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ried women, in the commencement of the day, which must be so managed as not to interfere with, or delay the business of others; or the end of early rising will be entirely defeated, as regards its good influence upon the general habits of a family.

I mention this, because there are some well-intentioned persons, who habitually rise early, and are yet habitually too late for breakfast, wondering not the less every day how it can possibly be that they are so. To such I would venture to hint, that despatch is an excellent thing in whatever we have to do; and that the habit of trifling is one of the most formidable enemies to good intention in this respect, because at the same time that it hinders our practical usefulness, it beguiles us into the belief, that we are actually doing something-nay, even a great deal; yet, look to the end, and nothing is really done. If such persons are unacquainted with the merits of despatch, or refuse to adopt it as a wiser and a better rule, I know of nothing they can do, except it be ta ' « Hetto ventory and a little earlier still, until they find that they have exactly proportioned their time to their requirements; but on no account ought they to allow the breakfast, or the business of the day, to be retarded so as to meet their convenience. Whatever time they take from sleep is their own, and they have a right to dispose of it as they please; but that time can scarcely be called so, which is portioned out to others, especially where it is barely sufficient for the business they are required to do through the course of the day.

Perhaps it is with us all too frequent a mistake to suppose that time is our own, and that the higher our station, and consequently the greater the number of persons subject to our control, the more entirely this is the case. I have already said that the time we take from sleep, may with some justice be called so; but except in a state of existence entirely isolated, and exempt from relative duties, I am not aware how conscientious persons can trifle with time, and not feel that they are encroaching upon the rights of others, to say nothing of the more serious responsibility

neglected by the waste of so valuable a talent committed to their trust.

There is no time perhaps so entirely wasted as that which is spent in waiting for others, because while expectation is kept up that each moment will terminate our suspense, we cannot prudently engage in any other occupation. If, then, the mistress of a house, by habitual delay of breakfast, keeps as many as four persons waiting half an hour every morning, she is the cause of two valuable hours being wasted to them, which they would most probably have preferred spending in any other way rather than in waiting for her.

It must of course be allowed, that every master and mistress of a family enjoys the right of breakfasting as late as they choose, provided they give directions accordingly ; but where there is one in the middle ranks of society who will order breakfast at ten, there are twenty who will order it at eight, and not be ready before nine. It can only bo to such deviations from arrangements made by the heads or the family, and understood by all its members, that the foregoing observations apply.

It is a great point in the economy of time, that different kinds of work should be made to fill up different intervals. Hence the great value of having a variety of needlework, knitting, &c.; for besides the astonishing amount which may thus almost imperceptibly be done, a spirit of contentment and cheerfulness is much promoted by having the hands constantly employed. Thus, if ever the mistress of a house spends what is called the dark hours in idleness, it is a proof that she has either not properly studied the arts of knitting and netting; or that she is a very indifferent work woman not to be able to pay for the use of candles. Could such persons once be brought to appreciate the really beneficial effects of constant employment upon the mind and temper, could they taste those sweet musings, or enjoy those ingatherings of thought, which are carried on while a piece of work is growing beneath their hands, they would never again require urging to

those habits of industry which may truly be said to bring with them their own reward.

Habitually idle persons are apt to judge of the difficulty of being industrious, by what it costs them to do any thing they may happen to undertake; the movements of a naturally indolent person being composed of a series of painful exertions, while the activity | of an industrious person resembles the motion of a well-regulated machine, which, having been once set at work, requires comparatively little force to keep it going. It is consequently by making industry a habit, and by no other means, that it can be thoroughly enjoyed; for if between one occupation and another, time is allowed for sensations of weariness to be indulged, or for doubts to be entertained as to what shall be done next, with those who have much to do all such endeavors to be industrious must necessarily be irksome, if not absolutely laborious.

How pitiable then is the situation of that married woman who has never fully realized the true enjoyment of industry, nor the advantages of passing rapidly from one occupation to another, as if it was the business of life to keep doing, rather than to wait to see what was to be done, and to question the necessity of doing it! Pitiable, indeed, is that woman, because in a well-regulated household, even where the mistress takes no part in the executive business herself, there must still be a constant oversight, and constant forethought, accompanied with a variety of calculations, plans, and arrangements, which to an indolent person cannot fail to be irksome in the extreme; while to one who has been accustomed to rely upon her own resources in the constant exercise of industry, they give a zest and an interest to all the duties of life, and at the same time impart a feeling of contentment and cheerfulness sufficient of itself to render every duty light.

There is no case in which example is more closely connected with influence than in this. A company of idle persons can keep each other in countenance to almost any extent;

while there are few who cannot be made ashamed of idleness by having constantly before them an example of industry. Thus where the mistress of a house on extraordinary occasions is ever ready to lend assistance herself; where she evinces a decided preference for doing things with her own hand, rather than seeing them left undone; and where it is known that her mind is as quick to perceive what is wanted as her hand is willing to execute it; such a mistress will seldom have to complain that her servants are idle, or that they cannot be brought to make the necessary effort when extra work has to be done.

There is, however, a just medium to be observed between doing too much, and too little, in domestic affairs; and this point of observance must be regulated entirely by the circumstances of the family, and the number of servants employed. It can never be said that the atmosphere of the kitchen is an element in which a refined and intellectual woman ought to live; though the department itself is one which no sensible woman would think it a degradation to overlook. But instead of maintaining a general oversight and arrangement of such affairs, some well-intentioned women plunge head, heart, and hand into the vortex of culinary operations, thinking, feeling, and doing what would be more appropriately left to their servants.

This fault, however, is one which belongs but little to the present times. It was the fault of our grandmothers, and we are endeavoring to improve upon their habits by falling into the opposite extreme, forgetting, in our eagerness to secure to ourselves personal ease and indulgence, how many good and kind feelings may be brought into exercise by a participation in the practical part of domestic management-how much valuable health, and how much vivacity and cheerfulness, alternating with wholesome and real rest, are purchased by habits of personal activity.

But it is impossible to do justice to this subject without entering into it fully, and at considerable length; and having already done

this elsewhere,* under the head of "Kindness and Consideration," I will spare the reader a repetition of my own sentiments upon a subject of such vital importance to the wives of England.

CHAPTER X.

ORDER, JUSTICE, AND BENEVOLENCE.

THE generai tendency of domestic management should be, to establish throughout a household the principles of order, justice, and benevolence.

In speaking first of order, I would not be understood to restrict the meaning of the word to such points of observance as the placing of chairs in a drawing-room, or ornaments on a mantelpiece. The principle of order, in its happiest development, has to do with the state of the mind, as well as the personal habits. Thus a due regard to the general fitness of things, correct calculations as to time and means, with a just sense of relative importance, so as to keep the less subservient to the greater, all belong to the department of order in a well-governed household, and should all be exemplified in the general conduct of the mistress.

There is no surer method of maintaining authority over others, than by showing that we have learned to govern ourselves. Thus a well-ordered mind obtains an influence in society, which it would be impossible for mere talent, without this regard to order, ever to acquire. All caprice, all hasty or violent expressions, all sudden and extravagant ebullitions of feeling of any kind whatever, exhibited before servants and inferiors, have a tendency to lower the dignity of a mistress, and consequently to weaken her influence.

The mistress of a house should always appear calm, and perfectly self-possessed,

*The Women of England.

whether she feels so or not; and if from an accumulation of household disasters, particularly such as mal-occurrences before her guests, the agitation of her feelings should be too great for her powers of self-control, she may always find a natural and appropriate outlet for them, by sympathizing with other sufferers in the same calamity, and thus evincing her regard for them, rather than for herself.

Nor ought we to class this species of selfdiscipline with those artificial manners which are assumed merely for the sake of effect. If the same individual who controlled her feelings before her guests, should go out among her servants and give full vent to them there, such a case would certainly deserve to be so classed. But the self-control I would gladly recommend, is of a widely different order, extending to a mastery over the feelings, as well as the expressions. In the former case, a lady seated at the head of her table, will sometimes speak in a sharp whisper to a servant, with a countenance in which all the furies might be represented as one; when suddenly turning to her guests, she will address them with the blandest smiles, even before the cloud has had time to vanish from her brow. In the latter case, the mistress of the house will recollect, that others have been made to suffer perhaps more than herself, and that whatever the cause of vexation or distress may be, it can only be making that distress greater, for her to appear angry or disturbed. By such habits of reflection, and by the mastery of judgment over impulse, she will be able in time, not only to appear calm, but really to feel so; or if there should be just as much excitement as may be agreeably carried off in condolence with her friends, there will never be sufficient really to destroy either their comfort, or her own peace of mind.

In speaking of the beauty of order, would that it were possible to impress this fact upon the minds of English wives-that there is neither beauty nor order in making their servants and their domestic affairs in general, the subject of conversation in company. To

hear some good ladies talking, one would really think that servants were a sort of plague sent upon the nation at large, and upon them in particular. To say nothing of the wrong state of feeling evinced by allowing one of our greatest sources of personal comfort to be habitually regarded as a bane rather than a blessing; we see here one of those instances in which the laws of order are infringed by a disregard to the fitness of things; for however interesting our domestic affairs may be to ourselves, it requires but little tact or observation to discover, that they interest no one else, unless it be our nearest and most intimate friends, whose personal regard to us will induce them to listen with kindness to whatever we describe as being connected with our welfare or happiness.

Upon the same principle, a history of bodily ailments should never be forced upon visitors; for as it requires either to be an intimate friend, or a member of the same family, to feel any particular interest in the good or bad practices of servants; so it requires that our friends should be very tenderly attached to us to care about our ailments, or even to listen with any real attention when we make them the subject of conversation. In all such cases, it is possible that a third party may be more quick to perceive the real state of things than the party most concerned; but I own I have often wondered what the habitual complainer of household and personal grievances could find to induce her to go on in the averted look, the indifferent answer, and the absent manner of her guests; yet, such is the entire occupation of some minds with subjects of this nature, that they are scarcely alive to impressions from any other source; and perhaps the surest way to prevent our annoyance of others, is to recollect how often and how much we have been annoyed in this way ourselves.

It is, then, no mean or trifling attainment for the mistress of a house to be thoroughly at home in her own domestic affairs; deeply interested in the character and habits of all the different members of her household, so as to extend over them the care and the solici

tude of a mother; and yet before her guests, or in the presence of her friends, to be perfectly disengaged, able to enter into all their causes of anxiety, or hope, and above all, to give an intellectual character and a moral tendency to the general tone of the conversation in which she takes a part. With nothing less than this strict regulation of the feelings, as well as the habits, this regard to fitness, and this maintenance of order in the subserviency of one thing to another, ought the wives of England to be satisfied; for it is to them we look for every important bias given to the manners and the morals of that class of society upon which depends so much of the good influence of England as a nation.

A love of order is as much exemplified by doing any thing at its proper time as in its appropriate place; and it rests with a mistress of a house to see that her own time, and that of her servants, is judiciously proportioned out. Some mistresses, forgetting this, and unacquainted with the real advantages of order, are in the habit of calling their servants from one occupation to another, choosing extra work for them to do on busy days, crowding a variety of occupations into one short space of time, and then complaining that nothing is thoroughly done; while others will put off necessary preparations until so late that everybody is flurried and confused, and well if they are not out of temper too. It may possibly have occurred to others as it has to myself, to be present where, on the occasion of an evening party being expected, all the good things for the entertainment had to be made on the afternoon of the same day. I need hardly add that when the guests arrived, neither mistress nor servants were in a very fit state to go through the ceremonial of a dignified reception.

Forethought, then, is a most essential quality in the mistress of a house, if she wishes to maintain throughout her establishment the principle of order. Whatever others do, she must think. It is not possible for order to exist, where many minds are employed in directing a variety of movements. There must be one presiding intellect to guide the

whole; and whether the household to be governed belong to a mansion or a cottage, whether the servants to be directed be many or few, that presiding power must be vested in the mistress, or in some one individual deputed to act in her stead. It is from leaving this thinking and contriving part, along with the executive, to servants, that we see perpetuated so many objectionable and absurd methods of transacting the business of domestic life; methods handed down from one generation to another, and acted upon sometimes with great inconvenience and equal waste, simply because habit has rendered it a sort of established thing, that whatever is done, should be done in a certain manner; for servants are a class of people who think but little, and many of them would rather take double pains, and twice the necessary length of time in doing their work the old way, than risk the experiment of a new one, even if it should ever occur to them to make it.

It must rest with the mistress, then, to introduce improvements and facilities in the transaction of household business; and she will be but little fitted for her office who has not studied before her marriage the best way of doing common and familiar things. Whatever her good intentions, or even her measure of good sense may be, she will labor under painful disadvantages, and difficulties scarcely to be overcome, by taking up this study for the first time after she has become the mistress of a house; for all points of failure here, her own servants will be quick to detect, and most probably not slow to take advantage of.

A married woman thus circumstanced, will certainly act most wisely by studiously concealing her own ignorance; and in order to do this effectually, she must avoid asking foolish questions, at the same time that she watches every thing that is done with careful and quiet scrutiny, so as to learn the how and the why of every trivial act before engaging in it herself, or even venturing a remark upon the manner in which it may be done by others.

But essential as knowledge is to good domestic management, we must ever bear in mind that knowledge is not all. There must be a love of order, a sense of fitness, a quick perception of the appropriateness of time and place, lively impressions of reality and truth, and clear convictions on the subject of relative importance; and in order to the complete qualification of a good wife and mistress, there must be along with all these, not only a willingness, but á strong determination to act upon such impressions and convictions to the full extent of their power to promote social, domestic, and individual happiness.

And if all these requirements are to be classed under the head of order, we must look for those which are still more serious under that of justice.

The word justice has a somewhat startling sound to female ears, and I might perhaps be induced to use a softer expression, could I find one suited to my purpose; though after all, I fancy we should none of us be much the worse for having the word justice, in its simple and imperative strictness, more frequently applied to our relative and social duties. It is, in fact, a good oldfashioned notion, that of doing justice, which has fallen a little too much into disuse; or perhaps, I ought rather to say, has been dismissed from its place among female duties, and considered too exclusively as belonging to points of law and cases of public trial.

I am well aware that justice in its highest sense belongs not to creatures frail, shortsighted, and liable to deception like ourselves; but that strong sense of truth, and honesty, and individual right, which we naturally include in our idea of the love of justice, was surely given us to be exercised in our dealings with each other, and in the general conduct of our domestic affairs. This regard to what is just in itself, necessarily including what is due to others, and what is due from them also, is the moral basis upon which all good management depends; for when once this foundation is removed, an inlet is opened for innumerable lower mo

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