Dulce domum

Preface

A book on Home ought not to be accounted homely, and on that account disparaged, for Home is a portion of the State, and the State is made up of Homes; and he who can influence families for good, is doing one of the greatest political services.

At the present time Communism is reviving all over Europe, and, if it should prevail, Home would be one of the first things that would suffer. Few Communists have been so wise and good as Plato ; yet his theory was destructive of two things very dear to us — the Home and the Family.

An attempt is made in this volume to introduce physiology as an interpreter of conduct and character. That this is a sound method no one can question, who observes how much the soul is influenced by the body, and also by other physical circumstances — such as wind, weather, and climate. The effect of this doctrine is to augment compassion and long-suffering, toleration and sympathy, which have long been among the wants of the world.

VI PREFACE.

All the questions here discussed are viewed in the light of a happy and intellectual religion ; not the sensuous religion of the age, which appeals to eyes and ears and nostrils, and which is sure to issue in feminine superstition and masculine scepticism. Such a reaction, indeed, one of our foremost statesmen has recently predicted.

There are many similes and metaphors in this book ; and although it is frankly admitted that analogies prove nothing, and that they are the parallel lines, which being produced ever so far never meet, yet images delight, instruct, and illustrate j and surely it was not for nothing that God made all things double.

The Greek and Latin quotations are intended for scholars, and are therefore thrown into the foot-notes. They are the symbols of a classical freemasonry, which excite sympathy and procure welcome among educated men. In this busy and material age of ours, these echoes from ancient literature fall soothingly upon the ear.

Those who are acquainted with a small volume of mine, entitled " Fragments of Christian Ethics," will not, I hope, be displeased to see some of those isolated thoughts here fitted into appropriate places.

CONTENTS,

CHAPTER

I. Home and the Domestic Affections

PAGE

I

II. Marriage

III. Husbands

IV. Wives

V. Parents : Fathers .

VI. Parents : Mothers .

VII. Children . . . .

VIII. Brothers and Sisters

IX. Masters and Mistresses .

X. Servants .....

XI. Religion .....

H5

XII. Economy .....

XIII. Education ......

XIV. Habit

XV. Health .....

XVI. Temper , ■

Vlll

Contents

CHAPTER

XVII. Self-Denial

XVIII. Courtesy .

Chapter I. Home And The Domestic Affections

Dulce Domum — Home, sweet home ! What sound vibrates upon the heart more delightfully ? The word itself is beautiful, but who shall describe the reality?

Our dearest memories cluster around home ; its potent charms extend from the cradle to the grave. They accompany the emigrant to the most distant lands, and hover around him on his dying bed.* Not only on the simple-hearted emigrant does it cast its spell, but on the hardened man of the world. Even Danton, half savage, half genius, during the short period before his execution, distractedly reverted to the innocence of his earlier years, and spoke incessantly of trees, flowers, and the country. f

Young Englishmen in our colonies, who have been skilful diplomatists and great warriors, while doing their work manfully and fighting their battles bravely, have been powerfully stimulated by the spontaneous question, " What will be thought at home ?" J

This feeling comes out in little and even in amusing

f Alison's "History of Europe," ii. p. ill. X e.g. Sir Alexander Burnes.

ways. Thus the forests of Australia teemed with birds of a thousand different colours, and yet the Australian went to the trouble and expense of transporting from his old country the linnet, the chaffinch, and the sparrow.*

It is the same affection which makes the convolvulus, the primrose, and the daisy more dear to us than the palm-tree of India, or the gum-tree of Australia, or the guava of Mexico.

To cultivate the domestic affections leads to a full and wise enjoyment of our existence. This is one way to make the most of life — of that precious liquid, scanty indeed and evaporating, of which we should not spill a single drop. For in this cultivation, as in all right conduct, there will be found a threefold coincidence, which, ever and anon, imparts a thrill of delight — we shall feel that our duty and interest and pleasure coincide, and this makes life sweet indeed.

Since the dearest memories cluster around home, we can make it a source of lasting influence, by making the youth of children full of joy, comfort, and affection. Home-life, with all its discipline and associations, will be the material for many a future meditation ; and the principles of those who are dead and gone will be respected and coveted, not only because of their intrinsic worth, but because they are tinged with the bright colours of earliest memory. Looking back, it seems to them as if —

" The air of paradise did fan the house, And angels offic'd all."f

* Lord Carnarvon in the Times, Oct. 5, 1868. t " All's Well," iii. 2.

The testimony of one man is the experience of thousands : " Past life has left me honey in the hive of memory that I now feed on for present delight. When I recall the years of boyhood, youth, early manhood, I am filled with a sense of sweetness, and wonder that such little things can make a mortal so exceedingly rich."

From seed sown in nurseries comes the plantation of the world ; and how deeply it is rooted there we may know when, in after-life, we try to eradicate the prejudices and superstitions which have been sown along with better seed. How difficult for one imbued in infancy with Judaical views of the Sabbath to make Sunday a right joyous as well as religious day ! How difficult for one trained in image worship to limit his devotions to the one God ! *

Such a good man as Keble found it impossible to supplant old prejudice by new historical evidence regarding Charles I. " It might be so," he said, but " in truth belief in the heroes of his youth had become part of him."t

Home joys are as superior to outside pleasures as wine is superior to alcohol. They are milder, healthier, more delicious, and less stimulating. Dr. Johnson declared that a tavern chair was the throne of human felicity ; but he abounded in paradoxes, and was not able from experience to estimate home-life at its just value.

This remark will apply to all who, not having a happy

* No one could put this more forcibly than Jean Paul Richter has done : " A circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his nurse." — "Levana," xvi.

t " Life of Keble," p. 567.

home, seek for enjoyment out of doors. But there is a large class besides, who, having formed low and vicious tastes, come to regard domestic happiness as something insipid, and are eager for sensational pleasure. The gaiety and merriment of such scenes is apt to inject an occasional pang of envy into those who are more domesticated. But if you reflect, you will not envy their laughter nor covet their joys; for your sighs are better than their laughs, and your sorrow is better than their joy; since they pay a frightful price for sensational pleasure — paying away health, and substance, and peace of mind.

This is not the assertion of the outsider, but the confession of the initiated, as it is expressed by the poet Burns : " In the hour of social mirth, my gaiety is the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner." The Ettrick Shepherd had often heard the following story from the eye-witness who happened to be present and unobserved. One night, after a debauch, Burns, not knowing that he was noticed, threw himself on his knees and began to pray. By degrees he became so fervent in his supplication for mercy and forgiveness for all his transgressions, that it was awful to hear him. With tears of agony, he confessed himself to be the chief of sinners. Lord Byron made a similar acknowledgment.

It shows real poverty when one has to travel from home in quest of enjoyment. " A good man shall be satisfied from himself." He need not go miles away to fetch home the water of happiness. There is a spring in each man's dwelling, if he has the wit to find it out.

Doubtless it was that each family might have a fair chance of happiness, that the Father of all families made his best gifts the most common. Bread, water, air, health, sleep, work, love, hope, life are at once the commonest and the best. Simple and natural joys please the healthy mind as much as those that are more complex and artificial. The convolvulus peeping out in the hedgerows can delight the eye as much as a mass of rhododendrons on a cultivated lawn.

How many even great and ambitious men have never learned the simple lesson of self-content, and how much unnecessary pain do they inflict on themselves by aspiring and struggling after the reserved seats" of Providence ! They give up repose and privacy for some public post, often losing the sweetness of private life, and living in an aquarium before the eyes of all men. This is one of the considerations which help to reconcile us to the inequalities of human conditions. Oftentimes we see life in a lower station far happier than the life of higher rank. It depends so much on what one can get out of it ; for, on this principle, sometimes a copper mine is more precious than a gold mine.

It is the duty of a father of a family to make home as pleasant and attractive as possible, and indeed he should make this a study. A family should never subside into monotony. Neither young nor old can bear it. History supplies us with a forcible illustration of this fact. The French army on their march to Moscow found hardly any brooks, hardly any stones. There was no variety of trees. The mind was fatigued by never seeing any new objects, such as rocks, hills, and valleys. It was a monotony of nature. Now that home may not suffer in this way, let there be pictures, photographs, statues, if one can ; music, reading, singing, dancing ; especially let there be beautiful manners. It is not enough to have things convenient, let them be lovely. Many plants would have been equally useful, though unadorned with colour; but He, the Great Teacher, has beautified the useful.

Birth-days may be made great sources of household joy. The gifts and kind wishes inspire the pleasant feeling of being remembered and loved. This celebration might well be extended to other anniversaries, thus recalling to mind some great mercy, or preservation, * or any happy event, and making gratitude more lively and permanent.

These commemorations foster many domestic virtues, and chiefly unity. All the members should be united in the inner circle, that they may be able to withstand the trials, difficulties, and attacks in the outer circle of the world. The union of the weak is marvellously powerful against the strong. Even the swallows united drive away the hawk. These are wise words which Milton puts into the mouth of Adam : —

" Let us no more contend, nor blame Each, other, blamed enough elsewhere ; but strive In offices of love, how we may lighten Each other's burden, in our share of woe." f

* "Non minus jucundi atque illustres sunt ii dies, quibus conservamur, quam illi, quibus nascimur." — Cic. in Cat., iii. 2. f "Paradise Lost," b. x.

Home should be well provided with amusements for the little ones, as their childhood was manifestly intended to be full of enjoyment, and they should be allowed to play freely and heartily. A wise parent will not check mirth in children, for suppressed spirits are as dangerous to character as suppressed perspiration is detrimental to health. It was a fine trait of the late Bishop Lonsdale that he would never allow the noise of children to be stopped, even close to his door. Still, while freely encouraging children's play, we must bear in mind that even at this early age the process of education has begun, and the little motives and arguments of their games need to be watched and corrected.

There are few sadder spectacles to be seen in a family than a precocious child, whether in intellect or religion. The premature utterances, which delight the parents, distress the experienced hearer. While guarding, however, against this danger, the understanding and feelings 'of the children should be cultivated, and fostered early, especially the religious affections, for they are sure to be discouraged at schools and colleges, and are often fossilized in the hard world outside. The Baboo Keshub Chunder Sen said at his farewell soiree, that during his stay in this country he had visited many English families, and that he was much struck with the happiness of their homes, and that the little English children seemed to him like angels.

This is one of the many instances of modern social improvement. If Juvenal's picture is not overdrawn, the Roman homes in his time were very inferior. " One house,''' says he, " is quite enough. Spend but a few days there, and when you come away call yourself, if you dare, a miserable man." *

The religious element is at the foundation of happy homes, and it would ill become a Christian householder to be ashamed of family religion. In Roman houses, heathen though they were, there was a place in the inner part which was dedicated to the household gods, and in which their images were kept and worshipped, f

The saintly Bishop Wilson, of the Isle of Man, on every favourable opportunity, would ask, " Have you set up an altar in your house ?" | How delightful is family worship, — to meet together, husband and wife, parents and children, guests and servants, to pray joyfully to God, to read his Word, and to solace ourselves with sweet psalms and hymns. This sends a fragrant aroma through the house the livelong day. Even the visitor feels it. // is the odour of the ointment that bewrayeth itself and cannot be hid. God sets his invisible mark upon such a house, and gives it an unmixed blessing.

Few dwellings are so insulated as not to have conduit pipes, bringing in water and gas. Books, newspapers, tutors, governesses, servants, are all in their way conduit pipes. It is not enough to inquire as to the ability ; equally necessary it is to investigate the character of those who are to be with children. As regards newspapers, their great value is freely acknowledged. Their lessons being conversant with living characters, referring to present circumstances, and involving personal in-

* Juv. Sat., xiii. 159.

J Life, by Archdeacon Hone, p. 317.

terests, come home to our feelings more than the dignified examples of history. Yet along with these the abomination of criminal trials is conveyed (would that it were not welcomed !) into Christian households. As to books, an ordinary private library embalms the sophistry of schoolmen, the spleen of controversialists, and the indecencies of profligates. A similar perversity in Egypt preserved the mummies of the fox, the bear, and goat ; only those simple ancients cleared out the loathsome viscera with caustic fluids, and salted the remains. Certainly the very least we can do in the work of purification is to take care that the libraries to which the young have free access should be weeded. The evil is not limited to reading. Vicious pictures and prints hurt the health of a man no less than the arsenical wall papers with which his room is hung. One ought to be vigilant as to all the influences that enter his home, for a large amount of evil is not indigenous but imported. The insect that destroyed all the peach-trees in St. Helena was imported from the Cape.*

There are some friends so officious and intrusive that, under a plea of kindly interest, they interfere in families. Such interference ought to be discouraged, and the sanctity of private life vigilantly maintained. Some will make believe that they sympathize with an injured wife in order to elicit domestic secrets. But a prudent wife, though suffering, is a sexton, and buries her griefs in her heart.

It would, indeed, be difficult to exaggerate the value

io DULCE DO MUM.

of trust and confidence in domestic life. Most people of large experience know some case where a dishonouring suspicion has rankled in the breast. The poison has entered into the heart, and formed an incurable cancer there. Among the lower classes there is abuse ; and, coarse and blunt though it be, it relieves the mind : among the educated classes the sting of insinuation is keen, and lancinates acutely, though finer than a hair and almost invisible; but the wound is covered with reserve.

One cause of distrust in families is over-strictness. Natural liberty is denied or restrained, hence evasions and deceits, which when discovered produce misgivings and dread. Children so brought up continue scheming and cunning in after-life.

We are greatly indebted to Protestantism for the education of the people ; we are equally indebted to the Reformation for the happiness of our homes. There are no confessionals among us to extort from nervous mothers and daughters the secrets * of private life, and to inculcate domestic treachery under the name of religion.

Sometimes those who are too poor and those who are too rich have no home. Disraeli describes a duke, who had many residences, and adds, " he had only one misfortune, and it was a great one; he had no home."| Royalty itself cannot guarantee this prime requisite. Philip King of Macedon had an unhappy home. He

* " Inde timeri." — Juv. Sat., iii. 113. f " Lothair," i. 4.

HOME AND THE DOMESTIC AFFECTIONS. n

had jealousies with his wife and quarrels with his son ; in consequence of which wife and son left him and went to Illyricum. In their absence Demaratus came on a visit to the king ; and after the first civilities, Philip asked him, " What sort of agreement subsisted among the Greeks?" Demaratus answered, "There is, doubtless, much propriety in your inquiring after the harmony of Greece, who have filled your own house with so much discord and disorder;" a reproof applicable to all, who are more interested in political than in domestic harmony.*

It is difficult to say which are most to be pitied, those who have unhappy homes, or those who have no homes at all. Certainly, from both classes multitudes come to recruit the army of crime ; and it may be a salutary reflection for those who neglect their home to bear in mind into what service their children will probably enlist.

All does not depend on the head of the house. The domestic body has many members, and each member has its own office. Each, therefore, has power to augment or to diminish the general happiness. It is most important to make this responsibility understood and felt ; for sometimes one member can make the whole family wretched and disgraced. They are obliged to leave him out of conversation, to leave him out of the

* The greatest man must be hampered in his work and usefulness by such a home. Hear what Schiller said of Goethe : " He produces very little now. His spirit is not sufficiently at ease ; his wretched domestic circumstances, which he is too weak to alter, make him so unhappy." — " Life of Goethe," by Lewes, ii. 357.

family album ; but his distressing image is never erased from their memories and hearts.

It must be admitted that some are too much centred on home, and forget the outside world and all the duties and responsibilities owing to their neighbour. This is only a refined selfishness, and constitutes here and there a clan in the midst of civilised society. These people deprive themselves of much enjoyment and miss the blessing of sympathy. Weep with them that weep ; for the tears of pity will sweeten your own cup of life, so that by enlarging the circle of feeling you will enlarge the circle of joy. Rejoice with them that do rejoice ; for thus you will increase your joy and not defraud your neighbour; for sympathy is a royal priest that tithes the joy of every one, yet makes it none the less. Otherwise those isolated clannish families have their reward. They break off from society, despise appearances, and subside into curious singularities, without influence, without respect ; and when they die, society feels no pang of severance, for there was no connecting ligament.

Some fall into the very opposite mistake. They are delightful abroad and morose at home. They varnish their faces with amiability for the church or promenade, and rub off the varnish before they reach their own door-step again. Their agreeable qualities are mere social cosmetics.

The domestic affections make a man strong and sympathetic among his fellows. This has been the weak point in the Roman priesthood. This has often made them hard-hearted and cruel. This has prevented them from understanding the progress of humanity, and from sympathizing with its struggles. The cruel and inveterate factions and quarrels which the commissioners of Henry VIII. reported are very credible among men who, being confined together within the same walls, never can forget their mutual animosities, and who being cut off from all the most endearing connections of nature, are commonly cursed with hearts more selfish and tempers more unrelenting than fall to the share of other men.* 1 This description corresponds very much to the interior of a workhouse at the present day. Gibbon's account is much to the same purpose. Speaking of primitive monks, he says, " Whenever they were permitted to step beyond the precincts of the monastery, two jealous companions were the mutual guards and spies of each other's actions ;f and after their return they were condemned to forget, or at least to suppress, whatever they had seen or heard in the world. Except in the presence of others, the monastic slave might not receive the visits of his friends or kindred, and it was deemed highly meritorious, if he afflicted a tender sister, or an aged parent, by obstinate refusal of a word or look. Prior, an Egyptian monk, allowed his sister to see him, but he shut his eyes during the whole visit. At their silent meals, they were enveloped in their cowls, inaccessible and almost invisible to each other." J The parallel of Buddhism is complete ;

* Hume's "Hist, of Eng.," ch. xxxi.

f "It is curious to note how many customs this system has in common with heathenism. In Japan all officials serve in pairs, as spies upon each other." — Sir Rutherford Alcock's " Capital of the Tycoon," i. 64.

% History of the " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," ch.

for under that system the mendicant monk is forbidden to look at or converse with a female : yea, if his mother have fallen into a river, and be drowning, he shall not give her his hand to help her out ; if there be a pole at hand, he may reach that to her ; but if not, she must drown.*

Are those teachers actuated by a purely religious zeal who urge young females to forsake home and enter the cloister ? It may be so sometimes, but a convert from Romanism, whose keen eye had seen the inside of the machine, says, that an odious, gross, animal jealousy triumphs in the perpetual exclusion of an interesting girl from the world.!

The same system has warred against domestic life and answered to the apostolic description "forbidding to marry." In the time of Queen Mary, a Welsh bishop, Ferrars, of St. David's, was burnt at Carmarthen for the crime, among others, of having a wife and whistling to his child, as he lay in the arms of his nurse ; and here as in many cases one can see the irony of history and the Nemesis of events ; for in the French Revolution some priests were compelled to marry against their will. J

Most unenviable is the man who represses his domestic affections till he comes to be without love, without sympathy, without praise. Surely he suffers from atrophy of heart, and that organ must be wasting and dwindling away till he becomes heartless.

Perhaps some may think this a homely subject, fit only

* Wilson.

t " Life of Blanco White," i. 120.

X Alison's "Hist, of Europe," 8vo. ed., ii. 74.

for home-bred men, and they may sneer at the tame spectacle ; but no success or glory can compensate for the want of home. Some who have tasted the greatest varieties of life, and have had a right to speak with the authority of that experience, have declared as much. The noble Admiral Collingwood as he paced the deck of his victorious ship was sighing for home. The great Napoleon, after he had tasted of all the pleasure and greatness of the world, said that the chief happiness of his life had been with Josephine at home.

Chapter II. Marriage

A witness may be repulsive, and yet true. Of this character is the saying, "Marriage and hanging go by destiny." For the most part, a life-long union is brought about by a meeting, accidental, as the thoughtless say, providential, as the devout believe. The choice is seldom made by reason, which is the man himself, but by some sudden gust of feeling which carries him away ; and yet matrimony involves tremendous issues.*

It has been noted that bad husbands have often very good wives,! and the contrary is true, that good men have often had bad wives. Milton's wife left him for four years, adding insult to desertion. Hooker was called from his studies, or his friends, to mind the sheep or to rock the cradle ; which gives his quaint biographer

* If the marriage is unhappy, then

t Lord Bacon's Essays: "Of Marriage and Single Life." In Herodotus (viii. 68) there is an interesting address sent by Artemisia to Xerxes, in which we find the germ of Bacon's remark. She says : " O king, consider this, that the good among men commonly have bad slaves, and the bad ones, good."

cause to wonder why the blessing of a good wife " was denied to patient Job, to meek Moses, and to our as meek and patient Mr. Hooker." * But there is really little cause to wonder in these two cases, for the great theologian married Joan, his landlady's daughter, and the great poet married a frivolous girl. There was no fitness in the choice of either.

The passion of love is notoriously injudicious ; it overlooks considerations of propriety, and suitableness, and equality. As Cervantes says, " Love levels all." It levels down King Cophetua, and it levels up the beggarmaid ; but seldom does such a matrimonial plane continue smooth and horizontal. There is often after an upheaving and a subsidence arising from difference of education, difference of habit, and general unfitness. Those who intend to marry might, according to the suggestion of Pittacus, take a lesson from boys at play, and choose a match ; " Sumefiarem" \

There are weighty physical reasons for not marrying too early or too late. Premature marriages are dangerous for the children, late marriages are dangerous for the mother. In modern Egypt marriage frequently takes place when the bride is twelve or only ten. \ The Talmudists forbade marriage in the case of a man under thirteen years and a day, and in the case of a woman under twelve years and a day. In the hope of a robust progeny, Lycurgus had delayed the season of marriage. It was fixed by Numa

* Izaak Walton's " Life."

1 Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," art. Marriage.

C at the tender age of twelve years, that the Roman husband might educate to his will a pure and obedient virgin.*

These arrangements are cited chiefly as curiosities of Eastern custom. We of western Europe have a different climate and different physical conditions ; and as a result of these differences, we have a deferred and a prolonged maturity. Those who abstain from marrying till their constitution is fully developed, and yet do not procrastinate till the bloom of youth is gone, will find that they are within the limits prescribed by nature. This view is confirmed by considerations of prudence. With respect to the succession of children, there ought not to be too great an interval of time between them and their parents ; for, when there is, the parent can receive no benefit from his child's affection, or the child any advantage from his father's protection. Neither should the difference in years be too little, as great inconveniences may arise from it; for proper reverence is not shown to such parents by a boy who considers his father as nearly his equal in age, and disputes are wont to arise in the management of the family.!

The Easterns, by their seclusiveness, lose all the refining influence of courtship. Well has Tennyson expressed how there is —