The English Housekeeper: Or, Manual of Domestic Management. Anne Cobbett

It would be impossible to give rules for the management of a domestic establishment, because they would necessarily be subject to many and various exceptions, produced by various circumstances. But a few general observations, accompanied by remarks on the most important matters in domestic life, may not be unacceptable to young housekeepers.

In the young and thoughtless, a spirit of emulation, leading them to vie with those who are richer than themselves, is often the source of domestic unhappiness, by causing so much to be sacrificed to appearance, as to circumscribe the means of enjoying the substantial comforts of life. It sometimes manifests itself in houses, equipages, and retinues of servants; but amongst persons of moderate income, for whose use this work is principally intended, it is commonly displayed in costly furniture and expensive entertainments. Many young married women conceive the notion, that unless they have as fine a house, as expensive furniture, plate, china, and glass, as some others have, and give as fine entertainments as others give; in short, unless they make the appearance of living quite as well as their richer neighbours, they will not be held in equal estimation. It is not that they derive any real pleasure from the false appearance which they make; indeed, expensive furniture is but an annoyance to its possessor, if there be not a sufficient number of good servants to keep it in order. Where the whole family concur in this sort of pride, no mortification arises from difference of opinion, but the unanimity tends only to accelerate the ruin.

The young housekeeper should consider the serious consequences that are likely to result from setting out in a style of lavish expenditure, and she should remember that, while it is easy to extend, it is extremely difficult to reduce, her establishment. One expensive article requires another to correspond with it, and one expensive entertainment imposes the necessity of other equally expensive entertainments; for it requires no small share of moral courage to risk the loss of consequence which may result by its being surmised that we are not so well off, as we have been supposed to be. And when the time comes, as sooner or later it assuredly must, when the means are not adequate to the demands, what sacrifices are made, and what unseemly contrivances are resorted to, in order to keep up, to the last, a poor remnant of "appearance!" and, when this can no longer be effected, then comes the humiliation, with all the bitter feelings attendant upon retrenchment; of all which feelings, the bitterest is, the dread of being degraded in the world's estimation. To endure privations with resignation, to feel the want of habitual comforts, yet be grateful for the blessings which are left to us, is the duty of every Christian, and is the less arduous when the reverse of fortune which has befallen us, has not been produced by any fault of our own. But if, in addition to the distresses of adversity, the wife and the mother be doomed to writhe under the pang of self-reproach, great indeed must be her suffering, and one for which I can suggest no adequate relief. To the young and generous-minded,

Скачать книгу