THE HOME AND FAMILY IDEA.
THAT the true home with its interesting family of children and grandchildren is passing away from the “new woman,” and society folk in general, and growingly from many others, is sadly true. Both sides have lately been discussed in the Independent. For small families or no children Mrs. Ida Husted Harper made the plea, and that excellent writer of uncommon good sense—Marion Harland (Mary Virginia Terhune)—replied to her. Mrs. Harper mentions a banker who would like to have children, but dreaded, as unendurable, the humdrum, commonplace life which the rearing of a family would necessitate; a sad mistake, as Marion Harland suggests, unless the husband and wife be common-place in themselves. Mrs. Harper also mentions the case of a “wealthy president of a corporation” who would give half he is worth for a daughter; a “professional man of much refinement and sensibility speaks with emotion; another “has a beautiful house and spacious grounds which would be a paradise for children;” and all of them dismiss these God-given yearnings because of the pain and inconvenience of bringing children into the world. Marion Harland closes her article with this old-time family picture, now growingly infrequent:— A month ago I attended the funeral of a devoted servant of the church, an active citizen, a beloved husband and father, who went down to his grave full of years and honors. The family connection is large, and every branch of it was represented at the services held in the homestead. The widow leaned on the arm of a stalwart son in the progress to the grave; the tender hands of her daughters arranged her wrappings, a granddaughter carried extra shawls, and two grandsons assisted her to alight from the carriage. The patriarch of the tribe, eighty-seven years of age, walked between a daughter and a son; about his white-haired sister hovered her devoted children, solicitous lest the winds of winter should visit her too rudely. Daughters, and sons-in-law, and grandchildren—manly boys and graceful girls—were gathered, affectionate satellites, around the central group.
“I am not comfortless,” said the widow, as I bade her “good-bye” after the return to the smitten home. “The dear children make life worth living.” The octogenarian answered her, “You are right! They are the best investment one can make. We know this in old age, if never before.” “Life is short,” and the happiness it contains for those who dream is of present pleasure, and ephemeral amusement is the frailest of bubbles. Young lives, which have sprung from our own, are linked into and welded with ours, and carry them on into the eternities. To us the days never come when we shall say, “We have no pleasure in them.” Parenthood robs old age of its terrors, and defies death itself.