Maids Wives and Bachelors by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (best value ebook reader .txt) 📕

of France the maiden family name of the wife is added to the surname of the husband; thus, if a Marie Perrot married Adolphe Lauve, they would after marriage write their names respectively, Adolphe Perrot-Lauve and Marie Perrot-Lauve. The custom serves to distinguish the bachelor from the married man, and is worthy of imitation; for if Vanity unites in the same escutcheon the arms of husband and wife, ought not Affection to blend their names?

Generally the modern "ie," which is appended to all names that will admit of it, renders them senseless and insipid. Where is the improvement in transforming the womanly loveliness of Mary into Mollie? Imagine a Queen Mollie, or Mollie Queen of Scots! There is something like sacrilege in such a transformation. Take Margaret, and mutilate the pearl-like name into Maggie, and its purity like a halo vanishes, and we have a very commonplace idea in its stead. If we must have diminutives, commend us to the old style. Polly, Kitty, Letty, Dolly, were names with some sense and work in them, and which we pronounce like articulate sounds.

There is no greater injustice than the infliction of a whimsical or unworld-like name on helpless infancy; for, as it is aptly said, "How many are there who might have done exceedingly well in the world had not their characters and spirits been totally _Nicodemused_ into nothing!"

It is certainly a grave question if in the matter of Christian names our regard for the dead past should blind our eyes to the future comfort and success of our children. Why have we so many George Washingtons? The name is a great burden for any boy. He will always feel it. Inferiority to his namesake is inevitable. Besides, this promiscuous use of great names degrades them; it is not a pleasant thing to see a George Washington or a Benjamin Franklin in the police news for petty larceny.

For the most part Old Testament names are defective in euphony, and very inharmonious with English family names. The female names are still less musical. Nothing can reconcile us to Naomi Brett, Hephzibah Dickenson, or Dinah Winter. And to prove that the unpleasant effect produced by such combinations does not result from the surnames selected, let us substitute appellations unexceptionable, and the result will be even worse,--Naomi Pelham, Hephzibah Howard, Dinah Neville! A Hebrew Christian name requires, in most cases, a Hebrew surname.

Some parents very wisely refuse for their children all names susceptible of the _nicking_ process, thinking with Dr. Dove that "it is not a good thing to be Tom'd or Bob'd, Jack'd or Jim'd, Sam'd or Ben'd, Will'd or Bill'd, Joe'd or Jerry'd, as you go through the world." Sobriquets are to be equally deprecated. We know a beautiful woman who when a girl was remarkable for a wealth of rippling, curling hair. Some one gave her the name of "Friz," and it still sticks to the dignified matron. Wit, or would-be wit, delights to exercise itself after this fashion, but a child's name is too precious a thing to be ridiculed.

Fanciful names are neither always pretty nor prudent. Parents have need of the gift of prophecy who call their children Grace, Faith, Hope, Fortune, Love, etc. It is possible that their after-life may turn such names into bitter irony.

For the sake of conciliating a rich friend never give a child a disagreeable or barbaric name. It will be a thorn in his side as long as he lives, and after all he may miss the legacy.

A child, too, may have such an assembly of unrhythmical names that he and his friends have to go jolting over them all their lives. Suppose a boy is called Richard Edward Robert. The ear in a moment detects a jumble of sounds of which it can make nothing. If many Christian names are decided upon, string them together on some harmonious principle; names that are mouthfuls of consonants cannot be borne without bad consequences to the owner.

The euphony of our nomenclature would be greatly improved by a judicious adaptation of the Christian name to the surname. When the surname is a monosyllable the Christian name should be long. Nothing can reconcile the ear to such curt names as Mark Fox, Luke Harte, Ann Scott; but Gilbert Fox, Alexander Hart, and Cecilia Scott are far from despicable.

Among the many excellent Christian names, it is astonishing that so few should be in ordinary use. The dictionaries contain lists of about two hundred and fifty male and one hundred and fifty female names, but out of these not more than twenty or thirty for each sex can be called at all common.

Yet our language has many beautiful names, both male and female, worthy of a popularity they have not yet attained. Among the male, for instance,--Alban, Ambrose, Bernard, Clement, Christopher, Gilbert, Godfrey, Harold, Michael, Marmaduke, Oliver, Paul, Ralph, Rupert, Roger, Reginald, Roland, Sylvester, Theobald, Urban, Valentine, Vincent, Gabriel, Tristram, Norman, Percival, Nigel, Lionel, Nicholas, Eustace, Colin, Sebastian, Basil, Martin, Antony, Claude, Justus, Cyril, etc.,--all of which have the attributes of euphony, good etymology, and interesting associations.

And among female names why have we not more girls called by the noble or graceful appellations of Agatha, Alethia, Arabella, Beatrice, Bertha, Cecilia, Evelyn, Ethel, Gertrude, Isabel, Leonora, Florence, Mildred, Millicent, Philippa, Pauline, Hilda, Clarice, Amabel, Irene, Zoe, Muriel, Estelle, Eugenia, Euphemia, Christabel, Theresa, Marcia, Antonia, Claudia, Sibylla, Rosabel, Rosamond, etc.?

There are some curious superstitions regarding the naming of children, which, as a matter of gossip, are worth a passing notice. The peasantry of Sussex believe that if a child receive the name of a dead brother or sister, it also will die at an early age. In some parts of Ireland it is thought that giving the child the name of one of its parents abridges the life of that parent. It is generally thought lucky to have the initials of Christian name and surname the same, and also to have the initials spell some word. In the northwestern parts of Scotland a newly named infant is vibrated gently two or three times over a flame, with the words, "Let the flames consume thee now or never;" and this lustration by fire is common to-day in the Hebrides and Western Isles. There is a wide-spread superstition that a child who does not cry at its baptism will not live; also one which considers it specially unlucky if anything interferes to prevent the baptism at the exact time first appointed. In many parts of Scotland if children of different sexes are at the font, the minister who attempted to baptize the girl before the boy would be interrupted. It is said to be peculiarly unfortunate to the child if a priest that is left-handed christens it. In Cumberland and Westmoreland a child going to be christened carries with it a slice of bread and cheese, and this is given to the first person met. In return the recipient must give the babe three different things, and wish it health and fortune. We have witnessed the last-mentioned custom very frequently, and once in a farm-house at the foot of Saddleback Mountain we saw a very singular method of deciding what the name of the child should be. Six candles of equal length were named, and all lit at the same moment. The babe was called after the candle which burned the longest.

We have mentioned these superstitions as curious proofs that our ignorant ancestors considered the naming of children an important event; and we should feel sorry if they tended to weaken in any measure previous thoughts. For, careless as we may be of the fact, it still remains a fact beyond doubt, that the name of a person is the sound that suggests the idea of him or her,--it is a portrait painted in letters. Therefore we cannot be too careful not to give one that will be a shame or an embarrassment, or which will even condemn the bearer to the commonplace.



The Children's Table

It is to be hoped that the best way of feeding children in order to produce the finest possible physical development will ere long have the amount of attention that is devoted to the improvement of horses, cattle, and sheep. For both men and women have begun to realize that mentally and spiritually we are largely dependent on the co-operation of a healthy body; hence there has arisen a certain school, not inaptly designated "Muscular Christianity."

The physical welfare of a child is the first consideration forced upon the mother. Long before the intellect dawns, long before it knows good from evil, there is important work to do. A healthy, pure dwelling-place is to be begun for the lofty guests of mind and soul. Alas, how little has this been considered! How often have great minds been cramped by sickly, dwarfed bodies! How often have aspiring souls been bound by earthly fetters of irritating pain!

Who shall deliver children from the unwise indulgences, fanciful theories, and inherited mistakes of their parents? This is not the province of religion; a mother may be intensely religious, and at the same time cruelly ignorant in the treatment of the child,--whom yet she loves with all her heart.

When men and women lived simply and naturally Nature in a large measure took care of her own; but in our artificial life we must seek the aid of Science to find our way back to Nature. And if science has been able to teach us how to improve our breed of horses, and bring to a state of physical perfection our cattle and sheep, by simply selecting nutriments, she can also give the seeking mother directions for building up a strong and healthy body for the immortal soul to tarry in and work from. For, humiliating as we may regard it, we cannot battle off this fact of God, that the vital processes in animals and men are substantially the same.

In the dietary of children the two great mistakes are over-feeding and under-feeding; but of the two evils the last is the worst. Repletion is less injurious than inanition; and according to my observation gluttony is the vice of adults rather than of children. If they do exceed, the cause may generally be traced to the fact that they have suffered a long want of the article they revel in. For instance, if at rare intervals candies and sweetmeats are within their reach, they do generally make themselves sick with an over supply of them; but this is but the Nemesis that ever follows unnatural deprivations of any kind.

Nothing is more necessary to a child than sugar. Its love of it is not so much to please its palate as to satisfy an urgent craving of its necessity. Sugar is so important a substance in the chemical changes going on in the body that many other compounds have to be reduced to sugar before they are available as heat-making constituents. In fact the liver is a factory for transforming much of the nutriment we take, in other forms, into sugar.

It may be said, "If sugar is a great heat-maker, so also is fat meat, which most children very much dislike." The one fact proves the other. Fat meat and sugar are both great heat-producers, but the child craves sugar and dislikes fat because its weak organism can deal with the sugar, but cannot manage the fat. Every mother must have noticed that delicate children turn sick at fat meat and usually crave sweets. Poor little things! they want something to make the vital fire burn more rapidly. Sugar in proper proportions is fuel judiciously added; fat is fuel they have not strength to assimilate, and therefore reject. Of course no