



Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.









HOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS.


BY

T. S. ARTHUR,



AUTHOR OF "LIFE PICTURES," "OLD MAN'S BRIDE," AND "SPARING TO SPEND."




NEW YORK:

1853.




CONTENTS.


  RIGHTS AND WRONGS
  THE HUMBLED PHARISEE
  ROMANCE AND REALITY
  BOTH TO BLAME
  IT'S NONE OF MY BUSINESS
  THE MOTHER'S PROMISE
  THE TWO HUSBANDS
  VISITING AS NEIGHBORS
  NOT AT HOME
  THE FATAL ERROR
  FOLLOWING THE FASHIONS
  A DOLLAR ON THE CONSCIENCE
  AUNT MARY'S SUGGESTION
  HELPING THE POOR
  COMMON PEOPLE
  MAKING A SENSATION
  SOMETHING FOR A COLD
  THE PORTRAIT
  VERY POOR




PREFACE.


HOME! How at the word, a crowd of pleasant thoughts awaken. What
sun-bright images are pictured to the imagination. Yet, there is no
home without its shadows as well as sunshine. Love makes the
home-lights and selfishness the shadows. Ah! how dark the shadow at
times--how faint and fleeting the sunshine. How often selfishness
towers up to a giant height, barring out from our dwellings every
golden ray. There are few of us, who do not, at times, darken with
our presence the homes that should grow bright at our coming. It is
sad to acknowledge this; yet, in the very acknowledgement is a
promise of better things, for, it is rarely that we confess, without
a resolution to overcome the evil that mars our own and others'
happiness. Need we say, that the book now presented to the reader is
designed to aid in the work of overcoming what is evil and selfish,
that home-lights may dispel home-shadows, and keep them forever from
our dwellings.




RIGHTS AND WRONGS.


IT is a little singular--yet certainly true--that people who are
very tenacious of their own rights, and prompt in maintaining them,
usually have rather vague notions touching the rights of others.
Like the too eager merchant, in securing their own, they are very
apt to get a little more than belongs to them.

Mrs. Barbara Uhler presented a notable instance of this. We cannot
exactly class her with the "strong-minded" women of the day. But she
had quite a leaning in that direction; and if not very strong-minded
herself, was so unfortunate as to number among her intimate friends
two or three ladies who had a fair title to the distinction.

Mrs. Barbara Uhler was a wife and a mother. She was also a woman;
and her consciousness of this last named fact was never indistinct,
nor ever unmingled with a belligerent appreciation of the rights
appertaining to her sex and position.

As for Mr. Herman Uhler, he was looked upon, abroad, as a mild,
reasonable, good sort of a man. At home, however, he was held in a
very different estimation. The "wife of his bosom" regarded him as
an exacting domestic tyrant; and, in opposing his will, she only
fell back, as she conceived, upon the first and most sacred law of
her nature. As to "obeying" him, she had scouted that idea from the
beginning. The words, "honor and obey," in the marriage service, she
had always declared, would have to be omitted when she stood at the
altar. But as she had, in her maidenhood, a very strong liking for
the handsome young Mr. Uhler, and, as she could not obtain so
material a change in the church ritual, as the one needed to meet
her case, she wisely made a virtue of necessity, and went to the
altar with her lover. The difficulty was reconciled to her own
conscience by a mental reservation.

It is worthy of remark that above all other of the obligations here
solemnly entered into, this one, _not_ to honor and obey her
husband, ever after remained prominent in the mind of Mrs. Barbara
Uhler. And it was no fruitless sentiment, as Mr. Herman Uhler could
feelingly testify.

From the beginning it was clearly apparent to Mrs. Uhler that her
husband expected too much from her; that he regarded her as a kind
of upper servant in his household, and that he considered himself as
having a right to complain if things were not orderly and
comfortable. At first, she met his looks or words of displeasure,
when his meals, for instance, were late, or so badly cooked as to be
unhealthy and unpalatable, with--

"I'm sorry, dear; but I can't help it."

"Are you sure you can't help it, Barbara?" Mr. Uhler