I am a frank-hearted man, as perhaps you have by this time perceived,
and you will not, therefore, be surprised to know that I read my last
article on the carpet to my wife and the girls before I sent it to the
"Atlantic," and we had a hearty laugh over it together. My wife and
the girls, in fact, felt that they could afford to laugh, for they had
carried their point, their reproach among women was taken away, they
had become like other folks. Like other folks they had a parlor, an
undeniable best parlor, shut up and darkened, with all proper carpets,
curtains, lounges, and marble-topped tables, too good for human
nature's daily food; and being sustained by this consciousness, they
cheerfully went on receiving their friends in the study, and having
good times in the old free-and-easy way; for did not everybody know
that this room was not their best? and if the furniture was
old-fashioned and a little the worse for antiquity, was it not certain
that they had better, which they could use if they would?
"And supposing we wanted to give a party," said Jenny, "how nicely our
parlor would light up! Not that we ever do give parties, but if we
should,--and for a wedding-reception, you know."
I felt the force of the necessity; it was evident that the four or
five hundred extra which we had expended was no more than such solemn
possibilities required.
"Now, papa thinks we have been foolish," said Marianne, "and he has
his own way of making a good story of it; but, after all, I desire to
know if people are never to get a new carpet. Must we keep the old one
till it actually wears to tatters?"
This is a specimen of the _reductio ad absurdum_ which our fair
antagonists of the other sex are fond of employing. They strip what we
say of all delicate shadings and illusory phrases, and reduce it to
some bare question of fact, with which they make a home-thrust at us.
"Yes, that's it; are people _never_ to get a new carpet?" echoed
Jenny.
"My dears," I replied, "it is a fact that to introduce anything new
into an apartment hallowed by many home associations, where all things
have grown old together, requires as much care and adroitness as for
an architect to restore an arch or niche in a fine old ruin. The fault
of our carpet was that it was in another style from everything in our
room, and made everything in it look dilapidated. Its colors,
material, and air belonged to another manner of life, and were a
constant plea for alterations; and you see it actually drove out and
expelled the whole furniture of the room, and I am not sure yet that
it may not entail on us the necessity of refurnishing the whole
house."
"My dear!" said my wife, in a tone of remonstrance; but Jane and
Marianne laughed and colored.
"Confess, now," said I, looking at them; "have you not had secret
designs on the hall and stair carpet?"
"Now, papa, how could you know it? I only said to Marianne that to
have Brussels in the parlor and that old mean-looking ingrain carpet
in the hall did not seem exactly the thing; and in fact you know,
mamma, Messrs. Ketchem & Co. showed us such a lovely pattern, designed
to harmonize with our parlor carpet."
"I know it, girls," said my wife; "but you know I said at once that
such an expense was not to be thought of."
"Now, girls," said I, "let me tell you a story I heard once of a very
sensible old New England minister, who lived, as our country ministers
generally do, rather near to the bone, but still quite contentedly. It
was in the days when knee-breeches and long stockings were worn, and
this good man was offered a present of a very nice pair of black silk
hose. He declined, saying he 'could not afford to wear them.'"
"'Not afford it?' said the friend; 'why, I _give_ them to you.'
"'Exactly; but it will cost me not less than two hundred dollars to
take them, and I cannot do it.'
"'How is that?'
"'Why, in the first place, I shall no sooner put them on than my wife
will say, "My dear, you must have a new pair of knee-breeches," and I
shall get them. Then my wife will say, "My dear, how shabby your coat
is! You must have a new one," and I shall get a new coat. Then she
will say, "Now, my dear, that hat will never do," and then I shall
have a new hat; and then I shall say, "My dear, it will never do for
me to be so fine and you to wear your old gown," and so my wife will
get a new gown; and then the new gown will require a new shawl and a
new bonnet; all of which we shall not feel the need of if I don't take
this pair of silk stockings, for, as long as we don't see them, our
old things seem very well suited to each other.'"
The girls laughed at this story, and I then added, in my most
determined manner,--
"But I must warn you, girls, that I have compromised to the utmost
extent of my power, and that I intend to plant myself on the old stair
carpet in determined resistance. I have no mind to be forbidden the
use of the front stairs, or condemned to get up into my bedroom by a
private ladder, as I should be immediately if there were a new carpet
down."
"Why, papa!"
"Would it not be so? Can the sun shine in the parlor now for fear of
fading the carpet? Can we keep a fire there for fear of making dust,
or use the lounges and sofas for fear of wearing them out? If you got
a new entry and stair carpet, as I said, I should have to be at the
expense of another staircase to get up to our bedroom."
"Oh no, papa," said Jane innocently; "there are very pretty druggets
now for covering stair carpets, so that they can be used without
hurting them."
"Put one over the old carpet, then," said I, "and our acquaintance
will never know but it is a new one."
All the female senate laughed at this proposal, and said it sounded
just like a man.
"Well," said I, standing up resolutely for my sex, "a man's ideas on
woman's matters may be worth some attention. I flatter myself that an
intelligent, educated man doesn't think upon and observe with interest
any particular subject for years of his life without gaining some
ideas respecting it that are good for something; at all events, I have
written another article for the 'Atlantic,' which I will read to
you."
"Well, wait one minute, papa, till we get our work," said the girls,
who, to say the truth, always exhibit a flattering interest in
anything their papa writes, and who have the good taste never to
interrupt his readings with any conversations in an undertone on
cross-stitch and floss-silks, as the manner of some is. Hence the
little feminine bustle of arranging all these matters beforehand.
Jane, or Jenny, as I call her in my good-natured moods, put on a fresh
clear stick of hickory, of that species denominated shagbark, which is
full of most charming slivers, burning with such a clear flame, and
emitting such a delicious perfume in burning, that I would not change
it with the millionaire who kept up his fire with cinnamon.
You must know, my dear Mr. Atlantic, and you, my confidential friends
of the reading public, that there is a certain magic or spiritualism
which I have the knack of in regard to these mine articles, in virtue
of which my wife and daughters never hear or see the little
personalities respecting them which form parts of my papers. By a
peculiar arrangement which I have made with the elves of the inkstand
and the familiar spirits of the quill, a sort of glamour falls on
their eyes and ears when I am reading, or when they read the parts
personal to themselves; otherwise their sense of feminine propriety
would be shocked at the free way in which they and their most internal
affairs are confidentially spoken of between me and you, O loving
readers.
Thus, in an undertone, I tell you that my little Jenny, as she is
zealously and systematically arranging the fire, and trimly whisking
every untidy particle of ashes from the hearth, shows in every
movement of her little hands, in the cock of her head, in the knowing,
observing glance of her eye, and in all her energetic movements, that
her small person is endued and made up of the very expressed essence
of housewifeliness,--she is the very attar, not of roses, but of
housekeeping. Care-taking and thrift and neatness are a nature to her;
she is as dainty and delicate in her person as a white cat, as
everlastingly busy as a bee; and all the most needful faculties of
time, weight, measure, and proportion ought to be fully developed in
her skull, if there is any truth in phrenology. Besides all this, she
has a sort of hard-grained little vein of common sense, against which
my fanciful conceptions and poetical notions are apt to hit with just
a little sharp grating, if they are not well put. In fact, this kind
of woman needs carefully to be idealized in the process of education,
or she will stiffen and dry, as she grows old, into a veritable
household Pharisee, a sort of domestic tyrant. She needs to be trained
in artistic values and artistic weights and measures, to study all the
arts and sciences of the beautiful, and then she is charming. Most
useful, most needful, these little women: they have the centripetal
force which keeps all the domestic planets from gyrating and frisking
in unseemly orbits, and, properly trained, they fill a house with the
beauty of order, the harmony and consistency of proportion, the melody
of things moving in time and tune, without violating the graceful
appearance of ease which Art requires.
So I had an eye to Jenny's education in my article which I unfolded
and read, and which was entitled