The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1873-10-23
z Ar Be ITO ME
Versus HOusekeeP-
ing.

Truest homes are often in houses not
especially well kept, where the comfort
and happiness of the inmates, rather than
the preservation Of the furniture, is first
consulted. The object of home is to be
the centre, the point of tenderest interest,
the pivot on which family life turns. The
first requisite is to make it attractive, so
attractive that none of it's inmates shall
care to linger long outside its limits All
legitimate means should be employed to
this end and no effort spared that can
contribute to the purpose. Many houses
called homes, kept with waxy neatness
by painstaking, anxious women, are so
oppressive in their nicely as to exclude
all home-feelings from their spotless pre-
cincts. The very name Of home is syn
onymous with personal freedom and re-
Taxation from care. But neither Of these
can be felt where such a mania for
external cleanliness pervades the house
hold as to render everything else subser-
Went thereto. Many housewives, if they
see a speck on floor or wall, or even a
scrap of thread or bit of paper on the
floor, rush at it, as if it were the seed OF
pestilence which must be removed on the
instant Their temper depends upon
their maintenance of perfect purity and
order If there be any failure on their
part, or any combination of circumstances
against them, they fall into pathetic
despair, and can hardly be lifted out
They do not see that cheerfulness is more
needful to home than all the spotlessness
that ever shone. Their disposition to
wage war upon maculateness of any sort
increase until they become slaves of the
broom and dust-pan. Neatness is one
thing and a state Of perpetual house
cleaning quite another.
Out of this grows by degrees the feel
ing that certain things and apartments
are too good for daily use. Hence, chairs
and sofas are covered, and rooms shut up,
save for special occasions, when they are
permitted to reveal their violated sacred
ness in manner that mars every pre-
tense of hospitality. Nothing should be
bought which is considered too fine for
the fullest domestic appropriation. Far
better is the plainest furniture, on which
the children can climb than satin and
damask which must be viewed with rev.
erence. Where anything is reserved or
secluded, to disguise the fact is extremely
difficult. A chilly air wraps it round,
and the repulsion of strangeness is ex-
perienced by the most insensible.
There are few persons who have not
visited houses where they have been in
troduced to what is known as the COM
pany parlor. They must remember how
uncomfortable they were while sitting in
it. how they found it almost impossible
to be at ease, mainly for the reason that
their host and hostess were not themselves
at ease. The children were watched with
lynx eyes, lest they should displace or
soil something; so that the entertainment
became very much like social discipline.
They must recall, too, how sweet the
fresh air seemed out of doors, and how
inwardly vowed, in leaving that temple
of form and tidgetness, that something
more than politeness would be required
to incite them to return.
Home is not name, nor a form, nor a
routine. 1t is spirit, presence, a prin-
ciple, Material and method will not, and
cannot make it. 1t must get its light
and sweetness from those who inhabit it,
from flowers and sunshine, from the SYM
pathetic natures which, in their exercise
of sympathy, can lay aside the tyranny
of the broom and the awful duty of end
less scrubbing. -Scribner's for October.