Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1858-12-30
Tidiness.

bath and DRESS having still the feeling as if the
day had come too soon, before you had gathered
up heart to face it and its duties and troubles;
and if, on coming down stairs, you find your
breakfast-parlor all in the highest degree snug
and tidy--the fire blazing brightly and warmly,
the fre-irons accurately arranged, the hearth
clean, the capet swept, the chairs busted, the
breakfast equipage neatly arranged upon the
snow-white cloth-it is perfectly wonderful how
all these will brighten yol up. You will feel
that you would be a growing humbug if you
did not become thankful and content. ''Order
is Heavens first law +" and there is sensible
pleasure attending the carrying of it faithfully
out to the very smallest things.
Tidness is nothing else than the carrying into
the hundreds Of little matters which meet us
and touch us hour by hour the same grand prin-
ciples which directs the sublment magnitudes
and the affairs of the universe. Tldiness is, in
short, the being right in thousands of small
concerns in which most men are slovenly salts
fed to be wrong. And though hairs breadth
may make the difference between right and
wrong, it is not little difference. An untidy
person is a person who is wrong, and is doing
wrong, for several hours every day, and though
the wrong may not be grave enough to be indi-
Gated, by power so solemn as conscience Gas
the current through the Atlantic cable, though
a magnetic current, is too faint to be indicated
by the machines now in use,) still, constant
wrong-doing, in however slight degree, cannot
be without a jar of the entire moral nature. 1t
cannot be without putting us out of harmony
with the entire economy under which we live.
And thus it is that the most particular old
bachelor, or the most precise old maid, who in
slsts upon everything about the house being in
perfect order, is, in 80 far, cooperating with
the great plan of Providence; and, like every
one who does So finds an innocent pleasure re-
suit fran that unntcnded harmony. Tidiness
is a great source of cheerfulness. 1t is cheer
ing, have said, even to come into ones break
fast'room and find it spotlessl tidy; but still
more certainly will this cheerfulness come if the
tidiness is thir result of our own exertion.
And so counsel yeu, my friend, if you ere
evr disheartened about some example which
has been pressed upon you of the evil which
there is in this world; if you get vexed, and
worried, and depressed about some evil in the
government of your country, or of your county,
or of your parish; if you have done all you could
to think how the evil may be remedied and if
you know that further brooding over the subject
would only vex and sting and do no good if
all this ever should be so, then counsel you to
have resort to the great refuge of tidiness.-
Don't sit over your library fire, broodlng and
bothering; don't fly to sugar-plums, they will
not avail. There is q corner of one of your
fields that is growing up with nettles there is
a bit of wall or of palisade that is out of re-
pair; there is yard of the edging of Il shrub
berry walk where an overhanging laural has
killed the turf; there is a bed in the garden
which is not so scrupulously tidy as it ought to
be; there is branch of peach tree that has
pulled out its fastenings to the wall, and that
is tapping about in the wind. Or there is a
drawer Of papers which has for weeks been ir
great confusion; or division of your bookcase
where the books might be better arranged Set
to these things forthwith the out-of-door mat
ter are the best. Get your man seryant-al
your people, if you have adozen-and gC
forth and sec things made tidy and see tina
they are done thoroughly work half-doAe will
not serve for our present purpose. Let ever,
nettle he cut down and carried off from the neg
lected corner then let the ground be dug an,
leveled and sow with grass seed If it rains, 81
much the better; it will make the seed tal
root at once. Let the wall or fence be mad
better than when it was new let wheelbar
row-full of fresh green turf be brought; let
be laid down in place of the decayed edging lie
it be cut accurately as u watch's machinery
let the gravel beside it be raked and rolled =
then put your hands in your pockets, and sur
vey the effect with delight. All this will cccu
py you, interest you, dirty you for couple @
hours, and you will come in again to your Ii
brary freside quite hopeful and cheerful. Th
worry and depression will be entirely gone yo
| will see your course beautifully; you have sac
rifced to the good genius of tidiness, and 20
are rewarded accordingly. am simply stain
/ phenomena, my reader. don't pretend to eA
plain causes; but hesitate not to assert, tina
to put things right, and to know that things ar
{ put right, has a wonderful effect in enllvenin
f and cheering. You cannot tell why it is so :
but you come in very different man from wha
: you were when YOU went out. You see thing
in quite another way. You wonder why yo
s could have plagued yourself so much before
= We all know that powerful effects are often pr
: duced upon our minds by causes that have II
: logical connection with these effects. Chang
of scene helps people to get over losses and di
appointments, though not by any process {
n logic. If the fact that Anna Maria ctuell
It Tilted me, thus consigning me to my present sta
l.. of single misery, was good reason why shou'
t be snappish and sulky in Portland-place, is
a not Just as good reason now, when, in the mid
r of a tag-rag procession, | am walking in CHI
y mount after having climbed Mount Blanc? II
= state Of the facts remain precisely as before.-
It Anna Maria is married to Mr.. Dunderhead, Il
d retired iron.monger with ten thousand yea
Nor have new arguments been suggested to n
beyond those which Smith good-naturedly al
10 dressed Ia mo in Lincoln D. Inn-snuare vhen