Mrs. Humphry

“ The father misses them for the pleasant companionship; the sisters miss them for the boyish spirits and the exuberant fun that never exceeds the bounds of good taste and refinement; and the mother misses them more than any one else, for no one better than she knows how many times a day her boys have set aside their own wishes in deference to hers, quietly, silently, unostentatiously—in a word, out of pure good manners, in the deepest, highest, truest sense of the words. ”

“ She can turn herself out as bewitchingly as anybody, and the same cleverness that goes into her delicious entrées, capital sauces, and truly lovely afternoon tea-cakes concerns itself with the ripples of her coiffure, the correct tilt of her hat, and the deft fall of her skirt. The domestic girl need be neither plain nor dowdy. Plenty of exercise and the feeling that she is of use in the world brighten her eyes, keep her complexion clear, and give her that air of lightheartedness that should, but does not always, characterise a girl. ”

“ The truth is that society demands a never-ending series of self-denying actions from those who belong to it, and the more cheerfully these are performed, the more perfect are the manners. What can be more enjoyable than to sit in some cool retreat with a charming girl, enjoying one of those innocent flirtations that do so much to give zest to life? But delightful though it be, the temptation to prolong it must be resisted, if an expectant partner is missing her dance and waiting in the ball-room to be claimed. ”

“ It is at this momentous time that affection is most deeply needed, with a craving and a yearning that cannot be expressed; and yet this is the moment when the mother too often turns away, disappointed and chilled by the unwonted reticence her child displays. She has yet to learn that human affection is a wingless thing, and cannot follow the far flights of the untrammelled spirit. ”

“ Many are the miseries of the middle-aged chaperon! Is it not enough, think you, to see one’s lost youth reflected in the blithesome scene, to remember the waltzes of long ago, to recall the partners of the past, and the pleasant homage no longer forthcoming, and to feel within a response to the music and the rhythm of the dance, ridiculously incongruous with an elderly exterior, without suffering any added woes? ”

“ Suppose a young man were to meet his mother or sister while he was in the company of a lady unknown to them, he must not introduce her to them or them to her without having previously obtained special permission on both sides. There are young men who make acquaintance with girls in a lower walk of life than their own. It would be an insult to mother or sister to introduce a milliner’s apprentice or an assistant in a shop, or, in fact, any one whom he had picked up without a regular introduction. ”

“ And who shall say that conscience is perfectly developed in the woman who keeps her coachman and footman waiting for hours in the cold of a winter’s night while she is warmly housed and indifferent? Or in her whose maid has to sit up for her till the small hours, and yet has to fetch her her cup of tea bright and early the next morning? And what shall be said of her who goes to her dressmaker and orders a gown at the very last moment? Where is her social conscience? Does she not know that weary girls who have worked hard all day must be kept late to complete her dress? ”

“ It is delightful to see some young men unobtrusively attentive to their sisters, watchful of every need of their father and mother, cheerful and pleasant in their manner, full of fun and brightness, yet never losing the gentleness that denotes the fine nature, and so beloved in the home for all these endearing qualities, that when they leave it they are sadly missed. ”

“ The mother’s ideal school might be very far indeed from a perfect one, but, as things are, one of the bitterest of her griefs is when she has to send her gentle, affectionate, pure-minded and open-souled little lad to school. She knows well that he will have to struggle alone through the dark days of initiation into school life, its cheap and shallow cynicism, its endless injustices, and its darker shadows than any that have been referred to. ”

“ On this very point of helping himself I have seen young men endure excruciating agonies of shyness. Sometimes they take the merest morsel of some excellent dish, though they would like very well to have some more. At other times they help themselves to far too much, because they are so confused that they will not take the necessary time to separate for their own share a moderate quantity. Occasionally they drop the spoon or fork with a clatter into the dish, after which they look intensely miserable for ten minutes or so. ”

“ Sometimes two who have loved each other in their youth meet again when middle age has come to both. Such a meeting can never be commonplace to either. Nor do the two see each other as they are visible to ordinary acquaintances. In the eyes of memory, the grey hair is replaced by the sunny locks of youth; the saddened eyes are bright again and eagerly out-looking into a world of abundant promise; the worn and furrowed brow becomes smooth and white, the pale cheeks touched with youthful bloom ”

“ But with dinner there is a peculiar obligation laid upon the guests. The choice and arrangement of them involves care on the part of the dinner-giver, more so than in the case of any other meal. In fact, dinner stands alone as an institution sacred to the highest rites of hospitality. To be invited is an honour to the young man who is just beginning his social life. To absent himself would be a gross rudeness, unless he could plead circumstances of a pressing nature. ”

“ No one will be much poorer if we keep our stores untouched, and we ourselves shall certainly be richer. For does not unnecessary outspokenness rob us of the affection and sympathy of those without whom the world would be an empty and a dreary place? We want all the love we can get to help us through the world, and when we favour others with a burst of candour we sadly diminish our share of goodwill. ”

“ The world and the home reflect back to us the face we present to them. If we cultivate a bright and cordial manner we shall be heartily received by others, though the real nature of us lies beneath as cold and hard as salt fresh from a mine. ”

“ They appear to her at a distance, as if she were looking through the small end of a telescope. “The thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts,” and the girl’s idea of usefulness is to nurse the sick and wounded in war-time, to go out as a missionary among the heathen, to write books with great thoughts in them, to do noble deeds of tremendous self-sacrifice, to take up some great life-work. She looks so far afield that she cannot see the little duties lying to her hand, in the performance of which lies her best training for great and worthy deeds. ”

“ In some lives middle age is far happier than youth, with its tumults, its restlessness, its perpetual effervescence, its endless emotions. Youth looked back upon from the vantage ground of middle age is as a railway journey compared with a summer day’s boating on a broad, calm river. There was more excitement and enjoyment attached to the railway journey, but the serene and peaceful quiet of the pleasant drifting and the gentle rowing are by no means to be despised. ”

“ Oh, sisters, where is the social conscience of those among us who of malice aforethought attend the theatre with all-impeding and obstructive headgear? A knowledge of the sentiments we excite in the bosoms of those behind us might help some of us to be a little unselfish in the matter. Positive, if temporary, detestation is the principal emotion entertained towards the wearer of a matinée hat, and the hatred is not unmingled with contempt; for who can help despising a girl or woman who is openly and avowedly careless of the inconvenience and disappointment she is causing? ”

“ Quite recently there was published a sonnet, written by an eminent man on seeing his wife’s portrait when she was well on into middle age. The expression of surprise in discovering that any one could see an elderly woman in the wife of his youth, in whom he saw always, when he looked at her, her own young face, was exquisitely put, and the whole sonnet most touchingly conveyed the truth that some “old friends” see dear but faded faces through a glamour of affection, that equals that of even vanity itself.
“An hungry man is an angry man.” ”

“ The injustice of it all is often what rankles most deeply. There are many mothers who train their boys to a fine sense of honour, derived from a much higher source than that which seems to inspire the average schoolboy, and the ordinary man of the world into whom the boy develops. His attitude to his fellow-creatures is one of comradeship, and kindly feeling, when he leaves his mother’s side. Who shall say what storms of rancorous hate and bitter loathing pass over the young soul in the boy’s first term at school? ”

“ Music, long neglected, begins again to play a happy part in the lives of some. In others, the brush is taken up after long years of abstinence, and the alchemy of art transforms into beautiful fruitfulness what else might have been a barren desert, now blossoming like a rose; Compensations.or, journeys into far lands, longed for all through life, are at last undertaken, with an eagerness of delighted anticipation that would not disgrace youth itself. ”

“ Perhaps we are too comfortable in our apathy and ignorance, in our cosy homes and pretty rooms, by our bright fires, and surrounded by the endless trivialities of life, to look beyond. We are “provincial” in our thoughts, circumscribed, cabined, cribbed, confined, for want of being thrust forth to achieve our own seed time and harvest, that inner garnering with the real labour of which no stranger intermeddleth, save to encourage from without, or the deeper to enslave the mind in deadly dulness. ”

“ Poverty may become the cause of a thousand unsuspected joys; as it certainly is an education in ever so many ways. Some of us would hardly know ourselves if we never had been poor. Did not poverty teach us to cook, to sew, to make our dresses, to trim our hats, to cover our chairs, to drape our windows, to use a dust-pan and brush and to find out at first hand the charms of active cleanliness, that may be evoked with the aid of a humble duster? ”

“ The young mother with her children about her is apt to let small worries cloud over the happiest time of her life. When she looks back at it, when the young ones have all grown up and gone from her, she wonders at herself for having ignored home joys. Children are troublesome, no doubt, and they are noisy little creatures and anxieties to boot. “A child in a house is a wellspring of pleasure,” says Martin Farquhar Tupper, a writer already forgotten, but one who said many a true thing. A child in a house is also a wellspring of worry, many a mother might add, but would she be without it? ”

“ And ever after, when returned to school from the holidays, I dreaded the moment of entering that long dormitory, where tidiness and cleanliness reigned rampant, like tyrants, instead of inviting, like the friendly, comfortable things they really are.
Selfish neatness.
I know a mother who will not allow her children to have toys, “because they are always lying about.” Well, toys are a very good means of teaching children tidiness; but the true mother-heart must be lacking when the young ones are robbed of their childish joys for so selfish a reason. ”