How Husbands May be Made Happy.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue X, 8 September 1900, Page 465

How Husbands May be Made Happy.

Take a pride in your wife’s clothes. If she is well dressed she reflects credit on you, and the casual passer by may think when he meets you escorting her out some fine Saturday or Sunday that she is your sweetheart. If you have good taste choose her dresses and decide upon the style in which they are to be made up. If you have never studied the subject and do not know red from terracotta you had better leave her clothes severely alone, or insist that she sticks to black and white. Persuade her to wear bonnets; they look much more married. And you do not want her —when you are not there—to be mistaken for one of Diana's damsels. Give her half a dozen pairs of gloves whenever you are in funds or get an extra good dividend. Choose them assorted shades and then her friends will know when she has a new pair on without her telling them. If her "get up” doesn’t suit you don’t wait to mention it until you are well on your way somewhere. Screw up your courage and brave the matter out in the hall. Never mind if she relieves the corporation of a little street sweeping. It may be a dirty habit, but it looks graceful. Do not remark unfeelingly when she complains that she hates going down hill, “That’s because you wear your boots two sizes too small.” Forget all you ever learnt when a boy at the art schools about sandals as the ideal of foot-wear. Abstain from going to your club every night. It isn’t fair to take a woman away from a comfortable home where .she has plenty of society and, having established her in a new “semi-detach-ed,” with damp plaster on the walls, leave her night after night to weep over her fancy work and wish she was single. If you must play whist, why not try a game of double-dummy? Return home on the nights when you make merry with your friends at a respectable hour. Two in the morning .should be the outside limit. To come back with the milk is not duly realising your responsibilities as the head of a household. If you creep upstairs in your stockinged feet in the chill and early dawn do not think to elude Nemesis by putting back the hands of the hall clock to a little past midnight. Your wife is sure to wake, and though tthe prevaricating “grandfather” strikes one, the distant echo of the milkman’s cry will condemn you.

When she is ill in bed and you go to see. her don’t pace the room as if it was a quarter-deck, with thick, heavy boots or ones that, squeak. Resist your natural inclination to a.sk injuredly how long she is going to stop there; and don’t bring her three' pounds of sausages for her tea. When the doctor says she is to be kept quiet don’t play comic opera music on the piano downstairs witji one finger or pralctise your old singing lessons. As soon as she is convalescent hire a pony trap and take her for a drive, but do not precipitate her into a ditch or collide with a watering cart.

Comfort her when she is distressed, even if you cannot quite make out what all the trouble is about. Stroke her hair, jlttt her on the back, tell her to cheer up, and trust to understanding the difficulty by-and-bye. If she wants to cry don’t stop her. Let her get it over. It will do her good. Only don’t remark when she’s coming round, “Now, go and look what a fright you’ve made of yourself.” Sympathise with her when the housemaid gives warning and the cook skedaddles jn the night. Don’t stop at mere expressions; show your sympathy in a practical manner by getting up to light the fires and stoning the steps down before breakfast. Always look on the bright side and assure her that “it’ll all come right in the end.” Never mind if the ornaments are thick with dust or the kitclfen fire smokes. Be a philosopher, and rise above such petty discomforts. Bask in the serene, untroubled atmosphere of contemplation, and think oiit your next article while walking up and down with the teething baby. Make, n chum of your wife; interest her in your work, or your business, or your profession. Take her round the works or show her the office. Describe the routine to her and then she will understand a little of what your life is like.