Home Life; What It Is, and What It Needs (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1864. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... Home life John Fothergill Waterhouse Ware In giving the following pages to the public, I am not following my own desire or thought, but yielding to the request, made many times, and by those of various taste, experience, and age. I am glad to do any little good I may, conscious that the little I can do for others never can equal, certainly never can cancel, the good I have received from others. The reader will find here simply the result of observation and experience --not the vaunting of my own attainment, but rather the covert confession of short-coming -- the word of one who knows better than he does. If that word shall, in any way, help any toward the home life I believe to be possible, I shall be humbly glad. Cambridge, 26th October, 1863. HOME LIFE. INTRODUCTORY. I SHOULD be quick to accuse myself of presumption in writing about so great and grave a theme as Home -- a theme which has tasked the wisdom of many--did I offer in any way my home, or myself in it, as a model. Some things seem to have said themselves to me in life, and I feel that I should utter them. For it is more true and more vital than we are apt to make it, that which Emerson says, " We exchanged our experiences and all learned something." If we have deep experiences, why not have high talk about them, even though conduct come lagging lamentably behind ? To stifle these because of the imperfectness of our attainment, is not merely injustice to ourselves, but a wrong to others. Probably no four letters in the English language have so much significance, and call out such deep and varied feeling as the four letters which spell that little word Home Probably no other thing has so much to do with making the man, and shaping his destiny in bo...