A Summer Idyl on Housekeeping.
THE Master's words as to Martha, who was too much of a housekeeper, have served as a Gospel text for those women who are not housekeepers at all, and who seem to believe in no liberty quite so thoroughly as the liberty to neglect those duties of the home which they have learned to regard as minor and subsidiary, but which have, more than anything else, next to the observance of religion, to do with the comfort and the cheeriness of home. Perhaps there is room for a word or two on the other side. And let us say, with the changes witnessed on every hand in social life, and especially such as have reference to intellectual growth and culture, the principal difficulty in the matter of woman's work seems to lie in the want of harmony and completeness. Just as the tendency in medicine and in painting is to specialties, so in every-day life men and women are often seen running to hobbies and crazes. But the case is worse with the gentler sex. As a rule man has his business to attend to, and its demands and the character of its rewards are such as keep him pretty closely to it, as the needle to the pole. An aged woman of culture, yet one admirably equipped for all the duties of her sex, was heard to remark not long ago, "There is no such housekeeping as there was in my day; we did not in our time reach out to close the shutters at night and bring the fingers into a nest of cobwebs;" and she added—"too much reading, too much painting, too many superficialities." The elderly lady was perhaps not quite just in her statement, for assuredly there is as good housekeeping as there ever was, and we may add that we know where to find it! On the other hand, unquestionably the lady was driving at a truth,—that our gains bring their complementary losses. And it is certainly true that those mothers who skim Homer to the neglect of the practical duties of the home, who cultivate Darwin to the neglect of dusting, and persuade themselves that "somehow the house can run itself," make grievous mistakes which are sure to be felt in their family, though they may not be seen by the offender herself. We have known homes to be made wretched by the want of tidiness of her who should be the housekeeper, whereas it was the house that kept her. So we have known women to make cheerless homes for their tired husbands by going out talking here, lecturing there, holding a committee meeting somewhere, and so on,—not that such meetings are not to be held, but that the home has, or should have, the first place. When we hear a woman exclaim, "O, I am no housekeeper!" we are sorry for her,—she has put aside duties which are of all others primary duties, and all for the sake of those so-called "accomplishments" which, whether desirable or not, are not of such transcendent importance that the placque must be painted though the children go about the house untidy in their soiled clothing, or the spiders should be encouraged to spin their filmy laces while mamma reads the last new novel or affectedly takes up with the "Reign of Law" or Xenophon's "Memorabilia." We are glad to see and to meet with cultivated women, and with those who can converse entertainingly on various subjects. But we do not forget that often these accomplishments are bought at an exorbitant cost. We need at times to remember that what are miscalled "the humbler duties" are yet the higher. These cluster around the hearthstone and the cradle; these it is, and not bric-a-brac nor novel-reading, nor painting, nor decorative art, nor even riches, which make the sweetest spot on all the earth. Often we search too high for that which lies close by us, and scorn the humbler duties, forgetting that— "Who sweeps a room as for God's laws
Makes that and the action fine." Surely the souls who are careful in the discharge of these duties of the home must resemble the poet's ideal of whom he sings in his song,— "She doeth little kindnesses
Which most leave undone or despise;
For naught that makes one soul at ease,
Is low esteemed in her eyes." And let us say, few things give more ease and comfort than the appointments to be had in the well-ordered home. We need in many ways to avoid the tinsel of a superficial, if showy culture, and get down—rather ascend—to that simplicity and the exercise of those home-like virtues which characterized the daughters of our earlier Republic. Of course we do not forget the advance in woman's education, and we recognize how many resources a higher education has brought to woman. As a rule it has not made a scholar of her—it certainly cannot be said to have added to the strength of her character—but it has multiplied her resources upon which to draw for her own pleasure and that of others. These accomplishments need not and should not be neglected. On the other hand the duties of the hearth and the cradle, the duties that pertain to the home, whether performed by one's own hand or those of others,—these are the primary duties, the chiefest which women are called upon to perform, and which should receive precedence over the other accomplishments of life, however attractive to others and however pleasant to one's self may be their cultivation.—The Christian at Work.