I charge you, my sister, in every way to make your home attractive. I
have not enough of practical knowledge about house adornment to know
just what makes the difference, but here is an opulent house,
containing all wealth of _bric-a-brac_, and of musical instrument, and
of painting, and of upholstery, and yet there is in it a chill like
Nova Zembla. Another home, with one-twentieth part of the outlay, and
small supply of art, and cheapest piano purchasable, and yet, as you
enter it, there comes upon body, mind, and soul a glow of welcome and
satisfied and happy domesticity. The holy art of making the most
comfort and brightness out of the means afforded, every wife should
study.
At the siege of Argus, Pyrrhus was killed by the tile of a roof thrown
by a woman, and Abimelech was slain by a stone that a woman threw from
the tower of Thebes, and Earl Montfort was destroyed by a rock
discharged at him by a woman from the walls of Toulouse. But without
any weapon save that of her cold, cheerless household arrangement, any
wife may slay all the attractions of a home circle. A wife and mother
in prosperous circumstances and greatly admired was giving her chief
time to social life. The husband spent his evenings away. The son,
fifteen years of age, got the same habit, and there was a prospect
that the other children, as they got old enough, would take the same
turn. One day the wife aroused to the consideration that she had
better save her husband and her boy. Interesting and stirring games
were introduced into the house. The mother studied up interesting
things to tell her children. One morning the son said:
"Father, you ought to have been home last night. We had a grand time.
Such jolly games and such interesting stories!" This went on from
night to night, and after a while the husband stayed in to see what
was going on, and he finally got attracted, and added something of his
own to the evening entertainments; and the result was that the wife
and mother saved her husband and saved her boy and saved herself. Was
not that an enterprise worth the attention of the greatest woman that
ever lived since Abigail at the foot of the rock arrested the four
hundred armed warriors?