'THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.'

Evening Star, Issue 16993, 15 March 1919, Page 2

'THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. '

S.omh of our readers will doubtless know that this is the title of a celebrated American poem. It is by Sam Walter Foss. The story of its .writing is perhaps not so familiar. But it is very suggestive. Foss was a great traveller. In one of his trips through England lie came, at the top of a long hill, to a little unpainted house. It seemed to be set almost on the road, so close it was to it. On one side was a quaintly-constructed sigrvpost finger pointing to a well-worn path, and a sign bearing the inscription; "Come in and have a drink." But the drink was different;from that which such an invitation would signify to many. It was just Adam's ale. Following the path, the poet found in the side of the bank some distance from the house a spring of ice-cold water into which a barrel had been sunk, and above which hung an old-fashioned gourd dipper. On a near-by bench was a basket of fragrant apples, with another invitation: "Help yourself." Scenting a story in all this, Foss went back to the house. He found there a childless old couple in straitened circumstances. A little bit of a farm, rocky and infertile, was their only source of livelihood. But.it was rich in this delicious water, and also had been made so in fruit. And from the time of the opening of the first purple plum to the harvesting of the last golden apple a basket of whatever fruit might be in season was placed near, so that every "wearied traveller might rest upon the long hill and refresh himself or herself. The old man explained they were too poor to give money, so took this way to add their mito to the world's well-doing. The beauty and tlie rarity of the thing so impressed the poet that he has immortalised it as indicative of the spirit of the ideal house: There are hermit souls that live withdrawn In the peace of their self-content; There are pioneer souls that blaze their path Where highways never ran—• But let me live by the side of the road Ami be a friend of 'man. . . . ******* With many to so live it is not a matter of choice; it is a matter of" necessity. What multitudes have to live in a house by the side' of the road. Think of the mean streets that crawl their filthy, narrow, sunless ways through the cities of the world—even through this City of our own. The irony of the names is sometimes almost comical. We looked the other day at one designated "avenue." We won't give the name; but the thing—heavens! such a place. It was six feet wide, or, to be liberal, say ten. And here were rows of houses crowded on each other abutting on the street, and with spaces behind dignified by the name of garden where there was scarce room to swing a cat. And this "avenue" led out into a street a little broader, where the sun almost blushed to shine—dismal-looking red brick houses, with prison-like windows, and doors opening out so near to the footpath that they almost seemed to be on it. As we have'said before, it is a scandal and a crime that such places should have been permitted in a new land like this, mid in a City scarcely filty years old. Ko, we don't have far to go to find multitudes who "live in a house by the side of the road," but who do not choose to do it—who are forced to do it, often by circumstances over which they have no control. It is a pitiful state of matters that in a new country such, as this thousands are already wedged together in slums and alleys and "avenues" that are disease warrens for those who inhabit them and a disgrace to the authorities who tolerate the evil. ''

But the. quite peculiar thing is that those people who "live" in houses at the side of the road are often the friendliest an J kindest possible. One" wonders often at the readiness of the poor to help each other. We have seen more real sympathy shown by the people who live by the side of the road to one another than among any other class. They do not buy themselves off by a charitable subscription: they give themselves in service and in sacrifice to one another. If a child is sick or a mother ill, or trouble in the home, they are wonderfully ready to come to their assistance. They have not much to bestow-*-only "a cup of cold water" it may be; but they give themselves, which is at once the best and therefore the rarest of all gifts. No end of stories might be given in proof of what wo are saying; but our point just now is the value of jiving what wo can. The old couple immortalised in Foss's poem had no money; but they had cold water and a little fruit, and they utilised these in the interest of friendship. It is just these seemingly little things, done in a spirit of kindliness, that makes all the difference in "the house by the side of tho road." A recent writer tells that when he was searching for a house in London there was an attractive one, but it was negatived to him by the fact that the other house which formed the semi-de-tached block was the home of a popular dancer. "There was no necessity for him," he says, " to- chance that difficult situation. But if that lady had come to the house next door to him, then it would have been his clear duty to bo neighborly." *##■*##* lie goes on to define the neighborly attitude as in many cases not to be fussy and interfering, " but to keep alert, ready to offer courtesy or ihelp when it is needed and when it will likely be welcomed." Meanwhile I need not thump on the piano when my neighbors are resting, nor burn rubbish in my garden when the wind is blowing their way. I must remember my neighbors may not think my children's voices quite so melodious as I do, and that the freshness of r y eggs may scarcely reconcile my neighbors to my cock crowing, especially as they are aware I can get fresh eggs without it. It is a great and not an imoossiblo achievement to make a whole neighborhood neighborly by mv neighbnrlineas, and a great bit of Christian evidence too. So it is. And to bo the friend of man in general or tho abstract is much easier than to be the friend of the man awl woman who live next door to us. But it is pretty certain we shall not successfully attain the former till wo have become proficient in the latter. The child's prayer had more aens© in it, and comes -closer home than many an adult's—" Lord, make the bad people good and the good people nice"; for, as George Eliot truly says, " there are many good people whose celestial intimacies don't improve their domedic manners." It is surprising what little things gladden folks near to\ us. Somebody said of Spurgeon that he had such a cheerful face that to look at him v/a-s like a fortnight's holiday. Tho followers of St. Francis Asaisi were known as " God's gloemen." They went about in their poverty making other people glad. So that to give happiness and joy does not depend upon money, but upon other things that are quite within the capacity of us all. Here is another story very I similar to that immortalised in Foss's poom. It is taken from the life of that j I .rare genius, Rev. J. 3?. Struthers, of 1

Greenock, whose little halfpenny paper, the ' Morning Watch,' was unique of its kind. One of his biographers tells this incident of him : There was a stone in his garden wall which abutted on the esplanade. For years ho laid on it ijttle bunches of flowers from his garden for the passers-by to take. Daily, andi often several times a day, the supply was renewed. It puzzled some people to know why he did it. A bailie supposed it was a trap to pounce on the people who took them. He little knew Struthers. Others were more discerning. Two tramps who had spent the night under the stars spied the three roses on the stones; each took one, leaving one. Other beautiful things were done daily at that little altar. " The ■ lover took a pansy now and then to give to i his sweetheart. There was a girl who l walked that way in the morning, and as she passed «he took the and kissed them, and aftor her came a lad who always stopped to find the kiss. So the gifts of the kind heart in the manse always multiplied themselves in all sorts of kindness and gladness outside, as gifts of a godly sort always do." And so we come to another point. As there are people who are forced to live in a house by the side of the road, there are many who decline to do it. Tho great , trouble of this world lies right here. It \ lies with people who withdraw themselves ; from the common life and refuse to be tho \ friend of man. There are multitudes who I desire all the joys of existence without I any of its responsibilities; who are conI tent to be an artist, or a poet, or a good j fellow among one's own sort, but who are | quite indifferent as to the conditions and | lives of the masses. The poetic, artistic, i and commercial world is full of men and women of this stamp- In one of his articles Andrew Lang tells us how from the dawn of life he desired to be a bookman. When a mere child he longed to be a dweller in the cloister of a library. Among the poems which ho best remembered out of early boyhood was' Lucy Ashton's song in the ' Bride of Lammermoor ': Look not thou on beauty's charming, Sit thou still when kings are arming ; Taste not when the wine cup glistens, Speak not when the people listens; Stop thine ear against the singer, From the red gold keep thy finger; Vacant heart and hand and eye. Easy live and quiet die. These lines clung to his memory, and about the age of 10 he had chosen them, as a kind of life motto: and thousands more, without ever having heard the lines, make them their ideal. Tlioy build their lives as far away back as they can from the side of tho road, as distant cs possible from the common life of their fellows. They erect high, menacing fences round their gardens and houses. The exclusion thus outwardly signified is but an evidence of the spirit that dwells within. The result of all this is, of course, unhappiness for those who do it; and when it becomes general what wc see in tho world to-day—-dislocation and dismay. Proofs of this can be gathered anywhere. One of the most recent and impressive is given by Mr A. C. Benson in one of his books. He tells us that the book is a- record of an experiment in happiness: It was my design to live alone in joy; not to exclude others, but to adm t them for my pleasure and at my will I thought that by desiring little, by sacrificing quantity of delight for quality, I should gain much. And I will as frankly confess that 1 did not succeed in capturing the tranquillity that I dosired. I fcund many pretty jewels by the way, but the pearl of price lay hidden. Such was the result of an effort to construct and enjoy a life separate from that '. of one's fellows. And it must ever be so. For humanity is not an aggregate of units iiko shot in a shot bag. It is an organic unity. It is a body of which each separ ate individual is a member. Hence the attempt to live in isolation ir, to destroy one's owr. iil'e and to infect with suffering the whole body. And so there is as sound philosophy as there is good poetry in Mi' Fbss's poem. We will do well to lay u.s teaching to heaH if we wish to eeev.re individual and corporate happiness. The teaching is net new, for is not old Homer on record as saying of a certain person: "He was a friend to man. and lived in a house by the side of the road " ? Let us therefore make it our ambition I see from tho house by the side of the road, By the si da of the highway of life, Tho men who prec-s with the ardor of hope. The men who are faint with tho strife; But I turn not away from their smiles nor their tears—- ' Both parts of an infinite plan. Let me live in my house by the side of the road, And be a friend of man. Let me live in my house by the side of the road, K Where the race of men go by; They are good, they are bad, thoy are weak, they are strong, Wise, foolish—so am I. Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat Or hurl the cynic's ban? Let me live in my house by the side oi the road, And be a friend of man.