The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1871-02-02
Home CourfesIes.

Now, YOU young fellow at the table
reading the evening paper, and nod
ding in a surly way TO your mother
and sister, take 2 test. II your clothes
breathed a delicious fragrance-say of
heliUtrOpe or rOses-but would DO 50
only when you were at home. or only
when you went abroad, which would
You choose? Would you smell sweet
at home, or when You went away
from home? Would you have q per
petual climate of rare OdOrs in your
own house, or elsewhere? OF course
you would have il at home for your
own comfort and enjoyment, you cur
mudgeOn, if for nothing else. But
what is domestic courtesy but the
breath Of heliOtrOpes and roses at
home? 1t is as much for your pleas
ure that you should be pleasant as it
IS fOT that of Others. The happieSt
household in the world is that in
which courtesy is new every morning
and fresh every evening, like the ce-
lestiaL benedietiOns.
How many of US, brethren and sis
ters, make home the rag-bag of ill-hu-
mOTs and caprices, and wretched
moods of every kind, while we care
fully hide them from the stranger!
When the guest arrives we slide q
chair over the rent in the carpet, and
slip q tidy over the worn edge Of q
sOfa-cushOn, anG lay prettily bound
book over the ink-stain upon the par
lor table-clOth; and 50 at his coming
the flying hair is smOOthed, and the
sullen look is gilded with a smile,
and the sour tore is suddenly wonder
fully sweet. Shriveled old Autumn
blooms in a moment into rosy Spring.
And how Is a youth to know that this
house, where everything seems 10
smile, is not always as warm and sun
ny as he finds it2 Yet tiIis young wO-
man, so neatly dressed, so quietly
50 fascinating to the young
man, may be the most inefficient OF
human beings. Still he can never
know it until it is too late. He cau-
not put it to the proof. He takes the /
divinity upon trust. All tha5 he
knows is that she is a woman, and I.
that he loves. And whether he thinks !
that household intelligence, thrift and |
endless courtesy come by nature, like /
DOgberry's reading and writing, or
whether he assumes that, having a |
mother, his peerless princess has been |
carefully taught all the duties of |
queen, or whether, as is probable, he !
only knows that he loves, the duty of |
the parent is still the same.
But to the ordeal of the household /
VINO can come too well prepared ? And /
what parent, what human being who /
has learned by experience, but would /
equip every child with the most per- |
feet equipment? No, DOrinda Jane, /
to whom the youth, crusty at home, /
will presently come sweetly smiling, |
il is nOe the flowing hair, and grace |
ful dress, and the bloom upon the /
cheek, and the soft lustre of the eye, |
that will'make home happy. No, nor /
IS it his horses and plate, and the lux /
1ry and ease he promises. If he is /
hash and short and Grabbed, what if |
he has fifty thousand a year? Ifyou /
are careless and ignorant and help J
less, the victim instead Ofruler of your |
house, what if your eyes are black and |
your cheeks a dim carnatiOn? And /
you dear sir and madam, who permit |
that bOOr to sit surly at the table, and /
to g-owl in mOnOsyllables at home, |
you who suffer that fair-faced girl to |
grow up utterly unequal to the duties |
10 which she win he called, you are
respOnsible.-Harper's Magazine.