The Neglected Corner in Our Homes

My talk concerns one side of woman's life; it concerns her spiritual and literary being. What does woman among us do to support this spiritual, literary being? And consequently, I may rightly ask: what does woman do for the sake of her general culture — that culture which makes her take an actual part in the spiritual endeavors of the world, so that she lives at the very heart of this deep spiritual world, and not on its margins?

And I may rightly be more explicit, and ask my sister woman: What do you read? What do you read?

I am fully confident that this question of mine may be the hardest question we could put to our ladies in society; and I am confident that if woman among us were confronted, at some hour, with a call to take over the government of the country, she would not stand in such perplexity as she stands before this question.

What do you read? — meaning, what is the measure of your share in coming to know the treasures of the human mind, and the discoveries of thought and spirit in the cause of truth and goodness?

What do you read? — meaning, what do you do to come out of the narrow bounds of your own self, out of your inertia and your petrifaction, into the wide human sphere, where you become a mind, a thought, and a spirit, sharing with thousands of minds and spirits and thoughts?

What do you read? — meaning, what do you do to build up the spiritual side in yourself, and consequently in your family, then in your society, then in the world??

I do not address this question to those women who live among inkwells and books, letters and pens — and how few they are in this country — but I address it to the ladies who have received some measure of education, and then stopped in the middle of the road!

How little we read, and how cheap is what we read. How little we read — and most of our homes are bare of that elegant, radiant corner we call a "library."

A friend of mine, who lives with her husband a life of the mind and spirit, saturated with reading, whose home is adorned by a rich and precious library, told me:

A wealthy lady visited me, accompanied by her little boy,

and no sooner had the house received them than the child began moving from corner to corner, touching the books with great astonishment, and he asked his mother:

— "Why, Mama, do we not have beautiful books like these, when our house surpasses this one in its grandeur and the richness of its furniture?"

And his mother answers him, hushing him and bidding him sit down:

"These people are teachers, my dear, and books are part of their business; but we are merchants, and we have no interest in libraries and books."

Madam, it is not right that there should be this difference in our intellectual life. There are groups who live, as one ought to live, in the atmosphere of the book — and this group is almost confined to the educated middle class.

And there are other groups who do not know a book by sight; and most of them, regrettably, belong to the rich class, which lives a life of luxury and idleness, feeding its body with all the extravagance and excess that matter affords, while starving its spirit and its mind, until it ends up crippled in mind and spirit.

In our homes there is an abundance of furnishings — carpets and curtains, chandeliers and lights... for the eye, in every corner, a garden of beauty and elegance; for the pampered body there is everything in our homes, everything for the body alone — and rarely do we find in our homes that corner which warms the spirit and colors our inner life with knowledge.

How little we read... and the whole budget of our homes is spent in pampering this body —

soft bedding, fine food, ease and pleasure — so that the belly in us is filled, while the mind remains empty and hollow, crying out from its hunger and its thirst...

How poor our homes are, for all their wealth and luxury, when there is not in them so much as the shadow of a book — the book that is the mind's treasure for the whole family!! It is the treasure of the woman, as mother, as wife, and as a useful member of this society; it is the treasure of the father, as a human being who gives his blessing and strives for a principle or a creed; it is the treasure of childhood, growing up in the shade of knowledge and the goods of the spirit.

... And how cheap is what we read. We feed ourselves in our homes on the cheapest of books and magazines in matter and in thought, flung at us from here and there by publishing houses that traffic in the dignity of thought, the honor of the mind, and the sanctity of the spirit — from cheap novels that push man down to the level of the beast, arousing in him the instincts of primitive man, to fashion and cinema sheets that arouse in us, and in our rising generations, cheapness of mind and a love of frivolity. One passing visit to the bookshops of this country can give us a true idea of these publications and these books on which we feed our intellectual life.

There are many goods on this earth other than the goods of the body — other than the goods of houses where the charms of matter and luxury lie heaped, and other than the goods of these elegant clothes that weigh down your shoulders and the family's... There are on this earth, Madam, great spiritual goods, the fruit of the thought of the ages and the civilizations of the nations; they alone satisfy, and beautify, and enlighten. So let them have a small corner in your home, and let this corner have, in your heart, love and longing and yearning.

And in the hour when despair strikes you, or boredom overtakes you, retire to this sweet corner of your home — to the little library — for a few hours in the day; then the world will be revealed to you with all its delights and beauty and goods... and despair and boredom will die within you, and your spiritual poverty will be made rich.

Madam: from now on... begin from now on — along with the drawing room and its furniture, along with the kitchen and its utensils — begin with the library, the neglected corner in our homes!! And the whole family will be enriched with the goods of the spirit.