One's house should be roomy enough for his thought, for his family and guests; honor the ceilings, and geniality the hearthstone. Ample apartments, a charming landscape and surroundings; these have their influence on the dispositions, the tastes, manners of the inmates, and are not to be left out of account. Yet, without nobility to grace them, what were the costly palace, its parlors and parks, luxuries and elegancies, within or without,—the handsome house owing its chief beauty to the occupants, the company, one's virtues and accomplishments draw inside of the mansion; persons being the figures that grace the edifice, else unfurnished, and but a showy pile of ostentation and folly, as desolate within as pretentious without.
"Two things money cannot buy,
Breeding and integrity."
"It happens," says Plutarch, "that neither rich furniture, nor moveables, nor abundance of gold, nor descent from an illustrious family, nor greatness of authority, nor eloquence, and all the charms of speaking, can procure so great a serenity of life, as a mind free from guilt and kept untainted, not only from actions but from purposes that are wicked. By this means the soul will be not only unpolluted, but not disturbed; the fountain will run clear and unsullied, and the streams that flow from it will be just and honest deeds, full of satisfaction, a brisk energy of spirit which makes a man an enthusiast in his joy, and a tenacious memory sweeter than hope, which, as Pindar says, 'with a virgin warmth cherishes old men.' For as shrubs which are cut down with morning dew upon them, do for a long time after retain their fragrance, so the good actions of a wise man perfume his mind and leave a rich scent behind them. So that joy is, as it were, watered with those essences, and owes its flourishing to them."
[GENEALOGIES.]
Monday, 19.
One values his chosen place of residence, whether he be a native or not, less for its natural history and advantages than for its civil and social privileges.
"The hills were reared, the rivers scooped in vain,
If learning's altars vanish from the plain."