And _all the comforts_ of the lowly roof," [13]

but rather, according to the higher and better ideal of Keble,

"Sweet is the smile of home; the mutual look,
When hearts are of each other sure;
Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook,
The haunt of all affections pure."

In ancient times, not only among savage races, but even among the Greeks
themselves, there seems to have been but little family life. What a
contrast was the home life of the Greeks, as it seems to have been, to
that, for instance, described by Cowley--a home happy "in books and
gardens," and above all, in a

"Virtuous wife, where thou dost meet
Both pleasures more refined and sweet;
The fairest garden in her looks
And in her mind the wisest books."

No one who has ever loved mother or wife, sister or daughter, can read
without astonishment and pity St. Chrysostom's description of woman as "a
necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic
peril, a deadly fascination, and a painted ill."

In few respects has mankind made a greater advance than in the relations
of men and women. It is terrible to think how women suffer in savage life;
and even among the intellectual Greeks, with rare exceptions, they seem to
have been treated rather as housekeepers or playthings than as the Angels
who make a Heaven of home.