Year: 1876

himself, leaving his wife to bear all the
orunt it, besides carving him a grave
stone? Perhaps, after all, our annalist is
nearer right than we have accredited him :;
Tor Is 1t useful thing to rear six persons
after such spiritless pattern as this ?
what the world wants is strong. sturdy.
upright men and women. 1t has no need
OF any more lazy, shiftless, improvident
people than 1t now has, hanging in swarms
upon the skirts Of the industrious and pru-
dent. But leaving that question out of
view, and taking the six children as already
existent, and therefore to be looked after
what form of reason is that, and on what
principle is it based, which counts the
nursing and the training, with hands and
feet and voice; with watchful eve and
loving heart, of six boys and girls whose
lives are of infinite moment, as "nothing
useful" while chiseling out grave-stone
Tor man whom no one but his wife cares
to remember, and whom she can remem.
Der just as well without stone as with, is
to be considered mark of very worthy
and exemplary womanhood?


The mistake which lay dormant in the
biographer's mind-the same feundamen-
tai and fatal mistake made bv manv who
write OF the interests of woman, is that the
work is useful, dignified, sufficient, which
brings money. Wives themselves are far
too apt to rate their own services low
because they earn no money. Husbands
even, If they are very low down in the
scale OF being, look upon the money furni.
shed their wives as sort of gratuitv
bestowed. Whereas among the very best
work done in the world, the most useful.
the most essential, the most elevated, is
the work that earns no money, that has no
relation to money except to make a con-
tlnual drain upon it. All right.minded
mon know this, or learn it as soon as they
are taught it by high-minded wives, and
delight in it by virtue of their own nobility.
A very large part of the work that earns
money consists in changing raw and useless
material into beauty, convenience, comfort.
lie who converts rags into paper, fax into
linen, loan into corn, metal into cooking.
stoves, earns money, serves his race, and
deserves well Of the republic. But he who
converts helpless, shapeless, pungy little
animal into an honorable and influential
citizen of great nation does an infinitely
greater and finer work than any mere
newer of wood or drawer of water. He is
indeed a workman that needeth not to be
ashamed, though in thousand instances
he never directly earns penny during his
whole lifetime. The one duty of the race
is its own elevation. Man does this in.
directly by material work woman does it
directly by moral work. Thousands of
men would find themselves without profit
under the sun, except the accumulation Of
stupid and useless fortune, were it not
for the wonderful wives at home who trans
mute this fortune into intelligence, educa-
ton, elegance, strength, and so give the
family position and power. Thousands of
men, left to themselves, could only compass
their own grave-atones, but cast by kindly
Fate into the hands of able women. the
quarried rock is fashioned into a monu.
ment more durable than brass, into a
living temple whose cornerstone is sure.
whose head-stone shall be brought forth
with shoutings, whose


dome of many colored glass


Stains the white radiance of eternity"


Gail Hamilton IN HdTDer's Bazar.