American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-12-18
Domestic Critics.

| 1OUR uOmestlc cr1tlC le always your
very intimate friend.
You perhaps remember that certain
| wise man of ancient times prayed to be
| delivered from his friends, and when we
| look back thougntfully over our expert
ence we cannot help concluding that his
| was very sensible petition.
Your domestic critic is generally a
| woman. Men there are who are possessed
| of precisely her characteristics, and who
exercise them in their own appointed
| sphere, but it is not of them we are writ
| ing. We have at present to do only with
| the female critic.
She calls upon you early in the morn
| ing; hopes you have had time to set things
| to rights, and she brings her work, and Is
delighted to see you, and seats herself in
! the creakiest rockingham in the room,
and commences her tidy-knitting; for
your domestic critic does not carry out
sewing much, to any great extent. She
likes knitting because it affords her such
a free use of her eyes in other directions.
She takes in your household arrange
ments at a glance. She sees the spot of
grease on the Seventeenth and the bone
which you gave the dog for his breakfast
under the table, and she notices the place
where the wall paper is off by the look
ing-glass, and she sees the dirty table
cloth sticking out of the side drawer
WucTc 1Ou udStlly IL WHICH, you
saw her coming.
You hurry through your work and in
vite her into the Sitting room. She ferrets
out another creaky rocking chair, and pulls
up the shade for more light, and settles
herself for business.
She squints at your carpet and spies out
the very place where you darned it last
spring, and fiattered yourself that you had
done it SO nicely that it would never be
observed; and She asks you why you do
not use black pepper for moths? 1t looks
so bad to see carpet moth eaten! it really
spoils the beauty of a room to have a bad
yours should have been injured right there
in that particular spot before the hall
dOor-just where everybody cannot help
noticing it!
You put on your new spring suit which
you thought, and which your dressmaker
thought, so elegant and such perfect fit,
and your critic scrutiniZes it with a keen
eye. 1t hangs a little too full in front,
she tells you, and the braid on the bottom
is rather light; it will draw in horribly
after it is wet! You ought to have shrunk
it before it was put on!
Then she feels the material of the dress
and assures you that it is lovely but that
it will cookie" dreadfully Cousin
Alice had one just like it, and she gave it
away before she had worn it month to
one of those Mulligan children, and such
a rag as it is now! What a pity you had
not trimmed it with some new plating in
stead of ruffies-rutfies are so old and
everybody wears them!
Then she looks at your sewing-machine
and wonders whatever did make you have
a Singer Why did you not get Howe,
or Domestic or a Wilson?
When you tell her, as yeu probably will
with some degree of temper, that you are
well pleased with your machine and do
not wish to change it, she will laugh, and
tell you she is glad you are satisfied, and
as long as you are, why-what matters it?
She looks at your last chrome, which
you thought such an exquisite thing in
its way, and she signs over it, and says
what a pity it is that they color those
chromos SO highly-and she declares that
there is nothing in nature like it, and you
feel like telling her to look in the glass
and behold in her deliberately -rouged face
successful parallel.
If it is spring of the year, and you have
been renovating your house with fresh
paint and paper, your domestic critic will
have her say over the changes. Green bor-
dering for a wall paperl Well, green is
pretty! but so dangerous to health! SO
much arsenic in it! Really, she would
live in constant fear of her life in room
where the bordering was green.
So you have got your doors grained?
Well, granting is nice to clean, but it is
so common! Everybody has it! and it
looks cheap! But, then, if it pleases you,
why, no matter.
Plants! Ell? Your begOnias are beau
tiful; but haven't you heard that they
breed fevers? James will not lether have
any plants at all, because they are so I'M
wholesome They absorb all the air in
room, and leave nothing but poisonous
gases
Then your little pet dog, Fido, runs in
to the room, and your critic draws her
skirts around her, and tells him to get out,
and wants to know if you have heard how
all the dogs are going mad; and she
says, il she kept dog, she would expect
to die of hydrophobia!
She manages, in the course of her visit,
TO say something about everything round
about you, and always in depreciative
way.
Finally, when she can zee nothing more
to criticise, she rolls up her knitting, de-
clares she has had splendid visit, asks
you to come and see her when you can,
and starts for the door.
She has succeeded in making you dis
satisfied with everything around you, and
thoroughly unhappy; but You must fol-
low her to the door, and urge her to stay
longer, and suffer her to kiss you; and
you must invite her to make you happy
by coming again soon and spending the
Il. NJ