The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-10-31

ourselves as soon as the dinner dish
es are washed. In the last two years
we have only missed nine times. She
sings song and play bit of
Beethoven or Schuman, and three
times week we read a part of
symphony in duet form by Beetho-
ven, or Schubert, or perhaps some of
the new Grieg music, which we get
from the Luddington public library"
"How stupid of me never to have
thought of the public library" ex-
claimed Beth Hawkins, who was al
ways lamenting her impecuniosity in
not being able to bu7 all the new
music she wanted to read.
But go back to the pictures, Aunt
Dotha," said Martha. I'VE have no
European photographs and I get SO
tired of the pictures on our dining
room walls
"Then look out OF your win iows,
said Aunt Dotha, sat the beautiful
pictures there" For she we'll knew
the fine groups of elm trees which
adorned the grounds of Martha's
home. "Multitudes of people are
beauty blind to the outdoor PICTURES
| doubt if one in a hundred begins
to take in the beauty visible on even
short walk in city or country. Take
clouds, for instance. You remember
Ruskin said the Lord might just as
we'll have made great black cloud
come up once every three days to
give us enough rain, letting us have
the rest of the time a monotonous
sky, instead of the glory of the clouds.
Commit Shelley's poem, The Cloud
to heart, and you will see that there
is not an hour in the twenty four in
which some part of that poem does
not describe the beauty Of the sky.
| Get Knobel's little book on The
Trees and Shrubs of New England
and match the pictures of the leaves
with real ones, until you know every
tree in New England. Do the same
with Mrs. Dana's How to Know the
Wild Flowers and you will find a
new world of beauty on every hand.'
"That reminds me of rhyme /
learned as child" said Rhoda Sar
gent.
"Its a beautiful earth and beautiful sky,
| And to see it G ID gave us he lrt and an eye.'
"Yes," responded Aunt Dotha,
''that's just it. But now word about
my second heading-.he beautiful
poetry Goethe wants us daily to read.
knew theologue once who said he
always had to read little poetry
every day to keep his soul alive, and
| believe, furthermore, in committing
to memory at least verse every day.
Learn Tennyson and Wordsworth,
Matthew Arnold and Emerson, Shell
ley, Keats, Lowell and Whittier"
"But we haven't the time" said
Betty Hazard.
"Hear what Thoreau says" quoted
| Aunt Dotha: GA broad margin of
leisure is as beautiful ia mans life
as in book. Haste makes waste no
less in life than in housekeeping.
What are threescore years and ten
hurriedly and coarsely lived, to mo
ments of divine leisure9' And l
say, take the time to enjoy the
beauty of all around us. Let some
thing else go-the teas, or the last
magazine, or the lecture-and leave
some divine leisure when, with eye
made quiet by the power of harmony
and the deep power of joy, we see in
to the life OF things
II shall skip my third head-mu-
Sic" continued Aunt Dotha, after
little pause. "You need no urging
on that score; but as to the fourth,
bu0 TodoOudUlo WOiQo, olu HOlhS w
add little to that-to speak your
reasonable words in beautiful man
mel. For there is beautiful and an
ugly way in which to say almost
everything, and happiness depends
on which way we take. You can up
set person for the whole day by the
harsh way in which you may call him
in the morning, or you may give him
beautiful start by the cheeriness of
your greeting. And not only in
words, but in all the little, common
courtesies and duties of life, think of
the beautiful way of doing EACH"
AS the seven bicycles sped along
the shady lanes on their twilight re-
turn to Luddington, the world SEEM
ed new one to many of those seven
-Congregationalist.