Young reader, and expectant of future domestic bliss take a word of advice: Be good-tempered. You have not much to try your patience now; by-and-by your trials will come on. Now, then, is the time to practise good-temper in the little vexations of life, so as to prepare you for future days. No doubt there are many little rubs and jars to fret and shake even you; many small things, not over and above agreeable to put up with. Bear them you must; but do try and bear them without losing your temper. If a man have a stubborn Or skittish horse to manage, he knows that the best way to deal with it is by gentle, good-humoured coaxing. Just so it is in other things: kindness, gentleness, and downright good-humour will do what all the blustering and anger in the world can not accomplish. If a wagon wheel creaks and works stiff, or if it skids instead of turning round, you know well enough that it wants oiling. Well, always carry a good supply of the oil of good temper about with you, and use it well on every needful occasion; no fear then of creaking wheels as you move along the great highway of life.
Then, on the part, still, of domestic happiness, would we earnestly advise a decent, nay, a strict regard to personal habits, so far, at least, as the feelings of others are concerned. "It is seldom." writes a traveller, "that I find associates in inns who come up to my ideas of what is right and proper in personal habits. The most of them indulge, more or less, in devil's tattooing, in snapping of fingers, in puffing and blowing, and other noises, anomalous and indescribable, often apparently merely to let the other people in the room know that they are there, and not thinking of anything in particular. Few seem to be under any sense of the propriety of subduing as much as possible all sounds connected with the animal functions, though even breathing might, and ought to be managed in perfect silence." Now, if it were only in inns that disagreeable personal habits are practised, it would not much interfere with the happiness of nine-tenths of the people in the world; but the misfortune is that home is the place where they are to be noticed in full swing—to use a common expression. Indeed, perhaps there are few persons who do not, in a degree at least, mar domestic happiness by persisting in personal peculiarities which they know are unpleasant to those around them. Harmless these habits maybe in themselves, perhaps; but inasmuch as they are teasing, annoying, and irritating to others, they are not harmless. Nay, they are criminal, because they are accompanied by a most unamiable disregard to the feelings of others.
To make home truly happy, the mind must be cultivated. It is all very well to say that a man and his wife, and their children, if they have any, ought to be company enough for each other, without seeking society elsewhere; and it is quite right that it should be so: but what if they have nothing to say to each other, as reasonable and thinking beings?—nothing to communicate beyond the veriest common-places—nothing to learn from each other?—nothing but mere animal enjoyments in common? Imagine such a case, reader, where father, mother, and children are sunk in grossest ignorance, without knowledge, without intellectual resources, or even intellectual powers, without books, or any acquaintance with books, or any desire for such acquaintance! What domestic happiness can there be in such a case? As well might we talk of the domestic happiness of a Dog-kennel or sheep-pen, a stable or a pig-stye. And just in proportion as ignorance predominates, so are the chances of domestic happiness diminished. Where there is great ignorance, and contentment with ignorance, there is vice; and vice is not happiness—it cannot be. Therefore, all other things equal, that family will have the greatest chance of the greatest share of domestic happiness where each member of it has the mind to take in, and the heart to give out, a constant succession of fresh ideas, gained from observation, experience, and books. Reader, think of these things.
A SYLVAN MORALITY; OR, A WORD TO WIVES.
"These summer wings
Have borne me in my days of idle pleasure;
I do discard them."
"And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand."
WE have a young relative, about whom we are going to relate a little anecdote connected with insect history, which requires, however, a few prefatory words.
At the age of seventeen Emily S. "came out," gilt and lettered, from the Minerva Press of a fashionable boarding-school, and was two years afterwards bound (in white satin) as a bride. In the short period intervening between these two important epochs, she had had a prodigious run of admiration. Sonnets had been penned on her pencilled brow, and the brows of rival beauties had contracted at the homage paid to hers. All this Emily had liked well enough—perhaps a little better than she ought; but where was the wonder? for besides excuses general (such as early youth and early training) for loving the world and the world's vanities, she had an excuse of her own, in the fact that she had nothing else to love—no mother, no sister, no home—no home at least in its largest and loving sense. She was the orphan but not wealthy ward of a fashionable aunt, in whom the selfish regrets of age had entirely frozen the few sympathies left open by the selfish enjoyments of youth.
When Emily married, and for a few months previous, it was of course to be presumed that she had found something better than the world whereon to fix the affection of her warm young heart. At all events, she had found a somebody to love her, and one who was worthy to be loved in return. Indeed, a better fellow than our friend F— does not live; but though fairly good-looking, and the perfect gentleman, he was not perhaps exactly the description of gentleman to excite any rapid growth of romantic attachment in the bosom of an admired girl of nineteen.
Why did she marry him? Simply because amongst her admirers she liked nobody better, and because her aunt, who was anxious to be relieved of her charge, liked nobody so well;—not because he had much to offer, but because it was little he required.