As soon as you settle in a neighborhood, the gossip of the place
is sure to pounce upon you, and will gain an entrance into your
house by strategy in order to add to her stock in trade of tittle-tattle.
That mischief-making person must be kept out if you would live in
peace with your neighbors. You must let her severely alone, and
make her understand, once for all, that she must let you and yours
alone. " But how can I do it?" you ask. "She visits everywhere;
she will keep on calling ; how can I shut my door in her face ? "
Hundreds of "home rulers," the wives and mothers whose voice is
absolute as to who shall be welcome guests and who shall be ex-
cluded, and against whose wishes neither husband nor son would
bring home a friend, deceive themselves when they ask this question.'
The fact is that the difficulty is not so much in keeping the tale-
bearer out as in the unacknowledged truth that they rather like her
to " drop in," though they pretend the contrary, and will not own it
even to themselves. Curiosity about other people is in their minds
as well as on her tongue. They are " afraid of hurting her feel-
ings," when the fact is she has no feelings worth speaking about.
It has been said by more than one philosopher who has made
human nature his study that, however much they may conceal the
truth from themselves and others, people generally are pleased to
hear of the misfortunes of their neighbors. This does not arise from
malevolence or ill-nature, but the domestic or business mishaps of
others give them something to talk about, reflect upon, turn over and
over in their minds with all the causes and effects connected with it.
" I always said so; " "Just as I predicted;" " It is the old story of
pride going before destruction," etc., etc. — these expressions are a
relief to the speaker's feelings, and show that the bad news is quite
COMPANV IN THE HOME.
319
exciting and breaks the humdrum monotony of every-day thought
and Hfe.
As people in large cities take up the newspaper the first thing in
the morning to read of wars and rumors of wars, murders, burglaries,
failures in business, railway accidents, shipwrecks, fires, scandals in
high life, broken heads and drunkenness in low life, balls, plays, new
fashions, and what the comet has been doing with its tail since it was
last visible, so in the smaller village circles neighbors run into each
other's cottages to tell the wondrous news of an assault committed
by Huggins on Muggins, a proposal made by the bashful dry-goods
young man for the hand of Miss Sophronia Mineral, the school-
teacher, or the awful fact that a husband who kept late hours had
been locked out by his judicious spouse, and had been found with
his nose frost-bitten and no hat on his head sleeping on a tombstone
in the village churchyard. All these tragic or melodramatic inci-
dents pass from tongue to tongue, and such remarks as, " Who'd
have thought it!" "Bless me, you make my blood run cold ! " "Just
as I expected ; so it has come at last ! " "I always said so ! " and the
like, prove beyond a doubt that the new^s is a nervine, a tonic, an
eye-opener, an ear-tickler, and a tongue-loosener to everybody in the
place, except the unfortunate subjeet of their conversation.
Page 208
Presented as published in 1883. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
As soon as you settle in a neighborhood, the gossip of the place is sure to pounce upon you, and will gain an entrance into your house by strategy in order to add to her stock in trade of tittle-tattle. That mischief-making person must be kept out if you would live in peace with your neighbors. You must let her severely alone, and make her understand, once for all, that she must let you and yours alone. " But how can I do it?" you ask. "She visits everywhere; she will keep on calling ; how can I shut my door in her face ? " Hundreds of "home rulers," the wives and mothers whose voice is absolute as to who shall be welcome guests and who shall be excluded, and against whose wishes neither husband nor son would bring home a friend, deceive themselves when they ask this question.' The fact is that the difficulty is not so much in keeping the talebearer out as in the unacknowledged truth that they rather like her to " drop in," though they pretend the contrary, and will not own it even to themselves. Curiosity about other people is in their minds as well as on her tongue. They are " afraid of hurting her feelings," when the fact is she has no feelings worth speaking about.
It has been said by more than one philosopher who has made human nature his study that, however much they may conceal the truth from themselves and others, people generally are pleased to hear of the misfortunes of their neighbors. This does not arise from malevolence or ill-nature, but the domestic or business mishaps of others give them something to talk about, reflect upon, turn over and over in their minds with all the causes and effects connected with it. " I always said so; " "Just as I predicted;" " It is the old story of pride going before destruction," etc., etc. — these expressions are a relief to the speaker's feelings, and show that the bad news is quite
exciting and breaks the humdrum monotony of every-day thought and life.
As people in large cities take up the newspaper the first thing in the morning to read of wars and rumors of wars, murders, burglaries, failures in business, railway accidents, shipwrecks, fires, scandals in high life, broken heads and drunkenness in low life, balls, plays, new fashions, and what the comet has been doing with its tail since it was last visible, so in the smaller village circles neighbors run into each other's cottages to tell the wondrous news of an assault committed by Huggins on Muggins, a proposal made by the bashful dry-goods young man for the hand of Miss Sophronia Mineral, the schoolteacher, or the awful fact that a husband who kept late hours had been locked out by his judicious spouse, and had been found with his nose frost-bitten and no hat on his head sleeping on a tombstone in the village churchyard. All these tragic or melodramatic incidents pass from tongue to tongue, and such remarks as, " Who'd have thought it!" "Bless me, you make my blood run cold ! " "Just as I expected ; so it has come at last ! " "I always said so ! " and the like, prove beyond a doubt that the new^s is a nervine, a tonic, an eye-opener, an ear-tickler, and a tongue-loosener to everybody in the place, except the unfortunate subjeet of their conversation.