Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1905-02-08
By CHARLES WAGNER

claims? This is what people too often
neglect to inquire. They make mis-
take. We treat the Invader as very
poor and simple people do a pompous
visitor. For this incommoding guest
Of a day they pillage their garden,
bully their children and servants and
neglect their work. Such conduct Is
not only wrong; it is impolitic. One
should have the courage to remain
what he is in the face of all corners.
The worldly spirit is full of imperti-
nences. Here is a home which has
formed characters of mark and is form
Ing them yet. The people, the furnish
ings. the customs are all in harmony.
By marriage or through relations of
business or pleasure the worldly spirit
enters. 1t finds everything out of
date, awkward, too simple. lacking the
modern touch. At first it restricts it
self to criticism and light raillery. But
this Is the dangerous moment Look
out for yourself-here Is the enemy!
If you so much as listen to his reason
ings, tomorrow you will sacrifice
piece Of furniture. the next day a good
old tradition, and SO one by one the
family heirlooms dear to the heart
will 20 to the bric-a-brac dealer-and
filial piety with them.
In the midst of your new habits and
IN the changed atmosphere your friends
of other days, your old relatives, will
be expatriated. Your next step will
be to lay them aside in their turn. The
worldly spirit leaves the old out of
consideration. At last. established in
an absolutely transformed setting, even
you will view yourself with amaze
ment. Nothing will be familiar, but
surely it will be correct-at least the
world will be satisfied. All, that Is
where you are mistaken! After hav-
ing made you cast out pure treasure as
SO much junk 1t Will find that your Dor
rowed livery fits you i'll and will hasten
to make you sensible of the ridiculous
ness Of the situation. Much better
have had from the beginning the cour-
age Of your convictions and have de-
Tended your home.
Many young people when they marry
listen to this voice of the world. Their
parents have given them the example
Of a modest life. but the new genera
ton thinks 1t affirms its rights to ex-
lstence and liberty by repudiating ways
In its eyes too patriarchal. SO these
young folks make efforts to set them
selves up lavishly in the latest fashion
and rid themselves of useless property
at dirt cheap prices. Instead of filling
their houses with objects which say,
"Remember!" they garnish them with
quite new furnishings that as yet have
no meaning. Wait. am wrong: these
things are often symbols, as it were, OF
facile and superficial existence. In
their midst one breathes certain
Leady vapor of mundanity. They re-
call the life outside, the turmoil, the
rush. And were one sometimes dis
posed to forget this life they would
call back his wandering thought and
say, Remember" In another sense.
do not forget your appointment at the
club. the play, the races. The home
then becomes a sort Of halfway house
where one comes to rest little be-
tween two prolonged absences. 1t isn't
a good place to stay. AS it has no
soul, it does not speak to yours. Time
to eat and sleep, and then off again!
Otherwise you become as dull as
hermit
We are all acquainted with people
who have a rage for being abroad, who
think the world would no longer go
round II they didn't figure on all sides
of it. To stay at home is penal. There
they cease to be in view. A horror
of home life possesses them to such a
degree that they would rather pay to
be bored outside than be amused gratu-
itously within.
In this way society slowly grayitates
toward life In herds, which must not
be COMPOUNDED with public life. The
life in herds Is somewhat like that Of
swarms of flies in the sun. Nothing so
much resembles the worldly life Of
man as the worldly life of another
man. And this universal banality de-
stroys the very essence of public spir-
It. One need not journey far to dis
cover the ravages made in modern so
ciety by the spirit of worldliness, and
if we have so little foundation, so lit
tie equilibrium, calm good sense and
initiative. one of the chief reasons lies
In the undermining of the home life.
The masses have timed their pace by
that of people of fashion. They, too,
have become worldly. Nothing can be
more SO than to quit ones own hearth
for the life of saloons. The squalor
and misery Of the homes are not enough
to explain the current which carries
each man away from his own. Why
does the peasant desert for the inn the
house that his father and grandfather
found so comfortable? 1t has remain
ed the same There is the same fire in
the same chimney. Whence comes 1t
that it lights only an incomplete circle
when In olden times young and old sat
shoulder to shoulder? Something has
changed in the minds of men. Yielding
to dangerous impulses, they have bro