Domestic Love by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 16, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 19.

Domestic Love

By Oliver Wendell Holmes

I NEVER saw a garment too fine for a man or a maid; there never was a chair too good for a cobbler or a cooper or a king to sit in; never a house too fine to shelter the human head. These elements about us — the glorious sun, imperial moon — are not too good for the human race. Elegance fits man; but do we not value these tools a little more than they are worth, and sometimes mortgage a house for the mahogany we bring into it?

I would rather eat my dinner off the head of a barrel, or dress after the fashion of John the Baptist in the wilderness, or sit on a block all my life, than consume all on myself before I get a home, and take so much pains with the outside when the inside is as hollow as an empty nut.

Beauty is a great thing; but beauty of garment, house, and furniture are tawdry ornaments compared with domestic love. All the elegance in the world will not make a home; and I would give more for a spoonful of real heart-love than for whole shiploads of furniture and all the gorgeousness all the upholsterers in the world can gather. — Oliver Wendell Holmes.