How rich would be the feast of happiness in this beautiful world of
ours, could folly end with youth. But youth is only the first act in
the "Comedy of Errors." It is the pearly gate that opens to the real
paradise of fools.
"It's pleasures are like poppies spread--
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed,
Or like the snowfall on the river--
A moment white then melts forever."
Whether it be the child at its mother's knee or the man of mature years,
whether it be the banker or the beggar, the prince in his palace or the
peasant in his hut, there is in every heart the dream of a happier lot
in life.
I heard the sound of revelry at the gilded club, where a hundred hearts
beat happily. There were flushed cheeks and thick tongues and jests and
anecdotes around the banquet spread. There were songs and poems and
speeches. I saw an orator rise to respond to a toast to "Home, sweet
home," and thus he responded:
"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: John Howard Payne touched millions of
hearts when he sang:
'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
But as for me, gentlemen, give me the pleasures an' the palaces--give me
liberty, or give me death. No less beautifully expressed are the tender
sentiments expressed in the tender verse of Lord Byron:
"'Tis sweet to hear the watchdog's honest bark
Bay deep mouthed welcome as we draw near home;
'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming,
And look brighter when we come."
But as for me, gentlemen, I would rather hear the barkin' of a gatlin'
gun than to hear the watch dog's honest bark this minute. I would rather
look into the mouth of a cannon than to look into the eyes that are now
waitin' to mark my comin' at this delightful hour of three o'clock in
the morning."
Then he launched out on the ocean of thought like a magnificent ship
going to sea. And when the night was far spent, and the orgies were
over, and the lights were blown out at the club, I saw him enter his own
sweet home in his glory--entered it, like a thief, with his boots in his
hands,--entered it singing softly to himself:
"I'm called little gutter pup, sweet little gutter pup,
Though I could never tell why--(hic),
Yet still I'm called gutter pup, sweet little gutter pup,
Poor little gutter pup--I--(hic)."
He was unconscious of the presence of the white figure that stood at
the head of the stairs holding up a lamp, like liberty enlightening
the world, and as a tremulous voice called him to the judgment bar, the
door closed behind him on the paradise of a fool, and he sneaked up the
steps, muttering to himself, "What shadows we are--(hic)--what shadows
we pursue." Then I saw him again in the morning, reaping temptation's
bitter reward in the agonies of his drunk-sick; and like Mark Twain's
boat in a storm,
"He heaved and sot, and sot and heaved,
And high his rudder flung,
And every time he heaved and sot,
A mighty leak he sprung."
If I were a woman with a husband like "that," I would fill him so full
of Keely's chloride of gold that he would jingle as he walks and tinkle
as he talks and have a fit at every mention of the silver bill.
The biggest fool that walks on God's footstool is the man who destroys
the joy and peace of his own sweet home; for, if paradise is ever
regained in this world, it must be in the home. If its dead flowers
ever bloom again, they must bloom in the happy hearts of home. If its
sunshine ever breaks through the clouds, it must break forth in the
smiling faces of home. If heaven ever descends to earth and angels tread
its soil, it must be in the sacred precincts of home. That which heaven
most approves is the pure and virtuous home. For around it linger all
the sweetest memories and dearest associations of mankind; upon it hang
the hopes and happiness of the nations of the earth, and above it shines
the ever blessed star that lights the way back to the paradise that was
lost.
[Illustration: RETURNING FROM THE CLUB.]