " One year of joy,, anotlicr of comfort, and all the rest of content." Pl'LLIXG TOGETIIFR. 213. When two persons without any spiritual affinity are bound together in irrevocable bondage, it is to their " unspeakabk "weariness and despair," and life becomes to them " a drooping and disconsolate household captivity, without refuge or re- demption." Such unions are marriages only in name. They are a mere housing together. However, this doctrine may easily be exaggerated, and ceitainly married people ought to be very slow in allowing themselves to think that it is impossible for them to hit it off or pull with the partners of their lives. Those who cherish unhealthy sentimentalism on this subject would do well to brace themselves up by reading a little of the robust common sense of Dr. Johnson. Talking one evening of Mrs. Careless, the doctor said : " If I had married her, it might have been as happy for me." Boswell: "Pray, sir, do you not suppose that there are fifty women in the world, with any one of whom a man may be as happy as with any one woman in particular?" Johnson: "Ay, sir, fifty thousand." Bos-coell: "Then, sir, you are not of opinion with some who imagine that certain men and certain women are made for each other ; and that they cannot be happy if they miss their counterparts." Johnson : *' To be sure not, sir. I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter." The following, too, is interesting, for we may gather from it how, in Johnson's opinion, the feat of living happily with any one of fifty thousand women could be accomplished. The 214 HOJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. question was started one evening \vhet]:er people who differed on some essential point could live in friendship together. Johnson said they might. Goldsmith said they could not, as they had not the idem velle alqiie idem nolle — the same likings and the same aversions. Johnson : '* Why, sir, you must shurt the subject as to which you disagree. For instance, I can live very well with Burke ; I love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and affluence of conversation ; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party." Goldsjiiilh : " Cut, sir,, when people live together who have something as to which they disagree, and which they want to shun, they will be in the situation mentioned in the story of Bluebeard, ' You may look into all the chambers but one.' But we should have the greatest inclination to look into that chamber, to talk over that subject." Johnson (with a loud voice) : " Sir, I am not saying that you could live in friendship with a man from whom you differ as to some point : I am only saying that /could do it." In matrimony, as in religion, in things essential there should be unity, in things indifferent diversity, in all things charity. In matrimony, though it is the closest and dearest friendship,, shades of character and the various qualities of mind and heatt,. never approximate to such a degree, as to preclude all possibility of misunderstanding. But the broad and firm principles upon which all honourable and enduring sympathy is founded, the love of truth, the reverence for right, the abhorrence of all that is base and unworthy, admit of no difference or misunder- standing ; and where these exist in the relations of two people united for life, love, and happiness, as perfect as this imperfect exister.ce affords, may be realized. But the rule is different in PULLING TOGETHER. 215 matters that are not essential. In reference to these married people should cultivate " the sympathy of difference." They should agree to differ each respecting the tastes and prejudices of the other. At no time are husbands and wives seen to greater advantnge than when yielding their own will in unimportant matters to the will of another, and we quite agree with a writer who makes the following remark : " Great actions are so often performed from little motives of vanity, self-complacency, and the like, that I am apt to think more highly of the person whom I observe checking a reply to a petulant speech, or even sub- mitting to the judgment of another in stirring the Jire, than of one who gives away thousands ! " In all things there should be charity. Dolly Winthrop in "Silas Marner" was patiently tolerant of her husband, "con- sidering that men would be so," and viewing the stronger sex "in the light of animals whom it pleased Heaven to make troublesome like bulls or turkey cocks." This sensible woman knew that if at times her husband was troublesome he had his good qualities. On these she would accustom herself to dwell. A Scotch minister, being one day engaged in visiting his flock, came to the door of a house where his gentle tapping could not be heard for the noise of contention within. After waiting a little he opened the door and walked in, saying, with an authoritative voice : " I should like to know who is the head of this house ? " *' Weel, sir," said the husband and father, '• if ye sit doon a wee, we'll maybe be able to tell ye, for we're just tryin' to settle the point." Merely to settle this point some married people are continually engaging in a tug 2 1 6 HG IV TO BE HA PP V THO UGH MA RRIED. of war instead of pulling comfortably together. But what a mean contest ! How much better it would be only to strive who should love the other most ! To married people especially are these words of Marcus Aurelius applicable : " We are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another, then, is contrary to nature." That union is strength is forcibly, if not very elegantly, illus- trated by Erskine's description of a lodging where he had passed the night. He said that the fleas were so numerous and so fero- cious that if they had been but unauiinous they would have pulled him out of bed. If husband and wife would be but unanimous they would be a match against every enemy to their felicity. On the other hand, how impossible it is for those who work against each other to live together with any advantage or com- fort. We all remember the illustration of .^sop. A charcoal- burner carried on his trade in his own house. One day he met a friend, a fuller, and entreated him to come and live with him, saying that they should be far better neighbours, and that their housekeeping expenses would be lessened. The fuller replied, " The arrangement is impossible as far as I am concerned, for whatever I should whiten, you would imme- diately blacken again with your charcoal." One secret of pulling together is not to interfere with what does not concern us. A man who can trust his wife should no more meddle with her home concerns than she should pester him with questions about his business. He will never be able to pull with her if he pokes over the weekly bills, insiiits on tnowing how much each thing is per pound, and what he ia PULLING TOGETHER. 217 going to have every day for dinner. It is indeed almost a sine qua non of domestic felicity that paterfamilias should be absent from home at least six hours in the day. Jones asked his wife, " Why is a husband like dough ? " He expected she would give it up, and he was going to tell her that it was because a woman needs him ; but she said it was because he was hard to get off her hands. Of course, like every other good rule, this one of non-inter- vention may be carried too far, as it was by the studious man who said, when a servant told him that his house was on fire, "Go to your mistress, you know I have no charge of household matters," No doubt occasions will arise when a husband will be only too glad to take counsel with his wife in business cares ; while she may have to remember all her life long, with gratitude and love, some season of sickness or affliction, when he filled his own place and hers too, ashamed of no womanish task, and neither irritated nor humiliated by ever such trivial household cares. " Parents and children seldom act in concert, each child endeavours to appropriate the esteem or fondness of the parents, and the parents, with yet less temptation, betray each other to their children ; thus some place their confidence in the father, and some in the mother, and by degrees the house is filled with artifices and feuds." These words point to a danger to be guarded against by married people who desire to pull together. It is sad when a child is not loved equally by both its parents. In this case, however innocent and blessed the little one may be, it is liable to become the disturber of parental peace. 21 S HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. Perhaps the way Carlyle and his wife pulled together is not so very uncommon. His mother used to say of him that he was " gey ill to live wnth," and Miss Welsh whom he married had a fiery temper. When provoked she " was as hard as a flint, with possibilities of dangerous sparks of fire." The pair seem to have tormented each other, but not half as much as each tormented him and herself. They were too like each other, suffering in the same way from nerves disordered, diges- tion impaired, excessive self-consciousness, and the absence of children to take their thoughts away from each other. They were, in the fullest sense of the word, everything to each other • — both for good and evil, sole comforters, chief tormentors. The proverb " 111 to hae but waur to want " was true of the Carlyles as of many another couple. Sir David Baird and some other English officers, being cap- tured by Tippo Saib, were confined for some time in one of the dungeons of his palace at Bangalore. When Sir David's mother heard the news in Scotland, referring to the method in which prisoners were chained together and to her son's well- known irascible temper, she exclaimed : " God pity the lad that's tied to our Davie." How much more to be pitied is he or she whom matrimony has tied for life to a person with a bad temper ! Over-particularity in trifles causes a great deal of domestic discomfort. The husband or wife who, to use a common phrase, wishes a thmg to be "just so," and not otherwise, is uncomfortable to pull with. For any person to be thoroughly amiable and livable with, there should be a little touch of untidiness and unpreciseness, and indifference to small things.. rULLING TOGETHER. 2ig A little spice — not too much — of the Irishman's spirit who said, " If you can't take things asy, take them as asy as you can." There is no more beautiful quality than that ideality which conceives and longs after perfection ; but if too exclusively cultivated it may drag down rather than elevate its possessor. The faculty which is ever conceiving and desiring something better and more perfect must be modified in its action by good sense, patience, and conscience, otherwise it induces a morbid, discontented spirit, which courses through the veins of indivi- dual and family life like a subtle poison. Exactingsness is untrained ideality, and much domestic misery is caused by it. A little bit of conscience makes the exacting person sour. He fusses, fumes, finds fault, and scolds because everything is not perfect in an imperfect world. Much more happy and good is he whose conceptions and desire of excellence are equally strong, but in whom there is a greater amount of discriminating common-sense. Most people can see what is faulty in themselves and their surroundings ; but while the dreamer frets and wears himself out over the unattainable, the happy, practical man is satisfied with what can be attained. There was much wisdom in the answer given by the principal of a large public institution when complimented on his habitual cheerfulness amid a diversity of cares : "I've made up my mind," he said, "to be satisfied when things are done half as well as I would have them." Ideality often becomes an insidious mental and moral disease, acting all the more subtlely from its alliance with what is noblest in us. 120 //OIF TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. The virtue of conscientiousness may turn into the vice of censoriousness if misapphed. It was the constant prayer of the great and good Bishop Butler that he might be saved from \vhat he called " scrupulosity." Dr. Johnson used to admire this wise sentence in Thomas a Kempis : " Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be." Searching for -domestic hnppiness would not be as unsuccessful as it is with some people if they were not continually finding fault. Jeremy Taylor impresses this fact by one of his quaint illus- trations : " The stags in the Greek epigram, whose knees were clogged with frozen snow upon the mountains, came down to the brooks of the valleys, hoping to thaw their joints with the waters of the stream ; but there the frost overtook them, and bound them fast in ice, till the young herdsmen took them in their stranger snare. It is the unhapppy chance of many men finding many inconveniences upon the mountains of single life, they descend into the valleys of marriage to refresh their troubles, and there they enter into fetters, and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a man's or woman's peevishness." The Psalmist says that "God maketh men to be of one mind in a house." Let husband and wife live near Him, and He will enable them to avoid domestic strife which Cowper de Clares to be the " sorest ill of human life." CHAPTER XXIV. NETS AND CAGES. " I think for a woman to fail to make and keep a happy home, is to be o 'failure ' in a truer sense than to have failed to catch a husband." — Frances Poiver Cobl'c. " We think cagcing and homcmaking." But a cage-making wife is much more than a good cook and housekeeper. Indeed it is possible for a wife to be too carefui and cumbered about these things. AVhen such is the case she becomes miserable and grumbles at a httle dust or disorder Vt'hich the ordinary mortal does not see, just as a fine musician is pained and made miserable at a slight discord that is not noticed by less-trained ears. Probably her husband wishes his house were less perfectly kept, but more peaceful. A woman should know when to change her role of housewife for that of the loving friend and companion of her husband. She should be able and willing to intelligently discuss with him the par- ticular political or social problem that is to him of vital interest. We will all agree with Dr. Johnson that a man of sense and education should seek a suitable companion in a wife. "It was," he said, " a miserable thing when the conversation could only be such as, whether the mutton should be boiled or roast, and probably a dispute about that." A good and loyal wife takes upon her a share of everything that concerns and interests A'ETS AXD CAGES. 229 her husband. Whatever may be his work or even recreation, she endeavours to learn enough about it to be able to listen to him with interest if he speaks to her of it, and to give him a sensible opinion if he asks for it. In every matter she is Jielpful, Women's lives are often very dull ; but it would help to make them otherwise if wives would sometimes think over, during the hours when parted from their husbands, a few little winning ways as surprises for them on their return, either in the way of conversation, or of some small change of dress, or any way their ingenuity would have suggested in courting days. How little the lives of men and women would be dull, if they thought of and acted towards each other after marriage as they did before it ! Certainly, it does a wife good to go out of her cage occa- sionally for amusement, although her deepest, truest happiness may be found at home. She, quite as much as her husband, requires change and recreation, but while this is true she must never forget that a life of pleasure is a life of pain, and that if much of her time is spent in visiting and company, anarchy and confusion at home must be the consequence. " Never seek for amusement," says Mr. Ruskin, " but be always ready to be amused. The least thing has play in it — the slightest word wit, when your hands are busy and your heart is free. But if you make the aim of your life amusement, the day will come when all the agonies of a pantomime will not bring you an honest laugh." Nothing renders a woman so agreeable to her husband as good humour. It possesses the powers ascribed to magic and 230 IIOV/ TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. imparts beauty to the plainest features. On tlie other hand,. the bright, sparkling girl, who turns, after marriage, in her- hours of privacy with her husband, into the dull, silent, or grumbling wife has no one to thank but herself if he is often absent from his home. jMen hate nagging, and, indeed, husband-nagging is almost as cruel as wife-beating. There are women whose perpetual- contentiousness is a moral reproduction of an Oriental torture, that drops water on you every ten seconds. The butler of a certain Scottish laird, who had been in the family a number of. years, at last resigned his situation because his lordship's wife Avas always scolding him. " Oh ! " exclaimed his master, " if that be all, ye've very httle to complain of." " Perhaps so," replied the butler ; " but I have decided in my own mind to put up with it no longer." "Go, then," said his lordship ; " and be thankful for the rest of your life that ye're not married to her." The methods which women adopt in managing husbands vary with the characters of the individuals to be guided. In illustration of this here is a short storj'. Two women, Mrs. A. and ]\Irs. B., were talking together one day with some friends over a cup of tea, when the subject of the management of husbands came up. Each of these two wives boasted that she could make her husband do exactly what she liked. A spinster who was present. Miss C, denied the truth of this statement,, and this led to high words, in the course of which it was agreed that each wife should prove her power by making her husband drive her on a particular afternoon in a hired carriage to an app-^inted place, which we will call Edmonton. The test was NETS AND CAGES. 231 considered a good one, because the two husbands were indi- viduals inchned to economy, who in the ordinary course of events would never think of hiring a carriage or driving any- where, excepting in a 'bus to the City. Mrs. A. was a strong- minded, determined woman, and INIr. A. was meek and gentle; no one doubted, therefore, that Mrs. A. could get what she wanted. But Mr. B. was an argumentative, contradictor}', wilful, and pugnacious individual, while Mrs. B. was sweet and good. It was expected that J\Irs. B. would have to own herself defeated. However, the day arrived and the hour, the unbelieving spinster repaired to the spot, and up drove the two husbands with their wives sitting in state by their sides. " How did you manage it? "said Miss C. " Oh," said Mrs. A., "I simply said to my husband, ' Mr. A., I wish you to hire a carriage and drive me to Edmonton.' He said, 'Very well, my dear, but I ,' and here I am.'' "And how did you manage it, Mrs. B. ? " ]\Irs. B. was unwilling to confess, but at length she was induced to do so. "I said to my husband, ' I think I\Ir. and INIrs. A. are very extravagant : they are going to hire a carriage and pair to-morrow and drive to Edmonton.' ' Why should they not do so if they hke it?' said Mr. B. 'Oh, no reason at all, my dear, if you think it right, and if they can afford it ; but we could not do anything of that kind, of course. Besides, I fancy Mr. A. is more accustomed to driving than you are.' ' A. is not at all more accustomed to it than I am,' said INIr. B., • and I can afford it quite as well as he. Indeed, I will prove that I can and will, for I v,-ill hire a carriage and drive there at the same time.' ' Very well, my dear, if you think so ; but I should not like to go with you, I should feel so ashamed.' 232 HO IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. ' Then I wish you to go with me, Mrs. B. ; I insist upon your accompanying me.' So," said quiet little Mrs. B., "that is the way I manage Mr. B." Neither of these women is to be congratulated on her method hi management. Each despised her husband, and what sort of basis is scorn for happiness in married life ? If a man's own wife does not believe in him, and look up to him, and admire him, and like him better than any one else, poor man, who else will ? If he is not king at home, where is he king ? Once upon a time, according to an old heathen legend, the gods and goddesses were assembled together, and were talking over matters celestial, when one of the company, who was of an inquiring mind, said, " What are the people who live on the earth like ? " No one knew. One or two guesses were made, but every one knew that they were only guesses. At last an enterprising little goddess suggested that a special messenger should be sent to visit the earth, to make inquiries, and to bring back information concerning the inhabitants thereof. Off the messenger went. On his return, the gods and goddesses once more assembled, and every one was very anxious to hear the result of this mission. " Well," said Jove, who constituted himself speaker on the occasion, " what have you learnt ? What are the people of the earth like?" "They are very curious people/' said the traveller. " They have no character of their own, but they become what others think them. If you think them cruel, they act cruelly ; if you think them true, they may be relied on; if you think them false, they lie and steal; if you believe them to be kind, they are amiability itself." May not the secret of how to manage a husband be found in NETS AXD CAGES. 233 this small fable ? A woman has power over her husband (that is, legitimate and reasonable power, not power to make him hire a carriage, but power to make him kind, true, and perse- vering) in proportion to her belief in him. She is never so helpless with regard to him as when she has lost faith in him herself. ]\Iilton tells us that a good wife is " heaven's last, best gift to man ; " but what constitutes a good wife ? Purity of thought and feeling, a generous cheerful temper, a disposition ready to forgive, patience, a high sense of duty, a cultivated mind, and a natural grace of manner. She should be able to govern her household with gentle resolution, and to take an intelligent interest in her husband's pursuits. She should have a clear understanding, and "all the firmness that does not exclude delicacy," and "all the softness that does not imply weakness." " Her beauty, like the rose it resembleth, shall retain its sweet- ness when its bloom is withered. Her hand seeketh employ- ment ; her foot delighteth not in gadding about. She is clothed with neatness ; she is fed with temperance. On her tongue dvvelleth music ; the sweetness of honey floweth from her lips. Her eye speakcth softness and love ; but discretion, with a sceptre, sitteth on her brow. She presideth in the house, and there is peace ; she commandeth with judgment, and is obeyed. She ariseth in the morning, she considers her affairs, and appointeth to every one their proper business. The prudence of her management is an honour to her husband ; and he heareth her praise with a secret delight. Happy is the man that hath made her his wife ; happy is the child that calleth her mother." 234 HOJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. The married man must have been blessed with a cage- making wife like this who defined woman as "An essay on goodness and grace, in one volume, elegantly bound.'' Although it may seem a little expensive, every man should have a copy. CHAPTER XXV. HUSBANDS HAVE DUTIES TOO. *'A good wife is the gift of a good God, aud the workmanship of a good husband . ' ' — rroveil>. " My dear sir, mind your studies, mind your business, vialce your ladf happy, and be a good Chris'Jan." — Dr. Johnson^s advice to Bosii'cll. HIGHLAND horse-dealer, who lately effected a sale, was offered a bottle of porter to confess the animal's failings. The bottle was drunk, and he then said the horse had but two faults- When turned loose in the field he was " bad to catch," and he was " of no use when caught." !Many a poor woman might say the same of her husband. She had to make many nets, for he was " bad to catch," and when caught — well, he forgot that husbands have duties as well as wives. Some men can neither do without wives nor with them ; they are wretched alone, in what is called single blessedness, and they make their homes miserable when they get married ; they are like the dog, wliich could not bear to be loose, and howled when it was tied up. 236 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. There are men with whom all the pleasure of love exists in its pursuit, and not in its possession. When a woman marries one of this class, he seems almost to despise her from that day. Having got her into his power he begins to bully her. If it be true that there are more people married than keep good houses, husbands are quite as much to blame as wives. The proverb tells us that good wives and good plantations are made by good husbands. In the last chapter we ventured to suggest that women should make cages as well as nets ; but all their efforts will be in vain if they have ill-birds who foul their own nests. To complete the subject, therefore, something must be said about the behaviour of the male bird when caught and caged. First of all he should sing and not cry. How many women are there who suffer from the want of a kindly love, a sweet ■appreciation of their goodness and their self-sacrifice! How often will wives do tender and loving offices, adorn the home with flowers, making it as neat as the nest of a bird ; dress their persons with elegance, and their faces with smiles, and find as a reward for this the stolid indifference of the block or the stupid insensibility of the lower animal ! " She was a woman," wrote one who knew her sex well; " a woman down to the very tips of her finger-nails, and what she wanted was praise from the lips that she loved. Do you ask what that meant ? Did she want gold, or dress, or power ? No ; all she wanted was that which will buy us all, and which so few of us €ver get — in a word, it was Love." Priscilla Lammeter, in "Silas IMarner," well understood the selfish way many husbands fall into of relieving their feelings: HUSBANDS HAVE DUTIES TOO. 237 " There's nothing kills a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with but himself. It's a deal the best way o' being master to let somebody else do the ordering, and keep the blaming in your own hands. It 'ud save many a man a stroke I believe."' *' If he would only be satisfied !" Mrs. Carlyle used sometimes- to complain of Carlyle, "but I have had to learn that when he does not find fault he is pleased, and that has to content me." On one occasion when Carlyle was away from home Mrs. Carlyle described her charwoman sort of work to get all in perfect order for her husband's arrival ; and when all was complete — his dinner ready, his arm-chair in its usual attitude, his pipe and tobacco prepared, all looking as comfortable as. possible — Mrs. C. sat down at last to rest, and to expect hini ■with a quiet mind. He arrived ; and *' after he had just greeted me, what do you think he did ? He walked to the- window and shook it, and asked ' Where's the wedge of the window ? ' and until we had found that blessed wedge nothing would content him. He said the window would rattle and, spoil all," When a great and good man gives such inordinate prominence to trivial worries, how intolerable to live with must be the baser sort, who scarcely know the meaning of self^ control ! Some men may deserve rewards for distinguished service in action ; but they certainly do not for distinguished service in passion or suffering. In this respect they are far less brave- than women. The fault of many husbands is not the absence of love, but their failure to express it in their daily lives, and the self- absorption which prevents them from knowing thai their wives -38 nOJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. want something more than they give them. They do not pay that attention to little things on which so much of a woman's "happiness depends. " Instead of love being the occasion of all the misery of this world (as is sung by fantastic bards), the misery of this world is occasioned by there not being love enough." Certain it is, that as time goes on married life is not usually found to want less love, but more ; not less expression of love, but more. Caroline Perthes, writing to her husband, is not content he should love her, ■but wishes the phlegmatic German would sometimes tell her so. Husbands would be more considerate and less exacting if they realized the fact that a wife's work is never done. I have heard more than one lady remark that the greatest pleasure of hotel life, and of a visit to one's friends, is to be able to sit down to dinner without a knowledge of what is coming in the various courses. The wife whose sympathy is always ready for her husband's out-of-door difficulties naturally expects that he should at least try to understand her housekeeping troubles. How many they are is known to every one who has " run " a house for even a short time. A woman may have much theoretical knowledge, but this will not prevent unlooked-for obstacles from arising. Annoyances caused by human frailty and the working of natural agents beset every practical housekeeper. It is the unexpected that constantly happens, and the daily girding up to meet the emergencies of the hour is the task of ■every wife who seeks to make her home a comfortable, habitable abode. It is work — real, earnest work, quite as hard in its way ^s the husband's. HUSBANDS HAVE DUTIES TOO. 239 Husbands should know the value and the difficulty of the Avork of their wives, and should never forget that a little help is ■worth a great deal of fault-finding. The husband's affection must never be merged in an over- weening conceit of his authority. His rule must be the rule of reason and kindness, not of severity and caprice. He is the houseband and should bind all together like a corner-stone, but not crush everything like a mill-stone. Jeremy Taylor says : ••' The dominion of a man over his wife is no other than as the soul rules the body ; for which it takes mighty care, and uses it with a delicate tenderness, and cares for it in all con- tingencies, and watches to keep it from all evils, and studies to make for it fair provisions, and very often is led by its incli- nations and desires, and does never contradict its appetites but when they are evil, and then also not without some trouble and sorrow ; and its government comes only to this, it furnishes the body with light and understanding ; and the body furnishes the soul with hands and feet ; the soul governs, because the body cannot else be happy ; but the goieniinaif is no other than provision, as a nurse governs a child, when she causes him to eat, and to be warm, and dry, and quiet." It sometimes happens that she who ought to have most influence on her husband's mind has least. A man will frequently take the advice of a stranger who cares not for him, in preference to the cordial and sensible opinion of his own wife. Consideration of the domestic evils such a line of conduct is calculated to produce ouglit to prevent its adoption, besides, there is in woman an intuitive quickness, a pene- tration, and a foresight, that make her advice very valuable. 240 HOIV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. " If I was making up a plan of consequence," said Lord Bolingbroke, "I should like first to consult with a sensible woman." Many a man has been ruined by professed friends,, because when his wife, with a woman's quick detection of character, saw through them and urged him to give them up^ he would not do so. And if a wife is the partner of her husband's cares surely she ought also to be the companion of his pleasures. There are selfish husbands who go about amusing themselves ; but in reference to their wives they seem to be of the same opinion as the ancient philosopher, who only approved of women leaving home three times in their lives — • to be baptized, married, and buried ! Does it never occur to such Egyptian taskmasters that all work and no play is quite as bad for women as for men, and that the wife who makes her cage comfortable should occasionally be ofiered and even urged to take a little amusement ? I know of one wife who struck under such treatment. Whenever her husband spent his money and time too freely away from home, she used to take her child and go for a little excursion, which of course cost money. If he gave more " drinks " than he could afford to himself and to his club-companions, she used to frighten him. into good behaviour by ordering a bottle of champagne for herself. Giving in this way a Roland for every Oliver, this really good wife soon brought her husband to see that his selfishness was a losing game. Cobbett protests against a husband getting to like his club, or indeed any house, better than his own. When absent from necessity, there is no wound given to the heart of the wife ; she concludes that her husband would be with her if he could, II us n A YDS HAVE DUTIES TOO. 241 and that satisfies. Yet in these cases her feelings ought to be consulted as much as possible ; she ought to be apprised of the probable duration of the absence, and of the time of return. And ^Yhat Cobbett preached upon this text he himself practised. He and a friend called Finnerty were dining with a mutual friend. At eleven o'clock Cobbett said to the host, "We must go; my wife will be frightened." "You do net mean to go home to-night," was the reply. " I told him I did ; and then sent my son, who was with us, to order out the post- chaise. We had twenty-three miles to go, during which we debated the question whether Mrs. Cobbett would be up to receive us, I contending for the aflnrmative and he for the negative. She was up, and had a nice fire for us to sit do-.vn at. She had not committed the matter to a servant ; her servants and children were all in bed ; and she was up, to perform the duty of receiving her husband and his friend. • You did not expect him ? ' said Finnerty. ' To be sure I did/ said she ; ' he never disappointed me in his life.' " We ourselves heard a wife saying to her husband only the other day, " I would rather you had done that than given me ten pounds." What had he done ? Only put himself out a little to return home at the exact hour he had appointed to be with her. That the little attention gratified her so much will not seem strange to any one who has observed the po'.vcr of little things in imparting either pleasure or pain. A kind husband, when he goes from home, generally brings back some little present to his wife. Attentions like this keep fresh that element of rom.ance which should never be entirely absent from married Hfe. They remind the now staid, but still 17 2 42 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. impressible matron, of the days of her maiden power, when a cold look from her brought winter into the room, and when the faintest wish would have sent a certain young gentleman on a walk of a dozen miles for the first violets. Yes, now and then give your wife a present — a real present, which, without involving undue expense, is good enough to compel a certain sacrifice, and suitable enough to make her cheek flush with delight at seeing that just as the bride was dearer than the sweetheart, the wife is yet dearer than the bride. There is quite as much human nature in a wife as in a husband (men forget this), and a little tender petting does her a great deal of good, and may even be better than presents. What a model husband and father IMacaulay would have been if he had married! His sister, Lady Trevelyan, says, that "those who did not know him at home, never knew him in his most brilliant, witty, and fertile vein," He was life and sunshine to young and old in the sombre house in Great Ormond Street, where the forlorn old father, like a blighted oak, lingered on in leafless decay, reading one long sermon to his family on Sunday afternoons, and another long sermon on Sunday evenings — " where Sunday walking for walking's sake was never allowed, and even going to a distant church was discouraged." Through this Puritanic gloom Macaulay shot like a sunbeam, and turned it into a fairy scene of innocent laughter and mirth. Against J^Iacaulay, the author, severe things may be said ; but as to his conduct in his own home — as a son, as a brother, and an uncle — it is only the barest justice to say that he appears to have touched the furthest verge of human virtue, sweetness, and generosity. His thinking HUSBANDS HAVE DUTIES TOO. 243 ■^as often, if not generally, pitched in what \Ye must call a low Icey, but his action might put the very saints to shame. He 'reversed a practice too common among men of genius, who are •often careful to display all their shining and attractive qualities to the outside world, and keep for home consumption their meanness, selfishness, and ill-temper. INIacaulay struck no Tieroic attitude of benevolence, magnanimity, and aspiration before the world — rather the opposite ; but in the circle of his 'home affections he practised those virtues without letting his right hand know what was done by his left. Writing to his oldest and dearest friend in the first days of lier overwhelming grief, Her Majesty the Queen described the Prince Consort as having been to her " husband, father, lover, rmaster, friend, adviser, and guide." There could scarcely be a ibctter description of what a husband ought to be. ^^^^^ CHAPTER XXVI. THE HEALTH OF THE FAMILY. " Reason's whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words— health, peace, and competence. But Health consists with temperance alone, And Peace, O Virtue, peace is all thy own." — rnpe. " Better to hunt in fields for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught." — Dryden. An cmhicnt physician gave four rules for the preservation of heallli. When he died, his books were sold ; one, which was said to contain very valuable precepts of health, but which the bidders were not permitted to- open, sold at a high price. When the purchaser got it home he hastily proceeded to examine it, and was much disappointed at finding that it contained nothing more than four simple rules. He thought he had thrown. his money away. But on further consideration he was induced to put the rules in practice ; by doing so he was restored to a state of health to which- he had long been a stranger. He often spoke of tl>e old physician's book as the cheapest and most valuable purchase he ever made in his life. The- rules were these : Keep the head cool; K'ecp the fed warm ; Take a light Slipper ; Hise early. HE old word for "holy" in the German language also means "healthy," and, in our own, "hale,'"'' " whole," and " holy " are from the same root. Carlyle says that "you could not get any better definition of what ' holy ' really is than ' healthy —completely healthy.'" Mens saiia in corpore sano. There is- THE HEALTH OF THE FAMHY. 245 no kind of achievement you could make in the world that i? equal to perfect health. What are nuggets and millions ? The French financier said, " Alas ! why is there no sleep to be sold ?" Sleep was not in the market at any quotation. What boots it to have attained wealth, if the wealth is •accompanied by ceaseless ailments ? What is the worth of distinction, if it has brought hypochondria with it ? Surely no one needs telling that a good digestion, a bounding pulse, and high spirits, are elements of happiness which no external advan- tages can out-balance. Chronic bodily disorder casts a gloom over the brightest prospects ; while the vivacity of strong health gilds even misfortune. _Health_is not merelyJreejiQnLfrom bo dily pain ;_ it is the capability: of receiving pleasure from all jurrounding things, and from the employment of all our faculties. It need scarcely be said that without this capabihty even marriage cannot make us happy. Indeed, without a fair share of health to start with people are not justified in taking upon themselves the responsibilities of matrimony, and running the risk of introducing into the world weak children that may be said to be damned rather than born into it. It has been remarked that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal. Will it seem shockingly unpoetical to suggest that this is also a very important element of success in marriage? Certainly beauty has great power in retaining as well as in gaining affection, and health is a condition of beauty. A clear complexion and laughing eyes, a supple and rounded form, and a face unmarked by v/rinkles of pain or 2)eevishness, are the results of vigour of constitution. Overflowing health produces good humour, and we all know 246 now TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. how important that is to matrimonial fehcity. I once kncv an- old lady who used to say that it was a duty to sometimes lake medicine for the sake of one's friends. She was thinking of the effect of dyspepsia, congested liver, and other forms of ill- health upon our tempers. The chief misery of dyspepsia is that it is not merely pain, but pain which affects the intellecij and feelings alike; in Carlyle's vivid words: "Every window of your feeling, even of your intellect, as it were, begrimed and mud-bespattered, so that no pure ray can enter ; a whole drug- shop in your inwards ; the foredone soul drowning slowly m the quagmires of disgust." Oliver Wendell Holmes speaks of a man in the clothing business with an impressible temperament who let a customer " slip through his fingers one day without fitting him with a new garment. ' Ah ! ' said he to a friend of mine, who was standing by, 'if it hadn't been for that confounded headache of mine this morning, I'd have had a coat on that man, in spite of him- self, before he left the store.' A passing throb only ; but it deranged the nice mechanism required to persuade the acci- dental human being, x, into a given piece of broadcloth, a." How many more happy days would a husband and wife spend together were it not for confounded headaches which cause foolish, bitter words to be spoken. If a man cannot do business when the nice mechanism of his body is deranged, neither can he be gentle and kind in the family circle. This is what Dr. Johnson meant when he said that a man is a villain when sick. " Smelfungus," says Sterne, " had been the grand tour, and had seen nothing to admire; all was barren from Dan to Beer- THE HEALTH OF THE FAMILY. 247 sheba; and \vhen I met him lie fell foul cf the Venus de Medici ; and abused her ladyship like a common fish-fag. ' I will tell it,' cried he, ' I will tell it to the world ! ' ' You had better,' said Sterne, * tell it to your physician.' " So too when a man falls foul of his wife, and abuses her ladyship like a common fish-fag because his liver is out of order, he had better go to a physician and take every means of clearing his clouded temper. How much a husband can do by sympathy and kindness for a sick wife ! Mrs. Carlyle used to say, " The very least atten- tion from Carlyle just glorifies me. When I have one of my headaches, and the sensation of red-hot knitting-needles darting into my brain, Carlyle's way of expressing sympathy is to rest a heavy hand on the top of my head, and keep it there in perfect silence for several seconds, so that although I could scream with nervous agony, I sit like a martyr, smiling with joy at such a proof of profound pity from him." The truth is that happiness is the most powerful of tonics. By accelerating the circulation of the blood, it facilitates the performance of every function; and so tends alike to increase health when it exists, and to restore it when it has been lost. If acts of kindness from a husband are necessary in all cases, they are especially so in cases of his wife's illness, from what- ever cause arising, and most of all when there is a prospect of her becoming a mother. This is the time for him to show care, watchful tenderness, attention to all her wishes, and anxious efforts to quiet her fears. Any agitation or fatigue at such times may cause the remaining years of her life to be years of pain and weakness. If he value happiness in married life and 243 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. would escape bitter self-reproach, the husband will be very careful of kis wife when in this condition. And it is the duty of the young wife, on her part, to take care of her own health, because of the manner in which hers vrill affect the health of her expected child. And as the moral and mental nature of the child is scarcely less dependent on her than the physical, she should cherish only such mental frames and dispositions as she would like to see reproduced in her child. liow much her husband can help or hinder her in doing so ! Then when the child is born she ought if possible to give it the food which nature provides and which is its birthright. No other is so congenial, and the consequences of unnatural methods of feeding are sometimes most injurious to the bodies and minds of children. In these hard times of great competition in every kind of business, it is a sad fact that many men have to overwork them- selves, or at least fancy they have, in order to get a living for their families. Eut there are others who kill themselves by overwork and over-anxiety, for what ? To amass more money than they can well spend, or to catch the soap-bubble called fame — " And all to leave what with his tact he won, To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son." Alas ! that such men never think of Ilis considerate words to His disciples who was the great Physician of the body as well as of the soul — " Come 5'e apart, and rest awhile." If they did they would be able to show to their friends at home what the Lord had done for them. Rest to their overstrung nerves THE HEALTH OF THE TAMHY. 249 would make them less peevish, discontented, and generally disagreeable. jNIore open-air amusements, and more indoor gaiety, would save a rrcat many failing brains and enfeebled hearts. Of course health may be impaired quite as much by doing too little work as by doing too much. This truth was enforced by Thackeray, when, addressing a medical friend, he exclaimed, " Doctor, there is not in the whole of your pharmacopceia so sovereign a remedy as hard work." All depends upon the temperament and constitution. What kills one man cures another. General Sir Charles Napier, who was not physically a strong man, declared that for the first time he had discovered what total immunity from "malaise" meant when he took to working seventeen hours a day at Cephalonia, as acting Gover- nor or Commissioner of the Ionian Islands. Not all but by far the largest part of the cure of nervous depression rests v.-ith the patient. Change, exercise, fresh air, diet, tonics — all these together will not cure any one who gives up and gives way. Above all, we should trj' to be cheerful. A clerical friend, at a celebrated watering-place, met a lady who seemed hovering on the brink of the grave. Her cheeks were hollow and wan, her manner listless, her step languid, and her brow wore the severe contraction so indicative both of mental and physical suffering, so that she was to all observers an object of sincere pity. Some years afterward he encountered this same lady; but so bright, and fresh, and youthful, so full of healthful buoyancy, and so joyous in expression, that he questioned the lady if he had net deceived himself with regard to identity. ■2 so HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. *' Is it possible," said he, " that I see before me Mrs. B. who presented sucli a doleful appearance at the Springs several years ago?" "The very same." "And pray tell me the Becret of your cure. What means did you use to attam to such vigour of mind and body, to such cheerfulness and rejuvena- tion ? " " A very simple remedy," returned she, with a beaming face ; " I stopped worrying and began to laugh ; that was all." We would call the attention of heads of families to the follov,-- ing mistakes which the " Sanitary Record" lately enumerated : " It is a mistake to labour when you are not in a fit condition to do so. To think that the more a person eats the healthier and stronger he will become. To go to bed at midnight and rise at daybreak, and imagine that every hour taken from sleep is an hour gained. To imagine that if a little work or exercise is good, violent or prolonged exercise is better. To conclude that the smallest room in the house is large enough to sleep in. To eat as if you only had a minute to finish the meal in, or to eat without an appetite, or continue after it has been satisfied, merely to satisfy the taste. To believe that children can do as much work as grown people, and that the more hours they study the more they learn. To imagine that whatever remedy causes one to feel immediately better (as alcoholic stimulants) is good for the system, without regard to the after-effects. To take off proper clothing out of season because you have become heated. To sleep exposed to a direct draught in any season. To think that any nostrum or patent medicine is a specific for all the diseases flesh is heir to." There are few things more important to health than the due adjustment of play and work. The school at which a boy ten THE HEALTH OF THE T'AMILY. 251 years of nge is made to work at his tasks for tlie same time as a lad of sixteen ought to be avoided by all parents. If health is to be preserved in early youth, the child must be treated on the same principle as a foal would be. He, or she, must be allowed to a great extent to "run wild," and "lessons" must be carefully graduated to the bodily powers. Those mothers who are inclined to dose their children too much should be reminded that it was during the days when physic flourished in the nursery that the greatest amount of disease was found. It is not by medicine, but by acting in accordance with natural laws, that health of body and health of mind and morals can be secured at home. Without a know- ledge of such laws, the mother's love too often finds its recom- pense only in the child's cofiin. In the management of tl'.cir children's health some mothers are guided by everybody and everything except by nature her- self. And yet the child's healthy instincts are what alone should be followed. Sir Samuel Garth, physician to George I., was a member of the Kit-Kat Club. Coming to the club one night, he said he must soon be gone, having many patients to attend ; but some good wine being produced, he forgot them. Sir Richard Steele was of the party, and reminded him of the visits he had to pay. Garth pulled out his list, which amounted to fifteen, and said, " It's no great matter whether I see theni to-night or not ; for nine of them have such bad constitutions that all the physicians in the world can't save them ; and the other six have such good constitutions that all the physicians in the world can't kill them." 252 HO IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. Probably the carelessness of many people about their health may be explained in the same way. They think either that their constitutions are so good that nothing can injure them or else that they are so bad that nothing can make them better. And cften it is a bottle of wine or some other indulgence of appetite that keeps health awa3\ We have heard of a well-known character who, having had many severe attacks of gout, and who, getting into years, and having a cellar of old port wine, upon which he drew somewhat considerably, was advised by liis physician to give up the port, and for the future to drink a ■certain thin claret not very expensive. Said the gentleman in reply to this suggestion : " I prefer my gout with my port, to being cured of my gout with that claret of yours ! " Of a •delicate man who would not control his appetite it was said, ■*' One of his passions which he will not resist is for a particular dish, pungent, savoury, and multifarious, which sends him almost every night into Tartarus." Talking of the bad effects of late hours Sydney Smith said of a distinguished diner-out that it would be written on his tomb, " He dined late." "And ■died eaily," added Luttrell. Such people ought to be told that in playing tricks with their health they are committing a very great sin. " Perhaps," says !Mr. Herbert Spencer, " nothing will so much hasten the time when body and mind will both be adequately cared for, as a diffusion of the belief that the preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality. Men's habitual words and acts imply the idea that they are at liberty to treat their bodies as they please. Dis- orders entailed by disobedience to Nature's dictates, they regard THE HEALTH OF THE FAMILY. ^t,y simply as grievances, not as the efifects of a conduct more or less flagitious. Thougii the evil consequences inflicted on their dependents, and on future generations, are often as great as. those caused by crime ; yet they do not think themselves in any degree criminal. It is true that, in the case of drunkenness^ the viciousness of a bodily transgression is recognized; but none appear to infer that, if this bodily transgression is vicious, so too is every bodily transgression. The fact is, that all breaches of the laws of health are physical siiisP Certainly there are many great sufferers who are not respon- sible for their ailments, and sometimes they teach lessons of patience and resignation so well in the world and in their families, that their work is quite as valuable as thst of the active and healthy. Robert Hall, being troubled with an acute disease which sometimes caused him to roll on the floor with agony, would rise therefrom, wiping from his brow the drops of sweat which tlie pain had caused, and, trembling from the- conflict, ask, " But I did not complain — I did not cry out much, did I ? " Sydney Smith may have dined out more than was good for his health, but he never allowed infirmities to sour his temper. At the end of a letter to an old friend he adds playfully, " I have gout, asthma, and seven other maladies, but am otherwise very well." For the sake of domestic happiness let us preserve our health ; but when we do get ill we should endeavour tc bear it in this cheerful spirit. CHAPTER XXVII. LOVE SURVIVING MARRIAGE. " Tl:ou leanest thy true heart on mine, And bravely bearest up ! Aye mingling Love's most precious wine In life's most bitter cup ! And evermore the circling hours New gifts of glory bring ; ^Ve live and love like happy flowers, All in our fairy ring. V\'e have known a many sorrows, sweet ! We have wept a many tears, And after trod with trembling feet Our pilgrimage of years. Eut when our sky grew dark and w ild, All closelier did we cling ; Clouds broke to beauty as you smiled, Peace crowned our fairy ring." — Mnss:y, j'ARRIAGE is sometimes said to be the door that leads deluded mortals back to earth; but this need not and ought not to be the case. Writing to his wife from the sea-side, where he had gone in search of health, Kingsley said : " This place is perfect; i,r.t it seems a dream and imperfect without you. LOVE SURVIVING MARRIAGE. Blessed be God for the rest, though I never before felt the lonehness of being without the beloved being whose every look and word and motion are the key-notes of my life. People talk of love ending at the altar. . . . Fools ! " Of course the enthusiastic tempestuous love of courting days v;ill not as a rule remain. A married couple soon get to feel towards each other very much as two chums at college, or two partners in a business who are at the same time old and well- tried friends. Young married people often think that those who have been in the \\r-\y state of matrimony twenty or thirty years longer than theniselves are very prosy, unromantic, and by no means perfect examples of what married people ought to be. We v.-ould remind persons manifesting this newly-married intolerance of what an old minister of the Church of Scotland once said to a young Scotch Dissenter svho was finding many faults — "When your lum (chimney) has recked as long as ours perhaps it will have as much soot." " There is real love just as there are real ghosts ; every person speaks of it; few persons have seen it." This cynical remark of Rochefoucauld is certainly not true in reference to love before marriage and the existence of love even after it rests on far better evidence than the existence of ghosts. I have never seen a ghost, but I have seen love surviving niatrimony, and I have read amongst very many other instances the following. Old Robert Barton relates several cases of more than lovers' love existing between husband and wife. He tells us of women Avho have died to save their husbands, and of a man who, when fais wife was carried away by Mauritanian pirates, became a 256 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. galley-slave in order to be near her. Of a certain Rubenius Celer he says that he " would needs have it engraven on his tomb that he had led his life with Ennea, his dear wife, forty- three years and eight months, and never fell out." After twenty-eight years' experience, Faraday spoke of his marriage as "an event which more than any other had contributed to his earthly happiness and healthy state of mind." For forty-six years the union continued unbroken ; the love of the old man remaining as fresh, as earnest, and as heart-whole, as in the days of his youth. Another man of science, James Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer, had a similar happy experience. " Forty-two years of married life finds us the same devoted 'cronies ' that we were at the beginning." Dr. Arnold often dwelt upon "the rare, the unbroken, the almost awful happiness " of his domestic life, and carried the first feelings of enthusiastic love and watchful care through twenty-two years of wedded life. There are such things as love-letters between married people. Here are two extracts from one written by Caroline Perthes to her absent husband : " I have just looked out into the nigb.t, and thought of thee. It is a glorious night, and the stars are glittering above me, and if in thy carriage one appears to thee brighter than the rest, think that it showers down upon thee love and kindness from me, and no sadness, for I am not nov/ unhappy when you are absent. Yet I am certain that this does not proceed from any diminution of affection. If I could only show how I feel towards you, it would give you joy. After all I may say or write, it is still unexpressed, and far short of the living love ^^h!ch I carry in my heart. If you could appre- LOVE SURVIVING MARRIAGE. 257 hend me without words, you would understand me better. The children do their best, but you are ahvays the same, and have ever the first place in my heart. Thank God, my Perthes, neither time nor circumstances can ever affect my love to you ; my affection knows neither youth nor a^e, and is eternal." If love never survived matrimony would INIrs. Carlyle have written a letter like the following which she did to a friend who made a special effort to console her soon after the death of her mother? — "Only think of my husband, too, having given me a little present ! he who never attends to such nonsenses as birth- days, and who dislikes nothing in the world so much as going into a shop to buy anything, even his own trousers and coats ; so that, to the consternation of cockney tailors, I am obliged to go about them. Well, he actually risked himself in a jeweller's shop, and bought me a very nice smelling-bottle ! I cannot tell you how tvae his little gift made me, as well as glad ; it was the first thing of the kind he ever gave me in his life. In great matters he is always kind and considerate ? but these little attentions, which we women attach so much import- ance to, he was never in the habit of rendering to any one ; his up-bringing, and the severe turn of mind he has from nature, had alike indisposed him towards them. And now the desire to replace to me the irreplaceable makes him as good in little things as he used to be in great." Carlyle never forgot her birthday afterwards. Once she thought that he had, and she told the story of her mistake and its correction thus : " Oh ! my dear husband, fortune has played me such a cruel trick this day ! and I do not even feel 18 I/O IV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. any resentment against fortune for the suffocating misery of the last two hours. I know always, when I seem to you most exacting, that whatever happens to me is nothing like so bad as I deserve. But you shall hear how it was. Not a line from you on my birthday, the postmistress averred ! I did not burst out cr)'ing, I did not faint— did not do anything absurd, so far as I know ; but I walked back again, without speaking a word ; and with such a tumult of wretchedness in my heart as you, who know me, can conceive. And then I shut myself in my own room to fancy everything that was most tormenting. Were you, finally, so out of patience with me that you had resolved to write to me no more at all? Had you gone to Addiscombe, and found no leisure there to remember my existence ? Were you taken ill, so ill that you could not write? That last idea made me mad to get off to the railway, and back to London. Oh, mercy ! what a two hours I had of it ! And just when I was at my wits' end, I heard Julia crying out through the house: ' Mrs. Carlyle, Tvlrs. Carlyle ! Are you there ? Here is a letter for you.' And so there was after all ! The postmistress had overlooked it, and had given it to Robert, when he went after- wards, not knowing that we had been. I wonder what love- letter was ever received with such thankfulness ! Oh, my dear ! I am not fit for living in the world with this organization. I am as much broken to pieces by that little accident as if I had come through an attack of cholera or typhus fever. I cannot even steady my hand to write decently. But I felt an irresii^tible need of thanking you, by return of post. Yes, I have kissed the dear little card-case ; and now I will lie down iwhile, and try to get some sleep. At least, to quiet myself, I LOVE SURVIVING MARRIAGE. 259 •will try to believe — oh, why cannot I believe it once for all — that, with all my faults and follies, I am ' dearer to you than •any earthly creature.' " Hundreds of other cases of love surviving matrimony might •be cited but we shall only add one more. On the fifty- fourth •anniversary of his marriage, Mr. S. C Hall composed the following lines, a copy of which I had the pleasure of receiving from himself : •' Yes ! we go genily down the hill of life, And thank our God at every step we go ; The husband-lover and the sweetheart-wife. Of creeping age what do we care or know ? Each says to each, ' Our fourscore years, thrice told. Would leave us young : ' the soul is never old ! What is the grave to us ? can it divide The destiny of two by God made one ? We step across, and reach the other side. To know our blended life is but begun. These fading faculties are sent to say Heaven is more near to-day than yesterday," CHAPTER XXVni. HE WILL NOT SEPARATE US, WE HAVE EEEX SO HAPPY. " To veer how vain ! on, onward strain, Brave barks ! in light, in darkness too ; Through winds and tides one compass guides, To that, and your own selves, be true. Cut, O blithe breeze ! and O great seas, Though ne'er that earliest parting past On your wide plain they join again, Together lead them home at last. One port, methought, alike they sought, One purpose hold where'er they fare. O bounding breeze, O rushing seas ! At last, at last unite them there ! " — ClougJu E will not separate us, we have been so happy "" — these were the last words of Charlotte Bronte when, having become Mrs. Nicholls, and having lived with her husband only nine months, death came to snatch the cup of domestic felicity from the lips of tlie happy pair. A low wandering delirium came ''HE WILL NOT SEPARATE USP 261 on. Wakening for an instant from this stupor, she sav/ her husband's woe-worn face, and caught the sound of some murmured words of prayer that God would spare her. " Oh !'' she whispered, " I am not going to die, am I ? He will not separate us, we have been so happy." Mrs. Elizabeth Fry, when a girl, loved her family so dearly that she used to wish that when they had to die, two large walls might press towards each other, and crush them all, that they might die all together, and be spared the misery of parting. Loving husbands and wives will sympathize with this wish, for they must sometimes look forward with dread to the misery of parting from each other. *' To know, to esteem, to love — and then to part, Makes up life's tale to many a feeling heart ! " In all ages the anticipation and the reality of separation has been the greatest and sometimes the only sorrow in the lot of united couples. Many very touching inscriptions have been found in the Catacombs at Rome, but none more touching than those which record this separation. Here is one of them. It is in memory of a very young wife, who must have been married when little more than a child (fourteen), and then left by her husband, a soldier, called off probably to serve in the provinces. He returns to find his poor little wife dead. Was she martyred •or did she fret herself to death, or was she carried off with malaria in the Catacombs ? We know nothing ; but here is her epitaph full of simple pathos, and warm as with the very life blood: "To Domina, 375 a.d., my sweetest and most in- nocent wife, who lived sixteen years and four months, and was 262 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. married two years, with whom I was not able to hve more than six months, during which time I showed her my love as I felt it; none else so loved each other." When Sir Albert Morton died, his wife's grief was such that she shortly followed him, and was laid by his side. Wotton's two lines on the event have been celebrated as containing a volume in seventeen words : " He first deceased ; she for a little tried To live without him, liked it not, and died." When Colonel Hutchinson, the noble Commonwealth ofificer^ felt himself dying, knowing the deep sorrow which his death would occasion to his wife, he left this message, which was- conveyed to her: " Let her, as she is above other women, show herself on this occasion a good Christian, and above the pitch of ordinary women." Faithful to his injunction, instead of lamenting his loss, she indulged her sorrow in depicting her husband as he had lived. " They who dote on mortal ex- cellences," she says, in her Introduction to the "Life," " when, by the inevitable fate of all things frail, their adored idols are taken from them, may let loose the winds of passion to bring in a flood of sorrow, whose ebbing tides carry away the dear memory of what they have lost ; and when comfort is essayed to such mourners, commonly all objects are removed out of their view which may with their remembrance renew the grief; and in time these remedies succeed, and oblivion's curtain is by degrees drawn over the dead face ; and things less lovely are liked, while they are not viewed together with that which was most excellent. But I, that am under a command not to grieve at the common rate of desolate women, while I am *'HE WILL NOT SEPARATE US." 263 studying which way to moderate my woe, and if it were possible to augment my love, I can for the present find out none more just to your dear fatlier, nor consolatory to myself, than the preservation of his memory, which I need not gild with such flattering commendations as hired preachers do equally give to the truly and titularly honourable. A naked undressed narra- tive, speaking the simple truth of him, will deck him with more substantial glory than all the panegyrics the best pens could ever consecrate to the virtues of the best men." When death removed Stella from Swift, and he was left alone to think of what he had lost, he described her as " the truest, most virtuous, and valuable friend, that I, or perhaps any other person, was ever blessed with." Henceforward he must strive and suffer alone. The tenderness, of which his attachment to Stella had been the strongest symptom, deeply as it had struck its roots into his nature, withered into cynicism. Cut a lock of Stella's hair is said to have been found in Swift's desk, when his own fight was ended, and on the paper in which it was wrapped were written words that have become proverbial for the burden of pathos that their forced brevity seems to hide — " Only a woman's hair." It is for each reader to read his own meaning into them. Dr. Johnson's wife was querulous, exacting, old, and the reverse of beautiful, and yet a considerable time after her death he said that ever since the sad event he seemed to himself broken off from mankind ; a kind of solitary wanderer in the wild of life, without any direction or fixed point of view ; a gloomy gazer on the world to which he had little relation. After recording some good resolution in his Journal he was in 264 ^^OJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. the habit since her death of writing after it his wife's name — " Tetty." It is only a word; but how eloquent it is ! When a certain Mr. Edwards asked him if he had ever known what it was to have a wife, Johnson replied : "Sir, I have known what li was to have a wife, and (in a solemn, tender, faltering tone) I have known what it was to lose a linfe. I had almost broke my heart." Nor did he allow himself to forget this experience. To New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Day, and his own birthday, which he set apart as sacred days dedicated to solemn thought and high communion with his own soul, he added the day of his wife's death. Nor are such separations less felt in humble life. A year or two ago the newspapers in describing a colliery accident related that upon the tin water-bottle of one of the dead men brought out of the Seaham Pit, there was scratched, evidently with a nail, the following letter to his wife : " Dear IMargaret, — There was forty of us altogether at 7 a.m., some was singing hymns, but my thought was on my little Michael. I thought that him and I would meet in heaven at the same time. Oh, dear wife, God save you and the children, and pray for myself. Dear wife, farewell. My last thoughts are about you and the chil- dren. Be sure and learn the children to pray for me. Oh, what a terrible position we are in. — ]\Iichael Smith, 54, Henry Street." The little Michael he refers to was his child whom he had left at home ill. The lad died on the day of the explosion. A writer on The Orkneys and Shetland tells the following. A native of Hoy went one day to his minister and said, " Oh ! sir, but the ways of Providence are wonderful ! I thought I had met with a sair misfortune when I lost baith my coo and ''HE WILL NOT SEPARATE US:' 265 my wife at aince over the cliff, twa months sin ; but I gaed over to Graemsay, and I hae gotten a far better coo and a far bonnier wife." That a wife is not always so easily replaced is evident from the following letter which appeared in the Belfast papers : " Sir, — I request permission to inform your readers of the fair sex that I have just received a letter from a young man re- siding in a rapidly-rising town of a few months' growth, and terminus of several railways, in one of the Western States of America, telling me that he has lost his wife, and would wish to get another one — a nice little Irish girl, just like the other one ; that she should be * between twenty and twenty-five years of age, of good habits, of good forme, vertchaus, and a Protes- tant.' jMy correspondent, who is a perfect stranger to me, in- forms me that he is 28 years of age, and 'ways' 150 lbs. ; that he is a carpenter by trade, and owns a farm of 65 acres, and that he can give the best of references. I am writing to him for his references and his photograph, and also for a photograph and description of his late wife, on receipt of which I will address you again. — Vere Foster, Belfast, Jan. 5, 1883." This poor, uneducated carpenter was so happy with his nice little Irish girl that when taken from him he could not help trying to get another one just like her, and sends more than three thousand miles for a chip of the old block. If any blame him for seeking for a second wife let them reflect on the awful solitude of a backwoods settlement when the prairie flower represented by a nice little Irish girl had faded and died. By desiring to marry again he paid the highest compliment to his first wife, for he showed that she had made him a happy man. 266 HO IF TO BE NAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. It is sometimes said that the happiest days of a man's life is the day of his wedding and the day of his wife's funeral. And the Quarterly Raneii\ in an article on Church Bells, related that one Thomas Nash in 1813 bequeathed fifty pounds a year to the ringers of the Abbey Church at Westminster," on condition of their ringing on the whole peal of bells, with clappers muffled, various solonn and doleful cha?iges on the 14th of May in every year, being the anniversary of my wedding-day ; and also on the anniversary of my decease to ring a grand bob-major, and merry, mirthful ^eah, unmuffled, in joyful commemoration ot ftiy happy release from domestic tyranny and wretchedness." As a rule, however, no matter how much a husband and wife have tormented each other the separation when it comes is very- painful. How true to life is Trollope's description of the effect of Mrs. Proudie's death upon the bishop. " A wonderful silence had come upon him which for the time almost crushed him. He would never hear that well-known voice again ! He was free now. Even in his misery — for he was very miserable — he could not refrain from telling himself that. No one could now press uncalled for into his study, con- tradict him in the presence of those before whom he was bound to be authoritative, and rob him of all his dignity. There was no one else of whom he was afraid. She had at least kept him out of the hands of other tyrants. He was now his own master, and there was a feeling — I may not call it of relief, for as yet there was more of pain in it than of satisfaction — a feeling as though he had escaped from an old trouble at a terrible cost, of which he could not as yet calculate the amount .... She had in some ways, and at certain periods "//Zr WILL NO 7 S.EPARATE US^' 267 of his life, been ?ery good to him. She had kept his money for him and made things go straight when they had been poor. His interests had always been her interests. Without her he would never have been a bishop. So, at least, he told himself now, and so told himself probably with truth. She had been very careful of his children. She had never been idle. She had never been fond of pleasure. She had neglected no acknow- ledged duty. He did not doubt that she was now on her way to heaven. He took his hands down from his head, and clasp- ing them together, said a little prayer. It may be doubted whether he quite knew for what he was praying. The idea of praying for her soul, now that she was dead, would have scandalized him. He certainly was not praying for his own. soul. I think he was praying that God might save him from being glad that his wife was dead. . . . But yet his thoughts were very tender to her. Nothing reopens the springs of love so fully as absence, and no absence so thoroughly as that which must needs be endless. We want that which we have net ; and especially that which we can never have. She had told him in the very last moments of her presence with hini< that he was wishing that she were dead, and he had made her no reply. At the moment he had felt, with savage anger, that such was his wish. Her words had now come to pass, and he was a widower ; and he assured himself that he would give all that he possessed in the world to bring her back again." Richard Cobden once asked in reference to a famous and successful but unscrupulous statesman, '* How will it be with him when all is retrospect?" Husband and wife, how will it 268 HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. be when death has separated you, and your married life is retrospect ? Many a man or woman, going on from day to day in the faithful performance of duty, without any sweet token of approval to cheer the sometimes weary path, would find it act as the very wine of life could he or she only hear by anticipa- tion some few of the passionate words of appreciation or regret that will be spoken when tlie faithful heart, stilled for ever, can no longer be moved by the tone of loving commendation. Do not in this way let us keep all the good hermetically sealed up iill the supreme touch of diath shall force it open. " Alas ! how often at our hearths we see — And by our side — angels about to be ! " But somehow the selfish absorption of life acts as a soporific •to our truer sense, and our " eyes are holden that we do not know them," until, alas ! it is too late, and they have " passed out of our sight." " Could ye come back to me, Douglas, Douglas, In the old likeness that I knew, I would be so faithful, so loving, Douglas — Douglas, Douglas ! tender and true 1 Never a scornful word should grieve ye, I'd smile on ye, sweet as the angels do; Sweet as your smile on me shone ever — Douglas, Douglas ! tender and true." ■*' The grave buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes -every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but •fond regrets and tender recollections. AVho can look down ''HE WILL NOT SEPARATE US." 269 upon the grave of an enemy and not feel a compunctious throb that he should have warred with the poor handful of dust that lies mouldering before him?" If the love that is lavished on the graves of dead friends were bestowed on living darlings in equal measure, family life would be a different thing from what it sometimes is. As George IV. put on the statue of George III. " pater optimus," best of fathers, though he had embittered his father's life, so many a husband tries to relieve his remorse by extrava- gantly praising the wife who when alive never received any kindness from him. What is hell but truths known too late ? and the surviving one of a married pair has to the end of life, if duty in matrimony has been neglected, the incessant wish that something were otherwise than it had been. The one regret to avoid is, that when married life is over, over for ever, to the survivor should come the unutterable but saddening thought, that now, in the late autumn of life, when experience can be no longer of any possible value, he or she understands, at last understands, all that the chivalry of holy matrimony implies and claims on both sides, in manly forbearance, in delicate thoughtfulness, in loving courtesy. Too late now ! Over the triple doorways of the cathedral of Milan there ar; three inscriptions spanning the splendid arches. Over one is carved a beautiful wreath of roses, and underneath is the legend " All that which pleases is only for a moment." Over the other is a sculptured cross, and there are the words, " All that which troubles is but for a moment." Underneath the great central entrance in the main aisle is the inscription, " That only is which is eternal." Make the most of the happiness of your 270 I/OJV TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED. marriage, and the least of its vexations, for it is a relation that will not last long. Respice finein, the old monks used to say in their meditations on life. And if we would behave rightly in married life we must " consider the end." Affections are never deepened and refined until the possibility of loss is felt. " Whatsoever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do •amiss." Spare all hard words, omit all slights, for before long there will be a hearse standing at your door that v.ill take away the best friend that you have on earth — a good wife. Then the silence will be appalUng ; the vacancies ghastly. Reminiscences will rush on the heart like a mountain current over which a cloud has burst. Her jewels, her books, her pictures, her dresses will be put into a trunk and the lid will come down with a heavy thud, as much as to say — " Dead ! The morning dead. The night dead. The world dead." Oh ! man, if in that houi you think of any unkind word uttered, you will be willing to pay in red coin of blood every drop from your heart, if you could buy it back. Kindly words, sympathizing attentions, watchfulness against wounding the sensitiveness of a wife or husband — it is the omission of these things which is irreparable: irreparable, when we look to the purest enjoyment which might have been our own ; irreparable when we consider the com- punction which belongs to deeds of love not done. Carlyle never meant to be unkind to his wife, but in his late years he thought that he had sacrificed her health and happiness in his absorption in his work; that he had been negligent, inconsiderate, and selfish. " For many years after she had left him," writes Mr. Froude, " when he passed the spot ''HE WILL NOT SEPARATE US." 271 where sliC was last seen alive, he would bare his grey head iA the wind and rain — his features wrung with unavailing sorrow. * Oh ! ' he often said to me, ' if I could but see her for five minutes to assure her that I had really cared for her throughout all that ! But she never knew it, she never knew it ! ' " Sorrow, however, may teach us wisdom, and if we study patience in the school of Christ much comfort will from thence be derived And much hope too. He is the resurrection and the life, and if we believe in Him we believe that there is a Friend in whose arms we ourselves shall fall asleep, and to whose love we may trust for the reunion, sooner or later, of the severed links of :sacred human affection. " And in that perfect Marriage Day All earth's lost love shall live once mora ; All lack and loss shall pass away, And all find all not found before ; Till all the worlds shall live and glow In that great love's great overflow." C^i^' INDF.X. Adam and Eve, their history repeated everyday, 6i ; had no relations-in- law in Paradise, no. Advertisement, An, 34. Affection, A genius for, 39 ; conjugal, largely depends on mutual confi- dence, io5. Age, Marriageable, of women, 37 ; proper for a husband, 48. A Kempis, Thomas, Wise sentence of, 220. Alderman, Exclamation of the, 208. AUeine, Joseph, describes the incon- veniences of a wife, 11. Appearances not to be entirely dis- regarded nor regarded too much, 126-8. Arnold, Dr., on dying childless, 148 ; as a father, 179-80 ; adapted cor- rection to each particular case, 208 ; the "almost awful liappiness " of his domestic life, 256. Astor, John Jacob, on the care of property, 35. Attila, A domestic, 59. Aurelius, Marcus, on co-operation, ai6. B.vcoN, Lord, on marriage and celi- bacy, 14 ; on abridging expenses, 120 ; quotes the saying of a wise man, 128. Baird, Sir David, Anecdote of, 218. Baxter nursed in prison by his wife, 23. Beaconsfield, Lord, his opinion about marrying, 10 ; anecdote of, 23 ; his description of his wife, 41. Beauty, Not wise to marry for, 36 ; health a condition of, 245. Bells, why are ladies like them ? 40 ; article on, in the Quarterly Review, 266. Belfast papers, The, letter in, 265. Bismarck, Prince, made by his wife, 23- Blaikie, Professor, on " How to get rid of trouble," 195. Boswell, his "matrimonial thought," 82. Braxfield, Lord, on the benefit of being hanged, 62. Bridegroom, Dutch courage of, 72 ; driven to desperation, 83. Bronte, Charlotte, her last words a6o. 19 274 INDEX. Banyan shown the pathway to heaven by his wife, 22. "Buried Alive," a Russian story re- ferred to, 205. Burke on his domestic felicity, 23 ; describes his wife's eyes, i8g. Burleigh, Lord, advice to his son on the choice of a wife, 42. Burmah, Young men of, cured of aversion to marriage, 12. Bermuda, Servants in, 129. Burns on the qualities of a good wife, 41. Burton, Robert, for and agamst matri- mony, 13. 14 ; tells of a remedy for a husband's impatience, 203 ; gives instances of love surviving marriage, 255-6. Byron, Lord, tells a story of a learned Jew, 88 ; spoiled by his mother, 166. Carlyle, Thomas, his inscription upon his wife's tombstone, 28 ; advice to the discontented, 62 ; cautions a servant "abounding in grace," 135; the way he and his wife pulled together, 218 ; his definition of "holy," 244 ; on dyspepsia, 246 ; his way of expressing sympathy, 247 ; birthday presents to his wife, 257-8 ; his remorse, 270. Carlyle, Mrs., her advice, 49 ; her " mutinous maids of all work," 135 ; describes Mrs. Leigh Hunt's house- keeping, 224-5 ; ^er culinary trials, 225 ; " If he would only be satis- fied ! " 237. Castile, Admiral of, his saying about marrying a wife, 10. Catacombs at Rome, Inscriptions in, 136, 261. Celibacy has less pleasure and less pain than marriage, 10 ; an un- natural state, 16. Ccbbe, Miss, on the moral atmosphere of the house, 194. Cobbett on the wretchedness of old bachelorship, 17 ; on industry in a wife, 39 ; " comforts" his wife, 96 ; an interesting bit of autobiography, 105 ; a soldier's philosophy, 172 ; " He never disappointed me in his life," 241. Conjugal felicity, Secret of, 6; largely depends on mutual confidence, 106. Connoisseur, Hasty exclamation of a, 65- Courtship, Love-making should not end with, 5, 229 ; people unknown to each other during, 53, 80 ; with lawyer's advice, 125 ; the tempes- tuous love of does not remain, 255. Chambers' Journal gives instances of matrimonial tribulation, 57. Cliesterfield on behaviour to servants, 134- Chicago, A young lady of, 124. Children, Only, 149 ; quality more to be desired than quantity of, 150 ; imitate their elders, 158. China, Narrative of a journey through the south border lands of, 91. Clarendon printing-office, 58. Clergymen, Sons of, 173, Clerk, A married, excuses himself, 148. Cowper and his mother, 164. Curran felt his wife and children tugging at his gown, 24 ; his mother and father, 165. Dale, R. W., of Birmingham, be- lieves in falling in love, 47. Daughters, Fourteen of my, 150. David, King, lays up materials for his son, 145. Dealer, A Scotch, "tried baith," 32; confesses the failings of a horse, 235- De Sales, St. Francis, on quarrels, 103. De Tocqueville, Letter of, about his wife, 21. Dickens tells an American story, 50. Dictionary, a town — why so called, 55. Digestion disturbed by "a few words,"* 208. Diogenes, why he struck a father, 173- Dress indicates character, 39. Dulness a " serious complaint," 89. Dunmow flitch. The, 212. INDEX. 271 Edison, Anecdote of, 33. Emerson thinks children always in- teresting, 147. Eliot, George, on niarringe, 6 ; on disappointment, 57 ; remarks about the best society, 115, weak women, 145 ; "Silas Marner " referred to, 155, 215, 236. Ellenborough, Lord, Anecdote of, 1S8. Erskine illustrates the fact that union is strength, 216. Eve "kept silence to hear her hus- band talk," 209. Exactingness causes domestic misery, 219. Family, A "large little," 149 ; what constitutes a large, ibid. ; govern- ment of, 182-3. Fanshawe, Sir Richard, and his wife, 107-9. Faraday on his marriage, 256. Farmer, country, a, Remark of, 83 ; story of, 204. Farrar, Archdeacon, on non-appreci- ation, 3. " Faults are thick where love is thin," 61 ; difficult to find fault well, 207. Financier, Saying of the French, 245. Flaxman, sculptor, and his wife, 25-6. Foote, Sam, and his mother, 167. Franklin, Benjamin, approves of mar- riage, 16 ; afraid of luxury, 121 ; answers the question, " Of what use is it?" 146 ; on " Idle Silence," 194. Fry, Mrs. Elizabeth, A wish of, 261. Fuller on domestic jars, 5 ; on the obedience of a wife, 99. burnishing, its importance, 113 ; A safe rule in, 115 : its expense, 118. Garfield, Pkesident, U.S., rever- enced boys, 190. (jarth, Sir Samuel, Anecdote of, 251. Girl, Question of a little, 205. GoSthe and his mother, 163 ; turned every affliction into a poem, 198. Gough, temperance orator, gives the case of an American convict, in. Grap'ijc. The, Case quoted from. Gray the poet grateful to his mother, 164. Green, John Richard, the historian, his life prolonged by his wife, 96. Guizot, his estimate of domestic af- fections, 23. Hall, Robert, preacher, reproves a young mother, 170 ; " I never lived with her ! " 223 ; his brave patience, 253. Hall, Mr. S. C, on the fifty-fourth anniversary of his marriage, 259. Hamilton, Sir William, greatly as- sisted by his wife, 27. Hare, Mrs., Saying of about her hus- band, 4. Happiness, A natural genius for, 199 ; the most powerful of tonics, 247. Hawthorne, Story of, 95. Helps, Sir Arthur, quoted, 67. Henderson, Sir Edmund, on civilitv, 184. Hill, Roland, his practical view of religion, 186. Holmes, Oliver WendeU, describes the effect of an headache, 246. Home, a school of manners, 190 ; the real happiness of, 192, 200, 202. Honeymoon, The, " above the snow- line," 81 ; in winter, 82 ; halcyon period, 84 ; two opposite opinions about, quoted, 85. Hood, his gratitude to his wife, 27. Housekeeping, Knowledge of, 38, 227, Hubcr wnrkcd with the eyes of his wife, 26. Humour, Good, has a magical power, 229. Hunt, Leigh, his happiness in his wife and children, 11 ; saying of, 224. Husbands, absentee, 94, 240 ; maybe too much at home, 95 ; the man- agement of, 230-2 ; as much to blame as wives, 236 ; often fail to express love, 237 ; the duties of, 217, 237, &c. Hutchinson, Colonel, his generosity to his wife, 123 ; his nessage to her, 262. 276 INDEX. Huxley, Professor, on the "educa- tional abomination of desolation," 174. Incumben'T, a Hampshire, on blunders made in the Marriage Senice, 87. Insurance, Life, 124. Irishman, The, his reason for dis- agreeing with his wife, 6 ; sayings of, 55, 203, 219. Jameson, Mrs., ioi. Jealousy, amusing case of, 104 ; in- compatible with love of the highest kind, 106. Jerrold, Dcuglas, a comment of, 48 defines tlie shirt of Nessus, 125. Jews, Anecdotes of, 56, 83. lohnson, Dr., his estimate of marriage, 16, 32 ; his journey to Derby to be married, 74 ; his definition of the honeymoon, 80; "Ignorance, Madam," 102 ; influence of little things upon happiness, 114; on spending money, 120-1 ; answers the question, " Would you advise me to marry?" 143; "Ay, sir, fifty thousand," 213 ; a wife should be a companion, 228 ; on sickness, 246 ; " Tetty," 263. Keats, 92, Kemble, Frances, on feminine fashion, 145 ; on domestic economy, 224. Kingsley, Canon, sketch of as a father, 175-8 ; letter to his wife, 254. L.\DY, Story of a deaf and dumb, 152 ; a Scotch, 9, 71, 90 ; an old, on the loss of children, 153. Laird, A Scotch, answer of, to his butler, 230. Lamb, Charles, and his sister, 94 ; on children, 152. Lande'.s, Dr., describes a husband, 92. Lansdell, Dr., tells of an ancient Russian custom, 99 ; of a convict servant, 133. " Laugh and be well," 199. Leg, a well-formed and a crooked, 6r, Legend, An old heathen, 232. Levite, An humble-minded, 187. Little things, effect of, on happiness. 4. 7. 193. 241- Locke, John, on keepmg accounts, 125. Longfellow, his lines to a child, 154. Lottery, Is marriage a ? 43. Luther, his estimate of marriage, and of his wife, 16, 23 ; letter to his little boy, iSo-i. Macaulay, Lord, at home, 242. Macdonald, George, his lines on "The Baby," 160. Maginn, his answer, 126. Martineau, Harriet, and her servants, 135- Maurice, Rev. F. D., answer of, 98. Mayoralty of Paris, Marriage at, 73. Milan, Cathedral of, inscriptions over the doorways, 269. Mill, John Stuart, dedication of his essay " On Liberty," 29. Minister, A Scotch, 10, 43, 6-], 76, 119, 215. 255. Money, Do not marry for, 35 ; neces- sary for marriage, 119 ; we should be careful but not penurious, 122 ; " Spent it all," 123 ; a wife's allow- ance, 124. Monotony makes men fractious, 205. Moore, Sir Jolm, on the lottery of marriage, 43. More, Sir Thomas, his home, 69. Morton, Sir Albert, grief of his wife for him, 262. Mothers, true and false love of, 167 ; their instruction never lost, 16S. Nabal and Abigail, 59. Nagging often caused by ennui, 230. Napier, Sir Charles, benefited by hard work, 249, Napier, Lady, the literary helper of her husband. 27. Napoleon Buonaparte on mothers, 162 ; referred to, 173. Nasmyth, James, his married life, 256. Neckcr, Afadame, Anecdote of, 49. Nursery-maid, Rejoinder of a, 150. INDEX. 277 Orkneys and Shetland, The, a writer on, 264. Parents, who should and who should not be, 144 ; rules for, 182. Pasteur, M., his marriage, 74. Payn, Mr. James, asks " Where is the children's fun ? " 174. Perthes, Caroline, and her husband, 238, 256. Pitt, his butcher's bill, 120. Plato, his theory about marriage, 54 ; on just penalties, 198. Pliny the Younger, Letter of, 90. Portia, 59. Praise a positive duty, 194. Pulpit, Suggestion from an American, 5- Putting things. The art of, 207. Ql'Aker, Saying of an old, 155. Queen, Her Alajesty the, describes the Prince Consort, 243. Quickly, Mrs., heradviceto Falstaff, 7. Record, The Sanitary, enumerates some common mistakes, 250. Religion required in marriage, 8, 76 ; grotesque perversions of, 183. Remedy, A very simple, 250. Reynolds tells of a free-and-easy actor, 209. Rhodophe, Anecdote of, 53. Richter, his estimate of a wife, 20 ; on love, 187 ; on childhood, 190. Robertson (of Brighton) on the drudgery of domestic life, 70 ; a girl's gratitude for a kind look, 2ro. Robinson, Professor, on infancy, 159. Rochefoucauld, An untrue remark of, 255- Romilly, Sir Samuel, his experience, 30. Sainte-Beuve on family life, 70. Scotchman, A, on the Sabbath, 183. Scott, Sir Walter, ascribed his success to his wife, and to his mother, 25, 163. Seneca quoted, 62. Sheridan, his poetical defence of Lady Erskine, 189. Siddons, Mrs., at home, 227. Silence may be an instrument of torture, 209. Simonides never regretted holding his tongue, 202. Smith, Michael, Letter of, 264. Smith, Sydney, his definition of marriage, 5 ; on the rights and feelings of others, 185 ; "All this is the lobster," 198 ; on late hours, 252 ; his cheerful spirit, 253. Smyth, H., claims ;^io,ooo for his murdered wife, 31. Socrates, Quiet remark of, 61 ; asks for double fees, 202. Somerville, Mary, anecdote in the memoirs of, 8 ; a gfood housekeeper, 227. Spencer, Herbert, on preparation for parenthood, 140, 143 ; on physical sins, 253. Sterne, on the best of men, 6r ; answers Smelfungus, 246. Steward, A Scotch, answer of, 35. Stratocles a woman-hater, 15. Submission, Cheerful, of the poor, 197. Sussex, labourer, a, asks a question, 128. Sutherland, Duke of, believes he is going to be married, 72. Swift and his cook, 58 ; letter to a young lady, 126 ; his answer to a Dubhn lady, 127 ; reason why so few marriages are happy, 222. Talmud, The Jewish, on the treat- ment of women, 186. Ta>lor, Jeremy, on choice in matri- mony, 45; offences to be avoided by the newli'-married, 102 ; on chil- dren, 147 ; a quaint illustration, 220 ; on the dominion of a husband, 239- Thackeray, on the sort of wives men want, 41 ; on hard work, 249. Tlirale, Mrs., letter of, 54. Trollope describes the idea women have of men, 30 ; Mrs. Proudie's death, 266. Trouble, how it may be effaced, 196 8. 278 INDEX. Walpole, Sir Robert, saying of, i88. Ward. Artemus, and Betsy Jane, 50 ; introduced to Brigham Young's mother-in-law, 109. Webster, what he thought of marriage, 66. Weinsberg, women remove t!ic:r valuables from, 31. Weller, Mr., on matrimony as a teacher, 66. Wellington, Duke of, on paying bills, 125 ; his cook, 136. Wesley, Mrs., as a mother, 165. Westminster Abbey, Gravestone in Cloisters of, 148. Wheatly on the wedding-ring, 7S. Wife, A good, more than a cook and housekeeper, 228 ; requires change and recreation, 229, 240. Wilberforce, Miss, 221. Wilde, Oscar, on the photographs ot relations, 115. Wish, The old wedding, 212. Woman, Definitions of, 37, 222, 234 % value of her advice, 239. Word, The last, what is the use of ? 204. Word-battles, Matrimonial, 206. Wordsworth, Anecdote of, 31. Young, Brigham, his doctrine, 19 ; his mother-in-law — how many? 109. rXWIX BROTHERS, I'RIXTERES, CHILWORTH AND LONDON ]\4^' UNWIN takes pleasure in sending here- tuith a Catalogue of Books published by him. As each New Edition of it is issued., it will he sent post free to Booksellers, Libraries, Book Sjcieiies, and Book Buyers generally — a register being kept for that purpose. Book Buyers are requested to order any Books they ?nay require from their local Bookseller. Should any difficulty arise, the Publisher will be happy to forward any Book, Carriage Free, to any Coutitry in the Postal Union, on receipt of the price marked in this list, together with full Postal Address. Customers zvishing to present a book to a friend can send a card containitig their name and a dedication or inscription to be enclosed, and it zvill be forwarded to the address given. Remittatices should be made by Money Order, draft on London, registered letter, or halfpentty stamps. After perusal of this Catalogue, kindly pass it on to some Book-buying friend. CATALOGUE OF Mr. T. fisher UNWINDS PUBLICATIONS. Autumn-Christmas Season, 1886. "HISTORIA SANCT^E CRUCIS." With Illustrations. THE LEGENDARY HISTORY OF THE CROSS : A Series of Sixty-Four Woodcuts, from a Dutch book published by Veldener, a.d. 1483. With an Intro- duction written and Illustrated by Joim Ashton, and a Preface by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, M.A. Square 8vo., bound in parchment, old style, brass clasps . los. 6d. "The mediseva romance of the Cross was very popular. It occurs in a good number of authors, and is depicted in a good many churches in stained glass It would seem that it was made up by some romancer out of all kinds of pre-existing material, with no other object than to write a religious novel for pious readers, to displace the sensuous novels which were much in vogue." — From the. Pref.\ce. This pictorial version of the Legend is taken from a work that is now almost unique, only three copies being known to be in existence. The Editorial portions contam, besides a full paraphrase of the woodcuts, a fac-siniile reprint of the Legend from Caxton's " Golden Legends of the Saints," also much curious information respecting the early History of the Legend, the controversies in which it has been involved, and the question of relics. Copies are also given of some Fifteenth Century frescoes of English workmanship formerly existing at Stratford -on-Avon. Altogether the book forms an interesting memorial of the quaint lore that has gathered round this "religious novel'' of the Middle A^et:. 4 My- T. Fisher Unwin, 26, Paternoster Square. Autumn-Christmas Season, 1886. A VOLUME OF MEDL^VAL ROMAN'CES. Edited by Johx Ashtox. ROMANCES OF CHIVALRY: Told and Illustrated in Fac-simile, by John Ashtox, Author of "The Dawn of the Nineteenth Century in England," &c. Forty-six Illustrations. Demy 8vo., cloth elegant, gilt tops . i8s. The " RoMAXCES of Chivalry" were the Novels of the Middle Ages, from the 13th to the i6th centuries. They are highly sensational, full of incident, and never prolix. To render these Romances more interesting to the general reader, Mr. Ashton has fac-similed a number of the contemporary engravings, which are wonderfully quaint, and throw much light on the ^Manners and Costumes of the period. " An interesting feature in the book consists in the illustrations, which are fac-similes done b}' the author himself, an -I done with much success, from the early engravings. . . . This is likely to prove a useful and welcome book." — Contemporary Revie^v. LEGENDS AND POPULAR TALES OF THE BASQUE PEOPLE. By Mariaxa Moxteiro. With full-page Illustrations in Photogravure by Harold CoPPixG. Fcap. 4to., cloth . . . . los. 6d. Contents. I. Aquelarre. VII. The Song of Lamia. II. Arguiduna. VIII. Virgin of the Five Town?. III. Maitagarri. IX. Chaunt of the Crucified. IV. Roldan's Bugle-IIorn. j X.-XI. The Raids. The Holy War. V. Jaun-Zuria, Prince of Erin. ! XII. The Prophecy of Lara. VI. The Branch of White Lilies. XIII. Hurca Mendi. Fine edition of 100 copies of the above, medium 4to., num- bered and signed by the Author, printed on Dutch hand-made paper, with India-proofs of the Photogravures . ^\ is.net. " Deeply interesting. There is much in them thit is wiord and beautiful, much that is uncouth and grotesque. To the student of folk-lore they will be as a mine of newly- disrovered wealth. As to the literary merit of the book, it is by no means inconsiderable." Scotsman. MODERN HINDUISM : Being an account of the Religion and Life of the Hindus in Northern India. By W. J. WiLKiNS, of the London Missionary Society, Author of " Hindu Mythology — Vcdic and Puranic." Demy Svo., cloth ....... 16s. New and Recent Books. Autumn-Christmas Season, 1886, A Gift-Book for Girls. IN THE TIME OF ROSES: A Tale of Two Summers. Told and Illustrated by Florenck and Edith Scannell, Author and Artist of " Sylvia's Daughters." Thirty-two full-page and other Illustrations. Square Imp. i6ino., cloth ......... 5$ Contents. Capri. — Isolina. — "Good-bye, Capri." — The Yellow Cottage. — The School Treat. — Home Again ! — The Garden Party. — Geraldine makes a discovery. — Isolina's Flight. — Wedding BeLs. " \ very charming story, superior in literary style and as food for the mind and the aste to most books written for girls. Wiss Edith Scannell s illustrations are very happy." Scotsman. A Children's Story- Book. PRINCE PEERLESS: A Fairy-Folk Story-Book. By the Hon. Margaret Collier (Madame Galletti di Cadilhac), Author of " Our Flome by the Adriatic." Illustrated by the Hon. John Collier. Square Imp. i6mo., cloth ....... 5s. Co.N tents. Fairy Folk. — The Great Snow Mountain. — The Ill-Slaired Princess. — The Sick Fairy. — Two Fairies. — The Shadow World. — Prince Peerless. — • Something New. " Simply delightful in style and fancy, and in its perfect reproduction of the old fairy world. These stories will be a valuable addition to our literature for children ; and will be read with no less enjoyment for their literary and artistic excellence by their ciders. The illustrations by the Hon. John Collier are artistical and beautiful." — Scotsvian. A Boy's Story-Book. BOYS' OWN STORIES. By Ascott R. Hope, Author of " Stories of Young Adventurers," " Stories oat of School Tune," &c. Eight Illustrations. Crown Svo., cloth ......... 5s. "This is a really admirable selection of genuine narrative and history, treated with discretion and skill by the author. Mr. Hope has not gathered his stores from the higii- way, but has explored far afield in less-beaten tracks, as may be seen in his ' Adventures of a Shipboy' and 'A Smith among Savages.'" — Saturday Review. TALES OF THE CALIPH. By Al ARA^VIYAH. Crown 8vo., coth ...... 2s. 6d. 6 My. T. Fisher Unwin, 26, Paternoster Square. Autumn-Christmas Season, 1886. By Author of " How to be Happy though Married." "MANNERS MAKYTH MAN.' Imp. i6mo., cloth, 6s. ; fine edition, bevelled edges, in box . . 7s. 6d. The First EditioJi of'''' Manners Makyth Man" was exhaiisted on the day of Publication. A Second Edition is now ready. Extract from Prhface. — " I am showing my gratitude to the public for their very kind reception of How to be Happy though Married ' by nowpre^-enting to them another little book wi h my best ' manners ! ' It is not a book of etiquette, for I am by no means a master of ceremonies ; nor does the motto of Winchester College, ' Manners Malcyth Man,' refer to those social rules and forms which are often only substitutes for good manners, but rather to manners in the old sense of the word which we see in the text, ' Evil com- munications corrupt good manners.' " '• The volume is a bright one, and should rival its predecessor in popular esteem." Publishers' Circular. A COMTIST LOVER, and Other Studies. By Elizabeth Rachel Chapman, Author of "The New Godiva/' "A Tourist Idyl," &c. Crown 8vo., cloth . . .6s. Contents. — Part I. — A Comtist Lover : Being a Dialogue on Positivism and the Zeitgeist — The Extension of the Law of Kindness : Being aii Essay on the Rights of Animals. Part IL — The Delphine of Madame de Stael — Some Immortality-Thoughts — Some Novels of William Black. "Lays of a Lazv Minstrel." THE LAZY MINSTREL. By J. Ashby - Sterry, Author of " Boudoir Ballads," " Shuttlecock Papers," &c. With vignette frontispiece. Fcap. 8vo., cloth, printed on hand-made paper ....... 6s. Fine Edition of 50 copies of the above, crown 410., printed on Dutch hand-made paper, each copy numbered and signed by the Author . . • £1 is.net. "Emphatically 'nice' in the nicest— the old-fashioned— sense of the word. . . . Aliosethcr, a delicate little tome. . . . Graceful and, on occasion, tender."— G. A. S., ia The Illustrated London News, Oct. 31, 1886 SAINT HILDRED: ARomauntinVerse. By Gertrude Harraulx. Illustrated by J. Bernard Partridge. Small crov^'n 8vo. ...... 2S. 6d. Kew and Recent Books. Autumn-Christmas Season, 1886. Prizi': iJooK FOR Children. THE BIRD'S NEST, and Other Sermons for Children of all Ages. By Rev. Samuel Cox, D.D., Author of " Expositions," ' daintily and tastefully got-up, containing admirably selected brief extracts from great writers." — Academy. A ROLL OF GOLDEN THOUGHTS FOR THE YEAR ; or, Permanent Diary of Wise Sayings from the Best Writers of all Times and Climes. Contents identical with the above, but arranged in oblong shape. Mounted on gilt wire, and suspended by ribands . . is. 6d- " Choicely and delicately prodnced."— C//r/iA««. FAIRY TALES FROM BRENTANO. Told in English by Kate Freiligrath Kroeker. Twenty-two Illustrations by F. Carruthers Gould. Cheap and Popular Edition. Square Imp. i6mo. . . 3s. 6d. " The extravagance of invention displayed in his tales will render them welcome in the nurserv. The translation—not an easy task— has been very cleverly accomplished. — ■' I lie Academy. "An admirable translator In Madame Kroeker, and an inimitable illustrator in Mr. Carruthers Gould."— Tra//:. WHEN I "WAS A CHILD ; or, Left Behind. By Linda ViLLARi, Author of "On Tuscan Hills," &c. Illustrated. Square 8vo., cloth, gilt edges .... 3s. 6d. " It is fresh and bright from the first chapter to the \a.&c>nl>cr) . 31s. 6d. THE TOUCHSTONE OF PERIL: A Tale of the Indian Mutiny. I5y Dudley Hardress Thomas. Two vols. Crown 8vo. . . . . . . ^i is. " Amusing and cxciiinc;. ' — Aihcna'uiit. A YEAR IN EDEN. By Harriet Waters Preston. Two vols. Crown 8vo. [In November) . . ;^i is. Recent Novels. Two Volumes. Price ^i is. each. CAMILLA'S GIRLHOOD. By Linda Villari. " Brightly written. ... It is from fir.st to last a favourable and pure-toned specimen of Anglo-Italian lictiou." — Morning Po^t. THE BACHELOR VICAR OF NEWFORTH. By Mrs. A. Harcourt-Roe. " Bright and readable." — Athenteutii. ICHABOD: A Portrait. By Bertha Thomas. " It is indu ilably the work of a clever woman." — Athencenni. A NOBLE KINSMAN. By Anton Giulio Barrill " A good translation of a very pretty ■^X.ory. "—Guardian. JEPHTHAH'S DAUGHTER. P.yjANE H. Spettigue. THE CHANCELLOR OF THE TYROL. By Herman Schmid. "A clever and original story." — Daily Telegraph. WILBOURNE HALL. By Mrs. C^umont. "An agreeable novel." — Spectator, HENRY IRVING : in England and America, 1S3S 1884. By Frederic Dalv. Vignette Portrait by Ad. Lalauze. Second thousand. Crown 8vo., cloih extra . . 5s. " Mr. Daly sets forth his materials with a due sense of proportion, and writes in a pleasing vein.'" — Daily News. THE SEVEN AGES OF MAN. From Shakespeare's "As You Like it."' Popular Edition. Illustrated. Sq. pott i6mo., cl. elegant, bev. boards, gilt edges . 5s. " Strongly contrast tHe old and new style of en_;raving. . . . The various artists have all been well chosen." — Graphic. 14 Mr. T. Fisher Unwiji, 26, Paternoster Square. NEW AND RECENT NOVELS AT SIX SHILLINGS. Large Crown Svo., cloth. MELITA : A Turkish Love-Story. By Louise M. Richter. " Her story is interesting on its own account ; but its background of Turkish life and character gives it an additional charm of freshness." — Ai/ten(^u)H. MERCIFUL OR MERCILESS? By Stackpool E. O'Dell, Author of " Old St. Margaret's." " Animated pictures of nature. . . . Easy lightness of style." — Saturday Rei'ie'M, THE LAST STAKE: A Tale of ^lonte Carlo. By Madame R. Foli. Illustrated. " Madame Foil's graphic narrative will do much to lift the ve.i from the horrors and seductions of the gaming tables of Monte Carlo." — Academy. TARANTELLA : A Romance. By Mathilde Blind, Author of " Life of George Eliot." Second edition. "Told with great spirit and effect, and shows very considerable power.'' — Pall Mali. VALENTINO. By William Waldorf Astor. " A remarkable historical romance. . . . Forcibly written." — Morning Post. GLADYS FANE: The Story of Two Lives. By T. Wemyss Reid. Fourth and popular edition. " A good and clever book, which few readers who begin it are likely to put down unfinished. ' ' — Satzirday Reviciv. THE AMAZON : An Art Novel, By Carl Vosmaer. Preface by Prof. Georg Ebers, and Front, drawn specially by L. Alma Tadema, R.A. " It is a work full of deep, suggestive thought." — The Academy. MAJOR FRANK: A Novel. By A. L. G. Bosboom- Toussaint. Trans, from the Dutch by Jas. Akeroyd. " It is a pleasant, bright, fresh book." — Truth. THE POISON TREE : A Tale of Hindu Life by Bengal. By B. Chandra Chatterjee. Introduction in Edwin Arnold, M.A., C.S.I. "The healthiness and purity of tone throughout the book." — Academy. New and Recent Books. 15 THE 4s. 6d. SERIES OF NOVELS. Crown Svo., clolli. ASSERTED BUT NOT PROVED; or, Struggles to Live. By A. Bower. FRANCIS: A Socialistic Romance. Beingfor the most part an Idyll of England and Summer. By M. Dal Vero, Author of "A Heroine of the Commonplace." "A very bright, cheery and pretty siory." —Academy . THE LAST MEETING : A Story. By Brander Matthews, Author of "The Theatres of Paris," &c. " Mr. Brander Matthews' new novel is one of the pleasantest and most entertaining books that I have read for some time. There is vigorous character-drawing ; and the characters are, for the most part, men and women in whose company one is plea.sed to pass the time. There are many clever and shrewd remarks, considerable humour, and some wit." — Academy. A LOST SON. By Mary Linskill, Autlior of " Hagar," " l]et\vcen the Heather and the Northern Sea," &:c. " The book's doctrine is wholesome, and its religion free from any trace of cant." — Spectator. " Miss Linskill not only shows a quickpower of observation, but writes with good taste and without afl'ectation." — At/icmeuin. THE BECKSIDE BOGGLE, and Other Lake Country Stories. By Alick Rf.a. Illustrated. " The interest of the volume lies in its evidently faithful reproduction of Lake Country speech character, and manners A pleasant one and wholesome." — Graphic. TWO VOLUxMES Ol' SHORT STORIES. TALES IN THE SPEECH-HOUSE. By Charles Grindrod, Aulhor of "Plays from English Plistory," &c. Illustrated. Crown 8vo., cloth . . . .6s. " We can say honestly to everyone who can lay hands on them — Read them." — " Sweetly and powerfully told." — Manchester Guardian. [Scotsmtin. THE QUEEN OF THE ARENA, AND OTHER STORIES. By Stewart Harrison. Illust. CrowTi 8vo., cloth ........ 6s. " Major Harrison has a fresh and lively style, he is .so far from being tedious that he rather tends to the opposite extreme, and he shows considerable versatility of powers, with an extensive knowledge of the world." — Times. i6 Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, 26, Paternoster Square. VERN ON LEE'S W ORKS. BALDWIN : Being Dialogues on Views and Aspirations. Demy 8vo., cloth . . . . . . .12s. " Worth careful study from more than one side. It has a message for all people, to which only indolence or indifference can be deaf. . . . 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Crown 8vo., cloth . . . . . . • 5s. "This way of conveying ideas is ver>- fascinating, and has an effect of creating activity in the reader's mind wi ich no other mode can equal From first to last there is a continuous and delightful stimulation of thought.' — Academy OTTILIE: An Eighteenth Century Idyl. Square Svo., cloth extra 3s. 6d. " A graceful little sketch. . . Drawn with full insight into the period described." Spectator. " Pleasantly and carefully written. . . . The Author lets the reader have a glimpse of Germany in the ' Sturm und Drang' period." — Athenwum. A graceful little picture. . . . Charming all through." — Academy THE PRINCE OF THE HUNDRED SOUPS: A Puppet Show in Narrative. Edited, with a Preface by Vernon Lee. Illust. Cheaper edition. Square Svo., cloth 3s. 6d. " There is more humour in the volume than in half-a-dozen ordinarj' pantomimes." — Spectator. SUMMER: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau. Editid by H.G. O. Blake. Index. Map. Cr. Svo., 7s. 6d. " A most delightful book." — Times. " As pleasant a book as can well be imagined." — Athena-jim. ECHETLUS: Considerations upon Culture in England. By George Whetenall. Crown Svo., cloth . 4s. 6d. " Very thoughtful, earnest, and exceedingly clever 'i'here is an unquestionable streak of genius in the composition of this small work." — Christian World. New and Recent Books. 17 THE LIFE and TIMES OF WILLIAM LLOYD (HARRISON, 1S05-1840 : The Story of His Life told by His Children. In two vols., with upwards of 20 Portraits and Illustrations. Demy Svo. . . . ^i los. "The prime mover in the cause of AboHtion well deserved an exhaustive biography, and English Literature can well afford to assign a permanent and honourable place to the d scription of a man who accomplished a great work, and whose right to figure among such men as Wilberforce, Clarkson, Brougham, and others cannot for a moment be disputed." — Tiiiits. OLE BULL : A Memoir. By Sara C. Bull. With Ole Bull's " Violin Notes " and Dr. A. B. Crosby's ''Anatomy of the Violinist." Portraits. Second edition. Crown Svo., cloth ...... 7s. 6d. " Full of good stories. It is difficult to know where to choose." — Saturday I\t~'!e~.u, " A word of commendation must be offered to the youn? widow of this distinguished musician for the tact and ability displayed in compiling and arranging the work."- Morning Post. THE LIFE & TIMES OF SAMUEL BOWLES, Editor of The Spnngiield Ripuhlican. By Geo. S. Merriam. Portrait. 2 vols. Crown Svo. . ^\ is. " Its pictures of American journalism, so closely interwoven with party struggles, render it a contribution of some interest to the history of the Union during some of its most critical times." — Daily News. PILGRIM SORROW. By Carmen Svlvia (The Queen of Roumania). Translated by Helfn Zimmern, Author of " The Epic of Kin^s." Portrait-etching by Lal.\uze. Square Crown Svo., cloth extra . . . .5s. " For this nature of literature the Queen appears to have a special gift. . And never has she been happier than in her Liedens Erdengang, which lies before us today." — Literary H ortd {Hevicw of the German edition). ON TUSCAN HILLS AND VENETIAN WATERS. By Linda Vili.ari, Author of "Camilla's Cirlhood," &c. Iilust. Sciuare Itnpt rial i6mo. 7s. 6d. ' Next to the privilege of visiting these localities, this book is the best thing, and no expense has been spared in making the volume an artistic success." — Bookseller. LONDON AND ELSEWHERE. By Thomas PuRNELL, Author of " Literature and its Professors," &c. Fcap. Svo. ....... IS. " The book is admirably adapted to the season- -light in topic and bright in manner, readable from first to last, and, unlike most holiday literature, worth keeping .-\ftpr it has been read."--(7/o^^. i8 Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, 26, Paternoster Square. EXPOSITORY WORKS BY REV. S. COX. "EXPOSITIONS." First Series. Dedicated to Baron Tennyson. Third Thousand. Demy 8vo., cloth, 7s. 6d. 'We have said enough to show our high opinion of Dr. Cox's vohime. It is indeed full of suggestion. . . . A valuable volume." — The Spectator. " The Discourses are well worthy of their Author's reputation."— /Hy7£-r. "EXPOSITIONS." Second Series. Demy Svo., cloth, 7s. 6d. " The volume will take rank with the noblest utterances of the day ; not merely because they are eloquent — we have eloquence enough and to spare ; not because they are learned— learning is often labour and sorrow ; but because they will give fresh hope and heart, new light and faith to many for whom the world is ' dark with griefs and graves.' " Noncon/orinist. THE REALITY OF FAITH. By the Rev. Newman Smyth, D.D., Author of " Old Faiths in New Light." Tnird and cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo., cloth, 4s. 6d. " They are fresh and beautiful expositions of those deep things, those foundation truths, which underlie Christian faith and spiritual life in their varied manifestations." — Christian Age. THE REALITY OF RELIGION. By Henry J. Van Dyke, Junr., D.D., of the Brick Church, N.Y. Second edition. Crown 8vo., cloth . . .4s. 6d. " Mr. Van Dyke's volume is sure to bring help and strength to those who are earnestly striving to enter into the realities of spiritual life." — Christian Leader. A LAYMAN'S STUDY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE CONSIDERED IN ITS LITERARY AND SECULAR ASPECTS. By Francis Bowen, LL.D. Crown Svo., cloth 4s. 6d. " Most heartily do we recommend this little volume to the careful study, not only of those whose faith is not yet fixed and settled, but of those whose love for it and reliance on it grows with their growing years." — Noncon/orinist. THE UNKNOWN GOD, and other Sermons. By the Rev. Alex.\nder H. Craufurd, M.A., Author of "Seek- ing for Li"ht." Crown Svo., cloth . . .6s. New and Recent Books. 19 MY STUDY, and other Essays. By Professor Austin Phelps, D.D., Author of " The Theory of Preaching," its to the gipsies are graphic and varied, and will, we trust, serve to excite a wider interest in the perplexing question of their amelioration, to which the author has already given yeoman's service." — Contem/oiy Reviciv. THE ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE, By Daniel Defoe. Newly Indited after the Original Editions. Twenty Coloured Illustrations by Kaukeman. Fcap. 4to. , cloth e.xtri . . . . .7s. 6d. "This is irrefutably the edition of Robinson Crusoe ' of the season. It is charmingly got-up and illustrated. The type and printing are e.\cellent." — Standard. 20 Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, 26, Paternoster Square. WORKS ON MISSIONS. MEDICAL MISSIONS: Their Place and Power. By John Lowe, F.R.C.S.E., Secretary of Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society. Introduction by Sir William Muir, K.C.S.I., LL.D.,D.C.L. Medallion Frontispiece. Second edition. Crown 8vo., cloth 5s. 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