The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1871-07-26
Eicme Caur:es;eS.

Now, You young fellow at the table
reading the evening papers, and nod
ding in a surly way to Your mother
and sister, take a test. If your clothes
breathed Il delicious fragrance-say OF
leliotrophe or roses-but would DO 50
only when you were at home or when
you went abroad, which would YOU
ehoosee Would you smell sweet at
Fhome, or when you went away from
home? Would you have perpetual
climate of rare odors in your own
| house, or elsewhere? OF course you
would have it at home for your own
comfort and enjoyment, your curmud-
geon, if for nothing else. But what is
domestic courtesy but the breath of
heliotropes and roses at home? 1t is
rs much for your own pleasure that
you should be pleasant as it is for that
of others. The Lappiest household in
the world is that in which courtesy is
new every morning and fresh every
evening, Ike the celestial benedic-
tions.
How many of us, brethren and sis
ters, make home the rag-bag of ill-hu-
mors and caprices, and wretched moods
of every kind, while we carefully hide
them from the stranger When the
guest arrives we slide chair over the
rent in the carpet, and slip d tidy over
tie worn edge of 'tle sofa cushion, and
lay we'll bound book over the ink stain
upon the parinr fabte-clnti, and so at
his coming the flying hair smoothed,
and the sullen look is gilded with
smile, and the sour tone is suddenly
wonderfully sweet. Shriyeled old Au-
tumn blooms in moment into ROSY
Spring. And how is youth to know
that this house, where verything
seems to smile, is not always as warm
and sunny as he finds it9 Yet this
young woman, SO neatly dressed, SO
quietly hammered, so fascinating to the
young man, may be the most "inefii-
ciento of human beings. Still he can
never know it until it is too late. He
can not put it to the proof. He takes
the divinity upon trust. All that he
knows is that she is woman, and that
he loves. And whether he thinks that
household intelligence and thrift and
endless courtesy come by nature, like
Dcgberry's reading and writing, or
whether he assumes that, having
mother, his peerless princess has been
carefully taught all the duties of
queen, or whether, as ismostprobable,
he knows only that he loves, the duty
of the parent is still the same.
But to the ordeal of the household
WHO can come too well prepared?-
And, what parent, what human being,
who has learned by experience, but
would gladly equip every child with
the most perfect equipment? No, Do
rinda Jane, to whom the youth, crusty
at home, will presently como sweetly
smiling, it is not the flowing hair, and
the graceful dress, and the bloom upon
the cheek, and the soft luster of the
eye, that will make home happy. No;
nor is it his horses and plate, and the
luxury and ease he promises. If he is
harsh and short and grabbed, what if
he has fifty thousand year p
If you are careless and ignorant and
helpless, tho victim instead of ruler at
your house, what ifyour eyes are black
and your cheeks dim carnation a.
And You, dear sir and madam, who
permit that boor to sit surly at the ta-
BILE, and to growl in monosyllables at
home, you who suffer that fair faced
girl to grow up utterly unequal to the
duties to which she will be called, you
are responsible G Gorge William
Curtis.