There are many women who know how to keep a house, but there are but
few that know how to keep a home. To keep a house may seem a
complicated affair, but it is a thing that may be learned; it lies in
the region of the material; in the region of weight, measure, color,
and the positive forces of life. To keep a home lies not merely in the
sphere of all these, but it takes in the intellectual, the social, the
spiritual, the immortal.
* * * * *
Here the hickory stick broke in two, and the two brands fell
controversially out and apart on the hearth, scattering the ashes
and coals, and calling for Jenny and the hearth-brush. Your wood fire
has this foible, that it needs something to be done to it every
five minutes; but, after all, these little interruptions of our
bright-faced genius are like the piquant sallies of a clever
friend,--they do not strike us as unreasonable.