"'T is love, 't is love, 't is love that makes the world go round,"
"'T is love, 't is love, 't is love that makes the world go round,"
"'T is love, 't is love, 't is love that makes the world go round,"
and even in the city we may all have hope.
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.
That is, it is the family which makes the home, and this is even truer of the mother and her daughters than of the father and his sons. Sometimes even one sunshiny spirit in a house transforms it, and where all the family are in harmony there cannot fail to be a home in the best sense.
But there are virtues and virtues. "I admire Miss Strong, indeed I love her," I heard a lady say not long ago, "but I can't imagine her making a beautiful home under any circumstances." Yet Miss Strong is gentle, sweet-tempered, thoroughly unselfish and high-minded, quiet and unobtrusive, neat and well-bred. Then what is wanting in Miss Strong?
"I think it will be best for Jenny to teach," wrote another lady in regard to a young girl in whom she was deeply interested, and whose gifts and graces she had been cataloguing at great length. "At least, what else is there for a woman to do who is thoroughly feminine but not at all domestic?"
We think of unselfishness as the first need of a woman who is to be the presiding genius of a home; but both Miss Strong and Jenny are conspicuously unselfish.
It seems that though a fine character, and particularly a loving one, must be the foundation of the home, yet certain special qualities are necessary. Among the thousands who have read "Robert Elsmere" does any one feel that Catherine, with all her earnestness and deep love of others, made her girlhood's home a pleasant place? She was ready to give up a home of her own, thinking her mother and sisters needed her, and yet her sister Rose, at least, was secretly longing to be free from the constant influence of such severe moral standards. In short, Catherine did not make her home comfortable.
Comfort, I think, enters into every idea of a home. We wish to be unrestrained there. That, however, is a different thing from being lawless. There must be moral restraints, even for the sake of the comfort itself. Otherwise, the freedom of one interferes with the freedom of another, and finally the reaction tells in the discomfort of all.
Physical comfort is necessary in a home. Some of the best women do not understand this. They are disgusted with the sarcasm that "The road to a man's heart is through his dinner." That would be disgusting if it were the whole truth. But we must all eat every day of our lives, and appetizingfood prettily served adds much to the comfort of the day. Indeed, without it only a boor or a saint can be really comfortable.
Women who are good cooks are sometimes ill-tempered and refuse to exercise their art. But discomfort in the matter of dinner usually comes from a different kind of housekeeper. There are some women who think it is a weakness to care about food. Their rule is, "Eat what is set before you, asking no questions," a sufficiently good rule for those who are dining, but a miserable one for the housekeeper to force upon others. There are still other women who have a definite opinion as to diet. They have studied food from a hygienic point of view, and they watch the effect of every mouthful. Such a study ought to be useful, but in point of fact it is a frequent source of discomfort. Nothing ever digests well when our mind is concentrated on our digestion. One difficulty may be this. The women who have turned their attention to this subject have often done so because they were invalids. They find certain food injurious to them and decide it is injurious to everybody. So a whole healthy household is restricted to the invalid's bill of fare. The housekeeper is so certain she is doing her duty, that she easily steels her heart against the murmurs of her family, and the discomfort continues. A thoroughly healthy woman, however, will provide all the better for her family if she understands the effect of different articles of diet.
To be comfortable, a house should be warm enough. Of course, I do not mean that we need to breathe the superheated atmosphere which foreigners criticise in most American houses. It is the mother of the family who must correct this. She can easily do so, because she has it entirely in her power to form the habits of her children in this particular, and it is rarely the case that a man likes an overheated room until he has been trained by his more sensitive wife to bear it.
But I mean that nothing physical takes from the comfort of a home so much as chilliness. So long as we are warm enough we may relish a very frugal dinner, but a feast is unappetizing in a cold room. Indeed, I believe we may economize in anything better than in fuel. It gives a great sense of comfort in going into a house to find it warm all through. Many people, however, cannot afford such luxury. But if you can only have one fire in the house, see that that is always burning; and if it must be in the kitchen in the cooking-stove, keep the stove so bright that its black ugliness is a centre radiating cheerfulness. There are plenty of homes in which there is no need of stint, where through carelessness and neglect there are times when everybody in the house is shivering, while perhaps at other times half the rooms are at a red heat.
I remember one of Charles Reade's heroes who was wavering between the attractions of two women, and the novelist represents the simpler of the two as being careful that there should always be a blazing hearth when the lover came. This innocent device gave him a sense of comfort which almost won his heart. It seemed to me a touch of truth.
We cannot all afford open wood fires, though their beauty and healthfulness make us wish we could; but most of us can keep the "clear fire" and the "clean hearth," which Mrs. Battle wisely considered the proper preliminaries to the "rigor of the game."
Though we want warm homes, we do not want close ones. Most houses are not very well ventilated, and if we keep our windows open in winter weather, we must expect our bill for fuel to be a large one. Some of us are too poor to disregard this fact, but most of us could probably afford to save enough in our dress to meet what I may call this necessary extravagance. I have seen a great many landladies who looked so severe on seeing a window open in a room where the register was also open, that the unhappy boarder felt at once like a culprit for even desiring both warmth and fresh air at the same time. Once, however, I had the good fortune to know a woman of different views. She bought a house expressly with the intention of letting it to transient lodgers. She found, as is common, that the furnace-heated air which passed through the registers into the roomscame from the cellar. She immediately made alterations, so that the fresh outside air should be heated and carried over the house. "It costs more," she said, "but dear me! what is expense to fresh air?" Moreover she said so much to her lodgers about the necessity of fresh air, that all the windows in the house were always streaming open. "I once knew a lady who died of pneumonia from airing her room too much," said the landlady, "but that was a beautiful death!"
I doubt whether there is comfort under a system of ventilation which induces pneumonia, but it certainly is luxury as well as comfort to let in all the fresh air we want and not to stint fuel.
Plenty of light is another essential in a home. Most city houses are deficient in sunlight, and most of them, however richly furnished, are accordingly depressing. Whether or not the dreams of socialists can ever be realized we do not know, but none is more alluring than that of the disappearance of blocks of houses. If every house could stand in the midst of its own garden, the gain would be as great in inner comfort as in outward beauty.
No one can tell the amount of near-sightedness caused by the effort to read and write in our dark city houses. Rich people ought to be extravagant in the matter of light. Corner lots are worth buying, and it is worth while to live on "streets with only one side."
And when natural light fails let us have enough of the artificial. Even the poor who cannot have electricity or gas hardly need economize here with kerosene at its present rates. A kerosene lamp, to be sure, is not often a beautiful or poetical object, but with the right kind of care the vile odor may be suppressed, and though this involves an additional burden for the housekeeper, light is too essential for the work to be grudged. A sufficient number ofcleankerosene lamps will make a house cheerful from one end to the other. Now I have often noticed that women who are compelled to economize in little things are inclined to economize in all things. They will strain their eyes for fifteen minutes after it is too dark to sew, they will sit in a room dimly lighted by one lamp when two are necessary to make it attractive, without stopping to think that twelve or fifteen cents worth of oil would supply three large lamps for a week! And in this way they sacrifice not only cheerfulness, but opportunities for all the family to do easy and comfortable work.
Cleanliness is as essential in a home as over-neatness is destructive to it. There is nothing homelike in any room that is in perfect order; but, on the other hand, there is little of the home feeling in a room that is not bright and fresh with cleanliness. Tables littered with books, chairs and sofas strewn with gloves and ribbons, and even a floor encumbered with a prostrate dollor two, are cheerful; a trail of leaves and mosses from a basket of woodland treasures is endurable dirt. But dust in the corners which shows the dirt to be chronic and not accidental, unwashed windows, dingy mirrors, etc., etc., have no redeeming quality. It is a good thing for the mother of the family to love order, but there is ample scope for that in keeping every closet and drawer and box and basket in a dainty condition. However neat a room may be, it is odious the moment an open drawer or closet reveals disorder. The meaning of this is that the disorder which comes from daily happy living is delightful, and that is what we see in the large confusion of a room when in use; but the disorder which comes from carelessness about finding a convenient place for everything, and from laziness about putting things in their places when we have done using them, is not beautiful.
For the kind of neatness which makes a home homelike we must have room enough, but not too much room. This is rather a vague statement, I know, but the actual measurements of a house should vary with circumstances; for example, a large room with few people in it will always be stiff, even if it is splendid; while a small room filled with uselessbric-à-bracwill be uncomfortable even with a solitary occupant. On the subject ofbric-à-bracI feel strongly, and I will speak of it more fully elsewhere.
But I do not include pictures in the termbric-à-brac.There ought to be pictures in every home for their intrinsic value. Fortunately they take up little room and are easily kept in order. Many of us do not agree about pictures. Most Americans who buy oil paintings advertise their want of cultivation in their choice, and even those who rigidly confine themselves to engravings and photographs of the old masters do not succeed much better. I remember a man, the son of a country minister, who knew pictures only from the literary side. He was a great reader, and had been familiar with the names of Raphael and Da Vinci and Dürer from childhood. He knew well what were their masterpieces, and when he went abroad he bought hundreds of photographs of these works. His house was full of pictures; there was not one among them which was not a copy of something really beautiful, and not one copy which had any beauty in itself. This man had not the sense of beauty, though he had the moral sense which led him always to wish for the best.
But all any of us can do is to express the best we know. The essential quality in pictures in our own homes is that they should express the best we ourselves have reached. Still, many pictures of high artistic merit are wanting in the real home charm. I believe most of those which hang on our walls and are always before our eyes should be cheerful in character. I sympathizewith the old abbess who chose to have her rooms frescoed with Correggio's happy cherubs, and who liked to have constantly before her, though in a convent, his goddess Diana, whose smile some one has said is full of "resolute sweetness."
I remember once having to pass a bitter hour of waiting in the drawing-room of a physician well known for his high culture. Every picture in the room was a work of art, but every one was solemn and even severe. Dante, Savonarola, the tombs of the Medici, etc., etc., afforded no escape from sad thoughts. The only relief was in the sweet serenity of Emerson's face, and even in this instance the most severe of all the portraits had been chosen. There was not one point of color in any of the pictures, but indeed most of us cannot afford paintings that are good for anything, so I could not quarrel with that.
For a daily companion I would rather have a Raphael than a Michael Angelo, and though for love I would slip in a Millet or two, I should not want a room full of Millets.
The heavy furniture of a home should be comfortable first of all. The chairs should not all be of the same size and height any more than the people. Arm-chairs are better than rocking-chairs, as they are less in the way. The furniture should not be light enough to be easily overturned, but the castors should always run easily.A lounge is a homelike piece of furniture, but let us hope it need not be much used.
A word more to the young woman who is choosing furniture for half a life-time. Fancy you have it to dust! You may have an army of servants, but certain patterns of furniture can never be kept clean. I remember two friends who chose furniture at the same time. It was the era of black walnut and green rep, and they chose sets looking much alike. But in one case the walnut was elaborately carved,—by machinery, which made it all the rougher,—and there were many little grooves to invite the dust in the upholstery; while in the other case the wood was simply moulded and polished, and the cloth was so put on that one or two vigorous strokes of a brush would cleanse it. It is true that heavy wood carved by hand is beautiful enough to repay us for its care, but that being smoothly finished does not catch very much dust.
The evening should be the crown of the day in a home. There are few homes where the evenings are as homelike as they could easily be. This is partly because there are so many outside attractions both in the city and country. Now I am not of those who think it praiseworthy to be always at home. I was told the other day of a steady young man who had not been out an evening in three years. I felt no enthusiasm abouthim. I think outside interests are absolutely necessary for any fresh or large life. But I think when we find ourselves going out as many as half our evenings, we are really dissipated, unless the circumstances are of a very unusual character, for we need as many as three or four evenings in a week to develop true home life. But in stay-at-home families, though the evenings are pleasant, I think they are seldom ideal. The reason for this is that the days are so crowded. The father and mother are tired, and, moreover, the father has no other time to read his unnecessarily voluminous newspaper, and the mother has no other time to do her unnecessarily elaborate sewing, while the children generally have lessons to study. Even then, a cosy room, with plenty of fire and light, where all the family meet together and feel no restraint, is a cheerful though a silent place. And we cannot all escape overwork however valiantly we fight our battle with non-essentials. Those who work ten hours in a factory, for example, have very little space for the other essentials of life, and there must be crowding. But some of us could simplify the day and so find room for unmitigated enjoyment in the evening. Sometimes sewing is pleasant in itself when cheerful conversation or reading is going on about us. I suppose the mother's work-basket will usually form an attractive nucleus in any home picture, and if there is not too much or too anxious sewing,I believe most women like it. And a moderate newspaper need not monopolize a whole evening. There are occasionally times when a careless child should be made to study a lesson at night. But the ideal evening at home is social, and its occupations are such that all can join in them. For myself I believe very fully in reading aloud. But in any household happy enough to consist of father, mother, and children, any book read aloud ought to be one which has some interest for all. The father and mother may both be intensely interested in the philosophy of Hegel, but I should not like to think they would ask the children to be quiet that they might read it aloud to each other. Books of travel, biography, novels, and poetry, appeal to all but the very young members of the family who ought to be in bed betimes. Of course the children do not take in everything in such books, but that is not necessary. If they only understand enough for enjoyment, it is a healthful stimulus to meet with something they do not understand. Perhaps the father and mother will say regretfully that they have no other time for their special studies. In the end the light literature may do them as much good as solid work, but even if it does not, they can better lose something themselves in intellectual development while their brood of children is about them than to miss the full rounding of their home life. If they live long, they will havetoo many quiet hours by themselves. In many families, however, the youngsters are more ready for solid reading than the older people. It is often the elder sister who has to give up her German and science to read travels and stories to her parents as well as to the children.
Drawing, fancy work, sewing, and whittling can all go on without disturbing the reading, or a tired mother can lie on the lounge and listen; but if any one must sit idle, reading may grow tedious, though good plays in which each can take his part are generally enjoyed. I was once in a home in Switzerland where the family spent most of the evenings in reading Racine, Molière, and Corneille.
No home is complete without music. Even a large piano which has seen its best days does not seem to be altogether a cumberer of the ground where another equally bulky piece of furniture would be unendurable. But unless some member of the family has decided musical ability, the best use of a piano or organ in a home is to sustain the uncertain voices in singing. Home singing is almost a necessity even where no one sings very well. I should not wish to encourage the unmusical to display their voices outside their own doors; but if half a dozen members of a family are able to "carry a tune," and one of them can play a simple accompaniment correctly, I thinkthe singing of fine hymns and pleasant ballads at home will prove most delightful to them all, besides bearing good fruit morally and physically. A family happy enough to have a little higher endowment, and a little more cultivation, so that one plays a violin, one a flute, and so on, may have a little private orchestra which may give as much enjoyment, and, all things considered, may be as elevating, as the perfect work of great musicians. It seems to me that any father and mother who wish the home to be dear to their children can afford to spend money on music far better than on many things considered more essential—clothes for, example.
But all the family circle ought be able to join in the evening occupations. If only one is a musician, but a small part of each evening can be given to music. On the other hand, I have no mercy for the young lady who has had time and money lavished on her musical education, who will not take the trouble to play to her brothers in the evening. If she distrusts her powers she need never play to other people who may ask her out of compliment; but when brothers ask their sisters to play, they mean that they want the music, and they should have it.
Chatting is pleasant in the evening, and does not interfere with a dozen other occupations. One can even read a newspaper or a novel while the rest are talking. Little twilight chats by the firewhen the children confess their misdemeanors to their mother, or when the mother tells stories to the children, are full of the spirit of home, and there always ought to be some leisurely hours in every family when the father and mother and the grandfather and grandmother can relate old experiences to the younger generation. If the older people would only remember to tell these tales for the sake of the younger and not to gratify their own garrulity, so that they would dwell more on the events and customs and people of the past which ought to have a permanent interest, I believe such chat would always be of the highest value, and that the young would like it as well as the old; but when it is mere gossip about people long dead the young have a right to be restless. There is always danger that chat will degenerate into gossip, so it is not generally best to have too many evenings devoted entirely to conversation.
The right kind of reading and music seem to me far better occupations for home evenings than games. There is too much hard work in chess and whist and too little sociability to make them in any way desirable. Euchre and backgammon seem invented to pass away time, which is so precious to most of us that we should like to feel we had something at the end of an hour by which our lives were richer than at the beginning. Yet games have their place. Young-people have their times of liking them. If they really enjoy themand play with thorough good temper, they get true recreation from them, and all innocent enjoyment has a moral effect as valuable as the intellectual effect of a good book. So a mother who wishes to make a true home for her children will not grudge whole evenings spent in games which would be unspeakably wearisome to her if played with people of her own age; indeed, the chances are she will thoroughly enjoy such evenings, and be as interested in capping verses or asking twenty questions as any of the youngsters, while if she is a worn and anxious mother, such simple pastime may be the best refreshment. I believe there is less to be said in favor of cards than of other games, but I often think of the words of a friend, "We are strict people," she said, "but when the boys were growing up and began to be wild for cards, we played regularly every evening till they were tired of it, and I think they did not care to play elsewhere."
If a home is to be ideal, it must contain a father and mother and children. A lonely man or woman who is so unfortunate as not to have this ideal home should, I think, try to find as many of its elements as possible. A man should not live altogether at his club, and it is a pity for a woman to live permanently with women alone. And a home is so incomplete without children that it seems almost necessary that every childlessman or woman should adopt one or two. Unfortunately this is often impossible, and then it becomes the more essential to seek for a boarding-place where we may get a little of the cheer of other people's children and at the same time practice some of the virtues which children always call out in older people. No home is truly homelike in which there is not a large hospitality. I have so much to say on this head that I must leave it for another chapter.
I have said little about the qualities of character which make a happy home. Beyond a loving nature, on which all the others rest, I know of nothing more essential than a serene temper. Let a woman be "mistress of herself, though china fall." The daily temptations to irritation are incessant, and irritability will destroy the comfort of any home, even if it is well warmed and lighted and furnished with easy-chairs and sofas, even if everybody is high minded and ready to take part in refined pleasures, and even if room is made in the family circle for a host of agreeable friends.
No home is genuine which is not also hospitable. Just as we must go out to get fresh life, we must welcome fresh life which comes in to us. And further than that it would be a poor nature which found no one to love outside the home circle. If we love any one we wish to share our life with our friend.
But it is impossible to be hospitable except by welcoming our visitors to our every-day life. If we depart much from our usual customs, our freedom is checked, and the visit becomes a burden, willingly borne, perhaps, for the time, but sure to be felt if often laid upon us.
A friend, well known in literary circles, inviting me to visit her in a Western city through which I was to pass on my way to another State wrote, "You must stay more than a day or two, for, if not, I shall have to give up my time to you, and I can't interrupt my daily work! I go into my library at nine o'clock every morning and stay till two. But in the afternoon I drive, and when in the evening my husband comes home from business and my children from school I give myself up to my family."
Upon this invitation I determined to stay a week. "You must not come into my library in the morning unless I invite you," said my friend laughing; "but there is another library adjoining your room where I shall not venture to disturb you without leave!"
I remember a home which opened very hospitable doors to me when I was a young girl,—that of a widow with two young daughters. They were in straitened circumstances, and could not effectively heat the large and handsome house left by the father of the family. "I ask you to come in the winter, my dear," the lady used to say to me, "because you live in the country and can sleep comfortably in a cold room: I ask my city friends to come in the summer." That, I think, showed a true spirit of hospitality. She gave what she had to those who could enjoy it. I shall never forget the cosy afternoons I have passed in her warm sitting-room, while one read aloud and the rest did fancy work, or sometimes the plainest of sewing. We read novels, some first rate, some second, or even third rate, without a thought of getting any benefit from them. But we chatted and laughed and enjoyed ourselves. Or sometimes some of us would go into town to a matinée, and coming home tingling with cold would find a hot and savory supper awaiting us in the bright dining-room, prepared by those who had stayed at home, and whowere eager to hear everything about the play which we were eager to tell. There was no servant to trouble us, and we all enjoyed ourselves together in washing the dishes. We sat up as long as we pleased and toasted our feet, and in zero weather even wrapped up a hot brick to take to our chilly beds.
But this lady was not without ambition. She wished she could entertain more as other people did. She thought she ought to give some parties, especially as she liked to go to other people's entertainments. And so, on one occasion, she did give a party. It was a grand affair. The whole house was set in order and decorated. Caterers came from the city, and her tables were beautifully laid with exactly the same salads and cakes that she was in the habit of eating at other houses. Her cards of invitation were of the choicest style, and her house was filled with fashionable people, since, in spite of her reduced circumstances, she had a perfectly assured position in society, and there was also a respectable number of unfashionable people present, for she was too truly hospitable to leave out anybody she liked. She was a skillful manager, and succeeded in carrying through her undertaking for half the expense usual in such a case; but it cost her sleepless nights. Of course, "The labor we delight in physics pain," and I am sure she thoroughly enjoyed her grand party which everybody said was perfect in all its appointments. Nevertheless, her bills amounted to one sixth of the yearly income of the family, so that she never gave another party till later in life, when fortune suddenly smiled upon her again and put her in possession of a million. I do not condemn her party, but merely use it to point my statement that we cannot often exercise hospitality except as we admit our friends to our daily life.
A friend of mine who was making a tour of the South bethought her of a cousin in New Orleans whom she had not seen since the war. She wrote to her, "I am going to New Orleans for a week or two and wish you might find me a boarding-place near you, so that I could see you as well as the sights." The Southern cousin at once replied with a cordial invitation that the Northern cousin should visit her. The Northerner had no idea of making a convenience of her almost unknown relative, and declined; but the Southerner insisted that the visit would be a real favor to herself. "That is," she added, "if you can be comfortable in the way we live." The Northerner could hardly refuse longer, but having certain fastidious ideas, she was rather startled on reaching New Orleans to find that her cousin's family, in which there were eight children, lived in a house of five rooms! She felt, in spite of her precautions, she must be an intruder. But the husband of her cousin said sweetly, "Where there is room in theheart, there is room in the house," and she stayed, and had one of the most delightful experiences of her life.
I am afraid few Northerners judged by this standard can be said to have "room in the heart," though I remember gratefully a minister's family in Massachusetts who lived in a little house and with narrow means, and yet received with bright smiles all their friends from the towns around who chose to stay with them. A brother minister would drive over with his whole family and stay a few days, and no one ever suggested there was not room for everybody. All the young collegiate cousins took this home in their way on their vacation tramps, and brought with them as many of their classmates as chose to come, never thinking it necessary to give any warning of their approach. I have known as many as a dozen young cousins to be gathered in the house at one time, the boys from Yale and Amherst, girls from New York and Philadelphia, or from quiet country boarding-schools,—one indeed came all the way from London,—and they enjoyed themselves as much as the visitors in an English country-house. They did not "ride to the meet," of course, or attend a county ball; but they went blackberrying together, and they sang songs, and played duets, and had games of croquet, and read French, and acted Shakespeare under the apple-trees; they climbed a mountain, and rowed on thepond, and took long botanical expeditions. The minister's wife was herself a delectable cook, but she must have wrinkled her brow many a time in planning how to get enough bread and butter to go round even with the aid of the blackberries, and some of the young fellows had to sleep on the hay in the barn, though happily they had a natural bath-tub provided in a stream among the bushes behind the house.
The achievement of this hostess is the more notable because she was a New England housekeeper, and her standard of neatness was high. If she had attempted anything but the simplest manner of entertainment she would certainly have had nervous prostration. But her simplicity of living saved her, and she is still hale and hearty, though she has passed the limit of threescore and ten.
A friend who has lived much at the South, in speaking of the beautiful hospitality for which Southerners are distinguished, says that it comes partly from their easy way of taking life. They do not think it necessary to put the house in order because guests are coming, but let the guests take them as they find them. More than that, they are less given to "pursuits" than Northerners, and so less easily disturbed.
Believing, however, in the value of "pursuits," I have been interested in observing the manner of hospitality in a family among my friends. The family consists of the father, mother, and threegrown-up daughters. All the daughters are earning their own living, and the mother is much occupied in household cares. It is a highly intellectual family. All are readers and keep abreast of the literature of the day. Beyond that, one or another of them is always studying German, or French, or history, or mineralogy, or taking up some social reform. Two of them find time to write acceptably for magazines. It would seem as if they could not have much leisure to entertain friends, yet their great rambling house, which stands in the midst of a shady old-fashioned yard and garden just outside the city, is seldom without a guest or two, and there never was a place where a tired soul and body could find sweeter rest. A cup and plate at table and a bed to sleep in are provided for the visitor, and so far there is not much trouble. The family meet at the table,—when convenient,—and there is plenty of delightful chat. One or another is often at leisure for a walk or a row or some other pastime, but no one appears to feel it necessary to give up any of her ordinary occupations for the sake of the visitor. I consider myself rather a particular friend of three of the family, yet I have often passed a Sunday there without seeing more than one of the three. The others had something to do on their own account. One of them, tired with her week's work, likes to rest all day in her own room. Another is an ardent Episcopalian, and wishes to follow all the church services from early morning through the evening. As there are so many agreeable people in the family one is not often obliged to be alone, but when left alone the sense of home comfort is only increased. There are plenty of lounges and easy-chairs; the large, comfortable tables are strewn with all the latest magazines; the bookcases are full of readable books, and the young ladies all have their individual collections of Soule's photographs, which are well worth lounging over. The fires are always bright within, and the long windows opening everywhere on piazzas and balconies command extensive and beautiful views. The rooms are sweet with flowers in winter, and the gardens are fragrant in summer. One can lounge and read all day, or take a walk, or do a dozen other things. The cheerful, interesting conversation at table, and in the odds and ends of time through the day, would be sufficient stimulus to all but the most exacting guests; while, as a matter of fact, there are always a few hours in the evening when everybody seems to be at leisure, and these form the social centre of the day. For my part I would much rather be entertained in this way than to have my footsteps dogged all day by some well-meaning and self-sacrificing devotee who tries conscientiously to amuse me.
One of the most hospitable homes I ever knew was made by two young ladies in Boston. Oneof them was a country girl of genius and refinement who came to the city to do literary work. Here she formed a friendship with another young lady who liked to pass most of the time in Boston for the sake of its advantages in music, art, and the theatre. Neither was rich, but together they had a very respectable income. They found a nice little flat of six convenient rooms in an accessible and pleasant but unfashionable street, and furnished it with exactly the things they wanted to use every day. The furnishings were thus simple, but they combined comfort and beauty, for both the young ladies had excellent taste. I am tempted to describe all their original and charming arrangements, only that would lead me too far. I will only speak of their hospitality which was perfect. They gave no parties nor even afternoon teas. How could they without a servant? Indeed, though they had the luxury of getting their own breakfast in their sitting-room at any hour of the day when they liked to eat it, they were too much in the habit of eating their dinner at any restaurant near which they might happen to be when they were hungry to have inaugurated any extensive housekeeping. Moreover, they could see their city friends whenever they chose for an hour or two at a time without the trouble of providing a feast or a band of music. They always had bread and butter and fruit and various appetizing knickknacks stored away, so that if a callerstayed till any one was hungry a sufficient lunch could be served on the spot.
But they exercised their hospitality chiefly for the benefit of their country friends whom they could not otherwise see. Many a nice old lady or bright young girl passed a week with them, who would otherwise have hurried through her season's shopping in a day and have had no time left for music or pictures. Most of these friends could amuse themselves very well through the day. If they did not know the way about, one of the hostesses conducted them to the libraries or museums as she went her own way to her daily occupation. There was always bread and cheese for them to eat if they chose, and if they cared for something more they could find it at a restaurant as their entertainers did, or they could cook it for themselves in the hospitable little kitchen. A folding bed could always be let down for them at night, and in times of stress another bed could be made on the sofa.
The hostesses spent little money or thought or time on their guests, except so far as they really wanted to do so, and yet they entertained great numbers of people most satisfactorily. They did not ask anybody to visit them from a sense of duty, but they always asked everybody they fancied they should like to see without a thought as to convenience, because it always was convenient to have anybody they liked with them. Weknow that men enjoy giving invitations in this free way, but they seldom have the power—for two reasons; either their wives are not satisfied to entertain the friends of their husbands in simple every-day fashion, or the husbands themselves are not satisfied to have them so entertained.
Every one knows the great difference between city and country hospitality. Very few people in the city appear to be really pleased to see an uninvited guest, and they are far less likely to invite guests, except perhaps when giving a party, than those of the same means in the country. They are not altogether to blame in this. There are so many more people to see in the city than in the country that every one becomes a new burden, and the friendship must be very close indeed that survives such a strain. But I fear it is also true that in the city the non-essentials of life have undue weight.
Our lives are clogged withbric-à-brac. Every separate article in a room may be pretty in itself, and yet the room may be hideous through overcrowding with objects which have no meaning.
The disease ofbric-à-bracI think, is due to two influences,—the desire of uncreative minds to create beauty, and the mania for giving Christmas presents. Both these influences have a noble source, and will probably reach more beautiful results at last. Any mind awake to beauty must try to create it, and if its power and originality are not very great, what can it do better than to apply itself to humble, every-day trifles and try to decorate them? This is certainly right, if the old principle of architecture is always remembered: "Decorate construction, do not construct decoration." A few illustrations of my meaning may be needed.
I am obliged to use blotting-paper when I write. I have always been grateful to a friend who sent me a beautiful blue blotting book, with a bunch of white clover charmingly painted on the first page. It gives me pleasure every time I write a letter.I am glad that one of my friends was artistic enough to embroider some fine handkerchiefs for me with a beautiful initial. One of my dearest possessions is the lining for a bureau drawer made of pale blue silk, with scented wadding tied in with knots of narrow white ribbon. This lies in the bottom of the drawer, and owing to the kindness of my friends shown at various times, I am able to lay upon the top of each pile of underclothing either a handkerchief case or a scent bag of blue silk or satin. Some of these trifles are corded with heavy silk, some are embroidered with rosebuds, some are ornamented with bows of ribbon, and altogether they make the drawer a "thing of beauty" which to me personally "is a joy forever," and they are never in anybody's way.
My friend has been less fortunate in the tributes of affection she has received. She has several elaborate and even pretty ties which she is obliged to append to her sofas and easy-chairs. They are believed to add to the harmony of coloring in her sitting-room, but they are very likely to be askew when the sofas and easy-chairs are in use; and as they always have to be rearranged during the process of dusting, they form an argument for delaying that duty as long as possible. She also has several head-rests and foot-rests, in which the embroidery is exquisite in itself, but which are so ill-contrived that they afford no rest to either head or foot. "They are worth having, though,"she says, "because of their beauty, just as a picture is worth having though you cannot use it." "Yes," replies her husband, "they are worth having, but not worth having in the way. I do not want even the Sistine Madonna propped up in my easy-chair." Most of her friends are learning to paint, and many of them have chosen to give her at Christmas specimens of their progress mounted on pasteboard easels. These cover the tables and mantels and brackets of her sitting-room. "Ah!" she says softly, under her breath, "if they had only thought to paint book-marks instead One can never have enough book-marks. It would be delightful to have one in every book in the library, and the more beautiful the better, while the ugly ones, which perhaps come from our dearest friends, would be blessed for their usefulness besides being unobtrusive."
Sweet temper is certainly essential to a happy home; but if my friend were not too sweet tempered to hide these offerings from constant sight, her sitting-room would not be so exasperating a place. There is no room for a work-basket or a book on the tables. One is continually upsetting some frail structure, or tumbling over some well-meant æsthetic convenience.
Christmas presents are worse than any others. Even a hideous and useless gift offered at any other season may be acceptable, and we need not grudge it room, because being spontaneous, it represents love. But even the most genuine Christmas presents are becoming subject to the suspicion that they are given from a sense of duty, because gifts at that season have become a habit. I have no reason to suppose that any of my numerous kind friends grudge the Christmas presents they so generously give me; but I often find myself wondering how many of them would think of giving me anything as often as once a year if there were no special date to recall the custom to their minds.
Gifts would be far more likely to be spontaneous if they were never given regularly; if, for instance, we avoided giving anything next Christmas to anybody whom we had remembered this year—excepting always to little children, to servants, and to the poor—the three classes to whom we never venture to givebric-à-brac, knowing well they would laugh us to scorn instead of flattering us by calling our contributions "perfectly lovely." Now, when a gift is spontaneous, its value is quite irrespective of its use, but at the same time it is far more likely to be both beautiful and useful. We read a book that moves us. How we wish we could share it with one friend who particularly enjoys such a book! We send it to her, and it is exactly the thing she wants. On the other hand, Christmas is approaching. What shall we give our friend? She likes books. Well, then, here is a prettily bound volume which is wellspoken of. We have no time to look farther, and we send it to her. She thanks us in a pretty note, but is too busy in writing a hundred notes of thanks to read the book then. It is laid by and perhaps forgotten.
We are making another friend an informal visit. We see that her needle-book is getting shabby. We hasten to get bits of kid and silk and flannel, and make her a new one with our daintiest stitches, and she is delighted. She uses it every day, and likes to remember that we thought of her comfort. But what shall we give her for Christmas? We think she has everything. We have too many friends to remember now, for time for such a dainty piece of sewing. Let us buy her some kind of an ornament. It is true that the French clock and the vases and the match receivers and two or three pictures on easels already crowd the mantel-piece, but there is an odd little bronze image which would not be amiss among them. It costs rather more than we can afford to pay, but we love her, and wish to give her something, and are at our wits' end to know what. She receives it graciously, and every time she dusts her ornaments she remembers us affectionately. "I don't grudge dusting this," she says sweetly to herself, "for my dear friend gave it to me, and I would do a great deal more than this for her." Of course, in a family where a servant dusts, the present is forgotten the moment it is placed on the shelf.
I remember the dearest of little girls who once made me a Christmas present of a purse of her own embroidering. The colors she chose were brilliant, but hardly beautiful; the material rather flimsy, the sewing was far beyond criticism, and if I had ever been rash enough to intrust any money to such a purse, I should have returned home penniless. But I was enchanted with the gift. I shall keep it as long as I live wrapped in the crumpled tissue paper in which this darling child folded it in her wish to make it look as attractive as possible. I can never even think of this gift without fancying the tiny unskillful fingers as they toilsomely labored over those silks that would catch and twist, and I think of the sweet brow and eyes which bent over the work, and am as sure as if I had seen it of the loving smile which hovered about the childish lips at the thought that she was going to give me a pleasant surprise.
But as this little maiden grew up the cares of Christmas multiplied. There came a time when she had money to spend, and a host of friends to spend it upon, and when she certainly had not time personally to conduct the making of the number of Christmas presents she thought necessary to bestow. She was much too loyal to leave me out on this occasion, and if I were to judge of the degree of her affection by the proportion of her money which she spent upon me, she musthave regarded me still as one of her dearest friends. She gave me a pair of exquisite cut glass vases, which, when placed in the sunshine, were certainly most beautiful with the flashing of colors. Their outline too was a lovely curve, but unfortunately such that it was impossible to put any flowers in the vases. At the base they were too slender to receive even one rose-stalk, while they were so broad at the top that it would have required a whole nosegay to fill them. If I had had a vast empty drawing-room which was to be filled withbric-à-brac, I could have found a place for them; but they were too delicate for my tiny parlor where there is so little elbow-room that slight things are in danger of being overturned. Of course I prize the vases and love the giver, but I know she never would have given them to me but for the feeling that the time had come to make a present; and so, while I shall cherish the little purse as long as I live, I have resolved that if the vases are ever broken, I will not treasure the fragments.
From these two roots, the love of creating beauty and the desire to express love for our friends on the same day of every year, such luxuriant vines have grown that unless we prune them carefully we are in danger of being completely entangled by them. There are still, perhaps, some waste places which our uselessbric-à-bracmight make beautiful, and if we know any bare homes,let us by all means do something to brighten them; but let us not make for ourselves or give to our friends any small article which does not express use as well as beauty. We need not be at a loss if we remember Oscar Wilde's declaration that every article used in a house should be something which had given pleasure to the maker, that is, that it should be artistic. When all usefulbric-à-brachas become beautiful, we shall no longer desire to make or possess beautifulbric-à-bracwhich is not useful. Of course I know that "Beauty is its own excuse for being," and I see in a fine picture, for instance, an appeal to the higher faculties which is more useful than usefulness. This I do not see inbric-à-brac, certainly not if the objects are to be so crowded in a small room that no one can see anything more than prettiness in them. Instead of my beautiful vases with their shifting lights, which do, after all, give me real pleasure sometimes when I am not too anxious lest I should break them, cut glass tumblers would have given me the same æsthetic enjoyment renewed at every meal. I might break a tumbler to be sure, but I should have the full enjoyment of it while it lasted.
A highly emotional young lady was once defending the reasoning powers of her sex at the dinner-table of a cultivated and fair-minded physician who finally took occasion to say sweetly to her: "No doubt the reason of women equals that of men; but I believe the trouble is that all men like a woman a little better if she is governed by feeling rather than by reason."
"Oh," said the young lady in a glow, "that is like saying that you would a little rather a woman would not be truthful!"
"I hope not," said the physician.
The friend who told me the anecdote added that of the two young ladies who were at the time members of the physician's family, there was no question that he greatly preferred the one who was most reasonable and least emotional!
Some one else tells me of a clever young lady who applied for a position as dramatic critic upon a newspaper. The editor recognized her ability and her knowledge of the drama, but he said he was afraid to employ a woman in such a department, lest her feelings should prevent her tellingthe exact truth. She would be biased herself, and praise the things she liked, and then she would have her personal favorites among the actors. The young lady who believed herself capable of justice was greatly hurt.
Are women really excessively emotional? And if so, is it well that they should be?
I suppose most people would agree that women are more emotional than men, and that this peculiarity comes in a great measure from their delicate physical organization, and in a great measure from the encouragement they get from men in indulging their feelings. Nobody admires a woman when her emotions reach the point of hysteria, and, in fact, those who have encouraged her up to that point are often least patient with her when the crisis comes. The general belief about hysteria is that it is caused by the culpable weakness of a selfish nature, and that is often true. But there are important exceptional cases becoming more and more numerous, where the parents have cultivated what they and their friends consider fine feelings so assiduously that the poor child is born helplessly weak and nervous, and a prey to every vibration in the spiritual atmosphere about her.
Now what arefinefeelings? Jealousy, envy, hatred, and others of that class are not fine, and yet they are extremely common among those women who are sensitive and highly organized.They do belong more frequently than we sometimes think to the outfit of an emotional woman. A woman who would not hurt a fly has violent antipathies to excellent people. She would not hurt them either. She would delight in giving them food and clothing if they were in want. She wishes she need not hurt their feelings, but she usually does give pain, because her own feelings are paramount. The important point however is that she is unjust in her judgments. She exaggerates the faults of her foes, as well as the virtues of her friends, and widens every breach.
But we all know that jealousy and envy and hatred are wrong, even if we endeavor to dignify them with finer names, and all of us who have any moral purpose do make our stand against them.
When, therefore, we speak in praise of a woman's emotional nature, we are thinking of a nature in which generosity swallows up justice, and duty is forgotten, because "love is an unerring law." We cannot be too generous, or too loving, or too sensitive to beauty and honor.
But men are as generous and loving as women, so, after all, we do have something a little different from this in our minds when we speak of the emotional nature of women. Do we not mean that a woman is unreasonable?
Love can never be too great, but it is often unwise. All affectionate women who have reachedmiddle age must have received many confidences from girls who have been mistaken in supposing themselves loved by men who have grown tired of them. A girl often suffers intensely in such a case, and it is hard to know how much is due to wounded love, and how much to wounded pride. I suppose most of us have been astonished to see how often when a girl's life seems both to herself and her friends to have been utterly wrecked she is capable of responding to a new lover, and if he proves to be a fine man, how full and fine her own life becomes. This is right, and most natural to the most emotional natures, that is, to those which answer most readily to outside influences. Yet we all have a feeling that sudden and frequent changes of this kind show a shallow character, and girls sometimes make a pathetic struggle to resist new possibilities of happiness, because they cannot bear to admit that the old love can die.
The weakness of character in this case comes from the being ready to love any one who will make us the central figure without regard to any more solid foundation. Such love comes from vanity and is good for nothing. A girl cannot be too careful to guard against such an emotion.
And then, why should a woman cease to love a man simply because she is disappointed to find that he does not love her? Many times the fault is her own. She has believed he loved her because she wished to believe so. But if she has loved him because he was worth being loved, she has a right to cherish that love even when she knows it is hopeless, provided she does not hurt other people. I think it is happily not often that an altogether hopeless love continues long in full vigor, but occasionally it does. If the old lover marries, the woman who cannot conquer her love certainly ought to separate herself as far from him as possible. Any fine theory of being able to be a silent providence in his life is sure to prove fallacious, and to bring suffering to somebody. And it is not best for her to say much to her own friends of her sorrow. She either pains them or tires them. Any love which causes her to do this is unreasonable. I suspect that some women find their love slipping away from them and try to hold it fast by the expedient of talking about it. No love that has to be held in that way is worth keeping. There are loves we should cherish just as there are others which we ought to cast out, but nothing is real which cannot be retained except by making ourselves a burden to other people.
Another unreasonable love is that which a woman feels for a man who has really treated her dishonorably. It is true that we do not love simply for merit. There are sympathies between men and women as between parents and children with which merit has little to do. One great reason that emotional women attract men is because they can make a hero out of such unheroic stuff. And why should we try always to see the exact reality as if that were nearer the truth than the same reality transfigured by ideal light? The more we believe in others, the better and happier we all are. A man full of faults, selfish, and even vicious, may be helped by a woman who trusts him. But when he has forsaken her, it is not often that she can be of much real service to him. She must indeed forgive him, but when she has genuinely forgiven him, the glamour of love will usually have disappeared. If she insists upon shutting herself up from other love for his sake, she should question herself as to the part sentimentality and perversity bear in her character.
Most of the best work done in the world is done in the face of what seem to be insurmountable difficulties. Our faith moves mountains. An impossible duty is done. The fact that women ignore the impossibility is their strongest power. This, I suppose, is what the physician meant when he said that men liked a woman a little better if she was not always governed by reason. "Love believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things." We all like to have such love as that lavished upon us. It is a noble love which glorifies the object by keeping in view all the time the ideal which is to be some day realized. It is something very different from the weak lovewhich distorts the object simply because of its personal connection with us. But no doubt women who are weakly emotional in this way do have a great attraction for men, that is, so long as the man himself is an object of their emotions. Such women are pretty sure to have lovers when better and more unselfish women are overlooked. They do not wear very well, and men tire of them, especially when they exercise their emotions in new fields; and as wives (after marriage) and sisters and mothers they prefer the quieter and less impassioned women. But the great and ardent loves which influence a life still belong to the women of ardent feelings.
Ardent feelings well controlled,—that is our ideal; but how few women of strong feelings do control them well, and how few who have perfect self-control have very strong feelings!
Which shall we choose, the strong feelings or the self-control? We have not complete choice in the matter, for we must begin with the temperament we are born with. Others may choose to love or hate us for the temperament we are not responsible for, but what can we do for ourselves?
I believe the hardest task is that of the cool-blooded women. How are they to make themselves feel without becoming hypocrites? Pretending to feel any emotion is no help in feeling it. Nevertheless, we are not entirely helpless.There are ways of nourishing noble germs of feeling even when the natural soil is cold and dry.
One way is to clear the ground of weeds. A cool nature is sometimes peculiarly prone to envy and suspicion. A woman with little love of her fellow-creatures sits alone in her home day after day, and thinks of her own troubles and the shortcomings of her neighbors till it seems impossible to love anybody but herself. Such emotions as stir the dull current of her life are all selfish. But if she has the one saving virtue of being able to perceive her narrowness, the remedy is in her own hands. For she can go out and speak to somebody, and even a passing greeting sometimes sets the blood flowing afresh. And there is always somebody she can help, though, it may be only a child who is in some trifling difficulty. Every act of this kind makes another easier, and every such act nourishes the little germ of love in the heart. I have no doubt that persistence in doing small kindnesses for every one about her would be potent enough to transform the coldest of us into a woman glowing with love. Yet I cannot say I have ever seen such a transformation. I suppose that is because the cold nature does not perceive its coldness or desire to change. Still there are surely some of us who know that love in us is only a stunted plant, and who do sincerely desire its more luxuriant growth. Those of us who have ardent feelings towards our friendsknow that we are often worse than cold towards those we do not fancy. We sometimes, alas, take a certain pride in our sensitiveness in this particular. We justify our hatred for uncongenial people till we have fairly faced the truth that love is the law of our being, and that wemustlove our neighbor. Then, though we cannot change our temperament, yet by the doing of prosaic duties, the germ of love may be made to bud and blossom. At least do not let us allow the turmoil of every-day affairs to crowd out love. We have not time to see our friend. A letter written to us with love and care is hastily skimmed and thrown aside. We do not answer it for many weeks, and then our haste is our apology for saying nothing we really care for. And by and by the love grows faint. Perhaps our friend dies, and the package of affectionate letters we once saved as precious lies forgotten in a drawer. Our friend did not fail us, we should love her just as dearly again if we were with her daily, but the love has been crowded out.
Now, some of us are really overtasked with necessary work; but usually our hurry comes from our ambition or our indolence. If love were really first with us, we should find time for our friends.
But some of us are so placed that we are continually meeting new people whom we can warmly love. Now there is a limit to the number of people who can form a part of our daily life. It ispossible to love a hundred people dearly, but it is not possible to talk intimately with a hundred people every day, or to write a hundred affectionate letters every week. But because we cannot cling closely to so many, let us not believe that we cannot cling closely to a few. Let us at least hold fast to a few friends, and without trying to form a part of the lives of the rest meet them all warmly when we do meet. We cannot love too much or too many people, and loving one helps us to love another, but we can only fully give ourselves to a few.
I seem to be speaking altogether of nourishing emotion, and we ought to nourish noble emotions. But the task set especially to women is to control less noble emotions. We know well enough what is our duty in regard to jealousy, envy, and so forth, though so many of us who mean to be good women do not make a very heroic struggle even here, and perhaps justify our weakness by the plea that our feelings are strong.
I will therefore speak particularly of some of our failings which lean to virtue's side. What is it, for instance, to be a sensitive woman? The highest women are exquisitely sensitive, they respond to beauty, to love, to truth, and goodness instantly. But suppose they also tremble at ugliness, and shrink from pain? The two kinds of sensitiveness do often exist together. The perfectwoman would follow the example of Christ and look through outward ugliness and suffering to inward beauty and goodness, and would keep herself unspotted from the world not by shrinking from it, but by helping it upward.
But as we are imperfect, our sensitiveness shows itself most frequently in making us feel every jar to our pride and vanity. And we make a virtue of this. We ought to guard ourselves against such sensitiveness. It is a fault which lies very deep. It is almost impossible for averysensitive woman to be just. In fancying wrong to herself she imputes wrong to everybody about her. In trying to shield herself she wounds others. She fears a slight was intended, and rather than submit to it, deliberately hurts some one who she knows may be innocent. Would it not be better to believe that the person who has hurt her is innocent, and submit to the slight even if it was intended? What harm can it do her to think a guilty person innocent? And what harm can a slight do her? But it always does harm to stoop to an ignoble feeling.
Let us at least be just. But the special accusation against women is that they are not just, and sometimes their special virtue is believed to be a romantic generosity which shuts out justice. Women are prone to be so generous to one person as to be unjust to another. They are strong partisans, and are determined to believe thosethey love always in the right. That seems like an amiable failing; but is it? Do we wish even our enemy to be wronged to save our friend? I think every high-minded woman would choose to be just, even if she must make her friend suffer; but it is very hard to live by that standard.
Most men who write novels describe women as ready to forgive the man who has forsaken them for another woman, but as implacable towards the rival however innocent she may be. There is too much truth in such a picture, but the best women know that good women are not so unjust. That Dorothea in her anguish at finding Will Ladislaw singing with Rosamund Lydgate should do her utmost to help Rosamund take a better stand is of course unusual, but it is not unnatural. That was a splendid kind of generosity which did indeed swallow up justice, but it was founded on justice, the justice which strove to restore all things to their true relations. If any girl is puzzled as to the true province of feeling, and wishes to know how to reconcile warm-heartedness and self-control, let her read the wonderful chapter in "Middlemarch" which describes the interview between Dorothea and Rosamund.
Wherever we have to choose between justice and generosity we must be just. Otherwise, our generosity is mere sentimentality. And it does no good even to the person on whom we lavish it. Perhaps justice in its highest sense includes generosity. It is just that the rich should help the poor, and more truly generous to give with that thought than with the feeling that one has done something meritorious in giving. It is also mere justice that in dealing with our fellow-creatures we should always think of them as they may be, as they ought to be, and not to remember simply what they are. Our faith in them helps them to rise, but not our pretense that they are right when they are wrong.
After all, however, who is perfectly balanced? There are worthy women who have all their feelings well in hand, who are pleasant to live with, and who do an immense amount of good in the world, and yet who never rise above common-placeness, and never lift anybody else much above the material plane. And there are other women so ardent and generous and loving that they seem to lend wings to everybody they meet, who are yet crushed and ruined themselves by the excess of their grief not only for their own sorrows, but for those of the whole world, until by and by they drag their dearest and most sympathetic friends down into the same abyss of woe.
How shall we keep the true balance? I believe that it always is kept by religious faith, though that too is frequently distorted. The one thing necessary to believe is that a good God rules the universe. There is no limit to the love we may give to such a being or to the creaturesHe has made, and there is no sorrow which cannot be comforted by the thought that love underlies it, and that it has a meaning though we cannot see it, and there is nothing else which is so sure a spur to duty.
Even this simple creed, however, is not possible to all of us. The upheavals in religious beliefs which this century has seen reach even emotional women and unthinking girls. We cannot believe a thing simply because we should like to believe it. Without this one article of faith, I believe happiness to be impossible, but we need not fail in our duty. A noble woman whose beautiful life is a benediction to all about her, but whose suffering has been intense, says that as her life has been an exceptionally favored one, it is impossible for her to believe in God. But she adds, "Though things are not for the best, we must make the best of them. We can always lighten somebody's burden." I believe she is wrong in saying things are not for the best, but there could be no more sublime resolution than to determine to do all we can to make wrong right.