The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1878-04-27
Nrs. Grundy.

If ever virtuous and valuable female was
ungratefully rewarded by this ungrateful
world it is she. Somewhere or other.
whether as a sweet little cherub aloft or
viewless messenger of air among us, we
know not-''perhaps no man ever shall
know w"-she takes care of us, all and indi-
vidually; she watches over our cradle, she
instigates our funerals, she assists us in
choosing our spouses, our hats, our houses,
our friends, our religion, our dinners; she
inspires many aud controls all the actions
of government; she breathes her affiatus
into our art, she prompts our literature,
our pulpit elOqucnce, our evening-party
ballads Of the affections. What should we
do without her? Fancy having to settle
all the details of our lives for ourselves
which quarter of the town to live in, what
sort of house to have, what furniture, how
many servants, what o'clock to dine at, at
which part of the dinner to have the fish.
Fancy having to find out our own wishes,
to create our own taste, to PROFOUND our
own code of social morals Nine-tenths of
us would have our minds like the old fresco
Of the man clad in a pair of shears med
itating into what fashion he should cut the
provision of cloths and silks spread around
him for his covering, and would wait in
hesitating bewilderment unprovided with
ideas at all; and the remaining tenth would
live in a state of perpetual variation and
experiment, and would be like indepen-
dent hermits in a too-crowded desert, each
an offence to all the others, and all the
others in the way of each. There would
be no certainty about anything; one lady
would be found at family prayers at what
we thought was her hour for morning calls
and scandal, one would summon us to at
tend her "at home" at ten A. NJ; our
friends would scatter themselves round all
the points of the compass wherever their
whims and the house-rents drew them; we
should not know when it was right and
when it was wrong to be in town; we should
have no idea whittier TO betake ourselves
to meet, or if need were to avoid, our ac-
quaintances; the butler would demand our
dining at one time of day, or of night, the
cook would strive for another time Moth
ing would be beyond discussion; and there
would be no final argument. Everybody
does it," Nobody does it," "People would
think it strange;" people will think We
ought the safe decisive phrases, to the
point and unanswerable, how we should
miss them in our interminable Sisypheian
debates on everything to be, to do, and to
suffer under the sun!
We are saved from chaos by Mrs. Grun-
dy. But her benefits do not end here;
she rewards our virtues, she palliates our
vices, she is the wisdom Of fools, the cour-
age of the fainthearted, the conscience of
us all-Mr. Greatheart was no surer guide
along the road from the City of Destruc-
tion than she through the ways of the
world, and she does not lead us into bogs
and breakers and uncomfortable valleys
and hills; no Apollyons and Giant Despairs
for her, she takes us along clean, nicely
rolled level highways where respectable
people go and the police move on incon-
venient vagabonds.
Again, she is the guardian of our DO
mestic happiness. Fear of her censure
keeps ill-assOrted couples from a separa-
tion, and at the same time restrains them
from "heaving bricks (metaphorically, of
course, } at each other outside the privacy
Of home "to any great extent" it checks
the incipient declaration of rights of rev.
olutionary sons and daughters chatting un-
der the parental discipline; it prevents un-
congenial relations from telling Of each
other to presumably safe confdants. We
inspire our little ones with meritorious
conduct by impressing their dawning in
telligence with a sense Of her ubiquitous
supervision; she Is the providence of nurse
maids and governesses. We look to her
to store the mind of adolescence with man.
ners and morality, and well does she repay
our trust, gOOd-humoredly lenient to young
men, the fault is not hers if at times some
foolhardy or dunderhead fellow abuses his
privileges and, turning against his bene.
factress, breaks her rule Of deeorum-and
then how capitally she manages our girls
1t is said that two or three hundred year: