American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1877-12-15
Those Slippers.

AZ lIIlS SCdSOll Ol Iue year IuO dFeId9c
| American housewife becomes as myste-
rious as hen with nest hid in the cur
rant bushes. Her absences from home
are frequent, and she avoides giving an
account of them. Her air is preoccu-
pied and her manner as full of impor-
tance as if she were Cabinet Minister
with State secret. She is apt to neg
lect trifing household duties and listen
to reproof with the benign and kindly
smile of one who is above petty troub-
les. She is preparing Christmas pres
ents, and the burning of a beefsteak is a
matter of no moment. 1t is useless for
the man of the house to demonstrate; it
is idle for him to grumble. Censure re-
bounds from her like rain from the
wings of an angel caught in a terrestrial
storm. Nothing will disturb her seraph-
ic mood until the January thaw. AS
woman at the house-cleaning time of
the year is a fury, so woman at the APP
proach of the holidays is Saint. And
as no man may withstand her when she
RACES about the house in the melan-
choly days, with cloud of dust around
her like that which an ancient war
chariot gathered as it went, her skirts
tucked up as Roman girt his gar
ments for street brawl, her hair tied
away under a handkerchief and the
bosom of destruction in her hand
Her broom the scepter all who meet obey,
so on man may attack her with inn
punity in the milder madness of the
Christmas season, when her motions are
quiet and subdued and the mild light of
happiness glows in her eye. In her role
of Martha, solicitOus about house clean
ing, and in her role of Mary, who hath
chosen better part, she is alike incom-
prehensible to the sterner sex, and every
sensible husband soon learns to look
upon his wife at such times as one whose
ways are not his ways, creature to be
humored, like poet, when her eye is in
fine frenzy rolling. The Christmas
mania might, indeed, prove a very pleas
ant episode in family life, notwithstand-
ing the amount of money which it costs,
were it not for one popularity in the
madness. We allude to its tendency to
manifest and satisfy itself in the fabrica-
ton of slippers. Lovely woman seems
to be urged on by sweet impulse to
decorate her spouse, brother or lover
pears to be no other vehicle for the ex-
preston of her affection, save slippers.
Like painter through whose work the
influence of a single model is ever evil
dent, the gentler sex still fashion slip
pers and make them serve for every re-
lation of life and its amenities. Slip
pers of canvas, slippers of morocco,
slippers of velvet, slippers of carpeting,
slippers embroidered with roses, Slip
Ders adorned with butterflies, slippers
licked with rosettes, slippers innumer-
lble as the winter snowfakes, teach us
,he various minds of women. Does the
laughter desire to show due rever-
.nce to her father? She gives
him a pair of slippers. Does the
wife wish to pledge eternal conjugal
idelityP What symbol for affection can
he find more potent than slippersP Is
he maiden anxious to give shy express
ion to her fondness for loverP How
:an the tender confidence be so delicate
y conveyed as in pair of slippersP
Does the solemn matron think it appro-
'riate to express to her minister her ap-
'roval of his sound doctrinal methods
nd fervid eloquenceP What eulogy is
o expressive as the gift of pair of slip
'ers? The man with many female rela-
ives is helpless at such time, and can
My wish that he had as many feet as
'riareus had hands, so that he might
year all his slippers at once; or that
yomen would devise some little variety :
f method in spending his money. But ]
e might as well fight against the stars :
4 their courses, or against setting hen
+ perverse mule, as urge objections s
} woman intent upon the manufacture {
slippers. Never but once was this
of the sex toward slippers {
1rned to good account and therefore t
affied. The admirers of a celebrated {
esuit preacher embroidered slippers t
y the thousand and sent them as pres l
nts, and as fast as he received them ]
ley were confscated to the common t
5ock of the order. 1t is said that t
reat part of the society was comforta- c
ly supplied before the fair manufactur- I
RS discovered how their gifts were di- L
erted to alien feet.-Nea0 York World. a