"Musing sit I on the settle
By the firelight's cheerful blaze,
Listening to the busy kettle
Humming long forgotten lays." [10]
For after all the true pleasures of home are not without, but within; and "the domestic man who loves no music so well as his own kitchen clock and the airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on the hearth, has solaces which others never dream of." [11]
We love the ticking of the clock, and the flicker of the fire, like the sound of the cawing of rooks, not so much for any beauty of their own as for their associations.
It is a great truth that when we retire into ourselves we can call up what memories we please.
"How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection recalls them to view.—
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled wildwood
And every lov'd spot which my infancy knew." [12]
It is not so much the
"Fireside enjoyments,
And all the comforts of the lowly roof," [13]
but rather, according to the higher and better ideal of Keble,
"Sweet is the smile of home; the mutual look,
When hearts are of each other sure;
Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook,
The haunt of all affections pure."
In ancient times, not only among savage races, but even among the Greeks themselves, there seems to have been but little family life. What a contrast was the home life of the Greeks, as it seems to have been, to that, for instance, described by Cowley—a home happy "in books and gardens," and above all, in a