Bad habits to be reformed--Late hours--Value of the long winter
evenings--Simplicity of manners--Over-carefulness--Instruction to be
gained from foreign nations--Our manners should be natural--_Impedimenta_
in our households--Comparison of former times with our own--Children
trained to habits of consideration--Young men and boys over-indulged
--Reduction of establishments--Lady helps--What is menial work?--
Picturesque occupation--What is lady-like--Amateur millinery--Two
subjects for an artist--Taste--Plan of the book--Eugenie de Guerin.
Before speaking of work which has to be done in order to make our homes
comfortable and beautiful, it is necessary to point out what ought not
to be done.
We have fallen into one form of self-indulgence which goes far towards
unfitting us for work, except under the stimulus of excitement. This is
our national habit of keeping late hours.
This is an important matter, and one wherein every member of every
family may, if he pleases, aid reform. This, unless we are printers,
bakers, or policemen, is entirely in our own hands.
Later hours are kept in England than in any other part of the world,
and they grow later and later. We read in the life of the Prince
Consort how painfully he felt this difference between England and
Germany; yet the latitude and climate of the two countries differ but
little, and we are of the same race. It is merely a matter of custom.
Many persons pride themselves on breakfasting at ten o'clock, and nine
is thought quite an early hour in comfortable houses. It is deemed
aristocratic to breakfast late, as well as to dine late; and as the day
begun at ten o'clock would be too short for people to have a probable
chance of sleep at ten at night, they are obliged to sit up till after
midnight. Thus the best hours of the day are wasted, and the health of
many injured by remaining an unnecessary length of time in a gas or
paraffin laden atmosphere.
This shows an astonishing contrariety of disposition on the part of
persons of refined sensations, so completely does it reverse the order
of nature, which gives us the early sunshine for our enjoyment. Sunrise
is the only beautiful natural spectacle that we modern English do not
care about, except once or twice in our lives, when we get a shivering
glimpse of it from an altitude of many thousand feet above the level of
the sea.
From six to six is the natural day throughout by far the largest half
of the globe, and the nearer we bring our practice to this measure the
better; taking our day of sixteen hours (two-thirds of the twenty-four)
from six o'clock in the morning instead of from nine. Old folks in the
country ask their young people what is the good of sitting up burning
out fire and candle. We never ask ourselves this question in London.
Many persons take a nap after their heavy dinner, and only begin to
feel lively as the clock strikes ten. To these the midnight oil is
invigorating.
We have a valuable provision of nature in our long winter evenings,
reckoning them at from five till ten. This gives us time for study,
which we need more than do southern nations, to learn to contend
against our climate. The northern peoples are famed for their mental
culture: Scotland and Iceland bear witness to this. This is the season,
too, for work in wool, to provide warm garments which are not required
in the south. The wise woman does not fear the cold when her household
is clothed in scarlet. This is the time when we may gather round the
lamp or the fireside, and draw closer the family links under the
influence of social warmth and progress.
Simplicity in our meals and dress is another point in which we may
unite economy of money, time, and trouble, with comfort to ourselves
and a regard for the beautiful. We need not drift into the carelessness
of the picnic style of living, which is but the parody of simplicity.
The real picnic is only suited to a few exceptional days in the year,
and these our holidays. We may have simple meals indoors which should
have all the freedom of picnic without its inconveniences.
Do we not all remember Swiss breakfasts with pleasure: the
thyme-flavoured honey, and the Alpine strawberries? Or, better still,
those at Athens, where the honey of Hymettus is nectar, and the freshly
made butter ambrosia; and our enjoyment of both was enhanced by the
scent of the orange blossoms coming in at the open windows, and the
sight of sunrise glowing on the purple hills? Or luncheons in Italy,
under a pergola of vines, where a melon, macaroni, a basket of grapes,
and a tricolour salad constituted the feast?[1]
[1] The tricolour salad imitates the Italian banner--red, white,
and green. Green salad, beetroot, and cream, or white of egg
whipped to snow.
These things dwell longer in our memories than does the aldermanic
banquet.
Although every faculty need not be swamped in the gratification of the
palate, our meals ought to give us pleasure. It is only when they are
made of supreme importance that the satisfaction of a healthy appetite
degenerates into mere greed, and what we call housekeeping means merely
thinking of dinner.
Simplicity allows play (not work) to our higher faculties, which cannot
be refreshed while we are overwhelmed with domestic cares.
"Martha was cumbered about," not with serving, but with too much
serving. Doubtless, in the fulness of her hospitality, she tried to do
too much, and so she showed irritability. Our Lord's teaching is always
that there are good things prepared for us, which we cannot attain if
we are over-careful and troubled about provision for the body.
There are roses in life for those who look for roses, if they will but
give themselves time to gather them.
We may study with instruction and profit to ourselves the daily habits
of foreign nations, and see where they fail, and also wherein they
excel us.
M. Taine has put into words an observation which must have occurred to
all of us who have travelled, how that "from England to France, and
from France to Italy, wants and preparations go on diminishing. Life is
more simple, and, if I may say so, more naked, more given up to chance,
less encumbered with incommodious commodities."
From Italy we may go on to Arabia, and there see how little is used to
keep the body in health. A woollen garment, warm enough to sleep in the
open air (we cannot say out of doors where there are no doors), and
thick enough to keep off the scorching rays of the sun by day, and a
thin shawl for the head, is all their clothing; and the simplest meal
once a day seems to be enough to keep them strong and active. Arabs
have walked or run by my horse during whole days in the heat of the
sun, and lived upon air until sundown, when they seemed to eat nothing
but a little parched corn before stretching themselves down to sleep.
It is not customary, even among the upper classes in Southern Europe
and in the East, to eat more than two meals a day.
Liebig tells us of the nutrition of plants from the atmosphere: we may
go further, and proclaim the nutrition of man from the atmosphere. On
the moorland, on the mountain side, at sea, and in the desert, I have
over and over again felt its feeding properties; and we know that
although we are, in such circumstances, hungry for our meals, we are
not at all exhausted, nor do we want to feed frequently.
As the leaves of a plant absorb the carbon in the air and give back the
oxygen, so do we feed upon the oxygen and return the nitrogen. But we
must have the oxygen. By our own present system of frequent heavy meals
we throw all the hard work done by our bodies entirely upon the
digestive organs, and when these are exhausted with their efforts, we
feel faint, and mistakenly ply them with stimulants and concentrated
nourishment, until at last they break down under their load.
But leaving the Arabs, who are types of a high race in a natural
(uneducated) condition, may we not learn much from more civilized
nations?
Besides taking example by the early hours of the Germans, we may
imitate their industry, and, in our studies, their thoroughness and
diligence of research.
From the bright, elastic French people we may (we women especially)
copy their cheerfulness, frugality, and their keen, clear-headed habits
of business. See how diligent they are at accounts, how quick at
estimates, in ways and means; how they sharpen their wit, until it
shines and makes their society sought as we in England seek a clever
book. The Frenchwoman works the machinery of her own house, goes into
the market and fixes the market-price of what she decides upon as
suitable to her purposes (she always has a purpose, this Frenchwoman);
she dresses herself and her children with taste, and she glitters in
society.
From the Spaniards we may learn, by the warning of a proud race, what
it is to sink into the scorn of other countries through smoking and
debt.
From the Dutch we may learn cleanliness, from the Swiss simplicity, and
from the Italians to foster our patriotism. Our American cousins are
part of our own family; they only differ from us in having carried our
virtues and some of our follies into the superlative.
We should endeavour to be natural in all our doings: to be ourselves,
and not always acting a part, and that generally the part of a person
of rank, or a millionaire. Let whatever we do be openly done, though
not obtrusively nor boastfully; and this whether it is ornamental or
only useful. To be truly ornamental it must combine utility. Is not the
flower as useful as the leaf?
As an example of what I mean, I will give two opposite instances. A
young lady was making the bodice of a dress when a visitor called; she
quickly pushed the work under a sofa pillow, and caught up a
gold-braided smoking-cap, half worked at the shop, which had lasted a
long time as a piece of show-needlework.
The other case is that of a lady who set up for an example to her sex,
and always displayed, as a manifestation of superiority, a basket full
of gentlemen's stockings, which she seemed to be ever mending. Both of
these ladies were acting a part.
Good taste has no false shame; so we need not add the vexations of
concealment to the accumulation of cares we have heaped upon our
houses, till they are so encumbered with _impedimenta_ of all kinds
that our whole strength is taken to keep them in order, and the
household machine has to move through such a mass of difficulties that
it is like a loaded carriage lumbering through a Turkish road. Why
should we add these things to life?
We are daily bringing mechanism to greater perfection, and it is our
own fault that we do not make it perform for our houses what Manchester
has made it do for our looms, and render ourselves mistresses in
reality, instead of merely in name, of our own households.
If we had to go back to the old flint-and-tinderbox days, when it was
an hour's hard work in the dark to strike a light, when gas was
unknown, when water was not laid on, when all bread must be made at
home, all stockings knitted; when there was no such thing as a ready
made shirt, much less gowns and polonaises; no perambulators, nor
washing machines;--we should not heap upon ourselves superfluous work
in the thoughtless way we do at present, and then leave all to the
attention of the most careless and irresponsible members of the
community.
In a small family there is less work to be done; in a large one there
are more hands to do the work, and many hands make light labour.
We would have no mistress of a family a household drudge, while her
daughters lounge over fancy-work or a novel; but we would ease her
hands, and uphold her in her true position of administratrix,
mainspring, guiding star of the home.
Modern educational pressure causes too many of us to indulge our
children, and release them from every personal duty. They must have
time and quiet for their studies, and so they are allowed to become
selfish, and to think that everything must give way to their mental
improvement. Whereas we should train them to give as little trouble as
possible; and by good management, or by sacrifices, such as getting up
earlier, to do at least the extra work appertaining to their individual
enjoyment. Why should they, for instance, require hot water brought to
their rooms several times a day? Their grandparents used cold, and it
was better for them. Why must girls have their hair brushed and braided
for them? Why must their lost gloves be found for them, and their
wardrobes tidily arranged for them to throw into confusion in their
hurry?
Boys, especially, are so seldom trained to habits of consideration,
that a young man in a house gives at least twice the trouble that his
father does. Boys ring bells with intense heedlessness of its being
some one's journey--oftener four journeys--to answer them. They make
their boots unnecessarily dirty, and their other clothes also; while
the extra baths on football days, and the cleansing of the white
garments, make many mothers wish the noble game were not so popular;
and to sweep up the dirt the boys bring into a house often constitutes
the chief work of a housemaid. We do not expect boys to mend their
clothes, but they should be made to put them away, and to keep their
books, papers, and toys in their proper places, and to take care of
their own pets.
We excuse young men from doing these things, instead of smoking or
novel-reading through the whole of their spare time, on the plea that
they work at money-making, forgetting that they do so for themselves,
and not, like their father, for the family benefit. We might reform
these things materially, and remove much of the self-indulgence which
causes what has been truly called "the shame of mixed luxury and misery
over our native land." If we all habitually gave less trouble, we
should require fewer servants to wait upon us.
There is a scarcity of good working servants, while the governess
market is largely over-stocked. How many thousand of the poorest
subjects of our Queen are now sinking, sick with hope deferred, into
despondence, hating the present, dreading the future.
And yet on all hands we hear our lady friends say, "We must all wait
upon ourselves now." The impossibility of finding the average of three
servants for every house in London being now recognized. Why need there
be three servants to every house, when servants are the greatest drain
to the fortune of a family, worse even than the dress and society of
its lady members, or than the tobacco of the men?
With study, and application of modern inventions, the three servants
might be reduced to two; the two-servant-power establishments might
dispense with one; and in many families where only one servant is kept,
a lady-help would be found more useful, as well as more ornamental,
than the "dolly-mop."
Trade is bad, and many young women, such as lace-makers, seek service.
But being of the lower orders does not necessarily make them efficient
servants, not more so than young ladies who have never learnt household
work.
The existing puzzle is how to utilize the lady-help, for we must always
bear in mind that she is a lady. She must not be merely ornamental,
nor may we expect her to do anything menial. And here we must
distinguish--this indeed is the great point for distinction--what is
menial and what is not, and then see if we can reduce the number of
works considered menial.
When we read of Marie Antoinette's delightful playing at work at the
Trianon, and think of her in her bewitching costume, her work, the
work she supposed herself to be doing, is placed in the region of
picturesque poetry; as Tennyson's gardener's daughter, training her
wreaths over the porch, is as poetical a personage as his pensive
Adeline or stately Eleonoere.
We hear that the daughters of Queen Victoria take pride in, and give
personal attention to, their dairies, and love to work among their
gardens and model farms. And the Prince Consort designed model cottages
for the poor in which it would be bliss to dwell, only it is
impracticable to make the poor endure novelties in domestic life. Why,
then, should we alone think it improper, unlady-like, and what not, to
study these every-day utilities, and plan improvements in sinks and
boilers?
But things are not so bad as they were thirty and forty years ago, as
regards what is lady-like and what is not. We are emancipated from the
thraldom of its being considered genteel to be idle, and interesting to
be helpless, unable to dress ourselves, or tie our own bonnet-strings
without the assistance of our maid. In my young days we always had to
wait for a maid to come and hook our dresses; we should not endure this
now.
The favourite story of the Queen always putting away her own bonnet,
and folding up the strings(!) helped much in sweeping away this
fanciful gentility. Since the introduction of the sewing-machine, made
as a piece of furniture fit for a lady's sitting-room, ladies have been
less ashamed to be seen making their own dresses; and every girl now,
of any pretension to taste, twists up her silk, tulle, and ribbons,
mingling them in hats and bonnets with flowers or feathers, the most
graceful objects in creation, until her skill produces a thing of
beauty which is a joy throughout the summer.
What artist would desire a more charming subject for his picture than a
pretty girl before her glass, trying in which position these delicate
gauds best become the face they will adorn. It is holding nature up to
the mirror. Yet some years ago girls were ashamed of a home-made
bonnet, because their careful elders taught them it was more virtuous
to make shirts than to cultivate their taste. The consequence was they
were obliged to pay some guineas for a bonnet, as amateur millinery was
a tissue of horrors.
The cooking-schools are helping us in another useful branch of
housewifery. Here again woman's work is being raised out of the dulness
of the "Berlin repository" into an atmosphere in which all the senses
may revel. Smell and taste are here perfectly satisfied, and here we
offer another picture for our imaginary artist--or perhaps the beholder
may be a lover.
What more captivating sight than the girl of his heart deftly moving
about among bright pots and kettles, and delicious bits of blue and
other ware, gleaming among the copper stewpans? Dutch tiles all round
the stove, and everything as picturesque as in a Friesland kitchen
(which we admire enough to go a long way to see), and the young
housewife in a fresh and prettily worked dress of Holland or cambric,
made short, showing her red morocco shoes, her sleeves short to the
elbow, with a dainty bib and apron to keep her dress from soil: she
rolling out pastry at a marble table, having by her side a graceful
ewer of water, or fanciful milk-pot, and, in neat arrangement, quaint
jars for jams, and pails and tubs of the carved wood which is so
artistically made by the Norwegian peasants. But I must fill up my
outlines further on, as I enter into detail of each department of the
house, and show how the first steps may be made easy in the direction
of pleasant employment which shall be both useful and economical.
Do not look upon the taste and beauty of details as unimportant. They
make up the harmony of our lives. Taste exercises a larger influence
than we give it credit for. What makes Paris flourish? Why do we all
enjoy it? Not for its Louvre galleries, nor for its intellectual life
and culture most, but for its tasty shops!
We will speak of the house in the following order. First, the hall by
which we enter it from the street; then we will bring our housewife
into the kitchen, not necessarily, nor even advisably, downstairs, but
near the entrance-door, so that the goods brought into the house need
not have far to travel and be lifted (which would entail fatigue)
before they reach the scene of their transmutation; the dining-room
will come naturally next to the kitchen, as it should be nearest in a
topographical sense.
Then we can adjourn to the withdrawing-room, and refresh ourselves with
_jardiniere_ or conservatory before undertaking the arrangement of the
bed-rooms and nurseries, where we pass so large a portion of our lives;
and lastly, we will speak of the inhabitants, more particularly of the
children. In considering the latter, we shall find the greatest benefit
of anything I have recommended in this book, namely, that in place of
the low-minded words and sentiments and vulgar habits of those who come
nearest to ourselves in the society of our children, we may have a
higher and purer association, so that the good of their future
education will not have already been neutralized by corrupted early
principles.
By interesting occupation our young ladies will have less time for
sentimental troubles and fancied ill-health, which is nervousness.
Eugenie de Guerin hit the mark when she wrote, "Yes; work, work! Keep
busy the body, which does mischief to the soul! I have been so little
occupied to-day, and that is bad for one, and it gives a certain
_ennui_ which I have in me time to ferment." On another occasion
she speaks of having been writing and thinking, and then going back to
her spinning-wheel or a book, or taking a saucepan, or playing with her
dogs; and then she adds, "Such a life as this I call heaven upon
earth."