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HOME AND FLOWERS 



THE QUIET REPOSE OF AN OLD PLANTATION HOME 



gamej to be smart, to use tact and be up 

 to date. Are these worthy motives ? Are 

 the seeds of godlike power in them? 

 There is a sensible debasement of tone, a 

 lowering of our ideals, a marked decline 

 in simplicity, purity and culture as com- 

 pared with a few generations back. A lit- 

 erary man and student of history gives 

 it as his conviction that "our immediate 

 generation has been sinking of late to 

 meaner ideals, to coarser ways of life, to 

 more vulgar types of literature and art, 

 to more open craving after wealth, and 

 to a more insolent assertion of pride and 

 force.'^ "Take the decade which closes 

 the century,'^ says Frederick Harrison, 

 ^^can anyone pretend that it equals in 

 power either of the middle decades of 

 the century (1840-1860) in poetry, in lit- 

 erature, in science, in philosoph}-, in re- 

 ligions, and in manners?" 



There needs to be a general awakening 



and revival along certain finer lines of 

 thought and life. There never was a time 

 in the history of our country when we 

 needed so much to encourage a spirit of 

 beauty, culture and refinement. We need 

 to look to a greater dignity of citizenship, 

 a larger and more fruitful culture, to the 

 best that has been thought and said by 

 the wise and great, and lived by the most 

 refined and cultured. Something yet 

 higher in pitch, and larger in scope, and 

 finer in quality and tone, than this ultra- 

 material progress, is needed to express the 

 fulness of the American life, to voice the 

 aspirations and thought of the American 

 mind, and to perpetuate the memory and 

 glory of American history. 



Let us pause in this busy rush to look 

 backward once in a while. Speak to the 

 past and it shall teach thee. 



"Lord, Grod of hosts, be with us yet. 

 Lest we forget, lest we forget." 



' ' To the artistic imagination must be brought all questions of beauty, and from those who as specialists have 

 made the study of all the conditions affecting our lives, must we secure the best answer to the problems oi our 

 times . ' ' — Public Improvements. 



