Again, I should never forbid anyone to read any book whatever—a prohibition makes people anxious at once; but the fact that the library books must be kept in the library would deter the children from reading what they ought not, and we would forbid certain literature because of its binding, not because of the contents; this I have found act much better than the wholesale orders we were given on the subject, in consequence of which I had read all Defoe’s, Richardson’s, Fielding’s, and other works I should never have seen before I was sixteen, and wondered why on earth they were forbidden me. I should never have read one of them had I not wanted to see why I must not; they did me no harm, because I could not understand them; they might have done infinite harm to any other girl who was less babyish for her age than I happened in some mysterious manner to be, and therefore it is a good thing to keep such books where children do not come and where they are forbidden to touch books which are too well bound to be risked in their all-too-generally grimy little paws.
As in all the other rooms in the house, cheerfulness should be first thought of: a gloomy library, a library where the windows are obscured, is a mistake; cheerfulness is the first thing to be seriously cultivated by us all, in all relations of life, for it is indeed true, as the poet says—
A merry heart goes all the way,
A sad one tires in a mile-a;
therefore, in choosing and furnishing the library, remember this axiom, and let sunshine and brightness and cheerfulness be found there, as in every other room and place in the house; for we are insensibly and immensely influenced by our surroundings, and we should always make the best of our lives and belongings in every way we possibly can.
CHAPTER V.
SHALL WE DO AWAY WITH THE NURSERY?
It is a hard moment in the life of any woman when she has to make up her mind that she cannot any longer consistently retain one of the best rooms in the house for the nursery, more especially if she has been able to realise her ambition, and to give to her children an ideal chamber, where beauty and suitable arrangements for their comfort have been duly studied.
I know nothing sadder than an empty nursery. The children, who were as much our own as anything on this earth can ever be, have ceased to be children. They are still ours, but they are independent creatures; our care is no longer absolutely necessary to them. Some may even have married, and others may be trying their wings by some short flights from the home that will always be theirs, even if they do not care to return to it. But, in any case, they are no longer the dear little mites whose tiny ailments kept us awake at night, whose clothes and education were our unceasing care, and who found their heaven in our presence, believing honestly and thankfully that all they had came from us, and that we were without a flaw, as omnipotent as we were faultless.
The most melancholy part of middle age is this being left behind by our children, the eagerness on their parts to live their own lives and begin their own career. But it should not be sad, as it is only what happened to our parents, after all, and will happen again in the future generation. But all the same, it must be a hardened heart indeed that can contemplate an empty nursery and have no other thoughts than how best to decorate or use the room for a totally different purpose. There is a peculiar serrement de cœur, which, once experienced, can never be forgotten, when we enter a room made sacred to us by a thousand dreams and romances—a thousand dreads and fears we have never spoken of to any soul on earth, and have to consider how best we can alter it to another purpose.
I remember, years ago, going to see a house in which we had had many, many happy hours, and which had just passed from those we knew and loved to persons in an inferior station of life, with whom we should never have any dealings, and I have never forgotten the feeling of desolation that seized me when I looked up at the erstwhile nursery window, from which the bars were hanging broken, and remembered the faces that used never to be absent from that place—a feeling that was intensified a thousand times when I climbed up to the room itself, and looked for the last time on the walls, papered by ourselves with pictures from the ‘Illustrated News’ (I can remember them all vividly, from the marriage of the Princess Royal in one corner to pictures of the American War in the other), and recollected the boys who were all out in the world, each busy with his own life, with whom I had played, ridden, eaten far too much fruit in the sunny garden below the nursery windows (where I verily believe it was always fine and hot), and with whom I had risen at dawn in many a misty September morning, bent on collecting a great dish of mushrooms for breakfast, to surprise the house-mother with—a surprise that she must have been well accustomed to, but which she never failed to express; she knew we should have been so disappointed had she seemed in the least degree to expect the never-failing dish, though she had a hard struggle to be duly elated and not say one word about the draggled skirts and wringing wet stockings and boots, which she knew were reposing upstairs and would be shown to her in due course and with much wrath by Susan, to whose lot it always fell to remedy our dilapidations, which she used to say were always worse when I was there to rush about with the boys and lead them into mischief and dirt of all kinds.