Part 2

It would be a wise arrangement if every man and woman, on establishing their home, would set apart some time for intellectual improvement by the reading of good books. I am acquainted with a young lady, who, on entering her plain little house, found that her husband and herself were so interrupted by visits and other claims on their time in the evening, that they resolved to rise an hour earlier in the morning, and devote the time to reading and study. They were thus free from interruption, and had ample opportunity, before the regular duties of the day began, to store their minds with useful knowledge. I think it probable that they will carry this excellent custom with them through life.

Much of my time is spent in high-ways, and along the narrow by-ways of life. My homes are many. But when my good fortune brings me at night to occupy a room far from my own home, where a good book or two are to be found, I can say with Milton, in his _Areopagitica_: "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond;" and with Wordsworth, in his "Personal Talk":

"Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good; Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow."

I like a home where you can see the books. A choice book-case with glass doors, and the doors locked, ought to be expelled from the home. Let the books be where they can be seen and easily reached. Let them not be confined to one room, but so distributed that nearly every room shall have at least a few in sight. A few books here and there about the house, and even in the bed-rooms, are worth more than a costly piece of furniture. When we see books in our homes, and they are where we can handle them without effort, we are apt to take them up, and get snatches of good reading.

FORBEARANCE.

The marriage bond is sacred. It lasts for life: "Until death do us part." But it is probable that qualities of temperament and mind in each one will develop which will surprise the other. Some of these may produce an unfavorable impression. Others may prove most agreeable surprises. Each person has come from a different class of associations, and each has a different nature. Here comes in the great necessity of accommodation and adaptation. Too early and too much criticism spoils many a home. "One silent, both happy," is an old motto well worth observing. But often a single appreciative word will brighten the whole sky. One of Franklin's plain phrases has its wise lesson: "As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle silence." Frederika Bremer says: "Marriage has a morrow, and again a morrow." You will need to bear with each other, and to so act, each to the other, that every day may be made beautiful and happy, and the whole future one of mutual and respectful forbearance.

"Foolish to think," says Dr. A. P. Peabody, "that the whole mutual life can flow on like the early stream, without a ripple or eddy. Home is a school, a discipline whereby husband and wife are to grow unto each other, getting rid of their angularities, harmonizing their peculiar characteristics, and more and more becoming one in thought, sympathy, and life. The true blessedness of wedded souls is not insured by a simple exchange of plighted faith. It comes through and after many a self-denial, many a crucifixion of the will, many a scourging of the resentment, anger, pride, vanity, and passions of the heart. It is true here, as in other relations, that 'he who saveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life shall save it.'"

Do not forget, then, that the life at home has its severe tests. If it is not an expected thing, it will be the unexpected which will try your nature and make your burden heavy. You should remember, if there is fault, that it is not all on one side. The unkind word may come to the lips, but it should never be spoken.

"Words are mighty, words are living; Serpents with their venomous stings, Or bright angels, crowding round us, With heaven's light upon their wings: Every word has its own spirit, True or false, that never dies; Every word man's lips have uttered Echoes in God's skies."

The graces of patience, sublime calmness, golden silence, should be cultivated with delightful zeal. You may each have had your way, but now the way of another must be respected. Besides, it may be a much better and safer way than yours. John Angell James says: "Where both have infirmities, and they are so constantly together, innumerable occasions will be furnished, if we are eager, or even willing, to avail ourselves of the opportunities for those contentions which, if they do not produce a permanent suppression of love, lead to its temporary interruption. Many things we should connive at, others we should pass by with an unprovoked mind, and in all things most carefully avoid even what at first may seem to be an innocent disputation."

The real basis of adaptation is mutual respect and love. Neither the husband nor the wife must judge each other too critically. The indiscreet word, or error of any kind, must never be allowed to cause a doubt as to the heart's deep affection. Gentleness, patience, time, will give ample opportunity for the full sunlight to break forth. Each heart needs the other for true happiness. It must be a united life. In "Hiawatha" we read the true relation:

"As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman, Though she bends him, she obeys him; Though she draws him, yet she follows, Useless each without the other."

The married life, to be supremely happy, must be thoroughly unselfish. I was once on shipboard with a tourist who was accompanied by his wife, but for whose opinion he seemed, even to other travelers, to show but little respect. The voyage was a long one, and while the wife's bearing was most gentle and kindly, his manner impressed me as thoroughly selfish. I do not imagine that he was aware of the abrupt and strongly personal quality of his bearing toward his refined and cultured wife. With all his wealth he lacked that appearance of tenderness which is more than gold or precious stones.

No effort must be spared by either husband or wife to contribute to the other's happiness and comfort. It does not require a long time, especially when living together, for one to see what will please another. This desire to please, strengthening with the days and years, revealing itself in a thousand kindly ways, will do more than any thing else to make the home a paradise on earth.

Cowper gives the true secret of a beautiful and strengthening reciprocal adaptation:

"The kindest and the happiest pair Will have occasion to forbear; And something every day they live To pity, and perchance forgive. The love that cheers life's latest stage, Proof against sickness and old age, Is gentle, delicate and kind: To faults compassionate or blind, And will with sympathy endure Those evils it would gladly cure."

I believe the Germans excel all others in literature in their warm tributes to the faithful love and devotion of their wives. Kerner, the Suabian author, said this beautiful word in testimony of his wife after their long years of happiness together: "She hath borne with me." Martin Luther said of his wife, the devoted Catherine: "I would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus without her." Bismarck, the man of "blood and iron," says of his wife: "She it is who made me what I am."

THE YESTERDAYS OF HOME.

Every day becomes a yesterday. Our conduct at home should be such that the morrow will bring no regrets. Mrs. Sigourney thus describes the changes that must come over the brightest home:

"Not for the summer's hour alone, When skies resplendent shine And youth and pleasure fill the throne, Our hearts and hands we join.

"But for those stern and wintry days Of sorrow, pain, and fear. When Heaven's wise discipline doth make Our earthly journey drear."

It is sad enough when either a man or his wife learns first, when one or the other is taken away by death, that there has been a life-long want of considerate tenderness.

Supposing the late Thomas Carlyle had been a little more attentive to his brilliant and devoted wife during their long and lonely life in the plain home in Cheyne Row, in Chelsea, London, such words as these, which escaped her in a letter to a friend, could never have been said: "Those little attentions which we women attach so much importance to he was never in the habit of rendering to any one; his upbringing, and the severe turn of mind he has from nature, had alike indisposed him toward them."

But the grim old man saw his mistake at last. It was all too late, however. It was only after all her sacrifices had been made, and he had written his many works, and she lay in her grave, that he awoke to a knowledge of his long neglect. Mr. Froude says that Carlyle often said, when there was no more opportunity for a kind word to reach his wife: "O if I could but see her for five minutes, to assure her that I really cared for her throughout all that; but she never knew it, she never knew it." It is no wonder that Mr. Froude was compelled to write of Carlyle these sad words: "For many years after she had left him, when he passed the spot where she was last seen alive he would bare his gray head in the wind and rain, his features wrung with unavailing sorrow."

We are prone to take too many things for granted. You should not assume that your thoughtless word, or harsh manner, or forgetfulness of little and delicate attentions will have no effect, and will be duly passed by as unmeaning. No such thing! Every word or look which is incompatible with genuine love and respect weighs like a millstone. Gentle attentions will be remembered, not only through the day, but through all the days. Recently, while on a visit in Irvington-on-the-Hudson, the widow of a celebrated publisher led me to the portrait of her lamented husband, and stood in admiration before the magnificent painting. She then said to me: "I esteem it the greatest honor that could be conferred upon me to have been the wife of such a man." Could there be a grander tribute to an attentive and devoted husband?

In that exquisite work, _Memorials of a Quiet Life_, Mrs. Hare pays this beautiful tribute to her husband: "I never saw any body so easy to live with, by whom the daily petty things of life were passed over so lightly; and then there is a charm in the _refinement_ of feeling which is not to be told in its influence upon trifles." Mrs. Stowe, in describing the good qualities of the Duchess of Sutherland in her own home in Scotland, says that she excelled in _considerateness_. Paul's advice is as beautiful as it is true, and suits young married people perfectly. In the Revised Version it reads thus: "In lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself; not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others." Another piece of Pauline advice is of equally useful quality: "Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another."

Happy are they whom death has not yet divided, and to whom it is still granted to say such words and do such kindly acts as will prove delightful memories when the Happy To-Days become only Yesterdays in the Home.