| Home Making |
Chapter 4 |
Page 11 |
Another essential element of true home life is affectionateness; not love only, but the cultivation of love in the daily life of the family, the expression of love in words and acts. This reminder is not altogether needless. There are homes where the love is deep and true; the members of the family would die for each other; when grief or pain comes to one of them the hearts of all the others give out their warmest expressions of affection. There is no question as to the reality and strength of the attachment that binds the household together. Yet in their ordinary intercourse there is a great lack of those exhibitions of kindly feeling which is the sweetest blossoming of love.
Husband and wife pass weeks without one of these endearing expressions which have such power to warm the heart. Meals are eaten in haste and in dreary silence, as if the company that surrounds the table had nothing in common and had only been brought together by accident. The simplest courtesies that even polite strangers never fail to extend to each other are altogether omitted in the household intercourse. Ill manners that would not be tolerated for a moment in the ordinary associations of society are oftentimes allowed to find their way into this holiest circle.
Page 11
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