New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-10-30
1MERLCAN SOLITUDES.


young lady who was extremely partial 10 soil
tude. She enjoyed it so much that SHE ire
quently walked by herself in the Park'-wlth
her foOtman behind her. We Americans take
to this style of solitude. In Summer we Oh
for lodge in some vast wilderness che Cat
skill Mountain House, for instance. We relish
our privacy at Saratoga. We find society by
the wild sea, at Newport. Then, when Au-
tumn returns, we again seek our seCluslon, on
Broadway. Mr. Murray has lately told his tale
of sorrow to our sympathetic readers and his
sufferings because he loved the Adir0ndacks,
and did Mt insist on having them with gas
light, hot and cold water, and all the modern
conveniences, including Theodore ThOmas's
open-air concerts, and good place to speed
four hands, may suggest wider theme.
Englishmen complain that there is no such
thing rs country life in America whereas your
true BritOn affects it, and Byron describes one
of his countrywomen rs admiring Glamour be-
cause it was $50 rural" In England you think
nothing of driving a dozen miles for morning
CALL and twenty for an evening party. AS You
travel through the country, you pass gentle
mans country seat, large or small, and five or
family, if required to take their solitude so
very unmixed, would expire or emigrate. The
English family reside in that spot most of the
year, delight in it, decorate it; however small
it may be, it must have Something Lodge
painted on the gate post and what tears must
flow if the sweet spot comes into the market
before the youngest baby is grown up! The
American household would have moved in and
out of the city dozen times during that period,
and would have sought every time for new
residence with more neighbors.
Sydney Smith, who was only half an English
man, pronounced the country to be "a sort OF
"healthy grave" and this funeral aspect is
what most impresses Americans. Whole town
ships in Northern New Hampshire are being
annually depopulated, it is said, through the
unwillingness of people to accept this interment
through the long Winters. Thoreau describes
a farmers boy who ran away from his employer
because he could not hear the railrOad-whistle
from any part of the farm. How would such
social beings endure the deathly Winter life
of those Alpine valleys, where people retire in
November behind the vast woOd-piles that
shroud their huts, and bid the sun farewell till
the next March, The strange thing is, that
with this horror of solitude, we after all are
unsOciable, or at least are anything but talka-
tive. A party of Frencbmen, or Irishmen, or
negroes will chatter more in an hour than an
average white American party in three. For
all that, we crave company. We like to have
somebody near us to whom we can say nothing.
There must be some congenial companion, with
whom we can hold our tongues. A lonely tongue
is so tedious to hold! 1t is said of q we'll
known poet that he sat for his picture
10 well-knOwn artist in blissful silence.
During the first sitting, not word was
said, except those necessary orders, Head up"
Shoulders back that make such slttings so
like a first lesson in military drill. The second
sitting was the same, till after half an hour
the poet broke silence with, "R---, | like your
"And like YOU was the fervent answer of
the happy artist after which they became fast
friends, and had together, no doubt, those
Thousand silences' which Emerson sings.
One of these American social sOlitudes is the
hotel table, where everybody eats and nobody
speaks. Another is the street-car, or railway
car, where dozen neighbors ride home to-
gether, and neither says word, unless it is
within week Of an election. Still another is
the domestic parlor, where the husband silently
reads his evening paper from till 10, and
does not even tell his wife the deaths and
marriages. If such a man would even, like
the Trappists put in an occasional suggestion
to Remember Death" it would be something
cOnsOling. How are we to explain this odd
combination, this silent gregariousness Are
we in transition state from the English to
the French type, that we thus cOngregate as
if We were French, and hold our tongues as
if we were Englishg Or is it the vastness of our
national experiment that makes us wish, like
children in the dark, to hold each others
hand and say nOthingY 1t is easier to ask
these questions than to answer them. Nations
develop in their own way. Perhaps with freer
means of communication we shall yet shrink
less from country life. With more variety of
culture, we may grow more socable, as well
as more social. Belt this continent with a line
of thriving farmers, each living OH his own
estate, and each within railway distance of
books, music, lectures, social entertainments,
and country life may resume its charms. Or
cooperative industry may make all our towns
into ideal Yinelands. Anything will be better
than the present blind longing after great
cities, the avenues to which, at this season of
the year. are like those to the VOLTS cave in
the fable, where, rs the sheep suspicously re-
marked, the footprints all led one way.
The Glen's Falls Republican says that Mr..
Greeley, in his letter to Mr.. Samuel j. Tilden.
"Beseeches that gentleman to persuade Democrats IN