Ideal Housekeeping.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 449, 26 February 1890, Page 3

Ideal Housekeeping.

Upon this subject a contributor to an American contemporary writes : “In the house of the ideal housekeeper everything is in order all the time. No dust is visible anywhere, no finger marks are to be seeii, the windows are always clear as crystal,, nothing is out of place, savoury meals are served at stated hours, and all the table appointments are simply perfect ; washing, ironing, scrubbing and mending are regularly and pronip'.ly done. The ideal housekeeper, in addition to keeping her house in immaculate order from Sunday to Sunday and from May to May, in addition to spring cleaning and spring sewing to fall, cleaning and tad sewing, to putting up fruit, tending plants, and rearing children, finds time for eading, j ainting, music, the study of the anguages and for society, without neglecting° the nurture of her own family. “This is a beautiful picture, is it not ? and many a woman in trying to realize it in her own case has laid herself in a premature grave, or made life a burden, release from which was gladly welcomed. Ihe housemother is more than the house, and she owes it to herself and to her household so to adjust her work that care of herself and her household may be appropriately divided and applied. It is possible to pay too much for even gold, and it is possible to pay too high a price for immaculate housekeeping. The more we simplify our mode of living the easier does it become to live. There are those who prefer cobwebs in their houses to cobwebs in their minds, who prefer to polish their faculties rather than their silver, who choose embroidery for their intellect rather than for their garments, who enjoy elegant style in diction rather than in equipage. Those who have made their choice deliberately must nob allow themselves to regret the absence of what they have not chosen.”