The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1921-06-28

elected at the whim of the owner is
not like having home of your own
1t matters not how humble that habi
tation may be there is no place like
home" From the smallest insect to
the wild beast, instinct teaches it to
first construct home to which it can
retire for rest and safety. 1t is the
one small part on earth over which
the occupant has sole ownership. The
ant burrows home in the earth and
the tiger, lion and all other wild
beasts have their lair or cave. But
that den is home.
The first written laws framed
were by English Barons beneath the
wide-spreading shade of a giant oak;
and the first declaration was made
that mans home was his castle, and
that it was ever sacred from invasion
except by consent of the owner. And
with the first settlemen of America
this declaration was imported with
the colonists, and no law. is more
firmly implanted in the minds of our
people today. A plutocrat, with gild-
ed chambers in a palace hotel is an
object of commiseration when COM
pared with an humble working man,
living in a cottage of his own, and
where love and contentment abide.
John Howard Paine, whose brain
and gifted and almost inspired pen
gave "Home, Sweet Home" to the
world, never had home, and his song
was a dirge for that which he him.
self lacked and so ardently longed
for. That song was a piteous wall
of a Mountaineering heart-a wish
that was destined never to be realized,
for he died in Tunis, in Algiers, in an
alien land and among strangers, ut
terly penniless. He had only his pit
iul and uncertain salary as American
consul to subsist upon. Years after
his remains were brought home and a
handsome monument erected to per-
petuate his memory.
Like Robert Burns, who died in
poverty and want, John Howard Paine
"asked for bread and they gave him
stone" But this homeless wanderer,
and whose song has touched and
softened so many hundreds of mil
lions of hearts and touching and in
spring the noblest and holiest in
stincts IN the human mind, has found
at last a "Home, Sweet Home" but
it is not on this earth.
There is little romance connected
with John Howard Paine seldom
found out of fiction. l have talked
with those who knew and loved him,
as will be seen before this sketch
ends.
The author of "Home, Sweet
Home" was of medium stature and re-
markably handsome. He possessed
a most captivating manner, but al
ways had dreamy expression, char
acteristic of certain line of genius,
with thoughts above the average
mind. He devotedly loved beauti-
full and accomplished young girl OF
Athens, Georgia, who belonged to an
arfstocratic and distinguished family,
named Miss Mary Harden, and who
ardently returned the young poets
love and remained true to him to the
hour of her death. But young Paine
had the reputation of ne'er-do-weli'
he was utterly penniless, and the
Harden family firmly vetoed such a
mesalliance for their only daughter
and heiress. In ye olden times chill
dren were more submissive to paren-
tai authority than in these days.
And just here let me state that
many years ago, when 1 published a
paper in Athens, Georgia, l lived next
door to this same Miss Mary Harden,
and my partner, Horace Crawford,
rented and lived in part of her home.
She retained in her service an old mu-
llatto named Rob Roy, body servant
of her father, General Harden. This
old negro waited on John Howard
Paine when he visited his young mis-
tress, and always being of an investl-
eating turn of mind, and never for
getting what l had once heard, | had
a rare opportunity of learning and
preserving in memory unpublished IN
cidents in the life of this world-fam-
Gus character.
At that time Miss Mary Harden was
very old maiden lady, almost de-
crepid, who lived almost the life of
2 recluse. She had outlived all of