SEPTEMBER 13 



grumble because those luxuries are not arranged as they 

 like best. And now that we apply this reasoning a sec- 

 ond time, we see that in reality it is rather an ugly argu- 

 ment. It is a fact, but, like other facts, such as death 

 and digestion, it need not be obtruded at every moment. 

 The woman's work may be given from love of her home; 

 and the children may forbear, also through love, to tell 

 their mother that the dinner-hour is not quite the fash- 

 ionable one, and "you might have remembered how I 

 hate that pudding." The mother will look out for her- 

 self and see to the tastes of her family, and will, in talks 

 with one and the other, ask for advice and hints on new 

 ways of arranging the familiar details of life. And so 

 good manners, which are really the Christian virtues 

 of patience, charity, and self-control, will reign in that 

 house, and it will be a far pleasanter place than if every- 

 one in turn were loudly to volunteer their opinion of how 

 it ought to be conducted. 7 



This has truth in it. All individuals must decide for 

 themselves how to draw the line between good manners 

 and what may end in whited sepulchres. This is doubly 

 difficult with children, whose natural inclination is to 

 speak as they feel, for not to do so appears to them 

 rather as a deception than as a sparing of other people's 

 feelings. Everyone's experience will tell them how early 

 children say to others what they dare not say in their 

 own home. The great difficulty is to keep the love of 

 children. Goethe says : ' There is a politeness of the 

 heart; this is closely allied to love. Those who possess 

 this purest fountain of natural politeness find it easy to 

 express the same in forms of outward propriety.' 



Nothing was more amusing to me than this interest- 

 ing variety in the letters about ' Sons and Daughters.' I 

 will quote passages from several of them : ' I agree with 

 your "Daughters " more than I thought I should. You 



