New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1873-06-02
THE SUMMER SIESTA.

The weather, for q wonder, does not now
belle the calendar, and we have tempe
nature which is not q shivering anachrOn-
ism. As we warm in the sunbeams it
does not seem 80 absurd that dog-days
should be so near, and many a ma
tron and maiden, reading the current re-
ports from the country, will feel that the time
for fitting to some salt-watering or mineral
watering locality, to beach or to mountain-top
is at hand We suppose that a good deal of
this Discrimination to stay in cities dur
ing the Summer months is a matter
of routine and fashion; a large and well
ventilated and well arranged domicIlc in the
city is more comfortable in the dog-days than
a narrow crib in some farm house or hot
weather hotel; and with a little pains, the
heated term in a well regulated New-Yorll
dwelling house might, with a plenty of ice
and flowers and fruit and ventilation, be sufli
GENTLY mitgated. But it is the fashion to go
away, and as many of our households are not
well regulated and not healthily situated,
it is a good fashion. The philosophers
differ. There are those who insist that
though we flee to the uttermOst parts of
the earth, we change only our skies
and not our souls. Not less wise, perhaps,
there are others who will have it that it is
well to get out of the ruts to shake off tho
monotony of routine, and to give to our jaded
spirits timely FLIP. Most of the moralists,
we admit, are of the mind of the old lady in
Dickens's novel who to every argument in
favor of travel invariably answered, Let us
"have no meanderngp Why steady stay
ing at home should be Thought religious,
unless it be not worldly pleasure but
a modification, is more than we can di-
vine. The noble example of the mill horse
may be cited but there is no evidence that
the four-legged gO-rounder is in love with his
revolutionary vocation. When the night
drops down upon us, after a long day of gen.
uine labor, does it show weakness of soul, is
it anything else but genuine wisdom for US to
go to bed, and to devote the dark to rein
MIGRATING sleep? If all work makes not only
Jack but all the other boys dull, why should
it not make men and women duh also
"They rest from their labors." says the
Scripture. RepOse is as much law
of the soul as activity-there can be
no perpetual motion either in material
or in mental mechanism. If life is to have
its final end, why should 1t not have vaca-
tons, the end Of some fragment of it If
the toll of ten or twelve hours calls Tor
respite, if the labor of six days demands
still longer cessation, why should not the as
siduity of months enttle US to six weeks
interlude 1t is not inconsistent with a gen.
uine love of work to wish sometimes to es-
cape from it, for it is the noblest homage
which we can pay to industry to seek in COM
paratve ideness for fresh muscle and q
stouter heart. In our own hurried, anxious
fretful American life, it Is the pace that kills.
At first blush it may seem to be a cred
liable thing that we denizens of the pent
city should seek tho largeness aud freshness
of Nature in the beach. the mountain. or tho
secluded valley. But it is hardly worth while
to tell ourselves lies. 1t is not forest nor SEQ
that we want, but q great change, and some
thing different from tho bricks mortar, and stony
payements. Very few persons achieve fresh
and permanent relation TO Nature. Even to
those who know her best she is a constant sur
prise. There were never two sunrises or two