New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-05-18
NAY PLANS,
lgHOraIlce.

MAY pLANO,
The early April heat drove everybody to
planning or hoping for Il Summer vacation !,
and the taldy mildness of May at last leads to a
resumption of the occupation. Az the news
paper ought 10 be the apostle of COM
mon sense in everyday life. it is worth
while TO inquire what these plans are. With
the people whose means allow them to own a
country house For Summer use, or to carry
ticket in their Waistcoat pocket for Switzcr-
land or Sweden, we have nothing to do. The
mere possession OF money uSually includes III
our society a sufficient Knowledge of what il
done by people Of real culture and sense to
induce Tho vulgar rich man to copy them. He
nay build by the sea or visit beautiful or
historic scenes out of the sheerest snObbery Of
imitation, and find himself immeasurably bored
thereby but he does it, and it is the wisest
and ittcst thing for him to do. 1t is in that
pitiablc middle class who struggle to keep up
appearances from the cradle to the grave, that
pulgatory Of social life, where are to be
found all tho condemned souls who have
neitaer the strength to be caDdidly
poor nor the money to lift them into
the heaven Of what they call the upper ten,"
that We find the idea Of Summer rest most lu-
dicrously and vulgarly msapp!ied. The very
cattle have a better idea of the quiet for re-
coyery demanded by August heats, and in the
noon of the year seek solitude and the shade.
The man whom Heaven has blessed with either
refinement or common sense, seeks to bring
himself aud lIis children face to face with Ma
ture in her secret places, knowing how true is
the old fable OF AntGus, and how soul and
body gather strength from each contact with
old Mother Earth but the Door mechanic or
clerk, whose highest idea of noble life is
to be an ape, afar off, of aping fash
ion, sints and shavcs the whole years
comfort that his wife and daugh-
tiers may swelter in sham jewelry and
sleazy silks for tho hottest week of the year
in the waltzing, perspiring crowds at Saratoga
or Cape May, may stare at the diamonds and
fours-in-hand of lucky liquOr-dealers and sue
cessful gamblers, and come back jaded,
envious, discontinued, to their meager, honest
homes again. The educated classes every year
are dcscrting the crowded Summer haunts.
They go i'll search of quiet to the Maine shore,
the Virginia and White Mountains, coast along
the Upper Lakes, explore the West rs fag "a
Oregon or California. But it will be long
time before the painting, gaping mob of
woud-be fashionables behind them discover
that solitude and Nature are I" the thing"
There il, however, a large class in the cities
whose culture is beyond their means, who
have perhaps ono or two weeks holiday in
the Summer as the sole chance to go back to
Nature for food for their hungry, OverwOrked
brains and rest for their bodies. The high
price of boarding at the usual Summer resorts
H.. a., H., L., e.
quirics as to convenient farm houses, find
them tenanted by a race of leeches, and sub
side into quiet, content to doze out their holt
day in town, with an occasional jaunt to the
Parks. We made suggestion last year to
this class. which was, we believe, carried into
effect by a great many families with thorough
success. 1t was to buy secondhand tent,
which with shelter tent completely can be had
for So or $40, and sent for less than dollar
to the nearest accessible point on the Jersey
coast. Let father, mother, and children go
down with their old clothes, some -four one
or two pots and pans, prepared to rough it for a
week or two, camp on the sands, catch their
own fish, shoot their own game, and let the
vagabond blood which is in all of us have its
full way for once, and, our word for it, they
will have an experience which they will never
forget. There will be no need for them to
poetize OF hunt for sentiment in the face of
the free air or the vast unquict sea. Nature
has way of taking hold of the feeblest and
falsest Of her children who come to her in sol
itude, of holding them to her breast and
breathing into their nOstrils a breath of life,
without their knowledge. Where camping out
il impracticablo, small boat may be hired
for the expense of day at Cape May, in
which whole family can 20 floating down
into the bay, and bring back glimpse of sea
and shore which will light up the whole year.
Americans are neither wise nor educated
enough yet to discover and venture on cheap
pleasures. or to know that the highest and
cheapest belong to outdoor life. Our German
brethren could teach US here the best of les
sons.