Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-27
Household.

household
ffI do not like back-dOor neighbors, -
was the emphatic utteranee of married
man against whom it never could be
charged that he lacked the Samaritan
quality but who was ever alive to the
claims of universal Brotherhood Neither
was he apt to speak without reason, and
the remark is worth ponderin%, Have
you reader ever thought what life would
be worth without reserves; is there any
relation of life, however intimate,
that has not its closets,
if not its skeletons? Not
necessarily must there he behind the
shut door in each ones life the eyeless
sockets and CHASTITY grimness of some
memory, but the shut door conceals
something that is not for prying eyes of
the curious, nor indeed 10 be opened
save ut the pleasure of the one. who
closes it.
In one's friendship, in ones love,
in one s home there are, there must be,
reserves, and those are best friends, best
intimates, who respect those reserves.
The remark quoted at the beginning of
of this article was not called forth by
any sentimental reflections, but by
the prOsaic act of 4 well-meaning
woman who entered the kitchen
unheralded, and it is not presuming much
to say unweIcome. The lord of the cas-
tie at least did not hesitate TO express
his disapprobation whatever may have
been the good wife's opinion This kind
of intimacy does not promote continued
friendship, and the declaration is forth
fled by a well-known adage regarding
the breeding qualities of familiarity.
The neighbor who, presuming upon her
intimacy, runs into the back door at all
hours of the day, penetrating pantry,
parlor and bedchamber unlimited, peers
into clothes presses, takes an inventory
of the china closet, gazes upon the prep
aratiOns for meal as if noting the bill
of fare-that neighbOr will be very likely
to some time find the door shut against
her, or if not the social atmosphere of
the house viii go down to zero.
The woman who enters the household
by some other way than the front door is
likely to be charged with coming for one
or two purposes, either to borrow what
she herself should provide, or TO pry and
to gossip. That she may be innocent of
either viii not change the impression
made upon one who stands outside the
neighbor circle and comments.
One thing she viii herself admit, that
she comes in the back way because she
knows at that hour her neighbOr is en-
gagged in household duties, but she does
not know that her presence Is desired at
such times, or she comes in that way be-
cause she is either too Indifferent as to
the respect due another or too careless of
appearances TO habit herself properly for
visiting Either view of the case is not
fiattering, and there seems to be just
cause for the good man of the house 5 de-
testation of baek-door visiting.
There is a cheap distinction easily pur-
chased that in the end may prove exceed
ingIy dear to those who seek tia distine-
ton for which parents themselves are
not altogether blameless, and arises
quite as mYeh from their vanity as from
that of their daughters. This form Of
vanity finds expression in newspaper no.
tees of goings and eomings, descriptions
Of toilettes, enumeration of accomplish
menfs, even entering the sacred precincts
Of a girl 3 inner self = tell ef -