Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1895 — “Tools.” [ARTICLE]

“Tools.”

“I never saw a garment too fine for a man or maid,” writes Oliver Wendell Holmes; “there never was a chair too good for a cobbler or a cooper or a king to sit in—never a house too fine to shelter the human head. These elements about us —the glorious sun, the Imperial moon—are not too good for the human race. Elegance fits man; but we do not value these tools a little more than they are worth, and sometimes mortgage a house for the mahogany we bring into it. I would rather eat my dinner off the head of a barrel, or dress after the fashion of John the Baptist in the wilderness, or sit on a block all my life, than consume all on myself before I get a home, and take so much pains with the outside when the inside was as hollow as an empty nut. Beauty is a great thing; but beauty of garment, house and furniture are tawdry ornaments compared with domestic love. All the elegance in the world will not make a home; and I would give more for a teaspoonful of real heart-love than for whole ship-loads of furniture and all the gorgeousness all the upholsterers in the world can gather.”