The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-05-13
BOOKS AND FLOWERS.
How the Great Plymouth Pulpit Orato
.IEngsd of Refine .nenf.

judged of Refinement.
We form Judgment of men from little
things about their houses. of which the
owner. perhaps. never thinks
In earlier years. when travelling in
the west, where taverns were scarce,
and N some places unknown, and every
settler house was a house OF enter.
talnment, ii was a matter OF some I'M
portance and some experience TO select
wisely where to put up, And we always
looked for flowers.
If there were no trees for shade, no
patch of flowers in the yard, we were
suspicious OF the place. But no matter
bow rude the cabin or rough the sur
roundings, if we saw that the window
held little bouCh of flowers, and that
some vines turned about the strings let
down from the caves, we were conf
dent that there was some taste and
carefulness in the log cabin.
IL new country, where the people
have to tug for living. and no one
will take the trouble 10 rear flowers
unless the love of them is pretty strong,
this taste poisoning out of plain and
uncultured people is itself ciump of
harebells growing out of the seams OF
i rock We were seldom misled A
patch Of flowers came to signify kind
people, clean beds and good bread.
But in other states of society other
signs are more significant Flowers
about rich mans house may signify
that he has good gardener, or that he
has refined neighbors and does what he
sees them do. But men are not accus-
toned to buy books unless they want
them.
II, on visiting the dwelling of = man
OF slender means, we find that he con-
tents himself with cheap carpets and
very plain furniture in order that he
may purchase books, he rises at once
in our esteem. Books are not made for
furniture, but there is nothing else
that so beautifully furnishes a house.
The plainest row of books that cloth or
paper ever covered is more significant
of refinement than the most ella borately
carved etagere or sideboard. Give US a
house furnished with books rather than
furniture. Both if you can, but books
at any rate.
To spend several days in friends
house and hunger for something to
read while you are treading on costly
carpets, and sitting on luxurious chairs,
and sleeping upon down, is as if one
were bribing your body Tor the sake of
cheating your mind.
Is it not pitia bic to see man grow
ing rich, augmenting the comforts of
home and lavishing money on ostenta-
tious upholstery, upon the table. upon
everything but what the soul needs?
We know of many and many a rich
mans house where it would not be safe
to ask for the commonest English classic
and few garish annals on the Ia bic, .
few pictorial monstrosities, together
with the stock religious books of his
persuasion, and that is all; no poets, no
essayists, no historians, no travels or
biographies. no select fiction, no curious
legendary lore. But the wall paper
cost three dollars roll and the car pet
four dollars yard
Books are the windows through VIII ich
the soul looks out A home without
books is like a room without windows
No man has right to bring up his
children without surrounding them
with books, if he has the means to buy
them. 1t is wrong to his family. He
cheats them. Children learn toread by
being in the presence of books. The
love of knowledge in young mind is
almost warrant against the inferior
excitement of passions and vices. Let
US pity those poor rich men who live
barrenly in great bookiess houses. Let
us congratulate the poor that in our
day books are so cheap that man may
every year add one hundred volumes tC
his library for the price which his
and beer cost him. Henry Ward
Reecher.