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dirt, disorder, of a really untidy house--I am supposing an extraordinary case--compared with the irritation caused by a worrying housewife? Furthermore: such a woman is almost sure to break down her own health and become an irritable neurasthenic or hypochondriac, and thus add to the burdens of those she loves. There are women who, instead of following this course, make themselves wretched--and everyone else around them--by the worry of contrasting their lot with that of some one more fortunately situated than they. _She_ has a husband who earns more money than does hers; such an one has a larger allowance and can afford more help--the worry, however, is the same, little matter what form it takes, and worry is the destructive thing. What, then, shall a woman do, who has to face the fact that she cannot gratify her desire to keep her house immaculate, either because she has not the strength to do it, or the money to hire it done. The old proverb will help her: "What can't be cured must be endured." There is wonderful help in the calm, full, direct recognition of unpleasant facts. Look them squarely in the face. Don't dodge them, don't deny them. Know them, understand them, then defy them to destroy your happiness. If you can't dust your house daily, dust it thrice a week, or twice, or once, and determine that you will be happy in spite of the dust. The real comfort of the house need not thereby be impaired, as there is a vast difference between your scrupulous cleanliness and careless untidiness. Things may be in order even though the floor has a little extra dust on, or the furniture has not been dusted for four days. "But," you say, "I am far less disturbed by the over work than I am by the discomfort that comes from the dust." Then all I can say is that you are wrongly balanced, according to my notion of things. Your health should be of far more value to you than your ideas of house tidiness, but you have reversed the importance of the two. Teach yourself the relative value of things. A hundred dollar bill is of greater value than one for five dollars, and the life of your baby more important than the value of the hundred dollar bill. Put first things first, and secondly, and tertiary, and quarternary things in their relative positions. Your health and self-poise should come first, the comfort and happiness of husband and family next, the more or less spotlessness and tidiness of the house afterwards. Then,
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