The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1889-12-26
THE ENDURING HOME.
According to Cath" Personality Il No,
to he Found In the City.

According to .'Gath," Personality Il Nor
to Ne Found In the City. !.
Its city property which is q perish
able thing, and not property in the
country. Hardly, house. which is
preserved, which has historical or
pious "reminiscences remains in any of
our cities The John Hancock house
Of Boston had to 60 at last; the old
South Church might as we'll be torn
down a. to be what it is, kind of ped
ding bazaar. The Hamilton House in
New York barely escaped sacrifice by
being turned over to a church. But
country houses are generally found
whore they stood When the man of his
tory put them up ~
You never could find Shakespeare
house in London if he ever had owned
one there. The bard of nature returned
to his cattle market town and there &C.
quired and altered one of the best resi-
dences. and to this day 1t stands evil
denoe which, like the old mans tomb,
pulverizes the small beings who would
get days fame by explaining Shakes
peare away. have always noticed
that when went to hunt up the evil
dences of men of celebrity / found them
nearly perfect in the country and hard
ly ever recoverable in the city. If you
want to see where John Jay lived SO
much longer than his contemporaries,
60 to his farm at Bedford, forty miles
above New York City. :
If you seek for Dewitt Clinton's roof
tree, do not ask where it is in New
York, but 60 out to Maspeth, in Long
Island, and there. close to the big cem-
eteries and oil refineries. stands exactly
as It was the statesman's home, where
no doubt he had moro self-respect than
In all his political victories. He died
very young for such man, occupying
the Office OF Governor. which is a seat
81 nett!es. You will find Oliver Perry
birthplace still standing among the
rocks and sand-hills in Rhode Island
Men who only lived in towns left no
more footprints than are to be found
apon the brick pavements Hence the
aver recurring desire not merely to buy
place in the country, but to build one
and see it nodded to ones own images.
Garfield had a house at Mentor, which
will probably stand for two hundred
years, in some Of its parts, even though
fire should consume most of it. He
said that in order to work off the men
tai fatigue of Congress he had to 60
back and pitch hay upon the wagon as
he did when boy. You can locate
Garfield for the next several centuries
by his country homo, but where can
you locate Chester A. Arthur, who al
ways lived in town. and whose house
merits glance on Lexington avenue
New York, being indistinguishable from
thousands of others, having not one
feature that is distinctive or ornamental
about it.
But Mt. Vernon remains all that we
can put our hands on of Washington.
except his old buckskin breeches.
Posterity he had not; the painters like
Stuart sublimAted the man to their
conception of what the public expected;
but when you 60 to Mt Vernon you
have only to fill up chair with living
man somewhat worn out in the general
service, you can smell him, handle
him and criticize him. You can not
say, '1n this closet he kept his whisky;
here he turned and expressed suspi-
cion to the servant that somebody had
been tamporing with the whisky. This
are place he poked up with that old
shovel. Here on the porch he sat OF
evenings and heard the chatter OF
some French or German traveller. who
expected before he went to bed. at the
risk of his eye-sight. to put down
svery thing that Washington gruntcd
and assented to, or if he tilted back his
chair and crossed his egs" Gath in
Cincinnati Enquirer.