New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-04-03
APRIL.

"tern at last sleeps with its fathers, and has
died the death of the JUST He has shown
himself such a malignant OLD fellow, and
has had such propensity for lurking
out of sight for night or two
until the crocuses had thrust up their giddy
heads in city grass-plats and sanguine human
beings crowded the streets in their palest
Spring silks and trousers, and then breaking
in again with whirlwinds of sleet and snow
and slush, which smothered out the patience
of the meekeSt of saints, that we rejoice with
trembling and pay dozen hurried
visits every morning to the barometer
and arm ourselves with overcOat and umbrella
before we Will consent to sniff the warm April
breeze, and believe that Spring Is actually
here. Out in the country, no doubt, day unto
day uttereth speech, and night unto night show
eth knowledge that Summer is coming. Butthe
town zodiac hath but few signs. Delaware shad
is in the market and Jersey vegetables are
there, too, with the earth wet on their roots,
in lieu of the Southern barreled atrocities.
The organizes and Summer silks also, with
their delicate tints poisoning in the shop
windows, NO longer send shiver through
us, and women with their crooks Of
garden flowers and hanging baskets begin
to crowd the unfrequented corners. There
are other hints that the new life stirring in
the veins of the gray old world has played
the part of wholesome infection, and urged
men to take fresh start and begin again, at
least so far as their outward belongings are
concerned Painters and paper-hangers jostle
us at every turn. The millionaire takes q run
out to his country place with a landscape gar
dener. His poorer brother throws out bow
window in his library to catch the sun, or, if
poorer still, rcmodels his shop window to
give a iauntier air to his array of beef or
shoes, while his wife whitewashes the kitchen
with her own hands, and sets 7out a slip Of
geranium in soap-box on the window ledge.
Now this is all proper and wise. Mother
Nature never makes a mistake, and she has a
good reason for giving every year to her
Spring awakening, foreordained and repeated
as it has been for scores of ages, the air of
sudden conversion, and celebrating
it with an Outburst OF pomp and
glory, of banners of color in the
sky and sea, ard hymns of rejoicing from
beast and bird, as though each April were a
new Creation day. 1t is with subtle purpose
that Nature, through all her hackneyed, mex
orable sequences, gives t. us the idea Of
progress, of achieving something better than
she has known. Now, why should our read
ing of the lesson be limited 10 our clothes
and furniture7 Does nothing of our belong
ings want cleaning but our garretsl Is the
freshening and identifying to 60 no further
than coats and Spring bonnets7 Here is
q text Oh the growth of the soul which we leave
30 o,r ravorond hratbrnn We On M furfhar
than question of manners. We are all tired of
preaching TO each other the fact that we are a
grumpish, anxious, unsmiling people. Why
not have q Spring cleaning and coloring of
our national m0od7 The truth is, the higher
classes in America naturally incline to the
phlegmatic reticent British idea of good breed
ing, rather than TO the warmer Gaelic
type The story of the two men who
refused to save each other from drowning be-
cause they had not been introduced, might
have almost been true of a Bostonan or
Philadelphian. We have known woman
taken i'll in fashionable church, left to be
carried out and die, if God willed it, alone in
the hands of the sexton not from lack of
sympathy but from fear Of intrusion, in
the other women. In the middle
class, this stiff and forbidding air arises from
morbid self-respect and fear that their social
position is not duly recognized. Among the
aboring people, especially farmers and their
wives, life il too full of solid hard work to
leave any corners for gracious unmarketable
amenities and CHEEKY foolishness.
If our millionaire, instead of planning a
landscape garden on bis acres. would map out