Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1898-06-16
The War and the Home.

Times like these may change the indi-
Hiduai as much as they change the ma
ton. The map of the soul like the map
of the world. undergoes alteration of ter
ritory. In hundreds of joyous lives there
are smitten sudden waste spaces like the
watering places of our coast. turned from
gay resorts to avoided and garrisoned
villages, IN scores of anxious Temporal
ments the duty of making the best of a
bad matter, often kept too much in the
baeksround. comes strongly to the front.
Cheerfulness, becomes a military order
Hopetulness calls through his clear bugle
and bids the soul attend. All the SOL
dlerY quantities come out in the most I'M
martial nature. To look for the happier
possibilities, to choose the pleasant sub
Jects, to see the less strenuous aspects of
common life, is now the obvious neces-
sity. Find the amusing side of the seri-
Gus situation. Preserve the light touch
Cultivate the undeveloped gratitude
Levy the unmarshaled forces of courage
all that raw material in the nature which
easier years have not put under drill
When the mother of a boy on a battle
ship FALSELY reported gone to the bottom
with all on board dropped senseless at a
theater, it began to occur to the public
that war bulletins in the Hobbies and war
traSedleS on the stage must be stopped ::
Tor too large a proportion of any audi
ence. seeking relief from distress too
sharp 10 be borne. goes to the play to
forget, not TO remember. When Louisa
Alcotts Hospital Sketches appeared
I'm ~ S'stiS 'tSO- II - Stltl remembered
how grateful was the sense of humor in
book which never could have been writ
ten except by a woman so sensitive to
The tragic that she had given herself to
the HE OF an army nurse at the front
Keeping good pace with the cultivation
OF the cheerful in this red summer comes
the cultivation of the gentle. There was
something more than smile in the comic
grooming over the astounded husband
with the sobbing pledge: IF you won't
go to the war, IN never scold again.
Below the joke lay the pulse of newly
awakened tenderness which is throbbing
all over our disturbed land. War with
out and war within make the unendur-
able combination. Homes are growing
kinder. and hearts more warm. Patience
and good humor are fair flowers, long
oVersrown with those weeds of incessant
care and harassing economy, and over
strained nerves, which are synonymous
with the word home in the minds of too
many Americans. The considerable vir-
tues are thrusting fresh shoots into the
troubled air. young husband, once at
the first turning of the tide which marks
the ehb and flow of daily love. having
the next train back to the wife he left
behind him. He said: ''Al at once
thought, What if should lose her?'''
Hundreds Of wives today. dsillusioned
Of hope and of romance grown blunt to
the manly gifts or graces that won them
and ready to abandon the battle to pre-
serve happiness awaiting every soul that
has ever gained it-thousands of women
awake every morning with the unuttered
cry trembling on their lips: What if
should lose him?" Home has taken on
new preciousness. Tenderness unfolds
fresh petals. The little fret of common
life skulks away before larger thoughts
and larger feelings. Love comes to his
own and to his throne again for he is
king eternal, and beside him there is no
other.
All our courage all our sweetness, all
our thOushtfulneSs are in demand. be-
cause, make the best or the least we may
OF it, in the present emergency the strain
of sympathy on any sensitive heart is
something immeasurable by the obtuser
one. Nothing and no one is exempt from
share in the general danger. The hum
mng-birds are delicately tasting the
crimson cups of the columbine, and the
coral Of the apple-buds has turned to
warm. scented snow. and wasted on the
ripening clover. But, from the Rangeleys
to the Golden Gate wives and mothers
and pliGhted girls sit trembling in this
blossom weather. The bullet and the
shell have no mercy for the sick for the
solitary, for the poor. for the aged for
those whose whole being ccnters itself on
one bright young life. on one overmas-
tering loVc-I1lizabcth Stuart Phelps in
The lndC pendent.