New-York tribune., 1873-06-14
.LUNE IN TOWN.

An odd habit prevails, We find, among our
readers in the Western and Middle States of
coming to New-York and the other seaboard
cities in July and August. These inland
people, very unwisely it seems TO us, have
elected TO take their yearly holiday at the
same time that we do, and having had enough
of green fields and fresh air through the rest
of the year. they bring their wives and
daughters :" for peep at the Eastern cities
just at the time when everybody is escaping
out of these cities, to as much grass and cool
ness as his purse will buy him. New-York
or Philadelphia, in the blaze and dust Of Au-
gust, with many churches and theateFs closed,
the best houses barred and dirty, and all kinds
Of business dull to deadness, are as intolerable
as they are bright and bewildering to a stran-
ger in December, when the fever of work,
splendor, and enjoyment is at its hight.
But this of all months is, to our mind, the
time to see New-York at it's best. 1t adOrns
itself in these cool, bright days in all fresh,
gay, tricky ways, as bride prepared for her
husband. A touch of wintry frost yet fingers
in the air. enough to give it life and sparkle !;
the mornings are cold and the noon sunshine
is often balmy. The poorest house puts on o
little fresh paint or color to greet the Sum-
mer. The shOp-windows are full Of exquisite
fabrics, dainty as Titania's robe, and redOlent
of fern or sea-weed. The busy season has not
yet closed, and at every step you find temp
tatiOn to let the limp greenbacks in your
pocket suffer change into something
rich aud strange. Very few families as yet
have left town; the long rows of stately
dwellings are open; lovely. delicately- dressed
women still crowd the streets; wherever
flower or blade of grass can find room to grow
in our bright, bay air. it thrustS its sweet,
gracious reminder Of Summer in the country
in our faces. The late wistaria trails its pur-
pie blossoms up to the very roofs, roses clam
Der over the dead stone walls, crimson the
square plats in front Of the dwellings, and
threaten to fall on you from pots in tenement
houses Even the coarse processes of eating
and drinking put on o certain picturesque
beauty just now. The green-grocers' counters
are as fine pictures of dead nature as any study
of Preyers. Peas, pale sea-green, heap them
selves beside crimson radishes, scarlet tomatoes,
and rough, yellow pines democratic potatoes,
in coarse, brown jackets, shoulder the pale
gold squashes, which Hawthorne declares
offer finer variety of studies of exquisite poems
than any Etrurian vases. Over all and
through all, sky, and air, and city, there is a
certain pause, a moment of waiting after the
haste and dirt of the Winter, and before the
fierce, dreaded heat of the Summer. Life be-
comes o delicious, tranquil enjoyment;
Quaker calm, wholesome and cheerful has
taken the place of our ordinary driving, nerv-
GUS hurly -burly.
Now, why should we not have Juno
weather all tho timef Certain people do carry
it about with them, as the wizard in the absurd
Arabian story did the essence of lifo bottled
up; but you smelled the magic scent as he
walked, new health came into your bones and
blood with every stolen Whit; the animals
passing him in tho street prancod gailY of,
knowing their lives were suddenly lengthened
q span OF two; as the scent crept out into
the common air no scattered years behind him
largesse " every Dasser-by. Nobody. mOres