Mexico weekly ledger., 1881-06-02
ROOMS.
Those That Are Remembered a. Long
as Life Lasts.
ROOMS.

Detroit Free Pressl
Intelligence and courtesy not always are com. |
bined:
Often in a wooden house golden room we find"
1t was the fashion few years ago to
divide a house into distinctive rooms. |
There was q blue room, green room, q
bismarck room and cardinal room, all
the hangings and appurtenances whereof
were in keeping with the dedicatory
name. Since then the fashion has
changed, and Queen Anne rooms, East
lake rooms and rooms of the Renaissance
have been the rage. At present rooms
with corners seem to be most popular,
some kind friends furnishing the corners
with ceramics, bric-a-brac and articles of
vertu, and devoting them to the goddess
ruling the house, all of which are per-
ishable, and leave no memory worth
fostering.
The rooms that are remembered as long
as life lasts, are not frescoed rooms Meth
er are they filled with the contributions
of art. They are rooms vocal with the
melody of dear voices, though these have
long been hushed-rooms where people
have lived and died, rooms with histories
written on the walls, where the homely
furniture has stood SO long that, should
it be removed, its photograph would be
aft ixed to the walls forever-sheltering
rooms, loving rooms, but We can never
forget them. To many soul the world
has been bounded by the dimensions of a
single room-its joys shut in, its sorrows
shut out.
Splendid rooms have no histories. In
dingy room with dust begrimed walls
lay for years the last regalia of Scotland,
the crown with its precious jewels hid
den away in the poorest, plainest room
of Edinburgh Castle. 1t was at last dis
covered by workmen who were busy
making some changes; but long before
that pale young student, tutor to
company of noble volunteers, had dis
covered in walking to and fro, to and
fro, night after night, that there was q
room beneath his which gave back a
ghostly echo to his impatient feet, and
he had searched for the unseen room,
which somehow had grown to have q
personality for him, but little he rcked
of the costly treasure buried there, to be
revealed few years later.
There were rooms in the old inquisi-
| ton days, which contracted and crush
ed in their iron embrace the hapless
prisoner within their walls. Day by day
+ he saw them grow narrower, and watch
ed their ponderous bulk encircle him
closer, until air and light and life were
excluded, and their victim died in hor-
! rnr onI xroS rro,,pJ 20 y,nurdor Tboro
are still contracting chambers, reared by
the inquisitions of self-crushing by slow
degrees all the light and beauty out OF
! life and at last closing upon the sordid
soul.
1t is related of a splendid house in a
great metropolis that among rooms of
{ Oriental magnificence is one upon whose
plain walls hang few cheap prints, a
| rag carpet is upon the floor, some home
ly pieces of furniture and a child's wick
er cradle and wooden rocker are all put
in that room. The sated fine lady of the
house spends her happiest hours, recall.
ing, among the homely surroundings OF
her childhood, the vanished blessings that
are now her sweetest memories.
There is an old farmhouse on the
prairie where one room is kept locked all
the week. On Sunday afternoon gray
haired woman steals softly to the door
unlocks it and spends an hour within
1t is room in strange contrast to tht
rest of the house. Pictures hang there
an open piano, well filled bookcase be
speak taste above the dull routine of tina
household. They all speak of it in hush
ed voices as "Annie's room" Who wa
Annie? The bright, joyous girl VIII
graduated at distant seminary-th'
pride of her old mother and father, tn
idol of those rough boys who hat
planned this golden room" for he
when she should come home from school
ish beauty.
Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,
. A shadow on those features fair and thin.
And softly from that hushed and darkened room
Two angles issued where but one went in"
"Mother's room" is the shrine in man,
a home, the room where some patien
invalid mother sits to receive all tn,
grievances of the family, the doubts tha
beset older heads, the perplexities o
those who have taken her place in tn
household, where the children find al
atmosphere of peace, in which suffering
is made subservient to saintliness.
Oh, the infinite richness of thos
rooms frescoed with finer pictures thai
ever Corregio designed, hallowed b,
wealth that came from within, and no
from without-rooms forever peopled By
the dear invisible ones, who once live,
| and dreamed and suffered in thos
sacred precincts.
There the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door
5 The beloved, the true-hearted,
Come to visit US once more.
; Rooms that are magnetized with Low
: and memory, where walls are Of jaspe
and their doors of pearl. What room
do they inhabit now7 Where above tn
glittering stars is that home "where tn
many mansions be?" Do they yearn t
come back to the earthly rooms they ono
loved? 1t was an ignorant old womal
who, when her poor, neglected daughte
died, listened impatiently to the goo
minister's grand representation Of tn
home she had gone to, and the celestia
. room she now occupied, and at last brok
! in: I'D just be satisfied to know tha
she was comfortable among all them fin
things"
J. Well, we shall all know when "
" have crossed the ante-chamber.
| There a room-a stately room,
| Now bright with sunlight, now wrapped in gloon
Z Bat only when are calm and cold
( VIII that door unelose on its hinges old"
Shrewdness.
n tHarper's Monthyl
s Mr.. Archibald Forbes tells an anus
ing story, rather at his own expense, @
= his qualification at the apparent desir
!, of the "man and brother" for higher in
= tellectual culture. On arriving at th
station at West Chester, Pennsylvania
}, where he was to lecture, darkey hach
man offered his services as conveyance
g to convey him to the hotel. On arrivs
/, Mr.. Forbes asked the extent of pecuni
j, ary remuneration expected for tn
a manenyre. The darkey replied, "Wel
' sab, if you'd jes glib me ticket to d
0 lectur', sab, should be right glad"
This unusual request from a membe
). of that profession struck him not only a
singular and laudable, but as quite CON
:. plimentary to himself,s he said; "Cel
!. tainly; and haven't you got missis?"
"Oh, yes, sab, rs got missis"
y "Well, you shall have one for her;
, and requested his agent to hand to tn
:. knowledge-seeker the requisite card
: On reaching the lecture room he cast
. GLANCE over tho audiauco IN COO h;