The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1875-01-14
CoIor-What It Does for Us.


There is a great lack in many of our
lives-a want which we feel more than
see and which we can rarely express
Sometimes it is the result of circumstance,
sometimes of habit and tradition, some
times of honest, rugged, downright prin-
ciple. Whatever the cause the results
are nearly the same-life becomes dull or
hard and always monotonous to US. We
may sigh for change, or we may look
upon it as the inevitable result of mortal
conditions, aud make up. our minds to
endure it to the end; but in any case it
is endurance only, it is not enj joyment.
l remember, some ten or twelve years
ago, a cold, leaden atmosphere which ex-
tended over at least two of the spring
months. During the whole of that time
the snow lay upon the ground, the sky
was thick and gray, the atmosphere dead
apparently, for no motion or lifting of
that dull, dense pail gave sign of life.
The weary and long-continued monot-
ony was terrific strain upon the nerves
A little more and it seemed as if it would
drive the whole world mad. But one
morning the sky broke, the sun shone
through, some spears of tender grass
lifted their heads, a small violet peeped
Eeut and the earth became at once an
other dwelling place; it sparkled in
green and purple and gold.
1t is tns awful rigidness and neutrality
which settles down upon so many OF oar
| lives which kills or reduces US to apa-,
thy, and for which people are not unfre-
quently take medicine, drugs, when what
| they want is life, color-color to break
/ in on the dreadful coldness and torpor1
which are living death.
American men and women, especially
the New England type, have tendency
| to neutral tints, which expresses itself In
| all their beings and doings and belong
| ings. Probably it was caught from tsnelr
| Puritan ancestors, and has been rendered
still more marked as a CHARACTERISTIC by
! the soil and atmosphere in which Fhey
! live
1t is none the less true, however, THAT
many beautiful natures have been crush
ed by it; that it has been made areligfon,
a sort of gray, wooden god which EVERY
| ono must bow down and worship. w What-
ever was not in accordance with it'll was
! frivolous, irreligious, or in bad t&ste.
| Warmth and beauty and brightness Were
despised as so many temptations to
e4feminacy and coldness, hardness, rigid
rules, severity, and discipline guilty ated
plain houses, plain dress, plain turni-
ture, plain living fixed and rigorous
habits of body and mind; all well in their
way, but petryfying rather than tepding
!
Fortunately counteracting Influences
came with the influx of many nati{5nali-
| ties or the results would have been; still
more serious. A new country offers few
enough opportunities for the cultivation
of the sweetness, the graces, and the
amenities of life. 1t is bare enoughi of
| all that which makes life lovely and en-
! ioyable to render it worth while to put
in sunshine and bits of color here and
| there, even at the sacrifice OF somethihg g
which may seem essential
Yet there are few country homes In
this favored land which lack necessities; /;
! few even which lack comforts; but there
are thousands from which joy and glad
ness have been banished from the ab-l
sence of human interest and the presence
of cold, dead neutrality which is
more difficult to break up than it is to
pierce stone walls or theicy barriers which
4 leap up before the onward march of
northern civilization.
What do you want of it? What is the
good of it? And if it is not absolutely
needed, imperatively demanded for shel-
ter, food, or raiment, the wish is thwarted,
the desire crushed out, or dies for lack of
sympathy and encouragement,
We have all of us seen homes where
food was abundant clothing sufficient
and warm, all the physical necessities
. PROVIDED 1OG, OuG WQ6f6 Iu6 nodfIS ana
minds of the inmates were starved. You
shiver involuntary as you pass such
house Outside there is a rectangular
squareness and stiffness-no trailing
vines, no hanging baskets, no pretty
Venetian blinds to shade off the glare Of
the summer sun and, aided by little
Watteau coloring give the pretty effects
of light and shade which assist so much
to make up for the absence of costly fur
niture and surroundings.
Instead of this there are rush-bottomed
chairs and black hair-cloth chairs, and
table and a sofa, all set at the right angles
or triangles and at the proper distances,
but no draperled shelves or brackets, no
rustic vases trailing ivy over the walls
and windows, no red-cushioned chairs or
chintz window curtains, no bright carpet
covered ottomans, crimson draped
table filled with papers and magazines,
suggesting taste refinement, and knowl-
edge of how to put leisure to use.
What is the good? Why, man alive,
don't you remember your wife when she
was the belle of the neighborhood, and
the lightest hearted girl in the whole
country round ? Look at her now-gray,
lanl1 dull, Grabbed. Who would recog-
nize her2 Then your children; what
! comfort do you take with them2 All