The Breckenridge news. (Cloverport, Ky.) 1876-1955, 1897-04-07
Home Happiness.
Mrs Lynn Linton Says II Has Be-
come Somewhat Obsolete.
Dizziness and Idleness Have Been
lis Worst Foes, She Declares.
The Eminent Director Also Has
Her Little Rap at the "Up-
To-Date" Woman.

home happiness has of late become
somewhat obsolete aud out of date.
The times are restless, old landmarks
have been everywhere disturbed, old
habits have been abandoned, and the
shibboleths are changed. The charm of
quietness has gone, and the main joy of
life now consists i'll excitement and
rapid movement Nothing is too fast
for modern requirements, and nothing
can stay too short a time. Fashions Of
every kind are as fecting as clouds
driven by the wind, and the conjurer' s
'Fresto, passp' emblematizes the in
cessant transformations of the hour. All
sedentary employments are banished
from the homes of the well to do, and
even music and painting. which once
used to beguile the weary hours and
amuse the heightened leisure of the
sheltered maid and wife, are now aban-
doned for the greater attractions of
"biking," cricket, the platform or any
other semimasculine diversion that in
cludes movement and out of door free
dom, with spice of notoriety to make
it the more attractive. With very many
the frank confession is--home happi-
ness is u myth. Home has no happiness
to give, and ANYWHERE but homep is
the cry of tine modern sister ana daugh-
ter
The strong family feeling that was
nourished in the concentration of the
quieter life has gone the same way rs
that quietness, and one of the first en-
deavors of girl, after she has returned
from her collegiate career" is to find
employment that shall take her from
home-remove from her the restraints
of family life, give her "work" among
strangers and personal liberty as the
taproot of all. Her happiness is TO be as
like young man as is possible-to copy
his dress so far as the police will al
low, to initiate his manners, adopt his
slang and to have his Experiences, so
far as this is possible, considering the
difference of sex. OF the old fashioned
notions of home seclusion and home
happiness she has not trace. Home is
to her Synonymous with deadly dizziness,
and she cannot understand how any one
tNOI lOuilu ~ OtllNl w AoNs l1Nl lhbilltl .
advice she despises as ridioulously out
of date. Her father knows nothing of
the world. Her brothers, if they would
check her, are prigs or jealous and lust
like men " Her one grand aim is to get
away from home as soon as may be and
to find her happiness anywhere but UNI
der the paternal roof.
1t is true that some homes are deadly
dnll. Where the parents are unsympa-
thetic and self indulgent and have suf-
fered themselves to fall into the very
lethargy of selfishness the young people
are often at loss for outlets proper to
the vigor of their age and unworn ener-
gies. No longer able to participate in
the lvolier things of life, many parents
of this selfish kind are prone to forbid
all that they themselves cannot enjoy.
They dislike the very contemplation of
activities once delightful and now either
irksome or impossible, and would reduce
to their own low level of decayed vital
ity all that Astounding spring, all that
superb freshness and vigor of the younger
generation; hence the children are over
strictly kept, and there is not sufficient
allowance made for the difference be-
tween youth and the other side Of ma
turity-between the natural desire of
the unworn young for amusements, ex-
perience and something to do" and
that WEAKNESS of the. wornout flesh
which makes pleasure pain, desires to
have no more experience and finds in
something to do" unmitigated bore
dom and fatigue. Such q home is not
happy in good sooth, and the more rest
less spirits run away, while the less en-,
ergetic content themselves with peevish-
ness, tears, lamentations and grum-
blings that have no end and do no good.
Nor is the home happy where idle
ness is the presiding genius. The idle
as we'll as the overrestricted long for
that something to do" without which
the energies of youth feed on themselves
and turn to poison in the process. An
idle household is necessarily discomfort
ed and uncomfortable, and when time
hangs heavy the chances are that tenn
pers turn sour. 1t is the way Of human
nature in general-the law of life being
one of active doing, never resting from
some form of energy. Else are there the
decay and corruption of the organic and
the granitic immobility-the unfruit-
fulness Of tho inorganic. And here we
touch ON one of the main points of
home happiness-the converse being
homo misery wherever found. For we
may take il as a truth, four square to
all the winds Of eccentric doctrine that
blow, that the main foundations of
home happiness are laid in occupation
and order. BY occupations we do not
mean an everlasting round of serious
and arduous labor, but continuity Of
something TO do''-be it work for one
hour and play for another. Idle lives
aud disorderly habits destroy real peace
as surely as rats will destroy the farm
yard population in tho egg and the
chick; as sparrows will pick of the
tender heads of the budding blossoms.
Who can be happy who has neither
method nor occupation. whose times are
unfixed and whose hours are unflledY
That old adage about satan finding
"some mischief still for idle hands to
do" is as true now as when IL was first
spoken. Bat we may add to this mis-
chief of the hands the acid blood and
sour humors OF the heart and temper.
Ia idlenoss all manner Of evil thoughts
lake root and spring up like tares among
tho wheat or weeds In the garden. =
Mrs. Lynn Linton.