The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-03-17
FOR FEMININE READERS
THE FAMILY RECORD, RIGHTLY
KEPT, MAY BE A TREASURE.
More Girls Are Getting the sHigher
Education, Than Men-Beauty of
the Rag Rug Rcdiscovered.

The reading of our own records of past
years and the study of those published for
us in the unsparing details now given by
biographers give cause for very grave re-
Election on this subject, says a writer in
the New York Evening Post. He who goes
out of this world leaving a real and faith
full history of his life and experiences be-
hind him has not alone laid bare the work.
ings of his own heart for those TO whom
in life he would never nave disclosed them,
but he has left the story of many another
life beside.
The bare summing up of the days doings
the weather, the births, the marriages,
the deaths of kinsfolk and neighbors. the
mention of public events, the guests of the
day, the book we read, the speaker, the
actor, the singer to whom we have listened
even these items, badly stated. form an
intensely interesting record to the man or
woman whom they concern, but there are
few indeed who can confne themselves TO
these.
One singularly self-controlled and con-
sistent woman is recalled who wrote such
a diary every night for many years, and
doubtless the last year of the nineteenth
century added another small uniform vol
ume to the many preceding ones. She wrote
1t standing, directly before going to bed.
IF l sat down l would say too much" was
her explanation. II want to avoid per-
sonalities and emotional details. L put
down nothing that can expose family af-
fairs or hurt any one"
Her little books became a sort of cyclo-
paedia of local information as TO dates, in
tensity of heat and cold. important events,
etc, but the good or evil deeds of no hui
man being could be guessed from the neat
little pages, and pOsterity could never learn
when the writer's heart had ached.
There are so many things at hand where
with to make a safe and really invaluable
record of family life that it would seem al
most within the line of a mothers duty to
gather for her children and for the refresh
ment of her own declining years such a
history. But every experience, whether
learned through others or by the trying
discOV cries we make for ourselves, advises
us that disclosures of things better forgot
ten, records of errors and sin, expressions
of the more intense emotions should find
no place on such pages.
With what eager, wildly personal delight
the children of the second generation will
read the details of their parents choice of
a first home. of the growth of the family,
of the ebb and flow of fortune under the
roof which became hallowed year by year
by association, births, deaths and mar
riages. This illustration allows us to en-
phasize one of the sources of great pleas
ure and interest to those who, while MAX
ing a part of the life, were yet too young
to see cause and effect.
That is a rarely dull day which does not
add something worth recording in the eX-
istence of a family and a home. But it be-
hooves the recorder to leave nothing which
shall reveal a forgotten or an unknown
blemish on a life passed beyond making
defense; il is an ineXpreSsible wrong TO
leave behind us evidence which is like
an ambushed foe towards some unsuspect-
ing character that has outlived or atoned
its error.
Persons who have had to examine and
dispose of the letters and diaries of de-
ceased relatives. will almost invariable re-
| call some startling disclosure which they
have FASTENED to destroy. Especially is
this true of the cherished papers of very
old people. Seventy-five does not recall
what she wrote in the first year of her
marriage; the grandmother with her old
est boys little son upon her knees, and
pointing out with pride how much he looks
like his father, forgets that in her old
secretary there lies a history of that faith
er's wild youth and boyish indiscretion.
From a carefully, unselfishly written
journal of personal and family life, unlimit-
ed enjoyment and pleasure may be, de-
rived, but it should be written with dis
tinct forethought of those who come after,
and kept free from all the passionate. or
bitter, or ferYid relations which naturally
seek free expression in so-called private
diary" The key which hangs upon the
watch chain does not guard its secrets,
when accident or death leave nothing hid
den from those eyes which are appointed to
make straight and plain all we have left
behind.
There arises a complaint that records 50
guarded do not make true histories. Let
nothing be misStated, nothing tempered
with, nothing misrepresented. but let the
pen be governed by the rules which re-
strain the tongue. The mother would
rather never speak again than reveal her
boys dissipation and the result of his dis
regard of her grief-why should she care
fully write out what last nights wild
recklessness cost her? The wife who says
TO the world, My husband and | must
retrench because business has not been
prosperous will often enter in her diary:
Toms judgment is all gone. How COM
Portable we might now be if it were not
for his craze for speculation and his selfish
love of horses and the turf" Is her life
less true because she goes into the sad
contraction of her home expenses without
aspersion of her husband or disclosure of
her anger?
Two things seem worth remembering and
thinking and writing about: that an unself-
ish, scrupulOus diary, carefully kept, is
really a mine of satisfaction to a family,
and often keeps "a memory green" which
would otherwise fade utterly away, of
dear lives and happy days long gone; and
that if we nave made record of things
likely to injure. to disclose forgotten
wrongs. or unveil personal emotions. these
pages cannot too soon be destroyed.