The commonwealth. (Scotland Neck, N.C.) 1896-1929, 1898-05-12
lnicated to THE COMMONWEALTH.
ABOUT HOMES.
The BEST LOVE HOMES.
And All Need Them.

And All Need Them.
BY LADY COOK (nee TExNEssRE c. cLAFLlN).
Our subject is trite and well-worn
one, yet it never wearies and never
grows stale. In the hearts of one race,
perhaps above all others, the word
home, among those who have felt its
real meaning, is associated with what
ever is sweetest and purest In life. We
think of home as the seat of all gentle
influences peace, love, happiness, and
unselfsi1 delights. The poets have
never tired of singing its praises, and
one of them has told us in home,y out
pathetic verse, that "Be it ever so hum
BILE, there's no place like home" But
clergymen, medical men, policemen,
and district visitors, could possibly tell
us another tale. Byron wrote:
'Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's
honest bark
Bay deep mouthed welcome as we
draw near home;
It's sweet to know there is an eye
will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when
we come"
This was patrician poets view.
Burns gives the peasants:
ellis wee bit ingle, bllnkin bonnily,
His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie
witie's smile,
The llsping infant prattling on his
knee,
Does a. his weary carking cares
beguile,
An makes him quite forget his
labor and his TOLL
To have ones home broken up, to
lose or to be without home, are each
significant OF the greatest misery that
can happen. These extort the pro-
ioundest pity. When Longfellow writes
of the burning OF Grand Pre-, he says OF
It's people, "Friendless, homeless, hope
less, they wandered from city to city"
When however he pictures the innocent
and happy Evangeline returning from
Church, he says:
"Homeward serenely she walked
with Gods benediction upon her,
When she had passed it seemed like
the ceasing OF exquisite music"
The slave in his dreams thinks of
home, and sees his "dark-eyed queen
among Ler children stand" The exile
from Erin asks:
"Where is my cabin-door last by the
wild wood?
Where is the mother that looked on
my chlldhood?"
The soldier sleeping on the battle
field, flies to the pheasant fields tray
ersed so oft in llfe's morning march,
when his bosom was young"
Our late great Laureate makes the
:boId Sir Bedivere" say to his dying
Prince:
All my Lord Arthur, whittier shall
] go?
Where shall I hide my forehead and
my eyes?
For now [ see the true old times are
dead,
When every morning brought a
noble chance,
And every chance brought out a
noble knight.
But now the whole round table is
dissolved,
Which was an image of the mighty
world;
And I, the last, go forth companion.
less,
And the days darken round me, and
the years,
Among new men, strange faces,
other minds"
A home is the place where those
who love meet together in private COM
munion the place where they can un-
bend - nd be at ease among those who
are dearest to them. Horne Tooke tells
us that the word Is the past participle
of the Anglo-Saxon verb haeman, to
come together. But as we have seen,
we have invested it with thousand
tender associations, which make it the
symbol of domestic felicity.
Yet, in every social sphere we may
find that there are numberless houses
which are only homes in name, all the
elements of unity and harmony being
absent. And when we consider how
sacred and far-reaching in its conse-
ouences is a well-condncted household,
how vast the moral influence 1t eAer
cises from youth to age, we cannot
doubt that the purity and welfare OF
the humblest home is a matter of ma
t1onal importance. Splendid or simple,
each is a powerful unit for good or
evil, a sound or rotten brick In the