but the pleasure-grounds also. A well-balanced life is a cheerful life; a happy union of fine qualities and unruffled temper, a clear judgment, and well-proportioned faculties. In a corner of his desk, Lincoln kept a copy of the latest humorous work; and it was frequently his habit, when fatigued, annoyed, or depressed, to take this up, and read a chapter with great relief. Clean, sensible wit, or sheer nonsense,—anything to provoke mirth and make a man jollier,—this, too, is a gift from Heaven.
In the world of books, what is grand and inspiring may easily become a part of every man's life. A fondness for good literature, for good fiction, for travel, for history, and for biography,—what is better than this?
THE QUEEN OF THE WORLD.
This title best fits Victoria, the true queen of the world, but it fits her best because she is the best type of a noble wife, the queen of her husband's heart, and of a queen mother whose children rise up and call her blessed.
"I noticed," said Franklin, "a mechanic, among a number of others, at work on a house a little way from my office, who always appeared to be in a merry humor; he had a kind word and smile for every one he met. Let the day be ever so cold, gloomy, or sunless, a happy smile danced on his cheerful countenance. Meeting him one morning, I asked him to tell me the secret of his constant flow of spirits.
"'It is no secret, doctor,' he replied. 'I have one of the best of wives; and, when I go to work, she always has a kind word of encouragement for me; and, when I go home, she meets me with a smile and a kiss; and then tea is sure to be ready, and she has done so many little things through the day to please me that I cannot find it in my heart to speak an unkind word to anybody.'"
Some of the happiest homes I have ever been in, ideal homes, where intelligence, peace, and harmony dwell, have been homes of poor people. No rich carpets covered the floors; there were no costly paintings on the walls, no piano, no library, no works of art. But there were contented minds, devoted and unselfish lives, each contributing as much as possible to the happiness of all, and endeavoring to compensate by intelligence and kindness for the poverty of their surroundings. "One cheerful, bright, and contented spirit in a household will uplift the tone of all the rest. The keynote of the home is in the hand of the resolutely cheerful member of the family, and he or she will set the pitch for the rest."
"Young men," it is said, "are apt to be overbearing, imperious, brusque in their manner; they need that suavity of manner, and urbanity of demeanor, gracefulness of expression and delicacy of manner, which can only be gained by association with the female character, which possesses the delicate instinct, ready judgment, acute perceptions, wonderful intuition. The blending of the male and female characteristics produces the grandest character in each."
The woman who has what Helen Hunt so aptly called "a genius for affection,"—she, indeed, is queen of the home. "I have often had occasion," said Washington Irving, "to remark the fortitude with which woman sustains the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their character that at times it approaches sublimity."
If a wife cannot make her home bright and happy, so that it shall be the cleanest, sweetest, cheerfulest place her husband can find refuge in,—a retreat from the toils and troubles of the outer world,—then God help the poor man, for he is virtually homeless. "Home-keeping hearts," said Longfellow, "are happiest." What is a good wife, a good mother? Is she not a gift out of heaven, sacred and delicate, with affections so great that no measuring line short of that of the infinite God can tell their bound; fashioned to refine and soothe and lift and irradiate home and society and the world; of such value that no one can appreciate it, unless his mother lived long enough to let him understand it, or unless, in some great crisis of life, when all else failed him, he had a wife to reënforce him with a faith in God that nothing could disturb?
Nothing can be more delightful than an anecdote of Joseph H. Choate, of New York, our Minister at the Court of St. James. Upon being asked, at a dinner-party, who he would prefer to be if he could not be himself, he hesitated a moment, apparently running over in his mind the great ones on earth, when his eyes rested on Mrs. Choate at the other end of the table, who was watching him with great interest in her face, and suddenly replied, "If I could not be myself, I should like to be Mrs. Choate's second husband."
"Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones." It is the little disputes, little fault-findings, little insinuations, little reflections, sharp criticisms, fretfulness and impatience, little unkindnesses, slurs, little discourtesies, bad temper, that create most of the discord and unhappiness in the family. How much it would add to the glory of the homes of the world if that might be said of every one which Rogers said of Lord Holland's sunshiny face: "He always comes to breakfast like a man upon whom some sudden good fortune has fallen"!
The value of pleasant words every day, as you go along, is well depicted by Aunt Jerusha in what she said to our genial friend of "Zion's Herald":—
"If folks could have their funerals when they are alive and well and struggling along, what a help it would be"! she sighed, upon returning from a funeral, wondering how poor Mrs. Brown would have felt if she could have heard what the minister said. "Poor soul, she never dreamed they set so much by her!
"Mis' Brown got discouraged. Ye see, Deacon Brown, he'd got a way of blaming everything on to her. I don't suppose the deacon meant it,—'twas just his way,—but it's awful wearing. When things wore out or broke, he acted just as if Mis' Brown did it herself on purpose; and they all caught it, like the measles or the whooping-cough.
"And the minister a-telling how the deacon brought his young wife here when 't wa'n't nothing but a wilderness, and how patiently she bore hardship, and what a good wife she'd been! Now the minister wouldn't have known anything about that if the deacon hadn't told him. Dear! Dear! If he'd only told Mis' Brown herself what he thought, I do believe he might have saved the funeral.
"And when the minister said how the children would miss their mother, seemed as though they couldn't stand it, poor things!
"Well, I guess it is true enough,—Mis' Brown was always doing for some of them. When they was singing about sweet rest in heaven, I couldn't help thinking that that was something Mis' Brown would have to get used to, for she never had none of it here.
"She'd have been awful pleased with the flowers. They was pretty, and no mistake. Ye see, the deacon wa'n't never willing for her to have a flower-bed. He said 't was enough prettier sight to see good cabbages a-growing; but Mis' Brown always kind of hankered after sweet-smelling things, like roses and such.
"What did you say, Levi? 'Most time for supper? Well, land's sake, so it is! I must have got to meditating. I've been a-thinking, Levi, you needn't tell the minister anything about me. If the pancakes and pumpkin pies are good, you just say so as we go along. It ain't best to keep everything laid up for funerals."
It is the grand secret of a happy home to express the affection you really have.
"He is the happiest," it was said by Goethe, "be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home." There are indeed many serious, too serious-minded fathers and mothers who do not wish to advertise their children to all the neighbors as "the laughing family." If this be so, yet, at the very least, these solemn parents may read the Bible. Where it is said, "provoke not your children to wrath," it means literally, "do not irritate your children;" "do not rub them up the wrong way."
Children ought never to get the impression that they live in a hopeless, cheerless, cold world; but the household cheerfulness should transform their lives like sunlight, making their hearts glad with little things, rejoicing upon small occasion.
"How
