The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Standard Household-Effect Company
by William Dean Howells

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Title: The Standard Household-Effect Company
From "Literature and Life"

Author: William Dean Howells

Release Date: October 22, 2004 [EBook #3381]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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LITERATURE AND LIFE--The Standard Household-Effect Company

by William Dean Howells

THE STANDARD HOUSEHOLD-EFFECT COMPANY

My friend came in the other day, before we had left town, and looked
round at the appointments of the room in their summer shrouds, and said,
with a faint sigh, "I see you have had the eternal-womanly with you,
too."

I.

"Isn't the eternal-womanly everywhere? What has happened to you?"
I asked.

"I wish you would come to my house and see. Every rug has been up for a
month, and we have been living on bare floors. Everything that could be
tied up has been tied up, everything that could be sewed up has been
sewed up. Everything that could be moth-balled and put away in chests
has been moth-balled and put away. Everything that could be taken down
has been taken down. Bags with draw-strings at their necks have been
pulled over the chandeliers and tied. The pictures have been hidden in
cheese-cloth, and the mirrors veiled in gauze so that I cannot see my own
miserable face anywhere."

"Come! That's something."

"Yes, it's something. But I have been thinking this matter over very
seriously, and I believe it is going from bad to worse. I have heard
praises of the thorough housekeeping of our grandmothers, but the
housekeeping of their granddaughters is a thousand times more intense."

"Do you really believe that?" I asked. "And if you do, what of it?"

"Simply this, that if we don't put a stop to it, at the gait it's going,
it will put a stop to the eternal-womanly."

"I suppose we should hate that."

"Yes, it would be bad. It would be very bad; and I have been turning the
matter over in my mind, and studying out a remedy."

"The highest type of philosopher turns a thing over in his mind and lets
some one else study out a reme