Home Life made Beautiful
Margeret E. Sangster
1897
Please choose the section you would like to read:
Comrades on Life's Journey
Pulling Together
What We Owe to Fathers
My Own Fireside
Comrades on Life's Journey A beautiful woman, with a crown of red gold hair and lustrous eyes, a woman of wonderful charm of manner and grace of movement, she seemed the ideal wife of a pastor, the very woman to enlist the sympathies and win the admiration of a congregation.
"My wife is a very great help to me," said the young minister, proudly. "She is my best critic, my other self, and she supplements everything I do. She is always beloved wherever we go."
"I try to be my husband's comrade," said the dear little woman, modestly, and instantly into the mind of one listener flashed the thought: "Yes, of course you do! And isn't that just what every wife, every husband should be, each to other a comrade? Partners in busines, fellow travelers on a long journey, disciples of one Master, why not also everywhere and in all circumstances comrades?"
Comradeship implies a certain congeniality of tastes and an appreciation of the difficulties and hardships common to the road and to those who travel it. These are not invariably equally felt by both in the married state or equally divided between them, for in the most perfect union there are differences of temperament which may make what is to one a mere pin prick, to the other a dagger thrust. Comradeship forbids distrust and petty jealousies. There cannot be harmony where vanity or ambition or lack of confidence introduces The wife who is her husband's comrade in the highest sense will, for his sake, endeavor to keep abreast with him in study and in contact with the world. She will not--and this is more important than some dream--she will not suffer her motherly love for her children to interpose a distance between herself and their father. A mother's absorbing devotion to her babies has been known to keep her so occupied and to so engage all her thoughts that the babies' father has felt solitary and has drifted away from the anchorage of home.
Not only when the heat of summer forces the wife to take her brood from the heated town to the sea or the hills is the business man left alone in a silent house, but many a husband sees little of his wife, can seldom have her companionship to go about with him, because her maternal ideal is higher than her conjugal standard. Keep the balance even. A s I heard a husband say one evening: "Helen and I are trying to live as if we were one soul. Our children have never heard us differ. If we disagree about their management it is never in their presence. They belong to us both and we to them and to each other."
Here was the true comrade spirit. And the husband, bringing home day by day the fresh, breezy atmosphere of the outdoor world, to what end did he woo and win his wife if not to make her blessed among women to the very end? He should not seek other comradeship than hers and it is his part never to leave her out of any plan of work or pleasure. Hand in hand to the better land the true comrades go, growing like one another even in feature and expression as the years impress upon them their molding touches.
Pulling Together No disquiet ever really invades the household where husband and wife having no separate interests and no opposite and competitive ambitions, invariably pull together.
Let sympathy and frankness characterize your winsome life at home, and there will be few clouds seen to pass.
There is somethng very lovely in seeing a woman overcome those little domestic disquiets which every mistress of a family has to contend with, sitting down to her breakfast-table in the morning with a cheerful countenance, and endeavoring to promote innocent and pleasant conversation among her little circle. But vain will be her amiable efforts at pleasure, unless she is assisted by her husband and other members around; and truly it is an unpleasant sight to see a family, when collected together, instead of enlivening the quiet scene with a little goodhumored chat, sitting like statues, as if each is unworthy the attention of the other. And then, when a stranger comes in. It is as if a new influence had entered, a new leaven had permeated the loaf; one is smiling and chatty, the other gracious and benignant. No beautiful home life here, but deceit and an evil example, bad for children and young people, and immensely deteriorating for the persons most concerned. Particularly in the discipline of children there should be perfect accord between parents, and in all questions involving the common interests of the home there must be pulling together, pulling in absolute union and unbroken harmony of desire, purpose and behavior.
What We Owe to Fathers The old meaning of the word husband, signifying the bond that unites the family, perhaps even the foundation on which the home rests, appeals to us with a new pathos when we observe how little some husbands and fathers are considered by those who depend upon them for support.
Personally, if you set aside the pride a man has in the old family name, and the love he feels for and receives from wife and children, he gets very little of material advantage for himself out of the constant activity of his life. Many a clerk toils patiently a whole week during long hours, drudging over columns of figures, handling heavy bales of goods, helping by faithful industry to build up a great business, in the profits of which he never expects to share, does all this year after year without complaint, and unselfishly devotes almost his entire earnings to the comfort and luxury of others. His wife has all the help he can compass in the managment of the home, his children at the public school compare very favorably in dress and appearance with those of his employer, his boys and girls take music lessons, play lawn tennis, engage in diversions for which he has no time. Frequently they understand very little of the monotony which prints crow's-feet around the father's eyes and makes him early middle-aged.
Certainly a man is in duty bound to look well to the ways of his family, and the American husband is the last person on earth to crave pity for doing his duty. Indeed, the good man of the house asks no compassion of the critical observer, is often not aware that he is in any sense an object of sympathy. Yet we not uncommonly find that he is very much left out of the calculations of the family when plans for pleasure are in order. Tom, the bright sixteen-year-old lad, would be surprised if his father should volunteer to accompany him to the foot-ball game, always providing that the older man could obtain the necessary half-holiday to do so. Emily girds at the restraints imposed by her father's old-fashioned notions of propriety, and thinks her own slight knowledge of the world sufficient for self-protection. It is quite possible that the good man of the house is a trifle unwelcome of an evening in the parlor that his money furnished, and finds himself left to the seclusion of the dining room and a rest on the shabby lounge, where he used to dandle the babies before they had grown too big to romp with him. There are American fathers, richer and poorer, who suffer from absolute loneliness as the years creep on, who seem to their families in reality very little beyond bread-winners and purse-holders.
The good man of the house, we submit, has a right to be treated with loving consideration by wife and children. Though occasionally he may repeat in their hearing a twice-told tale, or expect them to laugh at a jest which is somewhat worn, it is small credit to young people to be patient and polite, even deferential, to their father. The loving wife, as a rule, is patient with the husband, tolerating his foibles and humoring his moods, knowing full well that in the years of their wedded lives he has always done the same with hers. But youth is impatient, and papa's partiality for an old hat or a faded umbrella, or a coat that has seen service, or an antiquated piece of furniture, is sometimes vexatious in its irreverent eyes. Let the good man have his fads and pursue his hobbies, not only without protest but with all the aid young feet and hands can render.
Another commonplace right of the husband and father is to be properly fed and starched and mended under his own roof. If he have a preference for corned beef and cabbage, or other homely fare, over what he is pleased to denominate French frippery in cooking, by all means let him be gratified. Let his linen be immaculate; not frayed at the edges nor minus its buttons. A man is usually a marvel of helplessness where needles and thread are concerned. He may be pardoned a little irritation if the one button on the back of the neck is missing from his shirt, or if his stockings, present yawning rents. Wife or daughters should have looked to this.
The thing to be continually sought after is that paterfamilias shall have a good time at home, a time of freedom from care and of dignified ease. Love, especially from younger to older people, should not be chary of demonstration. The young, strong shoulders should lift the loads which have grown heavy to those who have long borne burdens. It goes without saying that the father who, from the beginning, has been wise in his dealings with his household will, as a matter of course, receive the attentions which are his due. Mark we say wise. Far too often the generosity of a father fosters selfishness in his children.
Earthly fatherhood, imperfect though it be, gives to our poor mortality the truest conception of the divine Father, who gathers us ever, when most we need it, into the sheltering circle of the everlasting arms. We cannot be too tenderly thoughtful for the good man of the house.
The little rift within the lute
That by and by will make the music mute.
