[44] See note, page 349.
[45] See Appendix.
[46] This passage was originally prompted by some reflections on the changes which have occurred in domestic life in Boston.
Here the family, even among those of the highest social rank, had once a sacred simplicity pleasant to remember. Men were accustomed to take their three meals with their wives and children. The latest dinner-hour was two, p.m.; and suppers were unheard of. The evening party began at seven; and young girls went freely and uninvited from house to house, with their needle or their book.
How greatly all this is changed, my readers, many of them, feel still more deeply than I; and, with this change, the formation of "clubs" of various kinds has brought about others far more important.
A young married lady of rank and fashion was lately lamenting to me the isolation of husbands and wives, fathers and children, consequent upon club-life.
"But," she concluded with a sigh, "if my husband had no club, he would expect a hot supper for a friend two or three times a week; and how could I ever accomplish that?"
This indolence of women lies at the bottom of many serious social evils. The woman who will not, health and fortune permitting, make herself responsible in such a case for any number of hot suppers, deserves to see her own happiness wither, her own hearth made desolate.
It is needless to add, that if women would educate themselves to be true and noble companions to their husbands, and resign on their own part all that is unsound, and therefore unbecoming, in fashionable life, hot suppers would cease to be a desideratum, and men would pass pleasant evenings without them.
[47] These have been supplied since my return to Boston.