Praise Your Wife

Praise your Wife.
Praise your wife, man ; for pity's sake give her a little encouragement; it won't hurt her. She has made your home comfortable, your health bright and shining, your food agreea­ble ; for pity's sake tell her you thank her, if noth­ing more. She don't expect it ; it will make her eyes open wider than they have for these ten years ; but it will do her good for all that, and you too.

There are many women to-day thirsting for the word of praise, the language of encouragement. Through summer s heat and winter s toil they have drudged­ uncomplainingly, and so accustomed have their fathers, brothers and husbands become to their montonous labors, that they look for and upon them so they do the daily rising of the sun and its daily going down. Homely, every day life may be mad beautiful by an appreciation of its very homeliness You know that if the floor is clean, manual labor has been performed to make it so. You know that if you can take from your drawer a clean shirt whenever you 'rant it, somebody's fingers have ached ii the toil of making it so fresh and agreeable, s smooth and lustrous. Every thing that pleases the eye and the sense has been produced by constant work, much through great care, and untiring efforts, bodily and mentally.

It is not that many men do not appreciate these things, and feel a glow of gratitude for the numberless attentions bestowed upon them in sickness and in health, but they are so selfish in that feeling They don't come out with hearty "Why, how pleasant you make things look, wife ; I am obliged to you for taking so much pains." They thank the tailor for giving them "fits ;" they thank the man in the full omnibus who gives them a seat; they thank, the young lady who moves along in the concert room ; in short, they thank everybody and everything out of doors, because it is the custom, and come home, tip their chairs back and their heels up, pull out the newspaper, grumble if wife asks them to take the baby, scold if the fire has'got down ; or, if everything is just right, shut their mouths with a smack of satisfaction, but never say to her "I thank you."

I tell you what, men ; young and old, if you did but show an ordinary civility towards these common articles of house-keeping, your wives ; if you gave the one hundred and sixtieth part of the com­pliments you almost choked them with before the; were married ; if you would stop the badinage about whom you are going to have when number one is dead, (such things wives may laugh at but they sink deep sometimes :) if you would cease to speak o' their faults, however banteringly, before others, fewer women would seek? for other sources of happiness that your cold, so-so-ish affection. Praise your wife, then, for all good qualities she has. and you may rest assured that her deficiencies are fully coun­terbalanced by your own.