“Each man’s chimney is his golden milestone,
Is the central point which he measures
Every distance
Through the gateways of the world around him;
In his farthest wanderings still he sees it,
Hears the talking flame, the answering night wind,
As he heard them
When he sat with those who were, but are not.”
This is not an essay on household taste or on the art principles which relate to the adornment of homes, but there is an ethical side to this subject on which I have a suggestion or two to offer.
It is trite to say that every home influence works itself into the heart of childhood, and then works itself out again in the subsequent development of the character. None of us know how much our homes have to do with our lives. When one’s childhood home has been true and tender its memories can never be effaced. Its voices of love and prayer and song come back like angel’s whispers, like melodies from some far away island in the sea, when the lips that first breathed them have long been silent in the grave. NO one can ever get away from the influence of his early home. Good or bad, it clings through life. Homes are the real schools and universities in which men and women are trained, and fathers and mothers are the real teachers and makers of life. The poet’s song is but the sweetness of a mother’s love flowing out in rhythmic measure through her child’s life. The lovely things men build in their days of strength are but the reproductions of the lovely thoughts that were whispered in their hearts in the days of tender youth. The artist’s picture is but a touch of a mother’s beauty wrought out on the canvas. A grand manhood or womanhood is only the home teachings and prayers woven into life and form.
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