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THE FARMER»S MAGAZINE. 



must learn— that nothing that is worth doing at all is or 

 can be trifling ; as sand makes the mountain, drops 

 from the cloud or dews from the grass the rivers, so do 

 little things make up the grand total of the duties and 

 the privileges of domestic life, and that the doing of them 

 rightly is just that which makes the homes of happiness, 

 as the doing of them wrongly — or what is worse, not at 

 all — the dens of discord. Further, the expectant wife 

 must strive to arrive at an appreciation of the dignity of 

 economy, and become convinced that there is more 

 meanness in the waste which brings want, than the 

 saving which brings security against it. It is not mean 

 to be economical, or stingy to be saving, as is too often 

 said by the poor while stigmatising the habits in these 

 directions of the middle classes and the rich. We 

 must get before we can give ; to be charitable to others 

 we must be careful ourselves. The poverty which comes 

 about by want of providence deserves no pity, and the 

 sorrow which arises from self-indulgence no sympathy. 

 " INIuch food," says the wise man, " is in the tillage of 

 the poor ; but there is that is destroyed for want of 

 judgment." 



But in the cultivation of the utilities we must 

 not— recollecting the fine distribution, in the material 

 and moral world, of labour and rest, of food for 

 the body and things pleasant for the eye, of the time 

 to rejoice as well as the time to weep— neglect the 

 cultivation of the beautiful. If the home of taste is not 

 always the home of happiness, it goes far as a help 

 in the cultivation of fine tempers and feelings, and 

 adds to the amenities and pleasantnesses of social 

 life. This aspiration after the beautiful in nature 

 and in art, which all of us have, more or less defined, 

 is implanted in us for high and holy purposes. We 

 see this exemplified, in every scene around as. We 

 have the corn and the coals for the sustenance and 

 comfort of the body; but the flowers and their perfumes 

 no less, to please the eye and cheer the spirits : we 

 have the grass for pasture for our flocks and our herds, 

 but it is radiant with flowers and redolent of sweet- 

 gmelling perfumes : the trees, that yield us timber for 

 our ships, add beauty to the landscape ; and the same 

 breeze that wafts them on their errands of peace brings 

 to us the breath of health and fans the fevered cheek : 

 the sea, their mighty pathway, soothes us in its calmness 

 with the melody of its murmurs, or raises in us emotions 

 of the sublime with the thunder of its rushing waves. All 

 around us gives evidence of this unison of the useful with 

 the beautiful or the grand in the economy of nature, and 

 aff'ords us lessons how best we may carry out a like 

 unison in the economy of our domestic and social insti- 

 tutions. Mr. Ruskin, who has done so much — of which 

 the world will some day better appreciate its high value 

 than it appears to do now— in the advocacy of the beau- 

 tiful and the true — beauty in truth, and truth in beauty — 

 has some fine and most suggestive remarks on this point. 

 In explaining that we have warped the word " eco- 

 nomy" in common language into a meaning which it 

 should not bear, he points out that it means " the right 

 management of labour" — labour rationally applied, and 

 its produce carefully preserved and seasonably dix/ri- 



l>uted—&nd quotes as the Wise Man's description of the 

 queenly housewife or the virtuous matron the following : 

 " She riseth while it is yet night, and giveth meat to 

 her household and a portion to her maidens. She maketh 

 herself coverings of tapestry ; her clothing is silk and 

 purple. Strength and honour are her clothing, and 

 she shall rejoice in time to come ;" enlarging on this 

 as a text, in language beautiful exceedingly, thus : 

 " Now you will observe that in this description of the 

 perfect economist, or mistress of a household, there is a 

 studied expression of the balanced division of her care 

 between the two great objects of utility and splendour^ 

 in her right hand food and flax, for life and clothing ; in 

 her left hand the purple and the needlework, for honour 

 and for beauty. All perfect housewifery or natural eco- 

 nomy is known by those two divisions, wherever either 

 is wanting, the economy is imperfect. * * * * In 

 private and household economy you may judge always 

 of its perfectness by its fair balance between the use and 

 the pleasure of its possession. You will see the wise 

 cottager's garden trimly divided between its well-set ve- 

 getables and its fragrant flowers ; you will see the good 

 housewife taking pride in her pretty tablecloth and her 

 glittering shelves, no less than in her well-dressed dish 

 and her full store-room ; the care in her countenance 

 will alternate with gaiety ; and though you will re- 

 verence her in her seriousness, you will know her best 

 by her smile." This is beautiful writing, and no less 

 true than beautiful ; and conveys much that is, or ought 

 to be, valuable to us in every-day conduct. 



To enable the poor man's house to have its well- 

 balanced divisions of true economy, we see that it is 

 necessary that its owners shall be well taught the 

 utilities and the beauties of life, and have wherewithal 

 (or the education will be but a mockery after all) to put 

 them in practice — homes consistent at once with 

 the cultivation of the delights as well as the decencies of 

 life. Of what class or kind the lessons of utilities 

 should consist we have already in our last article shown. 

 Much of the education of the beautiful is comprised in 

 ordinary scholastic education, where the taste is culti- 

 vated and the mind refined by intellectual training. Nor 

 while advocating the necessity of a cultivation of the 

 heart, as well as imparting a knowledge of "common 

 things," do educationists who see the advantages of this 

 direction in education, ignore or think lightly of the va- 

 lue of intellectual training. On the contrary, they wish 

 to see it carried out to its fullest capabilities, only insist- 

 ing that this shall not be done to the exclusion of those 

 other points which they conceive essential elements in the 

 education of the labouring classes. They are not igno- 

 rant of the immense influence for good which an in- 

 tellectual training exercises on the minds of the em- 

 ployed, in bringing them up to a level with those of the 

 employers; for it is to be noted, as remarked by a keen 

 observer, that in cases where there is a real sympathy of 

 the heart influencing us in our intercourse with tiiose 

 beneath us in the social scale, there is often an impas- 

 sable barrier " presented by a lack of sympathy of in- 

 tellect." And it is in this way that the utility of an 

 intellectual educittion will act so powerfully in increasing 



