278 FRUGALITY PROVES AN EASY CHAIR FOR OLD AGE. his own accord, if need be. Don't rattle a hailstorm of fun about his ears either; be observant and quiet. Don't suppose, whenever he is silent and thoughtful, that you are of course the cause. Let him alone until he is inclined to talk; take up your book or your needlework (pleasantly, cheerfully; no pouting-no sullenness), and wait until he is inclined to be sociable. Don't let him ever find a shirt-button missing. A shirt-button being off a collar or wristband has frequently produced the first hurricane in married life. Men's shirt-collars never fit exactly-see that your husband's are made as well as possible, and then, if he does fret a little about them, never mind it; men have a prescriptive right to fret about shirt-collars. 1968. HINTS FOR HUSBANDS.-If your wife complain that young ladies "now-a-day" are very forward, don't accuse her of jealousy. A little concern on her part only proves her love for you, and you may enjoy your triumph without saying a word. Don't evince your weakness either, by complaining of every trifling neglect. What though her chair is not set so close to yours as it used to be, or though her knitting and crochet seem to absorb too large a share of her attention; depend upon it, that as her eyes watch the intertwinings of the threads, and the manoeuvres of the needles as they dance in compliance to her delicate fingers, she is thinking of courting days, love-letters, smiles, tears, suspicions, and reconciliations, by which your two hearts became entwined together in the network of love, whose meshes you can neither of you unravel or escape. 1969. HINTS FOR WIVES.-Never complain that your husband pores too much over the newspaper, to the exclusion of that pleasing converse which you formerly enjoyed with him. Don't hide the paper; don't give it to the children to tear; don't be sulky when the boy leaves it at the door; but take it in pleasantly, and lay it down before your spouse. Think what man would be without a newspaper; treat it as a great agent in the work of civilization, which it assuredly is; and think how much good newspapers have done by exposing bad husbands and bad wives, by giving their errors to the eye of the public. But manage you in this way: when your husband is absent, instead of gossiping with neighbours or looking into shop windows, sit down quietly, and look over that paper; run your eye over its home and foreign news; glance rapidly at the accidents and casualties; carefully scan the leading articles; and at tea-time, when your husband again takes up the paper, say, "My dear, what an awful state of things there seems to be in India!" or, "What a terrible calamity at Santiago!" or, "Trade appears to be flourishing in the north;" and depend upon it, down will go the paper. Îf he has not read the information, he will hear it all from your lips, and when you have done, he will ask, "Did you, my dear, read Banting's Letter on Corpulence ?" And whether you did or not, you will gradually get into as cosy a chat as you ever enjoyed; and you will soon discover that, rightly used, the newspaper is the wife's real friend, for it keeps the husband at home, and supplies capital topics for every-day table-talk. 1970. HINTS FOR HUSBANDS.-You can hardly imagine how refreshing it is to occasionally call up the recollection of your courting days. How tediously the hours rolled away prior to the appointed time of meeting; how swiftly they seemed to fly when you had met; how fond was the first greeting; how tender the last embrace; how fervent were your vows; how vivid your dreams of future happiness, when, returning to your home, you felt yourself secure in the confessed love of the object of your warm affections! Is your dream realized?-are you as happy as you expected? Consider whether, as a husband, you are as fervent and constant as you were when a lover. Remember that the wife's claims to WE INCREASE OUR WEALTH WHEN WE LESSEN OUR DESIRES. 279 once more breathe the fresh air of heaven, and look upon the beauties of earth. The summers are few we may dwell together; we will not give them all to Mammon. Again let our hearts glow with emotions of renewed loveour feet shall again tread the green sward, and the music of the rustling trees shall mingle in our whisperings of love!" your unremitting regard, great before less ecstasy; cattle group in peaceful marriage, are now exalted to a much nooks, by cooling streams; even the higher degree. She has left the world flowers seem to love, as they twine their for you the home of her childhood, tender arms around each other, and the fireside of her parents, their watch-throw their wild tresses about in beautiful care and sweet intercourse have all ful profusion; the happy swain sits been yielded up for you. Look, then, with his loved and loving mistress most jealously upon all that may tend beneath the sheltering oak, whose arms to attract you from home, and to spread out, as if to shield and sanctify weaken that union upon which your their pure attachment. What shall the temporal happiness mainly depends; husband do now, when earth and and believe that in the solemn relation-heaven seem to meet in happy union? ship of husband is to be found one of Must he still pore over the calculations the best guarantees for man's honour of the counting-house, or ceaselessly and happiness. pursue the toils of the work-room1971. HINTS FOR WIVES.-Per-sparing no moment to taste the joys chance you think that your husband's which Heaven measures out so libedisposition is much changed; that he is rally? No! "Come, dear wife, let us no longer the sweet-tempered, ardent lover he used to be. This may be a mistake. Consider his struggles with the world his everlasting race with the busy competition of trade. What is it makes him so eager in the pursuit of gain-so energetic by day, so sleepless by night-but his love of home, wife, and children, and a dread that their respectability, according to the light in which he has conceived it, may be encroached upon by the strife of existence? This is the true secret of that silent care which preys upon the hearts of many men; and true it is, that when love is least apparent, it is nevertheless the active principle which animates the heart, though fears and disappointments make up a cloud which obscures the warmer element. As above the clouds there is glorious sunshine, while below are showers and gloom, so with the conduct of man-behind the gloom of anxiety is a bright fountain of high and noble feeling. Think of this in those moments when clouds seem to lower upon your domestic peace, and, by tempering your conduct accordingly, the gloom will soon pass away, and warmth and brightness take its place. 1972. HINTS FOR HUSBANDS. Summer is the season of love! Happy birds mate, and sing among the trees; fishes dart athwart the running streams, and leap from their element in resist -"It "It was!" "Ah!" "Ha!" 1973. HINTS FOR WIVES. was!" "It was not!" "It was not!" Now who's the wiser or the better for this contention for the last word? Does obstinacy establish superiority or elicit truth? Decidedly not! Woman has always been described as clamouring for the last word: actors, authors, preachers, and philosophers, have agreed in attributing this trait to her, and in censuring her for it. Yet why they should condemn her, unless they wish the matter reversed, and thus committed themselves to the error imputed to her, it were difficult to discover. However, so it is;-and it remains for some one of the sex, by an exhibition of noble example, to aid in sweeping away the unpleasant imputation. The wife who will establish the rule of allowing her husband to have the last word, will achieve for herself and her sex a great moral victory! Is he right?—it were a great error to oppose him. Is he wrong? 280 MONEY IS A GOOD SERVANT, BUT A BAD MASTER. -he will soon discover it, and applaud the self-command which bore unvexed his pertinacity. And gradually there will spring up such a happy fusion of feelings and ideas, that there will be no "last word" to contend about, but a steady and unruffled flow of generous sentiment. 1974. HINTS FOR HUSBANDS. When once a man has established a home, his most important duties have fairly begun. The errors of youth may be overlooked; want of purpose, and even of honour, in his earlier days may be forgotten. But from the moment of his marriage he begins to write his indelible history; not by pen and ink but by actions-by which he must ever afterwards be reported and judged. His conduct at home; his solicitude for his family; the training of his children; his devotion to his wife; his regard for the great interests of Eternity; these are the tests by which his worth will ever afterwards be estimated by all who think or care about him. These will determine his position while living, and influence his memory when dead. He uses well or ill the brief space allotted to him, out of all eternity, to build up a fame founded upon the most solid of all foundations-private worth; and God will judge him, and man judge of him, accordingly. respect, who has kept his promise with honourable fidelity, and linked all his hopes of future happiness with yours! If you can manage these matters without appearing to study them, so much the better. Some husbands are impatient of the routine of the toilette, and not unreasonably so they possess active and energetic spirits, sorely disturbed by any waste of time. Some wives have discovered an admirable facility in dealing with this difficulty; and it is a secret which, having been discovered by some, may be known to all, and is well worth the finding out. 1976. HINTS FOR HUSBANDS. Custom entitles you to be considered the "lord and master" over your household. But don't assume the master and sink the lord. Remember that noble generosity, forbearance, amiability, and integrity, are among the more lordly attributes of man. As a husband, therefore, exhibit the true nobility of man, and seek to govern your own household by the display of high moral excellence. A domineering spirit-a fault-finding petulance-impatience of trifling delays -and the exhibition of unworthy passions at the slightest provocation, can add no laurel to your own "lordly", brow, impart no sweetness to home, and call forth no respect from those by whom you may be surrounded. It is one thing to be a master-another thing to be a man. The latter should be the husband's aspiration; for he who cannot govern himself is ill-qualified to govern another. 1977. HINTS FOR WIVES. - It is
1975. HINTS FOR WIVES.-Don't imagine, when you have obtained a husband, that your attention to personal neatness and deportment may be relaxed. Then, in reality, is the time for you to exhibit superior taste and excellence in the cultivation of your dress, and the becoming elegance of astonishing how much the cheerfulyour appearance. If it required some ness of a wife contributes to the haplittle care to foster the admiration of a piness of home. She is the sun-the lover, how much more is requisite to centre of a domestic system, and her keep yourself lovely in the eyes of him children are like planets around her, to whom there is now no privacy or dis-reflecting her rays. How merry the little guise your hourly companion! And if it was due to your lover that you should always present to him, who proposed to wed and cherish you, a neat and lady-like aspect; how much more is he entitled to a similar mark of ones look when the mother is joyous and good-tempered; and how easily and pleasantly her household labours are overcome! Her cheerfulness is reflected everywhere: it is seen in the neatness of her toilette, the order of BETTER GO TO BED SUPPERLESS THAN RISE IN DEBT. her table, and even the seasoning of her dishes. We remember hearing a husband say that he could always gauge the temper of his wife by the quality of her cooking good temper even influenced the seasoning of her soups, and the lightness and delicacy of her pastry. When ill-temper pervades, the pepper is dashed in as a cloud-perchance the top of the pepper-box is included, as a kind of diminutive thunderbolt; the salt is all in lumps; and the spices seem to betake themselves to one spot in a pudding, as if dreading the frowning face above them. If there be a husband who could abuse the smiles of a really good-tempered wife, we should like to look at him! No, no, such a phenomenon does not exist. Among elements of domestic happiness, the amiability of the wife and mother is of the utmost importance-it is one of the best securities for the HAPPINESS OF HOME. 281 cept but by example, and, so to speak, by contact it is increased more widely. Kindness is communicated in the same way. Virtue of every kind acts like an electric shock. Those who come under its influence imbibe its principles. The same with qualities and tempers that do no honour to our nature. If servants come to you bad, you may at least improve them; possibly almost change their nature. Here follows, then, a receipt to that effect: Receipt for obtaining good servants. - Let them observe in your conduct to others just. the qualities and virtues that you would desire they should possess and practise as respects you. Be uniformly kind and gentle. If you reprove, do so with reason and with temper. Be respectable, and you will be respected by them. Be kind, and you will meet kindness from them. Consider their interests, and they will consider yours. A friend in a servant is no contemptible thing. Be to every servant a friend; and heartless, indeed, will be the servant who does not warm in love to you. 1979. Oyster Ketchup.-Take fine fresh Milton oysters; wash them in their own liquor, strain it, pound them in a marble mortar; to a pint of oysters add a pint of sherry; boil them up, and add an ounce of salt, two drachms of pounded mace, and one of cayenne: let it just boil up again, skim it, and rub it through a sieve; and when cold, bottle it, cork well, and seal it down. 1978. Servants.-There are frequent complaints in these days, that servants are bad, and apprentices are bad, and dependants and aiding hands generally are bad. It may be so. But if it is so, what is the inference? In the working of the machine of society, class moves pretty much with class; that is, one class moves pretty much with its equals in the community (equals so far as social station is concerned), and apart from other classes, as much those below as those above itself; but there is one grand exception to this general rule, and that is, in the 1980. Walnut Ketchup.-Take case of domestic servants. The same two sieves of green walnut shells, put holds, though in less degree, with ap- them into a tub, mix them up well prentices and assistant hands; and in with common salt, from two to three less degree only, because in this last pounds, let them stand for six days, case, the difference of grade is slighter. frequently beating and mashing them: Domestic servants, and assistants in by this time the shells become soft and business and trade, come most closely pulpy, then by banking the mass up on and continually into contact with their one side of the tub, and at the same employers; they are about them from time raising the tub on that side, the morning till night, and see them in liquor will drain clear off to the other; every phase of character, in every style then take that liquor out: the mashing of humour, in every act of life. How and banking-up may be repeated as powerful is the force of example! often as liquor is found. The quantity Rectitude is promoted, not only by pre-/ will be about six quarts. When done, 282 GOLD IS THE DUST THAT BLINDS ALL EYES. let it be simmered in an iron boiler as long as any scum arises; then bruise a quarter of a pound of ginger, a quarter of a pound of allspice, and two ounces of long pepper, two ounces of cloves. Let it slowly boil for half an hour with the above ingredients; when bottled, let an equal quantity of the spice go into each bottle; when corked, let the bottles be filled quite up: cork them tight, seal them over, and put them into a cool and dry place for one year before they are used. 1981. Essence of Mushroom. -This delicate relish is made by sprinkling a little salt over either flap or button mushrooms;-three hours after, mash them,-next day strain off the liquor that will flow from them, put it into a stewpan, and boil it till it is reduced one half. It will not keep long, but is preferable to any of the ketchups containing spice, &c., to preserve them, which overpowers the flavour of the mushrooms. An artificial mushroom bed will supply these all the year round. 1982. Essence of Celery.-This is prepared by soaking for a fortnight half an ounce of the seeds of celery in a quarter of a pint of brandy. A few drops will flavour a pint of soup or broth equal to a head of celery. 1983. Tincture of Allspice.Bruised allspice, one ounce and a half; brandy, a pint. Steep for a fortnight, occasionally shaking, then pour off the clear liquor. Excellent for many of the uses of allspice, for making a bishop, mulling wine, flavouring gravies, potted meats, &c. 1984. Horseradish Vinegar. -Pour a quart of best vinegar on three ounces of scraped horseradish, an ounce of minced shalot, and one drachm of cayenne; let it stand a week, and you will have an excellent relish for cold beef, salads, &c., costing scarcely anything. Horseradish is in the highest perfection about November. 1985. Mint Vinegar.-Put into a wide-mouthed bottle, fresh nice clean mint leaves enough to fill it loosely; then fill up the bottle with good vinegar; and after it has been corked close for two or three weeks, it is to be poured off clear into another bottle, and kept well corked for use Serve with lamb when mint cannot be obtained. 1986. Cress Vinegar.-Dry and pound half an ounce of cress seed (such as is sown in the garden with mustard), pour upon it a quart of the best vinegar, let it steep for ten days, shaking it up every day. This is very strongly flavoured with cress, and for salads, and cold meats, &c., it is a great favourite with many;-the quart of sauce costs only a halfpenny more than the vinegar. Celery vinegar may be made in the same manner. 1987. Cheap and Good Vinegar.-To eight gallons of clear rain water, add three quarts of molasses; turn the mixture into a clean tight cask, shake it well two or three times, and add three spoonfuls of good yeast, or two yeast cakes; place the cask in a warm place, and in ten or fifteen days add a sheet of common wrapping paper, smeared with molasses, and torn into narrow strips, and you will have good vinegar. The paper is necessary to form the "mother," or life of the vinegar. 1988. Cayenne Pepper. - Dr. Kitchiner says (in his excellent book, "The Cook's Oracle" *),-"We advise all who are fond of cayenne not to think it too much trouble to make it of English chilis, there is no other way of being sure it is genuine, and they will obtain a pepper of much finer flavour, without half the heat of the foreign. A hundred large chilis, costing only two shillings, will produce you about two ounces of cayenne, so it is as cheap as the commonest cayenne. Four hundred chilis, when the stems were taken off, weighed half a pound; and when dried produced a quarter of a pound of cayenne pepper. The following is the way to make it :Take away the stalks, and put the pods into a cullender; set it before the fire,— *London: Houlston & Wright. |