The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1874-03-21

While, in the main, we endorse the writer
of the following, there cannot be too much
stress laid ON the fact that an i'll kept house
must inevitably breed discomfort and dscord :
"The truest homes are often in houses not es-
pecally we'll kept, where the comfort and hap
piness Of the inmates, rather than the preser-
walton 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 1t at
tractive, so attractive that none of its 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 feeling from their spotless
precincts. The very name of home is synony-
nous with personal freedom and relaxation
from care. But neither of these can be felt
where such mania for external cleanliness
pervades the household as to render everything
else subservient thereto. Many housewives, if
they see a speck on floor or wall ,, oreven scrap
of thread or bit OF paper on the floor, rush at It,,
as if it were the seed of pestience, which must
be removed on the instant. Their temper de-
ponds upon their maintenance Of perfect puri-
ty 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. This dis
position to wage war upon maculateness of any
sort increases until they become slaves of the
broom and dust-pan. Neatness is one thing,
and state of perpetual house cleaning quite
another.
"Out of this grows by degrees the feeling that
certain things and apartments are too good for
daily use. Hence, chairs and sofa a re covered,
and rooms shut up, save for special occasions,
when they are permitted to reveal their viola
ted sacredness in a manner that mars every
pretense of hospitality. Nothing should be
bought which is considered too fine for the full
est domestic appropriation. Far better Is the
plainest furniture, on which the children can
climb than satin and damask which must be
viewed with reverence. Where anything is re.
served or secluded, to disguise the fact is ex-
tremely difficult. A chilly air wraps it round,
and the repulson of strangeness is experienced
by the most insensible.
"There are few persons who have not visited
houses where they have been introduced to
what is known as the company parlor. They
must remember how uncomfortable they were
while sitting in it; bow they found it almost
impossible to be at ease, and mainly for the
reason that their host and hostess were not
themselves at ease. The children were watch
ed with lynx eyes, lest they should displaee or
soil something; so that the entertainment of
friends became very much like social discip-
line. They must recall, too, how sweet the
fresh air seemed out of doors, and how they in
wardly vowed in leaving that temple of form
and fdgetness, that something more than po-
likeness would be required to incite them to
return.
"Home is not name, nor form, nor q rou-
tine 1t is a spirit, a presence, a principle
Material and method will not, and can not
make it. 1t must get its light and sweetness
from tL-se who inhaoit It, from flowers aud
sunshine, from the sympathetic natures which,
in their exercise of sympathy, can lay aside
the tyranny of the broom and the awful duty
of endless scrubbing. "-Scribner's Monthly.