complaints of her servants, with consultations about her table, her furniture, or her childrens' dress; all these matters she arranged, and he enjoyed the results. We would not imply that all husbands who do not adopt this system of noninterference, and who do not act up to the spirit of a confidential and equal matrimonial partnership, are in fault. We acknowledge, with sorrow and humiliation, that there are many wives not capable of acting "well their part" in their own sphere, and that few deserve the unqualified confidence Mrs. Hyde had painfully earned by her self-education. But since the discovery is made that a woman is capable of something besides praying, loving, sewing, and spinning, or, to cite Molière's own words, that it is not enough
De savoir prier Dieu, m'aimer coudre et filer;"
her talents should be cultivated with reference to her whole domestic duty.[1] It is as consummate a folly to permit an American girl to grow up ignorant of household affairs, as it would be to omit mathematics in the education of an astronomer, or the use of the needle in the training of a milliner. But, leaving our theory to the consideration of mothers, we proceed to the homely details of Mrs. Hyde's housewifery. This lady had now been married seventeen years. Her eldest daughter was sixteen, her youngest less than a year. After the four years of her novitiate, she has rarely
- ↑ "Talents," says Sir James McIntosh, "are the habitual powers of execution."
