Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-08-14
A ROMANTIC VIEW OF D1sH-wAsH1Ee.

| In the entire routine of domestic duties
there is nothing so universally dishked as
washing dishes. 1t seems not to have a
single redeeming feature. Necessarily ii
must be confined to kitchen precincts
must be shut off from all that is attractive
in the home-its music is a rattle of china
and tinkling of tins-its perfume is not OF
"new mown hay" The artistic soul may
find something beautiful in laying the spot
less cloth and arranging upon it dainty
china or snowy crockery lover of the
beautiful can find pleasure In sweeping,
busting and arranging a room, that will
meet her eye all day with sense of APP
proval, but where is the woman who can
do more than make dish washing other
than merely endurable?
Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher several years
ago in one of her excellent articles on
housekeeping, tried to meet the case by
! advising those who had to wash dishes to
use instead of cloth or other contrivances
an ordinary whisk broom. This IS excel
lent, but this alone will not make the duty
pleasant, Nothing but the spirit which
accompanies the work can do this, and to
enjoy it thus it is necessary that the pre-
liminary arrangements be carefully at
t nded to.
There are a few ladies of the older
school who attend to their silver in the
dining room, but these are fast dying out
In any case the same order must be OBJ
served. Remove from the table first glass;
ware, second silver laid nicely upon plate,
then cups and saucers, plates carefully
cleaned of all scraps. then the rest of the
dishes. See that every dish is made as
clean as possible without washing and pile
large plates first, upon these dessert plates,
saucers by themselves, and all small dishes
in as small compass as they can be made to
occupy. During this part of the work the
mind must necessarily be upon it, but then
begins the actual DISTINGUISHING, which can
be made stepping stone to the highest
self-development. With foaming water
and soap, with clear water for rinsing,
tray for draining, clean tea-towels for dry
ing, there is now no hindrance to half
hours communion with Carlyle or Alger
or Spencer, Martineau or Tennyson. They
are so near in spirit, so far removed by
mere sense, that no thought of insult is
felt though you choose them for your COM
panions while performing the mental duty
of washing dishes. As freely aye, more
freely viii they eonfide to you their choic-
est thoughts, as If you were a princess in a
palace. In company with these hours of
quiet, wherein the memory becomes en-
rched by things best and most enduring,
it soon comes to pass that all the day be-
side grows tame and commonplace, for who
among our acquaintance can take their
place or give us single thought where
these give a score.
In these days of rapid changes, where
the wheel of fortune turns so quickly that
we scarcely know our friends to have
reached the top ere we hear they are at the
bottom. many have been the heartaches
and bitter thoughts at being forced to give
up social pleasures for home duties.
Where there is no love for culture or
thought this is indeed pitiable, but where
the soul aspires, there can be no perma-
nent regret, when they pause and consider
whom they leave in the parlor that is the
peer of their hour in the kitchen. In the
one case chattering theory, in the other
the worlds greatest minds.
| know lady who considers her dish
washing hour most sacred, because in it
she feeds thus on highest thought. Learn
ing by heart whole chapters OF Carlyle,
long extracts of Martineau, wonderful
passages from Emerson or Alger, she says
she can be disturbed at any or all hours
better than this. Try it and give us the
result, ye wearied mothers and over laden
daughters, when six months have passed.
{ Advance.