The Essentials of a Home : Part 4

Girls and Women
by Harriet E. Paine

(Page 13 of 19)

Drawing, fancy work, sewing, and whittling can all go on without disturbing the reading, or a tired mother can lie on the lounge and listen; but if any one must sit idle, reading may grow tedious, though good plays in which each can take his part are generally enjoyed. I was once in a home in Switzerland where the family spent most of the evenings in reading Racine, Molière, and Corneille.

No home is complete without music. Even a large piano which has seen its best days does not seem to be altogether a cumberer of the ground where another equally bulky piece of furniture would be unendurable. But unless some member of the family has decided musical ability, the best use of a piano or organ in a home is to sustain the uncertain voices in singing. Home singing is almost a necessity even where no one sings very well. I should not wish to encourage the unmusical to display their voices outside their own doors; but if half a dozen members of a family are able to "carry a tune," and one of them can play a simple accompaniment correctly, I think the singing of fine hymns and pleasant ballads at home will prove most delightful to them all, besides bearing good fruit morally and physically.

A family happy enough to have a little higher endowment, and a little more cultivation, so that one plays a violin, one a flute, and so on, may have a little private orchestra which may give as much enjoyment, and, all things considered, may be as elevating, as the perfect work of great musicians. It seems to me that any father and mother who wish the home to be dear to their children can afford to spend money on music far better than on many things considered more essential - clothes for, example.

But all the family circle should be able to join in the evening occupations. If only one is a musician, but a small part of each evening can be given to music. On the other hand, I have no mercy for the young lady who has had time and money lavished on her musical education, who will not take the trouble to play to her brothers in the evening. If she distrusts her powers she need never play to other people who may ask her out of compliment; but when brothers ask their sisters to play, they mean that they want the music, and they should have it.

Chatting is pleasant in the evening, and does not interfere with a dozen other occupations. One can even read a newspaper or a novel while the rest are talking. Little twilight chats by the fire when the children confess their misdemeanors to their mother, or when the mother tells stories to the children, are full of the spirit of home, and there always should to be some leisurely hours in every family when the father and mother and the grandfather and grandmother can relate old experiences to the younger generation.

If the older people would only remember to tell these tales for the sake of the younger and not to gratify their own garrulity, so that they would dwell more on the events and customs and people of the past which should to have a permanent interest, I believe such chat would always be of the highest value, and that the young would like it as well as the old; but when it is mere gossip about people long dead the young have a right to be restless. There is always danger that chat will degenerate into gossip, so it is not generally best to have too many evenings devoted entirely to conversation.

The right kind of reading and music seem to me far better occupations for home evenings than games. There is too much hard work in chess and whist and too little sociability to make them in any way desirable. Euchre and backgammon seem invented to pass away time, which is so precious to most of us that we should like to feel we had something at the end of an hour by which our lives were richer than at the beginning. Yet games have their place. Young-people have their times of liking them. If they really enjoy them and play with thorough good temper, they get true recreation from them, and all innocent enjoyment has a moral effect as valuable as the intellectual effect of a good book.

So a mother who wishes to make a true home for her children will not grudge whole evenings spent in games which would be unspeakably wearisome to her if played with people of her own age; indeed, the chances are she will thoroughly enjoy such evenings, and be as interested in capping verses or asking twenty questions as any of the youngsters, while if she is a worn and anxious mother, such simple pastime may be the best refreshment. I believe there is less to be said in favor of cards than of other games, but I often think of the words of a friend, "We are strict people," she said, "but when the boys were growing up and began to be wild for cards, we played regularly every evening till they were tired of it, and I think they did not care to play elsewhere."

If a home is to be ideal, it must contain a father and mother and children. A lonely man or woman who is so unfortunate as not to have this ideal home should, I think, try to find as many of its elements as possible. A man should not live altogether at his club, and it is a pity for a woman to live permanently with women alone. And a home is so incomplete without children that it seems almost necessary that every childless man or woman should adopt one or two. Unfortunately this is often impossible, and then it becomes the more essential to seek for a boarding-place where we may get a little of the cheer of other people's children and at the same time practice some of the virtues which children always call out in older people. No home is truly homelike in which there is not a large hospitality. I have so much to say on this head that I must leave it for another chapter.

I have said little about the qualities of character which make a happy home. Beyond a loving nature, on which all the others rest, I know of nothing more essential than a serene temper. Let a woman be "mistress of herself, though china fall." The daily temptations to irritation are incessant, and irritability will destroy the comfort of any home, even if it is well warmed and lighted and furnished with easy-chairs and sofas, even if everybody is high minded and ready to take part in refined pleasures, and even if room is made in the family circle for a host of agreeable friends.

Copyright, 1890 by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., All rights reserved.