Niebuhr, the distinguished traveler, became blind in his old age. But, having traversed many lands, amid the fairest and loveliest scenes of the world, he had stored away in his memory countless pictures of landscapes, mountain scenery, vales of rare beauty and great splendid cities. Then, as he lay upon his bed or repose on his easy chair, his face would often brighten into a rich glow, as if some inner light was shining through. He was pondering once more some splendid scene he had looked upon in the sunny Orient. The chamber walls of his memory were hung all over with pictures which filled his darkened years with joy and beauty. It mattered not to him that the light had gone out, leaving thick gloom all about him. His heart was his world, and there was no darkness there. No putting out of sun or star could obscure the pictures that hung in that sacred house of his soul.
In a far truer sense than many of us are aware do our hearts make our world for us. The things we behold are but the shadows of the things that are in us. If we have bright pictures in our heart, the whole world, wherever we go, will be a picture gallery. Every scene will be a panorama of beauty. The most repulsive objects will wear a tinge of loveliness. On the other hand, a sombre, cheerless heart clothes the whole world in shadow and gloom.
A writer says: “A cold firebrand and a burning lamp started out one day to see what they could find. The firebrand came back and wrote in its journal that the whole world was very dark. It did not find a place wherever it went in which there was light. Everywhere was darkness. The lamp when it came back wrote in its journal: ‘Wherever I went it was light.’ The whole world was light. The lamp carried light with it, and when it went abroad it illuminated everything. The dead firebrand carried no light, and it found none where it went.” Living men and women go through the world, and, returning, write records of observation just as diverse as these. Some find only gloom in the fairest paths and amid the loveliest scenes nothing beautiful. Others find nothing but beauty and brightness even in the deepest vales of earth. Each one finds just what he takes out in himself. The colors he sees are the tints of his own inner life.
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