Making Home A Happy and Peaceful Repose
A woman's best qualities do not reside in her intellect but in her affections. She gives refreshment by her sympathies, rather than by her knowledge. It is this characteristic sympathy of woman which gives to home its charm, and to home and childhood reminiscences a sacredness which causes such songs as "Home Sweet Home" and "The Old Oaken Bucket" to be the favorites of all classes. The true wife, he says, should possess such qualities as will tend to make home as much as may be a place of repose. To this end, she should have sense enough or worth enough to exempt her husband as much as possible from the troubles of family management, and more especially from all possibility of debt.
The true wife takes a sympathy in her husband's pursuits. She cheers him, encourages him, and helps him. She enjoys his successes and his pleasure, and makes a little as possible over his vexations. If a wife cannot make her home bright and happy, so that it shall be the cleanest, sweetest, cheerfulest place that her husband can find refuge in--a retreat from the toils and troubles of the outer world--the heaven help the poor man, for he is virtually homeless!
--Passage from "Happy Homes And The Hearts That Make Them"
