New-York tribune., 1872-05-25
SWJvuIyG IN THE GONDOLAS.

To-day another cOvey of, our far-hylng
sight-seers starts upon the wings of steam,
wind, and the morning, to fit wheresoever
their stars of travel may lead them-to taste
beer. beef, and fog in England; to make fresh
Yolneys of themselves in ruinous Paris; to be
rapturous rand medieval on the sRhine; to seek
an illustrious death in creeping up or down
Blanc; or to cultivate aesthetic piety in Rome.
They 90 out for to see, happy if they come
not back Mendez Pintos of lOng-bow
stretching. OF most of them it may be safely
asserted, that they will be none the worse and
even somewhat better for their jauntings. 1t
is still an unsettled question whether foreign
travel is really good for the soul of man or
woman; but that all, and specially all
Americans, need rest, has come to be lndls-
putable and not rest merely, but change. 1t
is the characteristic of animals to go always
in the old ruts. There can be no steadier
home-keeper than the horse whose circular ex-
istence is passed always in the mill. Round,
and round and round results generally in stu
pidity, ennui. and dogmatism, if not dyspep-
sia. Partridge is good, but not "always
"partridge.n Variety is usually called the
spice of life, but it may be more than that-it
may be the mutton and brown-bread and po-
tatoes of life also. There Is a worse monas-
ticism than that which is cultivated within the
consecrated quadrangles; for there is only
difference of degree in the isolation of the
man who sees only two always the same, and
of the man who sees twenty only the same. So
also. nothing can be of worse influence than
the constant company of those who are only
those who think, feed, dress, get up and go to
bed with the mOnOtony and simultaneous
parallelism of o regiment of foot Ii is some
times wiser to leave that which we love for a
time, that ours may be the rapture of return.
Life without an occasional flip is not, after all,
much different from death. 1t is the paradox
of inertia miserably married to mobility; st.
Yitus breaking grave to dance again; old men
and women playing at the child's see-saw |!
Nothing is cOmmoner than lives which nothing
can restore to their possible value except
good rousing revolution. The philosophers
may negatively shake their heads at this; we
NAV not be wise in our restiveness; IL
may be silly waste of motive power to be
padding about; but great as the old gods were
at sitting, love at least made them frequent
sional Journeys. No man can be, like the
Irishman's bird, "in two places at once" yet
the convenience of such faculty may be easily
coniectured; and who can say that it may not
in the next world be among our possessions
Journeying is usually supposed to imply
WEAKNESS. Life is sometimes spoken OF as a
trip so troublesome that the stoutest at last may
be glad to be at rest forever. Yet nothing Is
truer than that travel may be refreshment and
recreation of those who stand IN sorest need
of both for the sake alike of flesh and spirit.
II has not been for nothing that all
religions have set apart days of rest
little regular truces during which muscle
NAV get tone for the renewed
Gght. So we have Sabbaths, Feasts of This,
Fosts of That, Tides of the Other. The gos-
pel of work is one which every mans belly
eloauently breaches 10 him; but better 10 many