country have been and still are those who cling with the strongest
affection to the scenes and memories of their childhood. The good
old patriarchal or domestic sentiment can afford to be sneered at, for
its power is confessed by all of us at last. The prodigal son may
take his portion of the common stock and turn it into money, which
he finds to be very hard cash indeed when he has squandered it in
dissipation, but when he comes to himself, and his better nature and
real manhood assert themselves, he feels that the best thing he can
do is to go home. Too often, however, regret is felt too late, or it is
too late to reinstate himself He enters the old village with sad mis-
givings, and when he looks at the old home he finds it changed, and
instinct tells him that other hearts than those he loved inhabit it, and
that other hands than those that once caressed him have changed ivs
style and aspect. He asks, like Joseph, if the old man is yet alive,
and soon learns that all there is remaining of his home is beneath
the mounds in the village churchyard. Fiction has never exceeded
in description the real despair and solitude of the homeless man.
We can remember such a case, which is but typical of many
thousands of others. A young lad who had been gently born and
nurtured contracted the youthful fever of love of adventure and dis-
lil:e of regular living. Like ambition the adventurous spirit is not to
be condemned, for without it where would have been the discoverers
and heroes of the world? But with many lads it is a mere mock
hf.Toism, and only shame prevents them from turning back, and con-
fessing as much, before they have got fairly out of sight of the curl-
ing smoke of the home chimney. For once that the voice of one's
good angel whispers
" Turn again, Whittington,
Lord Mayor of London !"
obedience to which leads on to fortune, there are a thousand cases
where the voice says, " Turn again," in another sense, and bids us re-
trace our footsteps and go home again. The wilful, generous-hearted
lad we have in memory was touched with the contagion of adven-
ture, and, in spite of all advice and kinden treaty, would go to sea.
HOMES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 2g
But of the sea he tired after one outbound voyage, and then ran off
" to the diggings " in Austraha. Next he was a sheep farmer, but
he lost all that he made. Sadder and wiser he worked his way
home again before the mast. But what did he find ? His father and
mother both dead, murmuring the wanderer's name with their last
breath, and the old homestead pulled down to make way for a rail-
road. The bronzed and weather-beaten man, not yet much past
thirty, visited his parents' graves, and no doubt shed tears as he re-
called their looks and voices and all their goodness to him in his
early years. From the churchyard he strolled a mile to the gram-
mar school where he had learned his mother tongue on paper and
the elements of Latin and mathematics. The old porch and the dor-
mitories and the long school-room and the playground were all there ;
but all the living associations were gone. The old Head Master was
dead ; his assistant teachers were all gone and scattered none knew
where. He might have sighed with gentle Charles Lamb :
Page 12
Presented as published in 1883. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
country have been and still are those who cling with the strongest affection to the scenes and memories of their childhood. The good old patriarchal or domestic sentiment can afford to be sneered at, for its power is confessed by all of us at last. The prodigal son may take his portion of the common stock and turn it into money, which he finds to be very hard cash indeed when he has squandered it in dissipation, but when he comes to himself, and his better nature and real manhood assert themselves, he feels that the best thing he can do is to go home. Too often, however, regret is felt too late, or it is too late to reinstate himself He enters the old village with sad misgivings, and when he looks at the old home he finds it changed, and instinct tells him that other hearts than those he loved inhabit it, and that other hands than those that once caressed him have changed its style and aspect. He asks, like Joseph, if the old man is yet alive, and soon learns that all there is remaining of his home is beneath the mounds in the village churchyard. Fiction has never exceeded in description the real despair and solitude of the homeless man.
We can remember such a case, which is but typical of many thousands of others. A young lad who had been gently born and nurtured contracted the youthful fever of love of adventure and dislike of regular living. Like ambition the adventurous spirit is not to be condemned, for without it where would have been the discoverers and heroes of the world? But with many lads it is a mere mock heroism, and only shame prevents them from turning back, and confessing as much, before they have got fairly out of sight of the curling smoke of the home chimney. For once that the voice of one's good angel whispers
" Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London !"
obedience to which leads on to fortune, there are a thousand cases where the voice says, " Turn again," in another sense, and bids us retrace our footsteps and go home again. The wilful, generous-hearted lad we have in memory was touched with the contagion of adventure, and, in spite of all advice and kinden treaty, would go to sea.
HOMES, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 2g
But of the sea he tired after one outbound voyage, and then ran off " to the diggings " in Austraha. Next he was a sheep farmer, but he lost all that he made. Sadder and wiser he worked his way home again before the mast. But what did he find ? His father and mother both dead, murmuring the wanderer's name with their last breath, and the old homestead pulled down to make way for a railroad. The bronzed and weather-beaten man, not yet much past thirty, visited his parents' graves, and no doubt shed tears as he recalled their looks and voices and all their goodness to him in his early years. From the churchyard he strolled a mile to the grammar school where he had learned his mother tongue on paper and the elements of Latin and mathematics. The old porch and the dormitories and the long school-room and the playground were all there ; but all the living associations were gone. The old Head Master was dead ; his assistant teachers were all gone and scattered none knew where. He might have sighed with gentle Charles Lamb :