stormy with fearful disappointments, boisterous with seasons of success,
and desolate with the drift, the slime, and the fungus of miserly greed!
Says Dickens: "If ever household affections and loves are graceful
things, they are graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy
and proud to Home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor
man to his humble hearth are of the true metal, and bear the stamp of
heaven."
"If men knew what felicity dwells in the cottage of a godly man," writes
Jeremy Taylor, "how sound he sleeps, how quiet his rest, how composed
his mind, how free from care, how easy his position, how moist his
mouth, how joyful his heart, they would never admire the noises, the
diseases, the throngs of passions, and the violence of unnatural
appetites that fill the house of the luxurious and the heart of the
ambitious."
It has happened within a hundred years that men of private station have
become Kings. One of the severest trials of their exalted lot has been
the disaster which came upon their homes.