Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1879-11-12

HoMEKEEpING VERSUS HOUSEKEEPING.
While, in the main, we endorse the
writer of the following, there cannot be
too much stress laid on the fact that an i'll
kept house must inevitably breed discon-
tent and discord:
1.-The truest homes are often in houses
not especially we'll kept, where the comfort
and happiness of the inmates, rather than
the preservation of the furniture, is first
consulted. The object of home is to be
the centre, the point of tenderest interest,
the pivot on which family life turns.
The first requisite is to make it attractive,
so attractive that none of its inmates
shall care to linger long outside its limits
All legitimate means should be employed
to this end, and no effort spared that can
contribute to the purpose. Many houses
called homes, kept with waxy neatness by
painstaking, anxious women, are so op-
pressive in their nicely as to exclude all
home feeling from their spotless precincts
The very name of home is synonymous
with personal freedom and relaxation from
care. But neither of these can be felt
where such mania for external cleanli-
ness pervades the household as to render
everything else subservient thereto. Many
housewives, if they see speck on floor or
wall, or even Il scrap of thread or bit of
EHpeg9p thhe A9t0lrf, rush Nt.tn aSifv vityqre
moved on the instant. Their temper de-
dends upon their maintenance of perfect
purity and order. If there be any failure
on their part, or any combination of cir
cumstances against them. they fall into q
pathetic despair, and can hardly be lifted
out. They do not see that cheerfulness is
more needful to home than all the spot
lessness that ever shone. Their disposition
to wage war upon maculateness of any
sort increases until they become slaves of
the broom and dust pan. Neatness is one
thing, and state of perpetual house
cleaning quite another.
"Out of this grows by degrees the feel
ing that certain things and apartments are
too good for daily use. Hence, chairs and
sofa are covered and rooms shut up, save
for special occasions, when they are per-
mitted to reveal their violated sacredness
in manner that mars every pretence of
hospitality. Nothing should be bought
which is considered too fine for the fullest
domestic appropriation. Far better is the
plainest furniture, on which the children
can climb, than satin and damask which
must be viewed with reverence. Where
anything is reserved or secluded, to dis
guise the fact is extremely difficult. A
chilly air wraps it round, and the repul-
sion of strangeness is experienced by the
most insensible.
There are few persons who have not
visited houses where they have been intro
duced to what is known as the company
parlor. They must remember how uncom.
Portable they were while sitting in it, how
they found it almost impossible to be al
ease, and mainly for the reason that their
host and hostess were not themselves at
ease. The children were watched with
lynx eyes, lest they should displace or sol
something; so that the entertainment Of
friends became very much like socia
discipline. They must recall, too, how
sweet the fresh air seemed out of doors
and how they inwardly vowed, on leaving
that temple Of form and tidgetness. tina
something more than politeness would b
required to incite them to return.
Home is not q name, nor form. mol
routine. 1t is Il spirit, u presence, ,
principle. Material and method will not
and can not make it. 1t must get it
light and sweetness from those who inhab
it it, from flowers and sunshine, from tn,
sympathetic natures which, in their exer
else Of sympathy, can lay aside the tyrann.
of the broom and the awful duty of end
less scrubbing. g."-Scribner' Monthly.