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STORIES OF
SOUTHLAND
LARRY GANTT’S WEEKLY LETTER
A ROMANCE IN THE LIFE OF JOHN
HOWARD PAINE, AUTHOR OF
“HOME. SWEET HOME.”
a
• it has been universally conceded
that the sweetest words in the Eng
lish tongue are "Home, Love, Mother,
and the unanimous verdict of the
music loving world is that the sweet
est and most heart-appealing song
ever composed is "Home, Sweet
Home.,’ The music and words of this
old song chime and blend so harmoni
ously and the song is so pathetically
true that it appeals to an pene
erates the nobler and higher in
stincts in every human heart.
While other songs, some written
hy world-famous poets, haVe been
cast aside for newer creations, "Home
Sweet Home” is today as popular a
melody as when first given by its
author to an enraptured world. Noth
ing has ever been or ever will be
produced to take its place. It is the
'Alpha and Omega of melodies o nthat
one subject, and will endure so long
as the human race has a habitation
and placeo of abode.
“Home, Sweet Home,” has been
translated into every tongue, and has
even invaded the desert and the dark
est wildernesfe. Travelers have heard
it sung by Arabs in the Sahara desert,
those migatory people whose homes
and horse hair tents are shifted from
oasis to oasis as their needs demanded.
And yet these descendants of Tshmael
love even their tents as their home.
Stanley, in one of his letters to the
New York Herald, wrote that he heard
in darkest Africa, a band of naked
savages, in their gutteral voi c es,
chanting “Home, Sweet Home,” that
was introduced by a burthen bearer
of their tribe for a party of home-sick
American explorers. These black
savages live in huts constructed of
brush or grass, and yet those hovels
were to them a home. The Esquimaux
has long introduced this song in his
winter ice-burrow, for that foul °ave
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it so him a “Home, Sweet Home.” It
would appear that the Turk, with his
harem, would be one race that would
have a surfeit of home, but this
American song is one of the most pop
ular airs in Turkey.
Josh Billings wrote that the most
arrant coward would fight to pro
tect his home, but he never heard of
a fellow shouldering a musket in de
fense of a boarding-house. This
witticism carries w-ith it a mine of
wisdom and truth. To abide in a
palace belonging to another and from
which you can be ejected at the whim
of the owner, i 8 not like having a home
of your own. It matters not how
humble that habitation may be “there
is no place like home.” From the
smallest insect to the wild beast, in
stinct teaches it to first construct a
home to which it can retire for rest
and safety. It is the one small part
on earth over whi c h the occupant has
sole ownership. The ant burrows a
home in the earth and the tiger, lion
and all other wild beast have their
lair or cave. Hut that den is home.
The first written laws ever framed
were by English Barons beneath the
wide-spreading shade of a giant oak;
and the first declaration was made
that a man's home was his castle, and
that is as ever sacred from invasion
except by consent of owner. And
with the first settlement of America
this declaration was imported with
the colonists, and no law is more
firmly implanted in the minds of our
people today. A plutocrat, with gild
ed chambers in a palac. l hotel is an
object of commiseration when com
pared with an uumble working man,
living in a cottage of his own, and
where love and contentment abide.
John Howard Paine, whose brain
and gifted and almost inspired pen
gave "Home. Sw-eet Home” to the
world, neVer had a home, and his song
was a dirge for that which he him
self la c ked and so ardently longed
for. That song was a piteous wail
of a home-hungering heart —a wish
that was destined never to be realized
for lie died in Tunis, in Algiers, in an
alien land and among strangers, ut
terless penniless. He had only his pit
iful and uncertain salary as American
consul to subsist upon.. Years after
his remains were brought home and a
handsome monument erected to per
petuate his memory.
Like Robert Burns, who died in
rHE VI DALI A ADVANCE, VIDALIA, GEORGIA
poverty and want, John Howard Paine
“asked for bread and they gave him a
stone.” But this homeless wanderer,
and whose song has touched and
softened so many hundreds of mil- j
lions of hearts and touching and in
spiring the noblest and holiest in
stincts in the human mind, has found
at last a "Home, Sweet Home,” but
it is not on this earth.
There is a little romance connected
with John Howard Paine seldom
found out of fiction. I have talked
with those who knew and loved him.
as will be seen before this sketch ends.
The author of “Home, Sweet Home”
was a medium statue and remark
ably handsome. He possessed a most
capitivating manner, but always had
a dreamy expression, characteristic of
a certain line of genius, with thoughts
above the average mind. He devot
edly loved a beautiful and accom
plished young girl of Athens, Geor
gia, who belonged to an aristo e ratlc
and distinguished family, named Miss
Mary Harden, and who ardently re
turned the young poet’s love and re
mained true to him to the hour of her
death. But young Paine had the rep
utation of a ne’er-do-well, he was ut
terly penniless, and the Harden fami
ly vetoed such a mesalliance for
their only daughter and heiress. In ye
olden times children were more sub
missive to parental authority than in
these days.
And just here let me state that
many years ago, when I published a
paper in Athens, Georgia, I lived next
door to this same Miss Mary Harden,
and my partner, Horace Cranford,
rented and lived in part of her home,
She retained in her service an old
mulatto named Rob Roy, a body serv
ant of her father, General Harden.
This old negro waited on John How
ard Paine when he visited his young
mistress, and always being of an in
vestigating turn of mind, and never
forgetting wliat I have once heard, I
had a rare opportunity of learning
and preserving in memory unpublish
ed incidents in the life of his world
famous character.
At that time Miss Mary Harden was
a very old maiden lady, almost de- j
crepid, who lived almost the life of
a recluse. She had outlived all of her
kindred and friends, was looked upon I
somewhat as a miser, and seemed
rather to avoid mingling with the
outside world. Among her few asso-
ciates was a charitable young lady
named Mids Effie Jackson, and to
whom.' Miss Harden bequeathed her
entire property, but on her death-bed
exacted from Jackson a promise
that she would bury with her a trunk
ful of love letters written her by
John Howard Paine, together with
that priceless relic, the original man
uscript of “Home, Swee. Home,” with
erasures and changing of words by the
author which he gave to the lady of
his love.
When the remains of John Howard
Paine were brought hack from Algiers
and the whole country was preparing
to do honor to his memory the pub
lishers of Frank Leslie’s magaztne
wrote me offering SSOO for the original
But when I called on Miss Mary
Harden and handed her the Leslie let
ter, she be c ame indignant and declar
ed that all the gold in the whole world
would not buy it and would not even
consent to have a copy made. She
told me that the manuscript was the
most hallowed and treasured posses
sion she owned and when she died
it would be placed next to her heart
and buried in the casket with her,
and which was done.
Miss Harden, while possessing a
nice property, always wore an old,
faded bla c k dress, which she never
changed winter or summer, and she
was said to be very slovenly and un
cleanly in her habits. I cannot con
ceive a more dreary and desolate ex
istence than that led by this one-time
belle, beauty and heiress, who pos
sessed all the advantages and good
things that this world can bestow.
She was one of the highest educated
and most ac c omplislie<l young women
in the South. It is said she spoke half
a dozen languages fluently and when
her father was the American Minister
to France she accompained him and
acted as his secretary and inte r perter
It was there that she first met John
Howard Paine, who was aimlessly
wandering around the French capital.
On both sides it was a case of love at
first sight—a hopeless love that ended
in wrecking two lives, making one
a homeless w-anderer and of the other
a self-exiled reclues who only lived on
memories of the past and a hopeless
loVe.
When General Harden returned
home, John Howard Paine followed
the object of his ardent and undying
affection. Some of his friends and ad
mirers secured for him the appoint
ment of Indian Agent at Dahlonega,
in northeast Georgia, and which he
solicited because he was near the
home of Miss Harden, and it was
while there that he traveled through
the country on horseback and would
visit the young girl who held his
heart enchained.
John Howard Paine in a letter to a
friend told of how he had walked the
streets at night of some great Euro
pean capital—London, Paris or Vien
na—utterly penniless, hungry, without
place to lay his head, he would pass
some brilliantly illuminated palace at
the close of a night of revelry and
here the musicians ending with his
“Home, Sweet Home”.” Little did those
joyous pleasure seekers know that
the author o fthat song was a home
less wanderer at their door.
GOOD GAME SCHEDULED
AT LYONS WEDNESDAY.
Quite a number of local baseball
fans will go down to Lyons this af
ternoon to witness the game between
the Lyons and the Grayniont-Sttm
mtt teams, which will he called at 4
o’clock. A number of the Vidalia
players will play on the Lyons team
and a fast game is expected.
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