Litchfield enquirer., 1873-05-29
VILLAGE SOCIETY.

1 stituted that the associations it. offers young men are evil rather than good. The occasion of this we take to be the fact that the habits of the better class of village people are reserved and unso- cial. Take the case, 50 often presented by village society, of an idle young man, well born. we'll educated, quick-wit- ted, genial and convivial. who becomes the leader of generation of somewhat younger men than himself whose habits and manners are formed on his model
 How happens it that contemporaries of his, also we'll educated, quick-witted, gen. ial, whose habits are infinitely better and whose moral tone is infinitely higher. exercise no such influences? Simply be- cause they are too busy, days, too '.:do- nestle, evenings, to form any but tie slightest acquaintance with rising gem eration. Intimacy is impossible between that generation and it's good example. Its evil example is always accessible. Ought Ito wonder at the result? aa.aas.
 We have before referred to the fact that the Anglo Saxon is weakest on his social side. The very class who should form the backbone of society is practically withdrawn from it. The young married man in these expensive times finds life a very serious, sometimes desperate strug- gle. In his fight for existence he has lit tie heart left for society. He may keep up old friendships; he hardly ever forms new ones. He grows, if successful, into a respectable member of society"-the place to more useful metallic hardness. All which we consider most unfortunate case of "arrested development" the heart of a true man being of just as much use to his fellows as his head---a fact New England has never fairly admitted or even considered. This brings us to the consideration of the last great question
 - <t.''vttDp, IS woman who now mainly controls socie- ty; and that hereocial arrangements are much too formal and narrowf for the real needs of society. Last weeks Every Sat urday republishes an article from the Sat- urday Review which refers to- this pecu- liarity of modern society as follows
 When social intercourse was assumed to be the highest pleasure of man. it may be observed that generally speaking this intercourse was of men Wth men, Good company in the old essayist generally means the gathering of wits and men oI intellect n clubs and cohee-houses, where conversation was carried on as a sort of game in an arena with observers and listeners The la ules tea-table makes poor figure by the side of the tavern. Society now means the intellectual intercourse of the two sexes-a much moro ia. ngulng thing, though no doubt affording some keen pleasures which the other lacks; but not for long spaces of time. Easy talk can be kept up for an indefinitely longer period where the sexes are out of hearing of each other, though the ex. cltement is greater when they mingle. We see this ln all gatherings where inexperience or want of breeding leaves men to the guidance of their instincts. They assemble in knots. The ladies gossip to one another. In a lower class there is still the same natural separation. The women 'neighbor' with each other, the men collect in groups or herd in the public-house. - .
 No doubt the difficulty above noted arises in large degree from the fact that the different sexes have so few subjects of common interest. Moreover ''society"' interdicts all subjects on which there is, serious difference of opinion, such as pol itics or religion. Hence the art of con versation between man and woman has come to be an essentially different art from that which makes man interesting to man, woman to woman. Neither sex uses it's own language in talking to the other, but sort of ling1a .tranca, native to neither, the falsest and vapidest of tongues. Like every other dialect it needs to be acquired; and to be learned early if it is ever learned perfectly. Hence it happens that many man who can con- verse admirably with men is stiff or silent with women; and that some most estima- ble ladies can only gossip to one one an other" as the Saturday Reviewer gallantly puts it. It is favorable sign of the times, however, that the tone of mixed society is growing less and less conven- tional. The transparent shams, and grdsB fatteries of the Gold school of politeness," so admirably sketched by Miss Burney in ''Evelina, ," are dying out with the iber- tinism that gave rise to them. Freer in- tercourse between the young men and young women of our time has made their common language far more truthful than it was of old, lacking, though it still un- doubtedly is, in straightforward sincerity.
 But sincerity of speech will not make up for, but rather make more noticeable, that lack of common interest which is the bane of mixed society. There need be no fear that young unmarried people of either sex will not meet and fiirt and romp together; or that wives who have the time and means will not have their social gatherings at which their husbands, more or less enthusiastically, attend. The problem is, however, to construct a village society that shall furnish its whole population with their due proportion of rational recreation and innocent amuse- ment. Woman-controlled society has ut terly failed to fulfil this demand because of its tendency to 'saristocracy.n p as it is popularly called. The old controlled centres of village society were demo- cratically constituted. The Masonic lodge is open to every social grade. Female so- ciety, on the other hand, tends to subdi- vision, to. caste, to subtitle distinctions that make strangers of many who, it would seem, should associate together. The best men of Q village have smaller social influence than the worst, because they have fewer intimacies. But the best men of village have an infinitely wider social influence than the best women, who