8 Rustic Adornments. 
In the Home of Taste we find abundant resources of recreation, and many 
an antidote to care and folly. Its best embellishments fill the mind with a 
sense of the exhaustlessness of form and colour in this orderly universe ; there 
are household pets that daily teach us we may rule by love and not by fear • 
there are gatherings of all kinds from the world of art and the world of nature 
that demand attention, and the exercise of skill, every one of which represents 
an idea, and persuades us to reflection ; while every labour they require brings 
its high reward in mental activities and the gratification of ennobling desires. 
But above all there is the ripe domestic life which forms the true centre of 
this circle of adornments, heightened by them in its ever-growing appreciation 
of what is good in man and beautiful in nature, and in both representative of 
the Wisdom, Power, and Goodness of the Almighty. 
“ Domestic happiness, thou only bliss 
Of Paradise, that hast survived the fall! 
***** 
Thou art the nurse of virtue, in thine arms 
She smiles, appearing, as in truth she is, 
Heaven-born, and destined to the skies again. 
Thou art not known where pleasure is adored, 
That reeling goddess, with the zoneless waist 
And wandering eyes, still leaning on the arm 
Of novelty, her fickle, frail support ; 
For thou art meek and constant, hating change, 
And finding in the calm of truth-tied love 
Joys, that her stormy raptures never yield.” 
Cowper. 
