The Investment of Influence - A Study of Social Sympathy and Service by Newell Dwight Hillis
page 72 of 189 (38%)
page 72 of 189 (38%)
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for the home of to-day. One century offers an arch for the door,
another century offers glass windows, another offers wrought nails and hinges, another plaster that will receive and hold the warm colors, another offers the marble, tapestry, picture and piano, the thousand conveniences for use and beauty. Husbandry also represents patience and the labor of generations. Were it given to the child, tearing open the golden meat of the fruit, to trace the ascent of the tree, he would see the wild apple or bitter orange growing in the edge of the ancient forest. But man, standing by the fruit, grafted it for sweetness, pruned it for the juicy flow, nourished it for taste and color. Could he who picks the peach or pear have this inner vision, he would behold an untold company of husbandmen standing beneath the branches and pointing to their special contributions. The fathers labored, the children entered into the fruitage of the labor in his dream; the poet slept in St. Peter's and saw the shadowy forms of all the architects and builders from the beginning of time standing about him and giving their special contributions to Bramante and Angelo's great temple. Thus many hands have toiled upon man's house, man's art, industry, invention. In the realm of law and liberty the best things ask for patience and waiting. Out of nothing nothing comes. The institution that represents little toil but little time endures. Man's early history is involved in obscurity, largely because his early arts were mushroomic--completed quickly, they quickly perished. The ideas scratched upon the flat leaf or the thin reed represented scant labor and therefore soon were dust. But he who holds in his hand a modern book holds the fruitage of years many and long. For that book we see the workmen ranging far for linen; we see the printer toiling upon his |
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