Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1901 — Framed Moralities. [ARTICLE]

Framed Moralities.

There is an evolution In small things as well a 3 in great ones, and perhaps it is the small things that tell which way the winds of evolution blow. In the days when cardboard air castles hung from chandeliers and decorated snow shovels leaned conspicuously against mart>le mantels It was the fashion to place mottoes worked by feminine hands upon the walls of our homes. These mottoes were usually of a religious character and were in the nature of a prayer to the Deity to “bless our home,” or “feed our lambs.” It is still the custom to hang quotations upon private walls, but now they usually express the possessor’s own theory of life and serve as reminders of his responsibilities. A favorite quotation that is now winning the distinction of wall space is from Robert Louis

Stevenson and runs as follows: “To be honest, to be kind—to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends but these without capitulation—above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself—here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.” Of course, to hang a quotation upon the walls of one’s house is a different thing from hanging it upon the walls of one’s heart,and it is quite possible to stare every day at a hand-painted motto without once making an effort to make it a thing of practice, but that such sentiments should be sufficiently popular as to be deemed worthy of frames and places of honor upon domestic walls is a proof of a prevailing healthy moral tone.