Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-04-25

born's house. but 1t was the regularity o.
unyielding machinery, which, If not care
fully used, would drag everything into its
destructive teeth. Any deviation to suit
the convenience of the members OF the
family was not to be thought Of lfwash-
ing was appointed, the doctor found that,
of all the numerous persons in his en-
plovment, there was not one of whose
Services he could avail himself even to
send message. To bring friend to take
a meal with him was thing of which he
now no longer thought; and if he wished
to speak with his wife during the day, she
was either in the kitchen or the wash
house, or engaged with the children, and
therefore begged him to wait half an hour.
He could hardly ever be with her alone.
for now that the children caused more
work, there were few days on which there
was not at least one seamstress employed,
and Sophie, by the lapse of years and oc-
casional sickness and increasing care. be-
came more irritable, and changed the ser
wants about every three months, SO that
his home became the abode of strangers.
For the latter reason everything was kept
under lock and key. If the mistress went
out and he wanted anything, he was met
everywhere by locked doors, so that at
last he began to feel like a stranger in his
own house.
His pecuniary circumstances having been
improved by an important legacy, he al
most entirely relinquished his practice and
devoted himself chiefly to his medical jour-
nal. His work was done mainly in the
morning; the afternoon he spent partly at
the library and partly with his friends ;
the evenings he gave to his club, where he
had the character of being one of the best
billiard players in the circle. He was as
much estranged from his home as he well
could be. and from having loved his wife
as his own soul, he became more and more
and more Indifferent to her.
Naturally, this did not escape her notice,
and she felt herself to be in an unfortunate
position. She was conscious of being
faithful to her husband, her house was a
pattern of order, her children were well
cared form short, she lived for her own
home; how, then, came it to pass that the
affections of her husband were estranged
from herP She spoke to her mother about
it, but she shook her head and said, at
was the complaint of the times formerly
things were different; when she was mar
ried her husband was hardly ever absent
from home, but now he was like others. The
men were spoiled by pubic-heuse life and
beer, and she had better not trouble her
self about it, for she could not by any CON
Germ Of hers change the ways of the
world"
Now, wherein really lay the reason OF
this want of harmony between those two
beings who from the first had sincerely
loved, and who had never consciously
done anything on either side to grieve each
other, but who, Notwithstanding, found
themselves estrangedP We find it now on
one side and now on the other. Some
times, indeed, both are to blame; but in
this case, as in many more, the fault was
the wife's.
The virtue of domestcation in wife is
one of the chief. By its exercises she can
turn her husbands home into a paradise !;
but then her management must be the
means and not the end. Household cares
must not be the axis around which she
continually reyolves; for then, Instead of
her housekeeping contributing to her hus-
bands comfort, it becomes burden which
sooner or later he will endeavor to shake
off, or at least will endeavor as often As
possible to escape.
Sophie had only one fault-ahc was "too
donesticaled.