Social Life Part 26

Home Conversation.

Educate yourself, as a wife, to keep up with the times sufficiently to be at least a companionable conversationalist. Read the papers, read late books; endeavor to be as entertaining to your husband as you were to your husband-elect.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ETIQUETTE OF THE DRAWING-ROOM.]

As a husband, share your knowledge of the activities of life with your wife, who, from the very nature of her occupation is excluded from much of its exciting whirl. Read together, talk together of art, of music, of literature, of the stirring events of the outer world, and put afar the evil day when topics of mutual interest shall have been worn so threadbare that the average man and women must feel a strange desire to fall asleep directly dinner is over.

Then, too, the children hunger for new ideas, and one of the greatest educational advantages they can enjoy is to listen daily to the conversation of intelligent people. Too many parents who are bright and entertaining abroad are dull and uninteresting in their own households, to the great detriment of their children and to their own loss of intelligent companions.h.i.+p in one another.

"What little Jack learneth not, the same neither learneth great John."

There is a truth in this old saying that the parents and guardians of children would do well to ponder in their hearts, for it is a well substantiated statement that the first ten years of a child's life stamp upon his character the imprint for good or ill-breeding. Thus is spared the after struggle on their part to attain the grace and self-possession that should have been theirs by birthright.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUNs.h.i.+NE AT HOME.]

Children are naturally imitative, hence the value of example over precept. The children of courteous parents will imbibe courtesy as naturally and unconsciously as the growing plant absorbs oxygen from the air and sunlight that bathes its leaves and petals.

Softly modulated tones should mark the words spoken to a child, and reproof carries an added weight when lowered tones convey the rebuke.

Even a baby before it can speak recognizes shades of meaning in the tones the mother utters, and is soothed by the one and startled by the other.

Kindliness, politeness of the parents one towards another, are the first steps toward training children in the acquirement of good manners. Gentleness and sweetness of manner can be taught at the cradle far more surely than from the school-room desk, and when baby has learned to preface its little wants with "please," and Master Four Years-old to run and open the door for mamma, or mamma's visitors, or to give up the easiest chair without being asked, the firm foundation has been laid for courteous behavior in after life.

And so on, all through the school years, boys and girls may be so taught to respect one another's possessions, letters, feelings, and to discriminate closely between _meum_ and _tuum_ after such wise that they will be made better husbands, better wives, better citizens, for all their days.

Slang and Exaggerations.

By our own speech it is that we are sure to be judged, for,--

"'Tis only man can words create, And cut the air to sounds articulate By nature's special charter. Nay, speech can Make a shrewd discrepance 'twixt man and man.

It doth the gentleman from the clown discover; And from a fool the great philosopher.

As Solon said to one in judgment weak:-- 'I thought thee wise until I heard thee speak.'"

And if we talk with flippancy and exaggeration, load our sentences with slang phrases, and preface and punctuate them with oft-repeated expressions of "Say!" "Well!" "You know," "Do tell," and so on, _ad infinitum_, all wisdom, or propriety of speech will be lost.

It is difficult to believe in the refinement of a girl who permits her fresh young lips to utter the slang of the bar-room hanger-on, the gambler and the street gamin.

Equally difficult is it to believe in the absolute truthfulness of one who declares to you that the heat of a lovely June day is "simply awful" or "perfectly terrible," from sheer wonder as to what terms she would use to characterize the intense heat of some sweeping fire.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE INDUSTRIOUS HOUSEWIFE.]

Again, it is hard to understand the taste of one who informs you gravely that "the chicken salad was too lovely for anything!" or the last evening's sunset was "perfectly elegant!" The Websterian definition of "elegant" being "polished, stylish, refined, etc.," it is to be wished that all perpetrators of like sins could meet the punishment a young lady once dealt to a gentleman who remarked with great effusion: "This moonlight is perfectly elegant!" To this observation she answered with gravity, "Yes, it really _is_ very stylis.h.!.+"

Let, therefore, all who strive for the grace of good breeding, men and women, boys and girls alike, "set a watch over their lips and keep the door of their mouth," for "words have wings, and so soon as their cage, the mouth, is opened, out they fly and mount beyond our reach, and past recovery."

Some Do's for Girls.

The following hints for girls, each prefaced by the auxiliary "Do,"

will prove a safe guide, not only for the girls but for any of their elders who may choose to follow them.

Do answer your letters soon after they are received, and do try to reply to them with some relation to their contents; a rambling, ill-considered letter is a satire upon your education.

Do, when you talk, keep your hands still.

Do observe; the faculty of observation, well cultivated, makes practical men and women.

Do attach as much importance to your mind as to your body.

Do be natural; a poor diamond is better than a good imitation.

Do try to remember where you put your gloves and cardcase; keep the former mended and the latter filled.

Do recollect that your health is more important than your amus.e.m.e.nts; you can live without one, but you'll die early without the other.

Do try to be sensible; it is not a particular sign of superiority to talk like a fool.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PRINCESS OF WALES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SOCIETY BELLE--"CALL AGAIN."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CALL FROM BABY'S ADMIRERS.]

Do be ready in time for church; if you do not respect yourself sufficiently to be punctual, respect the feelings of other people.

Do get up in time for breakfast.

Do avoid causes of irritation in your family circle; do reflect that home is the place in which to be agreeable.

Do be reticent; the world at large has no interest in your private affairs.

Do cultivate the habit of listening to others; it will make you an invaluable member of society, to say nothing of the advantage it will be to you.

Do be truthful; do avoid exaggeration; if you mean a mile say a mile, not a mile and a half; if you mean one say one, and not a dozen.

Young Ladies, Take Heed.

Do, sometimes, at least, allow your mother to know better than you do; she was educated before you were born.

Do sign your full name to your letters.

Do learn to say "No."

Do, if you have brothers, try to gain their confidence, to be interested in their sports, to cultivate their manners, not by censure, but by the force of your own example.

Do laugh, girls, not boisterously, not constantly, but clearly and pleasantly, but _don't_ giggle. If girls from fourteen to eighteen could only understand the vulgarity of continually putting their heads together and giggling, as if the whole world was a supremely ridiculous affair, about which they must chuckle, and whisper, when in truth their own actions are the one thing ridiculous, they would refrain from such unmitigated nonsense.