The Ghosts, and Other LecturesIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Ghosts, and Other Lectures
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
Decorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap engravings. The
cheapest are far better than none. Have books--have papers, and read
them. You have more leisure than the dwellers in cities. Beautify your
grounds with plants and flowers and vines. Have good gardens. Remember
that everything of beauty tends to the elevation of man. Every little
morning-glory whose purple bosom is thrilled with the amorous kisses of
the sun, tends to put a blossom in your heart. Do not judge of the
value of everything by the market reports. Every flower about a house
certifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and
blossoming, tells of love and joy.
Make your houses comfortable. Do not huddle together in a little room
around a red-hot stove, with every window fastened down. Do not live in
this poisoned atmosphere, and then, when one of your children dies; put
a piece in the papers commencing with, "Whereas, it has pleased divine
Providence to remove from our midst--." Have plenty of air, and plenty
of warmth. Comfort is health. Do not imagine anything is unhealthy
simply because it is pleasant. That is an old and foolish idea.
Let your children sleep. Do not drag them from their beds in the
darkness of night. Do not compel them to associate all that is tiresome,
irksome and dreadful with cultivating the soil. In this way you bring
farming into hatred and disrepute. Treat your children with infinite
kindness--treat them as equals. There is no happiness in a home not
filled with love. Where the husband hates his wife--where the wife hates
the husband; where children hate their parents and each other--there is
a hell upon earth.
There is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most
cultivated of men. There is nothing in plowing the fields to make men
cross, cruel and crabbed. To look upon the sunny slopes covered with
daisies does not tend to make men unjust. Whoever labors for the
happiness of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he
works in the dark and dreary shops, or in the perfumed fields. To work
for others is, in reality, the only way in which a man can work for
himself. Selfishness is ignorance. Speculators cannot make unless
somebody loses. In the realm of speculation, every success has at least
one victim. The harvest reaped by the farmer benefits all and injures
none. For him to succeed, it is not necessary that some one should fail.
The same is true of all producers--of all laborers.
I can imagine no condition that carries with it it such a promise of joy
as that of the farmer in the early winter. He has his cellar filled--he
has made every preparation for the days of snow and storm--he
looks forward to three months of ease and rest; to three months of
fireside-content; three months with wife and children; three months of
long, delightful evenings; three months of home; three months of solid
comfort.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account