MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



aside a certain portion of his house for the 

 offices of hospitality. But the easy and f amihar 

 hospitalities of a country village, or of the 

 farmer, do not call for any exceptional state- 

 liness; the farmer invites his best friends to 

 his habitual living room ; let him see to it then 

 that his living room be the sunniest, and most 

 cheerful of his house. So, his friends will 

 come to love it, and he, and his children— to 

 love it and to cherish it, so that it shall be the 

 rallying point of the household affections 

 through all time. No sea so distant, but the 

 memory of a cheery, sunlit home-room, with 

 its pictures on the wall, and its flame upon the 

 hearth, shall haunt the voyager's thought ; and 

 the flame upon the hearth, and the sunlit win- 

 dow, will pave a white path over the inter- 

 vening waters, where tenderest fancies, like 

 angels, shall come and go. No soldier, 

 wounded on these battle-fields of ours, and 

 feeling the mists of death gathering round 

 him, but will call back with a gushing fond- 

 ness such glimpse of a cheery and cherished 

 hearthstone, and feel hope and heart lighted 

 by the vision — bringing to his last hold on 

 earth his most hallowed memories; and so, 

 binding by the tenderest of links, the heartiest 

 of the Old life, to the bloody dawn of the New. 



102 



