Persons interested in having acquaintance with the many trivial
things a knowledge of which will add to the beautifying of home will
find the following directions of service. After all, it is the little things
HOME-MAKING AND HOME-MANAGEMENT. 43
of home-life that are to be thoroughly well performed, if domestic
duties are to be elevated or made pleasant, and the safest and best
way to gather them is to take them in fragments, and thus little by
little master the details of what separately are very simple fend easy
to master.
' Home soon owns home-keepers, unless they are diligent in sim-
plifying and mastering the detail duties required of them. Multi-
tudinous cares sap the early bloom and health of women, and to
none more than housekeeping is to be attributed the over-taxing
of which they complain. They make many of their cares themselves,
but, all the same, they are cares, and they deplete the strength of
the body and the will-power, as much as though they were sent by
heaven and designed for some good.
In the matter of carpets, for instance, the home is often adorned at
the expense of comfort, convenience, and health, and what ought to
be a pleasure is, in fact, a tax and a continual source of anxiety. To
parlor carpets are indirectly due much of the fretfulness, peevishness
and discontent exhibited in the family. Strong charges these, but
true and worthy of acceptance, when it is remembered how essential
the parlor is to the enjoyment of the old and the young in the home.
" Too good to be used " is usually the imaginary label affixed to the
floor-covering in the best room, and only in the most careful way' it
is used, and then it is most frequently for the benefit of strangers.
The colors are too bright, the quality too good, the cost too much for
ordinary use, and its preservation is made one of the first duties of all
in the home. From the hour that it is bought, it becomes master of
the home, and against its tyranny children not only rebel at the time,
but carry in memory all through life, revengeful thoughts of " that
parlor carpet."
Some people cease to be free the moment they buy carpets or
furniture. From that hour their independence is gone, and instead
of their possessing them, they own their owners. The Shakers, wise
people, refuse to be under the dominion of upholstery, and, on
the ground of cleanliness, decline to tolerate carpets in the form
44 THE hearthstone; or, life at home.
others use them. They will not be the slaves of the inanimate things
in their houses, and they marvel at the abject servitude of the world's
people in this regard. They marvel, too, at the untidiness common
in homeS, and at the perfect acquiescence of the majority of women,
in the semi-clean state in which their houses are kept. They go to
an extreme, perhaps, but if they do, their reward is more physical
comfort than even the wealthy can possess themselves of.
They will not hang pictures on their walls because dust accumu-
lates too readily, and the first principle of their religion is cleanliness.
With them, this cardinal virtue is really next to godliness.
Page 22
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
Persons interested in having acquaintance with the many trivial things a knowledge of which will add to the beautifying of home will find the following directions of service. After all, it is the little things
of home-life that are to be thoroughly well performed, if domestic duties are to be elevated or made pleasant, and the safest and best way to gather them is to take them in fragments, and thus little by little master the details of what separately are very simple and easy to master.
' Home soon owns home-keepers, unless they are diligent in simplifying and mastering the detail duties required of them. Multitudinous cares sap the early bloom and health of women, and to none more than housekeeping is to be attributed the over-taxing of which they complain. They make many of their cares themselves, but, all the same, they are cares, and they deplete the strength of the body and the will-power, as much as though they were sent by heaven and designed for some good.
In the matter of carpets, for instance, the home is often adorned at the expense of comfort, convenience, and health, and what ought to be a pleasure is, in fact, a tax and a continual source of anxiety. To parlor carpets are indirectly due much of the fretfulness, peevishness and discontent exhibited in the family. Strong charges these, but true and worthy of acceptance, when it is remembered how essential the parlor is to the enjoyment of the old and the young in the home. " Too good to be used " is usually the imaginary label affixed to the floor-covering in the best room, and only in the most careful way it is used, and then it is most frequently for the benefit of strangers. The colors are too bright, the quality too good, the cost too much for ordinary use, and its preservation is made one of the first duties of all in the home. From the hour that it is bought, it becomes master of the home, and against its tyranny children not only rebel at the time, but carry in memory all through life, revengeful thoughts of " that parlor carpet."
Some people cease to be free the moment they buy carpets or furniture. From that hour their independence is gone, and instead of their possessing them, they own their owners. The Shakers, wise people, refuse to be under the dominion of upholstery, and, on the ground of cleanliness, decline to tolerate carpets in the form
44 THE hearthstone; or, life at home.
others use them. They will not be the slaves of the inanimate things in their houses, and they marvel at the abject servitude of the world's people in this regard. They marvel, too, at the untidiness common in homes, and at the perfect acquiescence of the majority of women, in the semi-clean state in which their houses are kept. They go to an extreme, perhaps, but if they do, their reward is more physical comfort than even the wealthy can possess themselves of.
They will not hang pictures on their walls because dust accumulates too readily, and the first principle of their religion is cleanliness. With them, this cardinal virtue is really next to godliness.