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Show MAKING THINGS PLEASANT. A great many bright and even witty things are said manually by husbands, throughout the United States, in regard to the nearly universal practice of wives and mothers of changing the arrangements of the furniture and the established order of things in the household. The genial tender of the fire in the "Back-log Studies" remarks upon the fact that the only reason the mistress could give for hanging a pleasure in what seemed the most inappropriate place was that it had never been there before. It is a positive delight to meet women simply to more things around with a view of bettering the appearances of their rooms, and they lose interest at once in a house which is so constructed that certain articles must remain in certain places. There is, however, a philosophy in this effort of the housewife to give freshness and variety to her surroundings which is at length becoming recognized. A distinguished physician has lately said that "it is wise and wholesome to break the uniformity of decoration from time to time for a pleasurable diversion of mind, however simple it may be, is wholesome not less to the body than to the mind." A woman passes so much of her time in the house that she needs the harmless [unreadable word] derivel from these slight changes. There is a relief to her mind from the monotony of her daily round. What conscientious woman will say that she has never felt an insane deal to open the window and throw away her dishes after having washed the same cups an dplates three times a day for a few years? We rejoice in the impetus which decorative art has received, and which makes itself felt in the most modest household, if in nothing more than the variety and beauty of diabes. It is suggestive and pleasing to put a [unreadable word] butter-plate and in the shape of a green leaf or a pansy at each place and to put cheese and pickles on the pretty [unreadable word] plates made especially for them, and to adorn the table with the flower-decorated dishes which are dainty enough for a king and cheap enough for almost anybody. It is a [unreadable word] easily verified, that it does not tire one half so much to wash, wipe, and put away a whole China tea-set as it does to treat in the same way half the number of common "everyday dishes." Victor Hugo somewhere says that "mind uplifts body, and is the only bird which sustains its cage." This being true, everything which gives pleasure to a woman in her work helps her. - [N.X. Evening Post. |