The sight was beautiful and one not to be forgotten.
.......
In the evening I dined with Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll and the members of his family. I noticed something which struck me as novel, but as perfectly charming. Each man was placed at table by the side of his wife, including the host and hostess. This custom in the colonel’s family circle (I was the only guest not belonging to it) is another proof that his theories are put into practice in his house. Dinner and time vanished with rapidity in that house, where everything breathes love and happiness.
CHAPTER XLI.
I Mount the Pulpit, and Preach on the Sabbath, in the State of Wisconsin—The Audience is Large and Appreciative; but I probably Fail to Please One of the Congregation.
Milwaukee, April 21.
To a certain extent I am a believer in climatic influence, and am inclined to think that Sabbath reformers reckon without the British climate when they hope to ever see a Britain full of cheerful Christians. M. Taine, in his “History of English Literature,” ascribes the unlovable morality of Puritanism to the influence of the British climate. “Pleasure being out of question,” he says, “under such a sky, the Briton gave himself up to this forbidding virtuousness.” In other words, being unable to be cheerful, he became moral. This is not altogether true. Many Britons are cheerful who don’t look it, many Britons are not moral who look it.
But how would M. Taine explain the existence of this same puritanic “morality” which can be found under the lovely, clear, bright sky of America? All over New England, and indeed in most parts of America, the same Kill-joy, the same gloomy, frowning Sabbath-keeper is flourishing, doing his utmost to blot the sunshine out of every recurring seventh day.