Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1877-05-25
a study from Life.

Inc study ~ an artists study, portrait
the subject is a true wife.
She marries for love, not to get a place, a
station, or competence. But her love is
not Jonahs gourd. 1t is not hero wor.
ship Of an ideal created by her own imag-
ination. She loves man whose faults she
is wise to see, and strong, in love, to bear
with. Hers is a love that can suffer long
and be kind.
Married, the hope of maternity bright
ems her future. And when God gives to
her the most sacred earthly token of his
love he ever vouchsafes to mortal, a babe,
the Joy of her womanhood seems to her to
be full. Henceforth four words ill up the
measure Of her life-home, husband, child,
God. For she believes that the home is
more than the State, the mothers Office the
highest on earth, aud to train children in
the image of God a grander work than to
make laws OF interpret them.
She is happily free FROM the feverish love
of public applause which often corrupts
and debauches the masculine conscience.
She breads publicity. The love of her us
band, the reverence of her children, con-
stitute the crown to which she aspires.
She is by nature and by taste an artist.
She loves beauty, and her den fingers, in
structed by love, learn TO produce it. She
does not think that to be plain is to be
homely. She loves flowers, pictures, stat
uary, tasteful dress. Her home may be
poor, but it is beautiful her dress plain,
but it is never ugly. She does not have
curls for company and curl-papers for her
break fast-table a best parlor ornate with
purchased elegance, aud silting-room in
perpetual chaos. For beauty she studies
nature, and not the fashion plates. She
thinks God understands the human figure
better than the milliner; and she is not
Ddrwinian enough to believe that the wasp
furnishes the model for her own form or
that of her daughters.
She hates shams. She bears no malice,
except to a lie. A lie acted is only less in
toerabe than a lie spoken. She prefers TO
wear her own cap rather than her neigh
bor's hair, and has as little inclination 10 be
a peacock in society as to be jackdaw at
home. Her life az her love, is without dis
stimulation.
She never quarrels, rarely disputes, sell
dom discusses. The wisdom that is from
above is frat pure, then peaceable; and she
Is very wise. 1t lakes two to make quar-
rel ; and come what may, she will not be
one of them. She answers with neither
sharp words nor sulky silence. Love is a
lightn ing rod that disarms all thunder
clouds; and she is well equipped. But she
is not without will of her own ; not she.
Sue does not believe that her husband is a
king who can do no wrong, nor an infali-
BILE Pope who eau make no mistakes. She
is often wiser than lie, and she knows it !;
and she has the grace to stand up for her
own opinion ag inst all her world, that is,
her home companions. But she believes
that two cannot walk together unless they
agree, and when her husband is not man
enough to yield to her, she is woman
enough to yield to him. When she yields.
it Is cheerfully, in the submission of love
to love, not in that of weakness to power.
She does not believe that God made men
TO serve and women to be served /; and GER
tainly she does not believe that he made wo-
meu TO serve aud men 10 be served. She is
no mans servant; aud no man is hers.
They are co-workers. She is not ashamed
to be found in her working clothes, in nur-
sery, kitchen or cellar. She has as little
inclination as time for folded hands and
however many servants her husbands
purse may put at her disposal, she is their
true mistress, buster, though with higher
industry, than they all. Her children i'm
bibe her spirit. Aud it is her husbands
fault, not hers, If they sit at ease in the par
lor while she tolls in the kitchen.
She knows the depth of her husbands q
purse and she never touches the bottom OF
it,. She breads debt because it brings care
to his brow and dishonor TO his name. She
would rather eat dry bread than borrowed
butter. She shares her husbands cares
he shares hers. She proves her love by
putting his end OF their mutual burdens on
his shoulders and every burden is light
ened to both by the common bearing OF it.
It is a poor love that coddles a hus-
band, unless he is. weak in body or in
mind.
Busy though she be, she makes leisure
for erself, leisure to sit down quietly tC
repose with her husband and children. She
will not suffer her cares TO absorb her. She
is less anxious TO be a good house-keepel
than a good home-keeper; and she gives,
not merely her energies, but herself tc
those whom she loves. So courtship lasts
all through the married life; and the hus-
band never goes elsewhere to find the qui-
ct aud congenial companionship which is
denied him at home. In brief, she is Mary
aud Martha by turns, and knows when tc
be each.
When at last death summons her she
feels no fear. She bids gcod-by to thost
whose guardian angel she has been, with
no forebodings for herself and few fol
til em. since she trusts both them and her
self in the hands of the same Heavenly
Father. But when she is gone the light o
their household is extinguished for thu
Christ that has been in her has made her al
an incarnation of Him who is love to thost
she loved. And long after her chair is va
cant the memory of her presence fingers
the inspiration and the restraint of th,
lonely children and the lonelier father
and the hope of possessing her appreciation
and receiving her glad greeting in the grea
day OF resurrection, is the strongest as il Il
the holiest motive of their lives, next t
the hope OF the appreciation aud the vel
come of Christ himself.
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THE NEW MINISTER TO FRANCE, ex
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