The Young Man's Guide Part 18

The concerns of a great family never can be _well_ managed, if left _wholly_ to hirelings; and there are many parts of these affairs in which it would be unseemly for husbands to meddle. Surely, no lady can be too high in rank to make it proper for her to be well acquainted with the character and general demeanor of all the female servants. To receive and give character is too much to be left to a servant, however good, whose service has been ever so long, or acceptable.

Much of the ease and happiness of the great and rich must depend on the character of those by whom they are a.s.sisted. They live under the same roof with them; they are frequently the children of their tenants, or poorer neighbors; the conduct of their whole lives must be influenced by the examples and precepts which they here imbibe; and when ladies consider how much more weight there must be in one word from them, than in ten thousand words from a person who, call her what you like, is still a _fellow servant_, it does appear strange that they should forego the performance of this at once important and pleasing part of their duty.

I am, however, addressing myself, in this work, to persons in the middle ranks of life; and here a knowledge of domestic affairs is so necessary in every wife, that the lover ought to have it continually in his eye. Not only a knowledge of these affairs--not only to know how things _ought to be done_, but how to _do them_; not only to know what ingredients ought to be put into a pie or a pudding, but to be able _to make_ the pie or the pudding.

Young people, when they come together, ought not, unless they have fortunes, or are to do unusual business, to think about _servants_!

Servants for what! To help them eat, and drink, and sleep? When they have children, there must be some _help_ in a farmer's or tradesman's house, but until then, what call is there for a servant in a house, the master of which has to _earn_ every mouthful that is consumed?

Eating and drinking come _three times every day_; they must come; and, however little we may, in the days of our health and vigor, care about choice food and about cookery, we very soon get _tired_ of heavy or burnt bread, and of spoiled joints of meat. We bear them for once or twice perhaps; but about the third time, we begin to lament; about the fifth time, it must be an extraordinary affair that will keep us from complaining; if the like continue for a month or two, we begin to _repent_; and then adieu to all our antic.i.p.ated delights. We discover, when it is too late, that we have not got a helpmate, but a burden; and, the fire of love being damped, the unfortunately educated creature, whose parents are more to blame than she is, unless she resolve to learn her duty, is doomed to lead a life very nearly approaching to that of misery; for, however considerate the husband, he never can esteem her as he would have done, had she been skilled in domestic affairs.

The mere _manual_ performance of domestic labors is not, indeed, absolutely necessary in the female head of the family of professional men; but, even here, and also in the case of great merchants and of gentlemen living on their fortunes, surely the head of the household ought to be able to give directions as to the purchasing of meal, salting meat, making bread, making preserves of all sorts; and ought to see the things done.

The lady ought to take care that food be well cooked; that there be always a sufficient supply; that there be good living without waste; and that in her department, nothing shall be seen inconsistent with the rank, station, and character of her husband. If he have a skilful and industrious wife, he will, unless he be of a singularly foolish turn, gladly leave all these things to her absolute dominion, controlled only by the extent of the whole expenditure, of which he must be the best judge.

But, in a farmer's or a tradesman's family, the manual performance is absolutely necessary, whether there be domestics or not. No one knows how to teach another so well as one who has done, and can do, the thing himself. It was said of a famous French commander, that, in attacking an enemy, he did not say to his men '_go_ on,' but '_come_ on;' and, whoever has well observed the movements of domestics, must know what a prodigious difference there is in the effect of the words, _go_ and _come_.

A very good rule would be, to have nothing to eat, in a farmer's or mechanic's house, that the mistress did not know how to prepare and to cook; no pudding, tart, pie or cake, that she did not know how to make.

Never fear the toil to her: exercise is good for health; and without health there is no beauty. Besides, what is the labor in such a case?

And how many thousands of ladies, who idle away the day, would give half their fortunes for that sound sleep which the stirring housewife seldom fails to enjoy.

Yet, if a young farmer or mechanic _marry_ a girl, who has been brought up only to '_play music_;' to _draw_, to _sing_, to waste paper, pen and ink in writing long and half romantic letters, and to see shows, and plays, and read novels;--if a young man do marry such an unfortunate young creature, let him bear the consequences with temper.

Let him be _just_. Justice will teach him to treat her with great indulgence; to endeavor to persuade her to learn her business as a wife; to be patient with her; to reflect that he has taken her, being apprized of her inability; to bear in mind, that he was, or seemed to be, pleased with her showy and useless acquirements; and that, when the gratification of his pa.s.sion has been accomplished, he is unjust, and cruel, and unmanly, if he turn round upon her, and accuse her of a want of that knowledge, which he well knew, beforehand, she did not possess.

For my part, I do not know, nor can I form an idea of, a more unfortunate being than a girl with a mere boarding school education, and without a fortune to enable her to keep domestics, when married. Of what _use_ are _her_ accomplishments? Of what use her music, her drawing, and her romantic epistles? If she should chance to possess a sweet disposition, and good nature, the first faint cry of her first babe drives all the tunes and all the landscapes, and all the imaginary beings out of her head for ever.

The farmer or the tradesman's wife has to _help earn_ a provision for her children; or, at the least, to help to earn a store for sickness or old age. She ought, therefore, to be qualified to begin, at once, to a.s.sist her husband in his earnings. The way in which she can most efficiently a.s.sist, is by taking care of his property; by expending his money to the greatest advantage; by wasting nothing, but by making the table sufficiently abundant with the least expense.

But how is she to do these things, unless she has been _brought up_ to understand domestic affairs? How is she to do these things, if she has been taught to think these matters beneath her study? How is the man to expect her to do these things, if she has been so bred, as to make her habitually look upon them as worthy the attention of none but low and ignorant women?

_Ignorant_, indeed! Ignorance consists in a want of knowledge of those things which your calling or state of life naturally supposes you to understand. A ploughman is not an ignorant man because he does not know how to read. If he knows how to plough, he is not to be called an ignorant man; but a wife may be justly called an ignorant woman, if she does not know how to provide a dinner for her husband. It is cold comfort for a hungry man, to tell him how delightfully his wife plays and sings. _Lovers_ may live on very aerial diet, but husbands stand in need of something more solid; and young women may take my word for it, that a constantly clean table, well cooked victuals, a house in order, and a cheerful fire, will do more towards preserving a husband's heart, than all the 'accomplishments' taught in all the 'establishments' in the world without them.

6. SOBRIETY.

Surely no reasonable young man will expect sobriety in a companion, when he does not possess this qualification himself. But by _sobriety_, I do not mean a habit which is opposed to _intoxication_, for if that be hateful in a man, what must it be in a woman? Besides, it does seem to me that no young man, with his eyes open, and his other senses perfect, needs any caution on that point. Drunkenness, downright drunkenness, is usually as incompatible with _purity_, as it is with _decency_.

Much is sometimes said in favor of a little wine or other fermented liquors, especially at dinner. No young lady, in health, needs any of these stimulants. Wine, or ale, or cider, at dinner! I would as soon take a companion from the _streets_, as one who must habitually have her gla.s.s or two of wine at dinner. And this is not an opinion formed prematurely or hastily.

But by the word SOBRIETY in a young woman, I mean a great deal more than even a rigid abstinence from a love of drink, which I do not believe to exist to any considerable degree, in this country, even in the least refined parts of it. I mean a great deal _more_ than this; I mean sobriety of conduct. The word _sober_ and its derivatives mean _steadiness_, _seriousness_, _carefulness_, _scrupulous propriety of conduct_.

Now this kind of sobriety is of great importance in the person with whom we are to live constantly. Skipping, romping, rattling girls are very amusing where all consequences are out of the question, and they may, perhaps, ultimately become _sober_. But while you have no certainty of this, there is a presumptive argument on the other side.

To be sure, when girls are mere children, they are expected to play and romp _like_ children. But when they are arrived at an age which turns their thoughts towards a situation for life; when they begin to think of having the command of a house, however small or poor, it is time for them to cast away, not the cheerfulness or the simplicity, but the _levity_ of the child.

'If I could not have found a young woman,' says a certain writer, 'who I was not sure possessed _all_ the qualities expressed by that word _sobriety_, I should have remained a bachelor to the end of life.

Scores of gentlemen have, at different times, expressed to me their surprise that I was "_always in spirits_; that nothing _pulled me down_;" and the truth is, that throughout nearly forty years of troubles, losses, and crosses, a.s.sailed all the while by numerous and powerful enemies, and performing, at the same time, greater mental labors than man ever before performed; all those labors requiring mental exertion, and some of them mental exertion of the highest order, I have never known a single hour of _real anxiety_; the troubles have been no troubles to me; I have not known what _lowness of spirits_ meant; and have been more gay, and felt less care than any bachelor that ever lived. "You are always in spirits!" To be sure, for why should I not be so? Poverty, I have always set at defiance, and I could, therefore, defy the temptations to riches; and as to _home_ and _children_, I had taken care to provide myself with an inexhaustible store of that "sobriety" which I so strongly recommend to others.

'This sobriety is a t.i.tle to trustworthiness; and this, young man, is the treasure that you ought to prize above all others. Miserable is the husband who, when he crosses the threshold of his house, carries with him doubts, and fears, and suspicions. I do not mean suspicions of the _fidelity_ of his wife; but of her care, frugality, attention to his interests, and to the health and morals of his children. Miserable is the man who cannot leave all unlocked; and who is not _sure_, quite _certain_, that all is as safe as if grasped in his own hand.

'He is the happy husband who can go away at a moment's warning, leaving his house and family with as little anxiety as he quits an inn, no more fearing to find, on his return, any thing wrong, than he would fear a discontinuance of the rising and setting of the sun; and if, as in my case, leaving books and papers all lying about at sixes and sevens, finding them arranged in proper order, and the room, during the lucky interval, freed from the effects of his and his ploughman's or gardener's dirty shoes. Such a man has no _real cares--no troubles_; and this is the sort of life I have led. I have had all the numerous and indescribable delights of home and children, and at the same time, all the bachelor's freedom from domestic cares.

'But in order to possess this precious _trustworthiness_, you must, if you can, exercise your _reason_ in the choice of your partner. If she be vain of her person, very fond of dress, fond of _flattery_ at all, given to gadding about, fond of what are called _parties of pleasure_, or _coquetish_, though in the least degree,--she will never be trustworthy; she cannot change her nature; and if you marry her, you will be unjust, if you expect trustworthiness at her hands. But on the other hand, if you find in her that innate _sobriety_ of which I have been speaking, there is required on your part, and that at once, too, confidence and trust without any limit. Confidence in this case is nothing, unless it be reciprocal. To have a trustworthy wife, you must begin by showing her, even before marriage, that you have no suspicions, fears, or doubts in regard to her. Many a man has been discarded by a virtuous girl, merely on account of his querulous conduct. All women despise jealous men, and if they marry them, their motive is other than that of affection.'

There is a tendency, in our very natures, to become what we are taken to be. Beware then of suspicion or jealousy, lest you produce the very thing which you most dread. The evil results of suspicion and jealousy whether in single or married, public or private life, may be seen by the following fact.

A certain professional gentleman had the misfortune to possess a suspicious temper. He had not a better friend on the earth than Mr. C., yet by some unaccountable whim or other, he began of a sudden to suspect he was his enemy;--and what was at first at the farthest possible remove from the truth, ultimately grew to be a reality. Had it not have been for his jealousy, Mr. C. might have been to this hour one of the doctor's warmest and most confidential friends, instead of being removed--and in a great measure through _his_ influence--from a useful field of labor.

'Let any man observe as I frequently have,' says the writer last quoted, 'with delight, the excessive fondness of the laboring people for their children. Let him observe with what care they dress them out on Sundays with means deducted from their own scanty meals. Let him observe the husband, who has toiled, like his horse, all the week, nursing the babe, while the wife is preparing dinner. Let him observe them both abstaining from a sufficiency, lest the children should feel the pinchings of hunger. Let him observe, in short, the whole of their demeanor, the real mutual affection evinced, not in words, but in unequivocal deeds.

'Let him observe these things, and having then cast a look at the lives of the great and wealthy, he will say, with me, that when a man is choosing his partner for life, the dread of poverty ought to be cast to the winds. A laborer's cottage in a cleanly condition; the husband or wife having a babe in arms, looking at two or three older ones, playing between the flower borders, going from the wicket to the door, is, according to my taste, the most interesting object that eyes ever beheld; and it is an object to be seen in no country on earth but England.'

It happens, however, that the writer had not seen all the countries upon earth, nor even all in the interior of United America. There are as moving instances of native simplicity and substantial happiness here as in any other country; and occasionally in even the higher cla.s.ses.

The wife of a distinguished lawyer and senator in Congress, never left the society of her own children, to go for once to see her friends abroad, in _eleven years_! I am not defending the conduct of the husband who would doom his wife to imprisonment in his own house, even amid a happy group of children, for eleven years; but the example shows, at least, that there are women fitted for domestic life in other countries besides England.

Ardent young men may fear that great sobriety in a young woman argues a want of that warmth which they naturally so much desire and approve.

But observation and experience attest to the contrary. They tell us that levity is ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the companion of a _want_ of ardent feeling. But the _licentious_ never _love_. Their pa.s.sion is chiefly animal. Even better women, if they possess light and frivolous minds, have seldom any ardent pa.s.sion.

I would not, however, recommend that you should be too severe in judging, when the conduct does not go beyond mere _levity_, and is not bordering on _loose_ conduct; for something certainly depends here on const.i.tution and animal spirits, and something on the manners of the country.

If any person imagine that the sobriety I have been recommending would render young women moping or gloomy, he is much mistaken, for the contrary is the fact. I have uniformly found--and I began to observe it in my very childhood--that your jovial souls, men or women, except when over the bottle, are of all human beings the most dull and insipid.

They can no more exist--they may _vegetate_--but they can no more _live_ without some excitement, than a fish could live on the top of the Alleghany. If it be not the excitement of the bottle, it must be that of the tea or the coffee cup, or food converted into some unwholesome form or other by condiments; or if it be none of these, they must have some excitement of the intellect, for intemperance is not confined to the use of condiments and poisons for the body; there are condiments and poisons to mind and heart. In fact, they usually accompany each other.

Show me a person who cannot live on plain and simple food and the only drink the Creator ever made, and as a general rule you will show me a person to whom the plain and the solid and the useful in domestic, social, intellectual, and moral life are insipid if not disgusting.

'They are welcome to all that sort of labor,' said one of these creatures--not rationals--this very day, to me, in relation to plain domestic employments.--Show me a female, as many, alas! very many in fas.h.i.+onable life are now trained, and you show me a person who has none of the qualities that fit her to be a help meet for man in a life of simplicity. She could recite well at the high school, no doubt; but the moment she leaves school, she has nothing to do, and is taught to do nothing. I have seen girls, of this description, and they may be seen by others.

But what is such a female--one who can hardly help herself--good for, at home or abroad; married, or single? The moment she has not some feast, or party, or play, or novel, or--I know not what--something to keep up a fever, the moment I say that she has not something of this sort to antic.i.p.ate or enjoy, that moment she is miserable. Wo to the young man who becomes wedded for life to a creature of this description. She may stay at home, for want of a better place, and she may add one to the national census every ten years, but a companion, or a mother, she cannot be.

I should dislike a moping melancholy creature as much as any man, though were I tied to such a thing, I could live with her; but I never could enjoy her society, nor but half of my own. He is but half a man who is thus wedded, and will exclaim, in a literal sense, 'When shall I be delivered from the body of this death?'

One hour, an _animal_ of this sort is moping, especially if n.o.body but her husband is present; the next hour, if others happen to be present, she has plenty of smiles; the next she is giggling or capering about; and the next singing to the motion of a lazy needle, or perhaps weeping over a novel. And this is called sentiment! _She_ is a woman of feeling and good taste!

7. INDUSTRY.

Let not the individual whose eye catches the word _industry_, at the beginning of this division of my subject, condemn me as degrading females to the condition of mere wheels in a machine for money-making; for I mean no such thing. There is nothing more abhorrent to the soul of a sensible man than female _avarice_. The 'spirit of a man' may sustain him, while he sees avaricious and miserly individuals among his own s.e.x, though the sight is painful enough, even here; but a female miser, 'who can bear?'

Still if woman is intended to be a 'help meet,' for the other s.e.x, I know of no reason why she should not be so in physical concerns, as well as mental and moral. I know not by what rule it is that many resolve to remain for ever in celibacy, unless they believe their companion can 'support' them, without labor. I have sometimes even doubted whether any person who makes these declarations can be sincere.

Yet when I hear people, of both s.e.xes, speak of poverty as a greater calamity than death, I am led to think that this dread of poverty does really exist among both s.e.xes. And there are reasons for believing that some females, bred in fas.h.i.+onable life, look forward to matrimony as a state, of such entire exemption from care and labor, and of such uninterrupted ease, that they would prefer celibacy and even death to those duties which scripture, and reason, and common sense, appear to me to enjoin.

Such persons, whatever may be their other qualifications, I call upon every young man to avoid, as he would a pestilence. If they are really determined to live and act as mere drones in society, let them live alone. Do not give them an opportunity to spread the infection of so wretched a disease, if you can honestly help it.

The woman who does not actually prefer action to inaction--industry to idleness--labor to ease--and who does not steadfastly resolve to labor moderately as long as she lives, whatever may be her circ.u.mstances, is unfit for life, social or domestic. It is not for me to say, in what _form_ her labor shall be applied, except in rearing the young. But labor she ought--all she is able--while life and health lasts, at something or other; or she ought not to complain if she suffers the _natural penalty_; and she ought to do it with cheerfulness.

I like much the quaint remark of a good old lady of ninety. She was bred to labor, had labored through the whole of her long and eventful life, and was still at her 'wheel.' 'Why,' said she, 'people ought to strain _every nerve_ to get property, as a matter of Christian duty.'

I should choose to modify this old lady's remark, and say that, people ought to do all they can _without straining_ their _muscles_ or _nerves_; not to get property, but because it is at once, their duty and their happiness.

The great object of life is to do good. The great object of society is to increase the power to good. Both s.e.xes should aim, in matrimony, at a more extended sphere of usefulness. To increase an estate, merely, is a low and unworthy aim, from which may G.o.d preserve the rising generation. Still I must say, that I greatly prefer the avaricious being--a monster though she might be--to the stupid soul who would not lift a finger if she could help it, and who determines to fold her arms whenever she has a convenient opportunity.

If a female be lazy, there will be lazy domestics, and, what is a great deal worse, children will acquire this habit. Every thing, however necessary to be done, will be put off to the last moment, and then it will be done badly, and, in many cases, not at all. The dinner will be too late; the journey or the visit will be tardy; inconveniences of all sorts will be continually arising. There will always be a heavy arrear of things unperformed; and this, even among the most wealthy, is a great evil; for if they have no business imposed upon them by necessity, they _make_ business for themselves. Life would be intolerable without it; and therefore an indolent woman must always be an evil, be her rank or station what it may.