The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1893-03-23
BOOKS AND FLOWERS.
HOW the Great Plymouth Pulpit Orator
Judged of Rcfinem


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 in some places unknown, and every
settlers house was house of enter
tainment, it was matter of some inn
portance and some experience to select
wisely where to putup. 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
how rude the cabin or rough the sur
roundings, if we saw that the window
held a little bough 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.
In new country, where the people
have to tug for living, and no one
will take the trouble to rear flowers
unless the love of them is pretty strong,
this taste blossoming out of plain and
uncultured people is itself clump OF
harebells growing out of the seams OF
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.
If, 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 house.
The plainest row of books that cloth or
paper ever covered is more significant
of refinement than the most deliberately
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 for the sake of
cheating your mind.
Is it not pitiable 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 rich
mans house where it would not be safe
to ask for the commonest English classic
and few garish annals on the ia Die, a
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 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 to read by
being in the presence of books. The
love of knowledge in a 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 bookless houses, Let
us congratulate the poor that in our
day books are so cheap that man may
every year add one hundred volumes to
his library for the price which his
tobacco and beer cost him. Henry Ward
Beecher.