VOLUME 7, No. 13.

Original in GOOD HOUSEKEEPING,

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIVING.

THE ETIQUETTE, ECONOMIES AND ETHICS OF THE HOME. IN TWENTY-SIX LESSON-CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER XXVI.-THE TRUE AIM OF Life. Honor to Womanhood,-reverence for Maternity and the treatment which springs from these sentiments as elements of the social system, are conditions of permanency in any people, nation or race.-Eliza W. Farnham.

HE artist of the past should portray Woman with half-bandaged eyes look ing downward; the artist of the present should limn her with level-fronting gaze scanning the entire horizon. But he who would delineate the Woman of the future, the latent cherished ideal of many a heart, should paint her with rapt upward gaze, as one who sees a splendid prophecy approaching its fulfillment. One looks upon the ground, a patient drudge or servile toy; another scans the kingdom of uses of which she just now has seized the keys, and the latest sees the fair, sweet world which shall yet be ours, the world of the longlooked-for millennium.

Her shape arises! She is less guarded than ever yet more guarded than ever, She is a law of nature, there is no law stronger than she is. In the words of Mr. Higginson, "There are thousands today looking out of their loneliness, their poverty or their crime for the New Age when women shall be truer to themselves than men have ever been to women; the new age of higher civilization when moral power shall take the place of brute force and peace succeed to war."

As woman is the most complex of organic beings and the most richly endowed in faculty, as she is the last to be developed, she must herself demonstrate and measure her power. Penetrated with the divine truth of womanhood, prizing and dignifying every relation, especially that of Motherhood, intellectual and artistic culture and spiritual growth will prevail and society recover from its grievous wounds. Not through arbitrary and conventional law, but through spontaneous attraction to the divinest and holiest, will woman reach her true position in the world of ethics. During long ages of struggle and conflict she has been as in a troubled dream. Now that man gives her both freedom and coöperation she is entering into the promised land.

The pathway there to lies through an unselfish diffusion of a pure and high affection within the circle of her influence. It must be directed by reason and kept steady through selfreliance and self-control. The informing Deific spirit within must shape external conditions. When that gains the mas

tery then has the true civilization become actual. Then will there be aspiration joyously working through obedience to the laws of our being, laws which will be recognized as the basis of happiness and harmony. Woman's intuition shall lead in ethics as in manners. Health, purity, peace, industry and social order shall replace degradation, corruption and suffering. This is the true "Philosophy of Living."

The heroic in woman is already an acknowledged quality. It needed not western storms to show how easy it is for the motherly protective instinct even in young girls to cause them to forget their own dangers in saving those intrusted to their charge. For hours young women fought desperately with death in such contests as would have appalled the strongest and wisest of men. After chafing the hands and feet of her pupils and sheltering them from the cruel western wind, Ella Lamar clasped the feeblest in her arms and went to sleep to waken no more on earth. In the same wild elemental storm Minnie Freeman trained her little flock to fight the fury of the blast in which so many perished, and at immense odds came out victor. Where affection or duty leads the way Woman can face danger and death smilingly. "There is a Minerva in every household as well as a Mars." No, it is not in great emergencies that women fail, nor is it in ethical purpose. In mental discipline and moral independence together with that sense of comradeship which would enable us to work shoulder to shoulder for divinest ends, we need growth in order to realize the true Philosophy of Living. Forever that growth begins at the center. Do not all hardy plants grow from the interior? In the order of Providence is not the inner, essential life of things hidden within the outer husk?

In mental freedom, moral stamina and united efforts, women need not abate one jot of whatever is feminine and lovely. The true balance between the affections and the reason will give her the secret of life. An excess of effeminacy has been her bane. It has often induced a "bric-a-brac religion" in which emotion governs instead of conviction of truth. The time has come for her to brush the mists of slumber from her eyes and awake to action. In the words of Mrs. Whitney, "Be a link in the divine chain and feel the joy and the life of it... Real work disposes one to believe in a real destiny and a real God." Who but she, arising in the majesty of purity, can extirpate those roots of intemperance, prostitution, greed and dishonesty which are the shame of Christendom?

Pulsations from the tender but mighty woman-heart shall send their life-currents through all forms of activity,-—not as coercion but inspiration. In the all-embracing affection of sisterhood and motherhood, not one poor, debased man or woman but shall feel her soft, enveloping sympathy and be aroused to a higher life. And that inspiration, that fountain of social purification and development begins in the Home. There is the source of all good influence as of all happiness.

Neither fame nor wealth nor beauty of environment can fill

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the void of emptiness here. When at the hight of her success, Madame de Stael said to a young woman who admired and sought to copy her career: You may think my lot enviable, .but the joys of home alone are solid. Domestic life affords more permanent happiness than any other life can give." In this circle few realize the vast power which a sensible wife can exert over her husband first of all. In the words of Marion Harland: "As you are your husband's standard of wifely fidelity, be also his criterion of purity of thought and language. Elevate, not commonize, his standard of womanhood. In becoming your mate in the nearest and tenderest relation of the human species, he should be more, not less, the gentleman than when, as a gallant, he was the pink of courtesy." Which is in accord with this maxim of Dinah Mulock Craik, "Be not too ignorant nor too cowardly to exact from men the same standard that men expect of them," aye, and a higher, too!

In helpfulness to others lie the conditions of development and happiness. Not, therefore, as too many do, is the housewife to sacrifice herself to the bodily luxuries of her family. Half a dozen kinds of cake on the tea-table, and a hungry mind! A beautiful house, and a neglected heart! Hospitality royally bountiful and the poor fragments of a life-time to show! Good housekeeping demands no such sacrifice. It requires proportion, order, symmetry between all things, including the servitor and those served. Every housewife and mother has a right to say of herself what Richter said of himself toward life's close, "I have made as much out of my; self as could be made out of the stuff, and no man should require more." They who understand these truths will raise a nobler class of men to be husbands and fathers to a finer, truer type of womankind. For, be it remembered, maternity always implies paternity also, and a proper condition of the latter is quite as necessary as that of the former.

In her efforts for unfolding woman may mistake the true pathway even when her eye rests clearly on the goal. Headstrong conflicts with evil or untoward conditions may bring her under their subjection. Then people clamor at the confusion and ridicule the misrepresentation. "See these women," say they," who seek to enlarge their careers! What Amazons they are, hard, unloved and unloving. Go to! Let them keep to their kitchens, dining-rooms and nurseries; that is arena enough for them. If they sigh for broader horizons, new gew-gaws will suffice. They are only children of a larger growth."

Yet the number of such becomes yearly fewer and the morning star of hope points to the dawning light of a new day. It cannot be hastened by purely external methods of action. Fighting is anything but a feminine attribute and wins but ill success. Yet, however coarsely and crudely expressed, that force which stirs within the most masculine and rampant reformer is nothing less than the divinity which unfolds as the rose in the storms and stress of early spring. All human growth is restless and wayward. It rests with women to be patient and helpful with one another and, reverencing her growing power, see to it that it always continues to uplift, ennoble and strengthen. In the words of Mrs. Browning: We'll keep our eyes sublime, our heads erect, Although our woman hands should shake and fail. If the day's work's scant,

Why, call it scant, effect no compromise,
And, in that we have nobly striven, at least
Deal with us nobly, women though we be,
And honor us with truth if not with praise.

Such were the conclusions of Mrs. Southmayd as she neared the close of her useful life. Amy married and lived near her mother's cottage, but her career as an artist was not foregone. To-day she paints portraits of children as only one who loves them can, and the Academy of Design bears one

or more on its walls at every exhibition. The boys became useful men and in their wide experience and practical ability the lessons learned at their mother's side became the standard of their lives. Daisy, the little housekeeper, never left the homestead while that mother lived. For Mrs. Southmayd refused to leave her cottage to be an inmate of the home of any of her children, however glad they would have been to welcome her to the fireside.

As she neared the sunset of life, disciplined, chastened, strengthened and elevated, she felt that Love had crowned her days with blessings unnumbered. She had been the center of a happy home, the mother of good children, those who made the world better for living in it, and at the same time had neglected no means of culture which came within her power. What more need be said? Of her could be written as of Margaret Fuller, "She helped whoever knew her." In the words of Mrs. Bristol:

O grand achievement over Fate!
O woman soul, least understood,
Thou holdest all of human good
In thy affections ultimate.
For, wheresoe'er thy path may be,
However narrow, low or small,

Love's patient work will conquer all
And carve the steps of Victory.

If every word we speak and act we perform carry with them universe, as many now believe, is one gigantic sensitive plate influences which can be seen and felt during all time; if the on which is stamped even the secret thoughts of every mind, how powerful and far-reaching must be the influence of a happy home! Not so much by words as by feelings, thoughts and deeds do its members unconsciously make their own records. It has been truly said that each soul is a battery connected with all other souls and that nowhere is the circuit broken. Continuing the similitude it is evident that, in consequence, when one suffers all others suffer though the cause of it they

may not know, and that the joy of one is the joy of all. Life, universal and eternal, palpitates through all the human family from center to farthest circumference, and individuals are only stations where power is received, stored and distributed. To recognize these truths and wisely act upon them is to learn the true Philosophy of Living.

KISSED BY THE LIPS OF DEATH. I cradled my child in my arms,

My babe, like a paradise bloom Blown down on the breath of a song, And held by a thread of the loom That weaveth all things beautiful,— Even flowers and fair, earthly things, And purpling mists borne through the gates On the sunset's shadowy wings.

And then, as I sat in the dusk,

I sang in a confident tone:
"Mine, all mine; no matter what comes,
This blossom is always mine own."
But, lo! as the words left my lips,
A stranger bent over me there,
Disputing possession with me

For this, of all flowers, the most fair.
"Not thine, but my loved one," he said,
"And this is the seal of my right "—
He kissed the white brow of the child,
And, smiling, passed into the night.
Oh! I knew the face of him then;
As I felt the chill of his breath

I knew that the child in my arms

Had been kissed by the lips of Death!

-Olla Perkins Toph.

Original in Good Housekeeping.

HOW TO LIVE TO A GOOD OLD AGE.

HOME HEALTH TEACHING.

E never learn the value of health until we have lost it. Only when it is no longer ours, do we begin to prize it, and study how to take care of it. The result is, that instead of living from eighty to one hundred years, as we ought to do, and dying of ripe old age at last, we are made to languish and to suffer almost every day while we live, and are carried off by preventable diseases at every age from infancy to maturity. One-fourth of all persons born into the world die before reaching five years of age. The average span of human life is but from thirty-five to forty years; only three or four in a hundred reach eighty-five, and scarcely more than two in ten thousand round out a century. Even aside from the loss, by premature death, of millions of years of productive life, the loss to the world and to individuals, of time, money and labor, from sickness which might easily be avoided, is too great to be readily estimated. If we could begin now, and the children in our homes be taught the laws of their being and trained to observe them, the gain in health and longevity to this generation would be immense, while to the succeeding ones it would be beyond all computation. One difficulty is, there has not yet come into the minds of a large proportion of people, any definite conception that there are such things as laws of health, and that every violation of these laws is sure to bring its penalty. Even in this age, of intelligence and electricity, there are still a multitude of men like the Sunday school superintendent, who, in apologizing to his school for his absence on the previous Sunday, stated as his excuse, that he was detained at home by a dispensation of Divine Providence, the hand of the Lord having been laid heavily upon him in sickness. Going on to explain the matter more fully, it appeared that his sickness was brought on by eating too freely of clam chowder the night before!

This is the way of the world. The last thing that individuals or communities think of doing, is to take the blame for their ill health upon their own shoulders, where it rightly belongs. It is easier to lay it on the Lord,-" a mysterious dispensation." This, then, is the first lesson to be taught and learned: that all disease is the result of broken law; that much of it might easily be avoided by the observance of the laws of health on the part of the individual; that much more, which is beyond the reach of individuals, might be prevented by the combined efforts of communities and the state; and that those diseases which are entailed upon this generation by the law of heredity, might by obedience to law be gradually stamped out of existence, and future ages be freed from their curse.

The next thing to be taught is the laws themselves-and with the laws, and of even greater importance, the habit of obeying them. We know a great deal more than we put in practice. This is the fault of the common modes of health teaching. Our newspapers and periodical literature contain a vast deal of popular instruction in these matters. They are treated of in an abundance of well-written books which are within easy reach of all who care to read them. Our schools are taking hold of the good work, and instruction in hygiene is fast coming to be recognized as an essential part of even an elementary education. But all these do not reach the evil, or if they do, they only touch it on the surface.

Our schools are full of good grammarians who do not use respectable English in common conversation. So, too, they may be full of glib reciters of the laws of health, who do not observe a single one of the laws they have learned. The

main point is to secure obedience. The greatest criminals are usually well versed in the laws of the land; but their knowledge does not avail to keep them out of the penitentiary when they have broken these laws. Neither will a knowledge of the laws of health keep a man from being sick, so long as he does not live up to his knowledge.

We are creatures of imitation. Example counts for more than precept. The parent knows the law, and the child knows it too. When the parent keeps it, then the children will keep it also. It does little good for a child to learn at school that the food should be properly masticated, when three times every day at home he sees a hungry group crowd about the table like pigs around a trough, and bolt their food as nearly whole as it can be made to go down. The child whose mother gives it a bite of something to eat every time it cries for it, will not be in a condition to profit from an understanding of the law that food should not be taken between meals, until it is too late for the knowledge to be of much service. The law of pure air and proper ventilation may be taught never so plainly in the text-books, but to the boy who is brought up to sit and to sleep in a close, unventilated room, foul with the breath of living beings, and to shun fresh air as he would a plague, the knowledge will be of little avail. While his father's cellar is filled with decaying meat, vegetables, and all manner of filth, and the cesspool smells to heaven from beneath the kitchen window, all the teachings of the schools will not prevent his having typhoid fever, or diphtheria, or some form of filth disease, when the summer sun calls into activity the germs of disease which are latent there. If liquors are kept upon the sideboard and wines are served upon the table in his home, not all the teachings of all the temperance textbooks in the land can be relied upon to produce in him habits of sobriety and total abstinence.

It is the practice of the principles of hygiene in our homes, and this alone, which will lessen the rate of disease and death to-day, and develop a stronger race to-morrow. The child who has learned the laws of health from his father and mother, by seeing them continually and persistently applied, will come to follow them in his own case, as naturally as he will conduct himself properly in good society, if good society has been his birthright, and gentlemanly conduct has become habitual.

I knew a man who feared filth as he feared the devil. A bad odor was his bete noir. It put him on his mettle at once, and he could not rest until he had hunted it down and rooted it out. His water supply must be pure beyond all question. His cellar must be cleaned and kept clean. No cesspool or vault was allowed to generate putrefaction on his premises. When he bought a house, his first care was to look after the ventilation and drainage, water supply and disposal of waste. If these were defective, they must be reconstructed at once, at whatever cost, and made as nearly perfect as possible, and so on through the list. The result was, his children grew up to be like him in this respect. They did not need to be warned against the dangers of filth. They knew them already. I know mothers, too, who teach their children how to preserve good health and develop strong bodies; who instruct their daughters in the mysteries of their own being, and the dangers that may beset them, thus preparing them against the day of temptation, and fitting them to live pure and wholesome lives.

When parents such as these are grown old, their children will rise up and call them blessed; and when such health teaching as this shall prevail in our homes-a teaching that is practical as well as theoretical, and that is ingrained into a child's life by constant repetition of precept and examplethen shall we begin to see its results, in increasing longevity, lessening disease, and developing a stalwart and sober race.

-J. M. French, M. D.

Original in GoOD HOUSEKEEPING.

A LADIES' RECEPTION.
WHAT IS AND WHAT IS NOT CONVENTIONAL.

HE season of receptions, dinners, lunches and teas is almost upon us, and which mode to choose becomes a question of importance. Lunches are well suited to the entertainment of ladies, dinner to that of gentlemen and their wives, while any form of dancing-party well repays favors shown a young daughter, or is a pleasant compliment to offer her guest or the guest of her friend. Teas are delightfully social affairs, and are especially suitable where ladies alone are to be asked, as they may take place at hours when-except in our larger cities-we may presuppose that gentlemen are occupied with business. Where one's social debts are many, and afternoon tea must fail of its greatest charm-informality-through becoming too large, a reception answers the purpose exceedingly well.

Let us take for example a ladies' reception. It may be given during any part of the afternoon or early evening hours, but the most suitable time is from four to seven. It is better, if possible, when sending invitations, that the purpose should be stated-as, "To meet Miss A.," or "Music," "Readings." As the affair lacks much of the formality of an evening party, the invitations do not require to be sent so long beforehand, though it is well they should be delivered several days or a week in advance, and quite necessary that all should be sent at the same time.

The visiting card of the hostess, with the words "At Home, Four to Seven," and the date in lower left corner, and, say "Music" in the other, the card enclosed in an envelope of the same size, is usual; but a simple form, written by the hostess' own hand, upon medium-sized sheets of notepaper, is also proper, as

Mrs. B. requests the pleasure of your company on
Thursday, Nov. 25th, from four to seven.

To meet Miss C. If in or near a large town or city, of course much anxiety and care may be avoided by placing everything in the hands of a skillful caterer, merely indicating an outline of arrangements, which he will no doubt be able to fill in. But such a course, though easy, is apt to lack the essential of all pleasant entertainments-the true spirit of hospitality-therefore, let the hostess, so far as is possible, attend to herself, or at least be the good genius of each and every detail. If sufficient time is given, and the whole affair is kept so well within her means as to prevent anxiety on that score, the labor should not prove too irksome.

It is seldom necessary, as so many people seem to think, to begin preparations by making a barren wilderness of otherwise cheerful and pleasant rooms. In the first place, if there is to be no dancing, the white floor-cloth is quite needless, and thereby one most unsightly feature may be dispensed with. Let care of rugs and carpets be put aside for the time; they will not suffer seriously at worst. If this be impossible, let not that woman entertain, for, unless she has a soul which can soar above such worries, it has never reached the hights of hospitality.

No more furniture should be removed from the room than is essential to free movement among the guest, and if any

must go, let it be that which will cause the least changes in appearance. Let no books, papers, magazines or bric-a-brac be taken away which may be of interest; rather let such be gathered together from other parts of the house, that they may serve to furnish topics of conversation, which will greatly aid the hostess in her duties of entertaining. Let books then be spread about upon the tables, portfolios, too, of engravings or etchings, if the hostess be fortunate in their possession: place a tray of photographs of scenery on one stand, one of portraits on another (the latter much more easily managed than if in an album). One wise woman I know cuts from the London Punch, American Life, and such papers, the excellent woodcuts for which they are famous, and a large collection of these is always to be found in her charming parlor, proving of much interest and provoking many a hearty laugh.

The decoration of the rooms should be simple, but effective. Greenhouse flowers, beautiful as they are in themselves. are not useful in the adornment of a parlor, unless used in great masses. If near a florist, it is better to choose showy plants-as the different palms, rubber trees, and large ferns--or, indeed, any with large, strong foliage. Geraniums are usually the best of the blossoming plants for the purpose, as they are showy and mass finely. A poinsettia also will add brilliancy here and there to a mass of green; tulips and daffodils in season are beautiful, but nothing is more satisfactory than the green. Groups of these in different parts of the rooms, in the open fireplaces, over the bookcases or on the mantels, are far more effective than any number of strings of smilax dotted here and there with carnations, or than loose rosebuds placed upon beds of moss or in slender vases, neither will the expense of the first plan be so great. If, however, either display be beyond the means of the hostess, there are still left to her the treasures of the woods and fields, which at any time of year may be found by those who seek. Small pine trees, with the delicate blue bloom on their soft plumes, grouped in corners or a window recess, with the means of fastening hidden by some piece of furniture, are beautiful. Any of the evergreen trees may be used in the same way, and serve the purpose particularly well where large spaces are to be filled or broken. In this way I have seen a small room, almost closet, leading from a diningroom, turned into a charming conservatory, one or two colored lights making it really lovely. Branches of the trees may be placed upon, and against the walls back of the mantels, and form a soft background for a few blossoming plants or ferns, drawn, perhaps, from the hostess' own stock.

Then, too, the "dried things," which have been somewhat despised of late, are again quite in vogue, and are, as ever, lovely, if used judiciously. These are plentiful, even when snow is on the ground. Look even to sleeping nature for color, and it is always there. Try and see what a mass of beauty may be gathered together in a short time-dead stalks of golden-rod and aster, long sprays of wild rose bushes with their crimson "hips," wreaths of clematis, branches, leafless, but covered with red berries, ferns, always so useful, may be picked as late as possible before the heavier frosts, placed between layers of slightly dampened moss, and if kept in a moderate cellar and sprinkled now and then, they will easily keep until spring.

So much for the rooms and their decoration. Now, what manner of entertainment shall be provided? In the city this is usually an easy matter to decide, as it has become much the custom of musicians, elocutionists and the like, to regard it as a legitimate branch of their work. Music and readings are always delightful, if good of their kind; then, too, people are often asked to hear some original paper read. This may, of course, be upon any subject, but at a ladies' reception one upon woman's work, or her place in the worlds of art or