Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1859-04-20
THE DUTY OF OWNING BOOKS.
BY HENRY WARD REECHER.

We form judgments of men from lit
lie things about their house, of which The
owner perhaps never thinks. In earlier
years. when travelling in the West, where
taverns were scarce, and in some places
unknown, and every settlers house was
house of entertainment" il was 6
matter of some importance and some eI
perience to select wisely where you
would put up. And we always looked
for flowers. If there were 10 trees fol
shade, no patch of flowers in the yard,
we were suspicious of the place. But,
no matter how rude the cabin or rough
the surroundings. if we saw that the win
dow lad little trough for flowers, and
that some vines twined about strings let
down from the caves, we were confident
that there was some taste and carefulness
in the log cabin. In new country
where people have to tug for living, no
one will take the trouble'to rear flowers
unless the love of them is pretty strong
and this taste blossoming out of a plain
and uncultivated people is, in itself, Ike
a clump of hare. bells growing out of the
seams of a rock. We were seldom mis-
led. A patch of fowers came to signify
kind people. clean beds and good bread.
But other signs are more significant in
other states of society. Flowers about a
rich mans house might signify only that
he has good gardner, or that he has re
fined neighbors, aud does what lie sees
them do.
Bat men are not accustomed to buy
books unless they want them. If, on Wis
iting the dwelling of man of slender
means, l find the reason why he has
cheap carpets and very plain furniture 10
be that he may purchase books, he rises
at once in my esteem. Books are not
made for furniture, but there is )Ihing
else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
The plainest row of books that cloth or
paper ever covered is more significant of
refnment than the most elegant etagre or
side board.
Give me house furnished with books
rather than furniture! Both, il you can,
but books at any rate To spend several
days in friends house, and hunger for
something to read. while you are tread
ing on costly carpets. AMI sitting upon
luxurious chairs, and sleeping on down,
Is as if one were bribing your body for
the sake of cheating your mind. Is il
not pitiable TO see man growing rich,
and beginning TO augment the comforts
Of home, and lavishing money on osten-
tatious upholstery, upon the table, upon
everything but what the soul needs 4?
We know of many and many a iich
mans house where it would not be safe
to ask fer the commonest English classics.
A few garish ANNALS on the table, a few
pictorial monstrosilies, together with the
stock of religious books of his ''persua-
sion," and that is all No range of po-
els, no essayists, no selection of histori-
ans. no travellers or biographies-no Sc
lect fctions or curious Legendary lore
but then, the walls have paper on which
cost three dollars roll, and the floors
have carpets that cost four dollars yard
Books are the windows through which
the soul looks out. A house without
books is Ike a room without windows
No man has right to bring up his chill
dren without surrounding them with
books. if he has the means to buy them!
Children learn TO read by being in the
presence of books. The love of knowl-
edge comes with reading, and grows up
on it. And the love of knowledge in a
young mind is almost warrant agains:
the Inferior ox ;itement of passions and
vices.
Let us pity those po-r rich n en- who
live barrenless in great bookless housesl
Let US congratulate the poor, that in our
day books are so cheap that man every
year add hundred volumes 10 his libra
ry for the price of what his tobacco and
his beer would cost him. Among the
earliest ambitions to be excited in clerks,
workmen, journeymen, and indeed
among all that are struggling up in Life
from nothing to something, is that ofow
ing, and adding 10 a good library OF
books. A little library, growing larger
every year, is an honorable part of a
young mans history. 1t is a mans du-
ty to have books. A library is not a lux
ury, but one of the necessalies of life.