"I do not fear that women of such sense and energy will listen to the sophistries which would persuade them that elegant imbecility and inefficiency are charms of cultivated womanhood or ingredients in the poetry of life. She alone can keep the poetry and beauty of married life who has this poetry in her soul; who with energy and discretion can throw back and out of sight the sordid and disagreeable details which beset all human living, and can keep in the foreground that which is agreeable; who has enough knowledge of practical household matters to make unskilled and rude hands minister to her cultivated and refined tastes, and constitute her skilled brain the guide of unskilled hands. From such a home, with such a mistress, no sirens will seduce a man, even though the hair grow gray, and the merely physical charms of early days gradually pass away. The enchantment that was about her person alone in the days of courtship seems in the course of years to have interfused and penetrated the _home_ which she has created, and which in every detail is only an expression of her personality. Her thoughts, her plans, her provident care, are everywhere; and the _home_ attracts and holds by a thousand ties the heart which before marriage was held by the woman alone." V. THE TRANSITION. "The fact is, my dear," said my wife, "that you have thrown a stone into a congregation of blackbirds, in writing as you have of our family wars and wants. The response comes from all parts of the country, and the task of looking over and answering your letters becomes increasingly formidable. Everybody has something to say,--something to propose." "Give me a _résumé_," said I. "Well," said my wife, "here are three pages from an elderly gentleman, to the effect that women are not what they used to be,--that daughters are a great care and no help,--that girls have no health and no energy in practical life,--that the expense of maintaining a household is so great that young men are afraid to marry,--and that it costs more now per annum to dress one young woman than it used to cost to carry a whole family of sons through college. In short, the poor old gentleman is in a desperate state of mind, and is firmly of opinion that society is going to ruin by an express train." "Poor old fellow!" said I, "the only comfort I can offer him is what I take myself,--that this sad world will last out our time at least. Now for the next." "The next is more concise and spicy," said my wife. "I will read it. "'_Christopher Crowfield, Esq._, "'SIR,--If you want to know how American women are to be brought back to family work, I can tell you a short method. Pay them as good wages for it as they can make in any other way. I get from seven to nine dollars a week in the shop where I work; if I could make the same in any good family, I should have no objection to doing it. "'Your obedient servant, "'LETITIA.'"