The Cecil Whig., 1872-01-06
THE HOUSE AND THE HOME.


"Home," say we. There is a home idea
about our home, that the Frenchman knows
not of. There is a sanctity about the
American home, that "chez moi" cannot
reach.
Everybody who can, ought to have a
home. Everybody who has home ough ht
to make it as pleasant, as delightful
home, as his circumstances will admit of.
Nobody has right to have dismal home,
a sour home, damp home, and illiterate
home, or an unventilated home, unless a
grim weight of untoward circumstances
pressing on him, forbid him.
AS our society is constituted, our home
must be in house. The house is not the
home, for there is many house which is
not home at all; but it is largely part
of it. There are some people who will
never make themselve at home in any
house whatever Restless groaners, dis
satisfied croakers, worrying grumblers
peevish mischief makers, unreasonable
fault finders, who never were pleased at
any OF their surroundings, nor ever will
be: on these homeless souls the blessings
of home are thrown away. They see
only home sorrows, and know nothing of
home joys. Their only congenial abiding
place would be an Asylum for the Indig-
nant homeless. Perchance some weary
creature may, one day, leave in his will a
bequest for the founding of such an insti
tuition.
Considering now cheap light and air are,
it is wonderful how little of these useful
elements find their way iuto some of our
house-homes. If light were to be purchas-
ed, at so much a shine; if air could be
breathed only at fixed rate per lungful;
or If either or both of these necessaries to
our comfortable existence were taxed by
legal enactment, it would seem iniuuitous
and oppressive. Queer as it may seem,
there are houses erected by builders who
would seem never to have drawn full
breath in their lives, so sedulously have
they taken pains to close every GRANNY in
their ediiices against the circulation of the
air which should be freely admitted
Rooms which, when doors and windows
are closed, are air-tlght; in which the fam
lily sit for hours upon stretch, breathing
over and over, hour after hour, the air
which has been inhaled and exhaled, and
which, having done its work, should be
suffered to lind an exit into the street, that
it may 60 about its business and be puri-
fled, making way, as it goes, for more and
more to come in and administer to the
comfort and nourishment of the half
asphyxiated family.
As if 1t were not enough to exclude the
air, we stint ourselves to the most meagre
quantity of light ON which it is possible to
grope our way around the premises. The
close shutters, the shades, rolling against
them the minor and more elaborate cur
tains of lace or of slkin or woollen fabric,
many of them heavy with the unshaken
dust OF months, repel the intrusion of the
sunshine which would fade our carpets and
render shabby the varnish on our furni-
ture. The parlor, sacred from the entrance
of juvenile foot to tread it's costly carpet.
or chubby fingers to soil its wonders of
carved piano or marvellously decorated
etagere; reserved by the family, who cheat
themselves out of its use for the sole use
of its guests, who care but little for them,
and for whose visits they care as little.
With darkened ray of light feebly oozing
through the nearly closed shutter, illuming
the apartment scarce enough for the guest
to avoid breaking his bones over articles
of furniture strangely enough distributed
with elaborate random over and across the
floor, as stumbling blocks in the path of
tne way1arer' win musty odor, ascend
ing from the cellar, that dark, damp hole
in the ground, dug to furnish the family
with mlasma enough to last them during
their natural lives, and perhaps to hurry
them Oft to heaven before their time. Such
house is constant menaento mori. The
sepulchral cellar, with Its perfume as ifof
tne cemetery is enough to permeate every
tnought ana action OF each member of the
nousehold with damp gloom and dis
mai MI 11reoodinS OF coming wretchednes.
. ne darkeheo parior, with each piece OF
!nlh,tnre l, gr'miy keeping watch among
Ire shadows, as II awaiting the gathering
vi 'le company lor the funeral. 10 laugh,
III sucn hoase' seems almost sacrllege,
ana quite an lmposslblllty 10 open that
long aisuSed piano, and undertake music
upon It's yellow keys, would be like rat
Ting the bones OF the deceased in his coffin.
me rumble IN the street OF the wheels ofa
passing cart, Is enough TO suggest to the