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As for my friend Bill, from being the pleasantest and most genial of fellows, he became a morose, misanthropic man. Dr. Franklin has a significant proverb,—“Silks and satins put out the kitchen-fire.” Silks and satins—meaning by them the luxuries of housekeeping—often put out not only the parlor-fire, but that more sacred flame, the fire of domestic love. It is the greatest possible misery to a man and to his children to be homeless; and many a man has a splendid house, but no home.
“Papa,” said Jenny, “you ought to write and tell what are your ideas of keeping a home.”
“Girls, you have only to think how your mother has brought you up.”
Nevertheless, I think, being so fortunate a husband, I might reduce my wife’s system to an analysis, and my next paper shall be,—
What is a Home, and how to keep it.
III.
WHAT IS A HOME?
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IT is among the sibylline secrets which lie mysteriously between you and me, O reader, that these papers, besides their public aspect, have a private one proper to the bosom of mine own particular family.