"But then, papa," said Marianne, "I can't help feeling sorry that one
can't live in such a way as to have beautiful things around one. I'm
sorry they must cost so much, and take so much care, for I am made so
that I really want them. I do so like to see pretty things! I do like
rich carpets and elegant carved furniture, and fine china and
cut-glass and silver. I can't bear mean, common-looking rooms. I
should so like to have my house look beautiful!"
"Your house ought not to look mean and common,--your house ought to
look beautiful," I replied. "It would be a sin and a shame to have it
otherwise. No house ought to be fitted up for a future home without a
strong and a leading reference to beauty in all its arrangements. If I
were a Greek, I should say that the first household libation should be
made to beauty; but, being an old-fashioned Christian, I would say
that he who prepares a home with no eye to beauty neglects the example
of the great Father who has filled our earth home with such elaborate
ornament."
"But then, papa, there's the money!" said Jenny, shaking her little
head wisely. "You men don't think of that. You want us girls, for
instance, to be patterns of economy, but we must always be wearing
fresh, nice things; you abhor soiled gloves and worn shoes; and yet
how is all this to be done without money? And it's just so in
housekeeping. You sit in your armchairs, and conjure up visions of all
sorts of impossible things to be done; but when mamma there takes out
that little account-book, and figures away on the cost of things,
where do the visions go?"
"You are mistaken, my little dear, and you talk just like a
woman,"--this was my only way of revenging myself; "that is to say,
you jump to conclusions, without sufficient knowledge. I maintain that
in house-furnishing, as well as woman-furnishing, there's nothing so
economical as beauty."
"There's one of papa's paradoxes!" said Jenny.
"Yes," said I, "that is my thesis, which I shall nail up over the
mantelpiece there, as Luther nailed his to the church door. It is time
to rake up the fire now; but to-morrow night I will give you a paper
on the Economy of the Beautiful."
* * * * *
"Come, now we are to have papa's paradox," said Jenny, as soon as the
tea-things had been carried out.
_Entre nous_, I must tell you that insensibly we had fallen into the
habit of taking our tea by my study fire. Tea, you know, is a mere
nothing in itself, its only merit being its social and poetic
associations, its warmth and fragrance; and the more socially and
informally it can be dispensed, the more in keeping with its airy and
cheerful nature.
Our circle was enlightened this evening by the cheery visage of Bob
Stephens, seated, as of right, close to Marianne's work-basket.
"You see, Bob," said Jenny, "papa has undertaken to prove that the
most beautiful things are always the cheapest."
"I'm glad to hear that," said Bob; "for there's a carved antique
bookcase and study-table that I have my eye on, and if this can in any
way be made to appear"--
"Oh, it won't be made to appear," said Jenny, settling herself at her
knitting, "only in some transcendental, poetic sense, such as papa can
always make out. Papa is more than half a poet, and his truths turn
out to be figures of rhetoric when one comes to apply them to matters
of fact."
"Now, Miss Jenny, please remember my subject and thesis," I
replied,--"that in house-furnishing there is nothing so economical as
beauty; and I will make it good against all comers, not by figures of
rhetoric, but by figures of arithmetic. I am going to be very
matter-of-fact and commonplace in my details, and keep ever in view
the addition table. I will instance a case which has occurred under
my own observation."