virtue's side." Is there a converse to her? Do none of our virtues lean to
vice's side? I think I could enumerate a few, but for the moment the
vicious side of tidiness is so strongly borne in upon me that I need go no
further afield. Tidiness is delightful, meritorious, indispensable,
admirable, estimable, praiseworthy, politic, and most precious. Untidiness
is execrable, reprehensible, unseemly, and quite detestable. It is first
cousin to uncleanliness, and is the mother of much domestic warfare.
Tidiness is a virtue, indeed, but when carried to an extreme it becomes
actually a disagreeable quality. My first impression to that effect was
imbibed at the early age of nine, when I was sent to a boarding school.
Separated from home and all familiar faces, I had a miserable heart-ache,
even in the reception-room, but the sight of the awful tidiness of the
dormitory chilled me to the very soul. The white walls, white beds,
boarded floor, with its strips of carpet in a sad monotone of tint, gave
me my first definite sensation of the meaning of the word "bleak." And
ever after, when returned to school from the holidays, I dreaded the
moment of entering that long dormitory, where tidiness and cleanliness
reigned rampant, like tyrants, instead of inviting, like the friendly,
comfortable things they really are.
[Sidenote: Selfish neatness.]
I know a mother who will not allow her children to have toys, "because
they are always lying about." Well, toys are a very good means of teaching
children tidiness; but the true mother-heart must be lacking when the
young ones are robbed of their childish joys for so selfish a reason.
Childhood lasts so short a time, and can be so happy. Why curtail its
little blisses? Just a few toys are more productive of pleasure than the
plethora which so many nurseries display nowadays. And why should tidiness
forbid a few?
For my part I like to see a battered old doll knocking about in the
drawing-room of my friends. Generally armless, sometimes legless,
occasionally headless, that doll becomes an enchanted spring of poetry
when its small proprietress comes in and takes it up, loving it deeply and
warmly in spite of its painful ugliness, its damaged condition, and
general want of charm. Is not that what love does for us all? Ignoring
our faults, it throws its glamour over us, and gives us what enriches the
donor as well as the recipient--the most precious thing on earth.
[Sidenote: About dolly.]
The mother who deprives her small daughter of a doll sacrifices more than
she knows to the demon of tidiness, and she robs herself of much delight.
The consultations about dolly's health are often funny enough. The
discussions about the wax and bran-stuffed thing's temper and naughtiness
give many a peep into those departments of the child's own nature, afford
many a clue to the best method of treating them, and are, besides, amusing
beyond expression. And where is poor Tommy, among boys, without his gun,
his sword, and pistol? He is despised of his peers, and almost despises
himself in consequence. It is bad for Tommy, very bad. Yes; tidiness can
be very selfish. One can scarcely pardon the mothers who allow it to
interfere with home joys.
[Sidenote: "Those messy flowers."]
I know people who object to flowers in the house because "they are so
messy." They droop and die indeed. 'Tis a true indictment, but they are
worth some trouble, are they not? Ultra-tidiness would banish them, and
some of us would willingly be banished with them from the realms so ruled.
Flowers do not last nearly so long when housed by persons of this sort as
with those who love them, tend them daily, cherish them with warmest care,
anticipate their needs, as only love can do, and attract from them some
subtle, scarcely comprehensible, sympathy that prolongs the existence of
these exquisite, innocent things, whose companionship means so much to
man.
[Sidenote: "Tone."]
[Sidenote: The grateful shade of the aesthete.]
The aesthetes in their day revelled in untidiness. They made a cult of it,
and in their worship included a leaning towards dirt, which they canonised
under the name of "Tone." Many of them permitted even their faces to
acquire tone by this means, which was carrying the thing too far. But they
did much for succeeding generations in banishing a too pronounced neatness
from dress and the home. Has not the influence of the aesthete delivered us
from the terrible propriety of chairs ranged along the wall, piano to
match, and the centre-table, with its unalterable rigidity of central
ornament and rim of book and vase in conic sectional immutability?
[Sidenote: A word to the wise.]
Oh, it was all most beautifully tidy, but do, for a moment, recall it and
compare it with the drawing-room of to-day. I do not mean the dusty litter
of dilapidated draperies and orgie of over-crowded ornament to be found in
some houses, but to the sane, yet artistic arrangement of table and lamp,
piano and pottery, palm and vase, clustering fern and glowing blossom or
snowy flower, to be seen in thousands of English homes at the present
hour. Here tidiness is not absent, but its rigours are avoided. Its
essence is extracted, while its needless extremes--its suburbs, as it
were--are totally ignored. We have learned how to be clean, yet
decorative, in our homes and our costume, to distinguish between severity
and simplicity, and, so far, good. But the point is that tidiness should
not overcome us to the hurt of others, and consequently our own. If
husbands persist in leaving a trail of newspapers all over the house,
something after the fashion of the "hare" in a paper-chase, let us calmly
fold them and assuage our inner revolt as best we may. If the children
scatter their toys about, we can make them put them tidily away, and that
is more than we can manage with their fathers! But to be too acutely tidy
leads to friction and the development of that "incompatibility of temper"
which seems to be quite a modern disease, to judge from the very numerous
instances of it that come before the public notice.
_GOOD MANNERS AT HOME._
[Sidenote: Woman's influence in the home.]
It is usually the wife and mother who sets the key of behaviour in the
home. If she is loud and rough, her servants and her children will follow
suit. If she is gentle, kindly, and patient, her example will exercise a
subtle influence on even the noisest of her domestics. Sometimes, when a
man has married beneath him, his first disillusionment, after the glamour
of his love is past, is caused by the _brusquerie_ of the uneducated and
ill-trained wife. And, on the other hand, when a girl or woman has married
beneath her own class--run away with a handsome groom or become the wife
of a good-looking jockey--her domestic experiences are calculated to be
her severest punishment. A relative of one such misguided girl, having
visited her in her married home, said afterwards to a friend: "His manners
at table, my dear, are simply frightful, but they compare agreeably with
his behaviour anywhere else, for he neither talks nor swears when he is
eating." What a life-companion for a well-bred girl! Should the husband
have any gentleness or goodness stowed away within him, he is sure to
improve as time goes on. His wife is an education to him, but at such a
tremendous cost to herself as to be absolutely incalculable.
[Sidenote: Where manners are absent.]
In ordinary cases, however, it is the wife who is responsible for the home
manners. And, oh! what a difference they make! In some families there is a
constant jar and fret of sulks and little tempers. Politeness among the
members is wholly ignored. Each one says the first disagreeable thing that
occurs to him, and the others warmly follow suit. The habit grows on all,
and the result is a state of things that makes the gentle-minded among the
inmates of the home long for peace and rest, and seize the first
opportunity of leaving it. And it is so easy, after all, to initiate a far
different and more agreeable state of things. The young ones can be
trained to gentleness and good manners, to self-control under provocation,
and to the daily practice of those small acts of self-denial,
self-control, and true courtesy, which do so much towards building up
conditions of home happiness.
[Sidenote: Churlish natures.]
[Sidenote: Their rampant egotism.]
There are, of course, churlish natures which nothing could ever influence
in the direction of true politeness, which always means self-effacement to
a certain extent. It is of such as these that a student of human nature
has said, "_Grattez le Russe, et vous trouvez le Tartare_." Would that
such beings were confined to Russia! How happy would other countries be in
their absence! The smallest touch to their vanity, their enormously
developed self-love, their triumphant self-conceit, robs them in a moment
of any surface polish they may ever have acquired. As a breath upon a
mirror dulls its brightness, and renders it useless for the purposes for
which it is made, so does the merest suggestion or shadow of a shade of
blame or criticism dull the touchy human subject, for a day, for a week,
perhaps longer, rendering him or her unfit for ordinary social intercourse
The egotism of such an one is ever rampant. It pervades his atmosphere, so
that one can touch and hurt it from afar, with the most genuine absence of
any intention to do so.
[Sidenote: Their presence a blight.]
Oh, how disagreeable they are! What cloudy blackness they spread over the
home! How they kill the little joys and blisses that might otherwise
surround the domestic hearth, giving human creatures solace for much
suffering! And, worse still, how completely they destroy the affection
that might be theirs, if only they could unwrap themselves from the
envelope of self in which they are enshrouded. No love, not even the
strongest, can sustain itself against years of brutal roughness,
intermittent it is true, but ever imminent. For who can tell how
innocently or unconsciously one may wound the outrageous self-conceit of
one of these? Martyrs in their own idea, they offer a spectacle to gods
and men which, could they but see it with clearness in its true aspect,
would be so mortifying and humiliating that it would convey a highly
salutary lesson. But they can never see anything in its true light that is
connected with themselves. If love is blind, what on earth is self-love?
[Sidenote: A brighter picture.]
But fortunately these dreadful people are comparatively rare; and the
majority of English homes--thousands and thousands of them, thank
God!--are abodes of peace and love, refuges from the cares of business and
the coldness of the outer world. The gentle courtesies of look and manner
are not reserved for strangers, but freely dispensed in the domestic
circle. The smile, the word of sympathy spoken in season, whether in the
happiness or troubles of the others, the thoughtfulness translated into
actions of kindly care for the well-being of all within the house; all
these are of almost angelic import in daily life. One is inclined to deify
gentleness and the sweet humility that is never exacting when one realises
how immensely they act and re-act on home-life. It is, perhaps, possible
to rate them too highly; but there are moments in which they appear to be
virtues of the very first order.
[Sidenote: The mother's duty to her children.]
It is the mother's duty to teach children to behave well at home and
elsewhere. Too often she fails in it, and the young ones are unruly. The
great lesson of obedience has not been learned; not even begun. And yet it
means so much that is beyond and above mere obedience! It is the beginning
of moral training. It is like the mastering of the clefs and notes in
music. That done, the learner may teach himself. Left undone, there is
nothing but discord to be evolved from his best efforts.
[Sidenote: Tyrants of Nursery-land.]
Fathers have not the same chance of spoiling the children. When they do,
they chiefly incline to pet the girls. Mothers prefer, as a rule, to spoil
the boys; and many a wife owes half her married misery to the injudicious
years of misrule in which her husband's boyhood was passed. Even now the
girls are taught in many a nursery to give up at once anything that the
boys may wish for. Is it not true? And, being true, is it surprising that
the age of chivalry is fading, fading? And often, in Nursery-land, there
is a tyrant girl. That tyrant girl, generally the eldest child, rules the
little ones with a rod of iron, supplies the lacking discipline of parents
with a terrorism which is founded on no principles of order or of
justice, and nourishes in infant breasts a like sentiment of tyranny to
her own, that of the trampled slave who waits only for opportunity to be
tyrant in his turn. That is what the carelessness of elders does in the
nursery!
[Sidenote: The home of the ideal house-ruler.]
But the gentle firmness of the ideal house-ruler is as genially expansive
as the warm southern airs that come in April, and make us forget, in a
moment, the long bitterness of winter. If every one is not happy in the
homes where it is to be found, at least every one has a chance of
happiness. There is a wonderful solace in even the superficial sweetness
of politeness in such a home. The stranger within its gates is at once
aware of a balmy moral atmosphere, from which harsh words, frowning looks,
recriminations, scowls, sulks, and all their kin are wholly banished, and
where the amenities of life are at least as much studied as its more
substantial needs. Has not Solomon himself given us a precedent for
according more importance to the former than to the latter? Has he not
told us that--"Better is the dinner of herbs where love is than the
stalled ox and hatred therewith"?
_ARE WOMEN COWARDS?_
[Sidenote: The old, old story.]
Has any one ever met, in real life, the woman who screams and jumps on a
chair at the sight of a mouse? I have never heard of her out of the
servants' hall, where ladies' maids appear to carry on the traditions of
sensibility kept up by their betters two or three generations since, when
nerves, swoonings, and burnt feathers played a prominent part in the lives
of fashionable women. A little mouse has nothing terrible about it, vermin
though it be in strict classification. Now, if it had been a rat! Or a
blackbeetle! A large, long-legged, rattling cockroach! Truly, these are
awesome things, and even the strongest-minded of women hate the sight of
them. Very few women, I take it, are afraid of mice. And yet, as the world
rolls on, that little story of a small grey mouse and screeching women
will reappear again and again, dressed up in fresh fancy costumes, when
news is scarce and a corner of the paper has to be filled up.
[Sidenote: Are we moral cowards?]
[Sidenote: The children.]
[Sidenote: One need not fear to be brave.]
But though we can watch with interest and amusement, and a sort of kindly
feeling, the actions of a mouse, we are sad cowards all the same. Some of
us are physically cowardly, though by no means all; but very few of us are
morally brave. I heard a sermon not long ago on moral cowardice as shown
in the home. And who shall deny that it is very, very difficult to obey
the old dictum: "_Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra_," and to deal
faithfully with the members of the home circle, from paterfamilias himself
down to the little maid in the basement territory? The responsibility of
the whole matter lies with the wife and mother, involving many a hard
task, many a battle fought against the secret shrinking from giving pain,
or causing disappointment, or rousing temper. How difficult it is to
refuse some pleasure to the children we love, because it is injudicious
for them, and how fatally easy to give in weakly, and prove ourselves
cowardly! And sometimes the punishment comes quickly: "Oh, if I had only
been firm, all this might have been prevented!" we cry in pain and sorrow
when all the evil consequences we had dimly foreseen have become actual
fact. Some of us are so afraid that the children will love us less if we
interfere with their childish joys and pleasures. But, after all, this
need not be taken into account, for the youngsters possess a divining
crystal in their own clear thoughts, and know well when Love is at the
helm. They can discern in a moment whether an arbitrary self-will dictates
the course of things or that single-minded affection that seeks the truest
good of those who are in its charge. They will not love us less, but more,
as time goes on.
Besides, it is ignoble to be influenced by consequences that may result to
ourselves, even possible loss of affection, the only earthly thing that is
worth living for. "_Advienne que pourra_" are the grand old words.
[Sidenote: A difficult task.]
A friend of mine, whose husband became a drunkard, told me that the most
difficult thing she had ever done in her life was to remonstrate with him
when he first began to drink too much. It was a clear duty, and she did
it, but it required the summoning up of all her fortitude, as some who
read these words may know but too well from their own experience. "When I
began," she told me, "my knees trembled, and at last I shook as if I had
been in an ague. It was quite dreadful to me to speak to him, and yet he
took it as though I were out of temper, and merely shrewish." "And did it
do any good?" I asked, and she told me that he was better for a few weeks,
and seemed to be struggling against the love of drink, but that after a
couple of months things were as bad as ever again.
[Sidenote: Cowardice with friends.]
I do not know any one possessed of sufficient moral courage to deal
faithfully with their friends and relatives on the subject of
objectionable little ways in eating or drinking, or in the hundred and one
little actions of daily life. We endure silently the sight of excessively
disagreeable habits rather than risk giving mortal offence. In fact, we
are sad cowards. "How dreadful it is to sit opposite So-and-so when he is
eating," says one member of the family to another. "He ought to be told
about it." "Oh, I couldn't! I simply could not," is the instant reply, and
the other echoes, "Nor I. Not for worlds!" And So-and-so goes on in his
ugly ways, throwing food into his mouth as though the latter were a cave
without a door, and everywhere he goes this lack of good manners makes
people take a dislike to him. He certainly ought to be told of it; but who
is to tell him?
[Sidenote: A penalty of eminence.]
If it is difficult in the home, what must it be in the case of the high
ones of the earth, to whom all the world turns a courtier face? Some time
ago I was asked to meet at luncheon a very great lady, one whom in my
thoughts I had placed on a sort of pedestal on account of her beauty, her
high place in the world, and her many sorrows. I was delighted, and
eagerly accepted the invitation. The lady was beautiful still, in spite of
her grey hair, but all her charm is spoiled by a habit of almost
incessant snorting--no less vivid word will express it! At the luncheon
table it was not only excessively pronounced, but additionally
disagreeable. Romance had shone like a star in all my thoughts about this
great lady until then, but the radiance died away on the instant and has
never again returned--"_Alles ist weg!_" And such a trifle, too, after
all! If only some one had dared to deal faithfully with that great lady
there would be nothing to disgust or offend about her.
[Sidenote: Glass houses?]
We know ourselves so little that we should carefully cherish an acute
distrust, and be ready to suspect in our own persons the existence of some
flaw or imperfection for every one we detect in others. Perhaps it is an
inward consciousness that we live in a glass house that makes us fear to
throw stones.
[Sidenote: Correcting the maids.]
[Sidenote: A recipe for fault-finding.]
It is with a quaking heart that the mistress of a household remonstrates
with her maids on any point in which they have failed in duty. It needs
considerable moral courage to discharge oneself of this necessary task.
One puts off the evil moment as long as possible, and meditates in the
night watches as to the most feasible plan of getting it done. And very
often the point is weakly abandoned. We cannot risk exposing ourselves to
the "tongue-thrashing" in which some of the basement ladies are such
gifted performers. The safest way is always to mingle praise with blame,
just as we hide a powder in jam. "You are always so very neat, Mary, that
I am sure this cannot be neglect, but just a little bit of forgetfulness."
Or, "Your soups are generally so excellent, cook, that," &c. This is a
good recipe for fault-finding, and it works well, too, with our equals,
though, of course, one has to be doubly careful in dealing courteously
with so sensitive a class as servants.
[Sidenote: Cowards all!]
The fact is, we are cowards all, in face of any duty that threatens to
affect the sunshiny atmosphere of home. We dread the clouds with a mortal
fear, and are prone to sacrifice far more than we ought on the altar of
Peace and Love. They are good and beautiful things, but they may be too
dearly bought. And, above all, we must beware of indulging ourselves in
them to the detriment of the best interests of others.
The Duchess of Teck, with all her _bonhomie_ and graciousness of manner,
was one of the most dignified of women. She could administer a rebuke,
too, without uttering a word. I shall never forget her look when, on a
semi-public, outdoor occasion, an individual of the civic kind approached
her with his hat on his head. He had taken it off on his approach, but
calmly replaced it as he stood before the Duchess and her husband. A
gleam of fun shone in the Duke's eyes as he watched the episode. The
Duchess, meanwhile, in dead silence, simply looked at the hat. The look
was enough. Those large grey eyes of hers were eloquent. They said, as
plainly as if the words had been spoken, "My good man, you are guilty of a
very flagrant breach of etiquette. What a very ignorant person you must
be!"
The wearer of the hat looked puzzled for a single instant as he marked the
eyes of the Duchess fixed firmly on his head-gear. In another moment his
hat was in his hand, and his face, ears, and neck were suffused with a
most painful scarlet. He was all one abject apology. The Duchess, then,
with a significant glance, quietly proceeded with the matter in hand.
_A GLASS OF WINE._
[Sidenote: Manly abstention.]
I am no advocate of total abstinence. Quite the contrary! I am sorry for
the man who has to bind himself down by oaths and vows to refrain from
drink, because he knows that he cannot leave off when he has had enough.
But if he abstains, not from any knowledge of inward weakness, but from
the same motive that urged St. Paul to say: "I would not eat meat while
the world lasts, lest I make my brother to offend," then I honour him with
all my heart. And this is honestly the principle on which many become
total abstainers, women as well as men.
[Sidenote: Why should we have wine?]
But what I want to get at is the ordinary everyday practice of drinking
wine, which most of us follow in some degree or other. I do not refer to
excessive drinking, inebriety, or anything of that kind, but merely the
customary glass or two of wine at lunch, and two or three glasses at
dinner. This can in no possible way be regarded as a bad habit. It is, in
fact, the usual thing in polite society, and girls are brought up to it,
and when they marry, and perhaps find that among other expensive habits
this one has to be given up, they miss their glass of wine rather badly at
first. Why should we have wine? That is the real question. There is no
very particular reason why those who can afford it should _not_ drink
wine; but why should they do it? I think I could give a better set of
reasons _contra_ than _pro_ in this matter.
[Sidenote: Reasons against the habits.]
First comes the one already referred to: that circumstances may not always
admit of their indulging themselves in this rather expensive habit. Good
wine costs money, and cheap wine is often highly injurious.