The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-06-09
evening State 9otltilas.
FRIDAY EVENING, JUNE o, 1871.
DOMEsTI

country GIRL WflGes hubiS w., iVn
Tennessee, "age1 Is. My fither Is an cid
fashioned farmer, and does not believe
that women need any education. He
thinks they were born to do Homework
and kitchen drudgery, and have taken
good lesson 10 that. He has never paid
out any money for anything higher than
an old field school. think one ought to
grow nobler in feeling, and purpose, and
desire, and lfe--to increase in knowledge
and spiritual power. Please tell me what
method shall pursue to become better,
and rise above mediocrity. / want home
where / can spend part of my time in the
school-room, and support myself by my
labor"
My dear Annie Your letter moves us
profoundly. That one aspiring spirit
should thirst for knowledge and find it not,
that one soul should be blinded, dwarfed.
Supplied this is indeed tragedy. But
you are not without hope, Annie, for you
have The Weekly Tribune, and diligent
perusal of this will lead you by degrees
from darkness up to light. Take some
fine passage, and copy it carefully, capt.
tails, spelling, and punctuation. This
will correct your grammar and your Or
biography, and improve your writing.
Have an atlas at hand, aud find the coun-
tries, cities, and rivers, mentioned in these
columns.
This will give you some knowledge OF
geography. In a dictionary look out the
meaning of all the words you do not un-
derstand. Then if you can do extra work
for the corn or tobacco field, by rising be-
fore day or working after dark, earn lit
tie money, and buy few books. We
know bright and pretty girl who earned
nearly enough to clothe herself by having
an early and prosperous tobacco-bed, and
selling the plants out of it at so much a
hundred.
A few words for Armies father, and to
him our speech shall be plain. You hold
that woman gets no good of knowledge,
that she should stay at home, cook, spin,
tend chickens and babies, and think of
nothing beyond. Do you know, good
money-making man, that 10 your daughter
Annie and her soul you have treasure
brighter than all your coins. Look you at
the splendid star that blazes in the west,
above the wooded hill, just after sunset.
Can you make money out OF Venus? Can
you melt her for silver? Yet there hangs
and glitters the evening star, o glorious
spangle in the sky, shining on and on, and
preaching from age to age its grand protest
against aims thatare sordd and life that
burrows in the earth aud ends in the dust
There are in every soul parts that link
us to clods that we crush for our corn to
feed upon, and parts that lift us toward
the starry heavens and all things high and
bright and eternal. If you have there I'M
der your rafters spirit that looks up to
the radiance overhead,sin Gods name give
her chance The price of two bushels
of shelled corn will buy her book that
will tell her all about the heavens above !;
yes, and the earth under your feet There
are souls that hunger for knowledge, and
run toward it as sheep love salt, as dog
takes bone. You can never put out that
hankerine ip the mind of vonr daughter.
and it would be thousand shames if you
did. Give the girl chance.
Hattie NJ Corvallis, Oregon To our
eye, cream tint or warm brown is pref
tier for house than white. One of the
daintiest cottages we know of is canary
color, with trimmings of CUR or leather
COLOR
Annie l.. asks about the comparative
expensiveness of housekeeping and board
ing. Everything depends upon the style
In which one lives. A sitting-room,
kitchen and two bedrooms will suffice for
a small family. The sitting-room can
serve for both parlor, dining-room and
library. Carpet with mating, and spend
the surplus in frst-class sewing machine,
rather than have an ingram carpet and no
machine. Domestic happiness is not pro-
NOTED in the least by having an elegantly
furnished shut-ap parlor.
If the money wasted on costly furniture,
and the time thrown away in taking care
of it and dawdling on it were both invested
in the purchase and perusal of choice books
and pictures, the gain 10 both culture and
happiness would be beyond estimation.
Instead of thinking what all your dear five
hundred friends will say about your mode
of life and your scale of expenditure, ask
what you think about it yourself; how it
corresponds with your income, and if it
suits your own ideas. We are opposed
fundamentally and radically to boarding
for married people. A home and board
ing-house are quite two things. Cares
come with housekeeping, but cares come
without it.
The pleasure of house all to ones self,
of cosy breakfasts and quiet dinners, the
dignity aud ease Of being mistress of every
thing beneath that roof, no matter if that
roof is low, no matter if those walls are
dingy, is better a thousand times than
glitter and tinsel, and fresco and tapestry,
with idleness, gossip, tattle, and all the
fripperies of boarding-house vanity
Young men and young men of worth
and sense-are kept from marriage by the
expensiveness of housekeeping and board
ing. This is the bane of American life.
If young couples would consider not what
they would like but what is really requisite
for happiness, many solitary ones would
be rejoicing in happy homes.
FAINT HEART AND FAIR LADY.-James
Martin, of Hoyletown, N. j., gets on
slowly with his girl. He is in trouble
about it and writes thus "Presuming,
dear Madame, upon the kindness with
which you give a thoughtful glance into
SO many lives as they come to the Home
Interest column for light and guidance in
their perplexities, I venture to lay before
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