ART AND DOMESTICITY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 745, 11 June 1886, Page 4

ART AND DOMESTICITY.

A great deal is said in the columns of this paper from time to time about economy in the household ; but there is another kind of economy which is comparatively overlooked, I mean the economy of time, which to a busy housewife is perhaps the most difficult of all to practise. Everyone knows in housekeeping how time seems to fly, and yet, when analysed, there is little or nothing to show for it. Getting up in the morning, going down to breakfast, giving the daily orders, visiting kitchen and larder, writing the checks in the duplicate tradesmen's books, organising and planning the servants* work for the day, giving out stores and linen, examining and posting up the accounts, writing a few necessary notes and letters, perhaps going out on a few unavoidable errands-—thus the morning from breakfast till luncheon, with other items if there are children to be attended to. After luncheon, a brief season of repose, and then out again visiting or shopping, or receiving visitors at home, five o'clock tea, husband s return, dressing for dinner, dinner, a sleepy evening, and bed. Such is the outline of most days in the week in nine cases out or ten in ordinary London life among ladies of ordinary means, and with it all there seems •no time,' as they say, for anything but housekeeping and visiting. Accomplishments must be dispensed with, and beyond the newspapers, no reading can be got in, for sitting down and reading would entail neglect of other things which must be attended to. And so weeks and months pass, and one is always very busy, as it seems, « about nothing ' but house management and social intercourse, and the days of one's youth, which were filled with study, drawing, painting, music, and art generally, seem very far off indeed, and quite beyond recall, in the never ceasing turbulence of present things. m There was a leading article in The Queen some few years ago, entitled ' Accomplishments and Housekeeping,' in which the writer very sensibly and cleverly expatiated upon the superiority of the domestic virtues over accomplishments in married life, and the necessity for technical training in household management rather than for higher education of the mind among the upper classes if homes were to be made happy and healthful. Granted that ' a command over intricate pieces of music will not give the power of managing a house well,' and that «accomplishments will not in any way secure domestic comfort,' there is yet no reason why art should be entirely sacrificed to domesticity. It is too often the case that abilities are allowed to run waste, talents to lie fallow, and all former cultivation of the mind to be as nil in the absorbing attention which is given to domestic affairs. The butcher, the baker, and the greengrocer are far more important to us than the poets; we cannot give our minds to music or painting, or steady reading. It is all housekeeping, and the things thereupon appertaining—very praiseworthy, no doubt, but unsatisfactory to minds which are capable of taking in something more than the continual round of tradespeople, meals, and servants. Surely a little time, if only one hour a day, fenced in religiously from interuptions, and given to the pursuit of any favorite art or study, would be very beneficial to the mind, and would give far more freshness and vigour for other duties, which become so wearisome when spread abroad oyer the whole twelve hours with no cessation. A common interest, like an ambulance class,

or a choral society, or a course of lecture* once or twice a week, is a great boon, as many wearied housewives 6nd, and a delightful .incentive to turn to 'fresh fields and pastures new,' iustead of always grinding on the old groove. I am very far from thinking that any department of the household should be overlooked or neglected, but it would be much to the advantage of the housewife and her servants, to keep her exertions within proper limits, and to reserve to herself some special time in the day for her own pursuits, which should be kept free from the intrusion of things domestic. That this little oasis of mental refreshment may be combined with the most minute attention to household details, I am firmly convinced. In Mrs Henry Reeves' excellent book on ' Cookery and Household Management,' she tells us that she spends almost the whole morning, from ten till half past eleven, in her kitchen superintending the cooking, in order to have things done as they ought to be. Yet Mrs Reeves is a well-known authoress, and a woman of many attainments, whose time is invaluable. In her case it is evident, from the testimony of this book alone, that cultivation of the mind has rather increassd than diminished her aptitude of domesticity. Nothing can be better or more practical than the recipes, and the schemes for economy which she gives, or her advice on domestic management generally. There are, doubtless, many careless housewives in the world; but there are also a tribe of what may be called • household monomaniacs,' who go to the other extreme, and impair their intellects and weaken their memories by too exclusive attention to houses and servants, never looking beyond their own little horizon, and never realizing that all around them there are besides So many worlds, so much to do, So little done. Crusader.