ENGLAND is, above all other countries, favourable to individual
industry, and that energy of character which, developed and well
directed, succeeds in the world. Still, failure neither is nor ever has
been rare; and private munificence and public benevolence have provided
“many happy ports and havens” for those whose evening of life is clouded
with storm. We have visited not a few of these sacred places—these
palaces of philanthropy; we have gone about their buildings—their noble
halls glowing with comfort, and their tables beaming with good cheer. We
have for a brief hour enjoyed the quiet of these retreats, and thought
how their decayed brethren, jaded with adversity and buffeted with
misfortune, may find here that consolation and repose which the outside
world has denied them. These may be found in the fellowship of the
dining-hall, the social walk in the garden, and the assembling for
worship in the chapel. All this, however, is but the bright side of this
mode of life; and when the time arrives for the brethren to retire, each
to his solitary chamber, then comes the pang of isolation from the
world—even the ungrateful world! And, perchance, they look from the
casement upon the larger foundation-buildings, and are by them still
more forcibly reminded that this noble place is _not their own_—in
short, that it presents not the joys nor the delights which are conveyed
to the sensitive heart by that brief but touching word—HOME!
It is scarcely possible to overrate the importance of this love of home
in our scheme of earthly happiness. Southey has well observed: “Whatever
strengthens our local attachments is favourable both to individual and
national character. Our home, our birthplace, our native land; think,
for a while, what the virtues are which rise out of the feelings
connected with these words.”
Then, how is man, in the loneliness we have referred to, parted from the
sweet solace he most needs in his hour of woe! Such consolation has been
thus picturesquely bodied forth by one of our happiest writers on
domestic life: “As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage
about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy
plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing
tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs; so it is beautifully ordered
by Providence, that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man
in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with
sudden calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature,
tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken
heart.”[118]
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Footnote 118:
Washington Irving.
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