The New York herald., 1874-09-13
Characteristics OF American Amuse
ments.

prodigious energy with which they perform
their work. Their earnestness is deeply
rooted, and while one branch of their tree OF
life is bright and beautiful with blossoms the
other is laden with perennial fruit richer than
the golden apples of the Hesperldes. A
people who work SO hard are entitled to cor
responding rest, but Americans have not yet
learned the secret of recreation and pleasure
The Italian dolce far niente is almost unknown
in this country, and the poet, Thomas
Buchanan Read, could never have written his
charming poem of Drifting ON the Hudson,
, on the Bay of New York, or even on
the silvery tides of his own soft
flowing Schuylkill 1. was only on the waters
of the Bay of Naples, with the far smoke of
Vesuvius waving above his boat its out
stretched hands and the sapphire gates of
Capri inviting to her mysteries, that he could
have timed his verse to the rise and fall OF the
waves and colored it with the living azure of
the sky. All American poetry is tinted with a
sober earnestness, rejecting the nature of the
people, There is the solemnity of Bryant S
landscapes, as in ''Thanatopsis," where
'rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound save
his own dashings;" the fr zen simplicity Of
Whittier's New England pictures; the melan-
| choly beauty of Longtellow's autumnal
woods and stormy seas. Even Poe, the
| greatest of all our poets, unsurpassed in
Imagination by any man of the age, yields to
this subjective influence, and kindles his spen-
dors upon background of darkness, as when
IL Sc kha
lake OF Auber, and shines upon ''the misty,
wild woodlands of Wier." Our poets cannot
write with the freedom and pure delight in ma
ture that Shelley and Keats possessed. The
yellow primrose which Wordsworth found by
the rivers brim, and the lily cup of Shelley,
out Of which ''a fire fly shakes his light, under
cypress in starless night" are not flowers
to be gathered in American forests. They are
alien blossoms like the tabled asphodel. Too
practical is our life and too serious, therefore,
in their verse are our poets; it is only now
and then that they escape from their bon
dage, and, like birds liberated from the cage,
rise above the earth and sing only because
they JOY in their own singing.
II this serious purpose is found in poetry,
which ought to be and is the highest altitude
of intellectual freedom, We must expect it to
exist more powerfully in the pursuits which
are nearer to the commonplaces OF earth. The
Americans make their amusements too much
of business and have not yet discovered the
fu fundamental principles of idleness Laziness
is philosophy which it is hard for us to fully
comprehend We try to understand it, but gen.
orally fail There is Mr. Weston, who amuses
himself and entertains thousands Of others by
his surprising performances as a pedestrian.
No doubt this gentleman would be surprised if
he should be told that he is actually working
when be undertakes to walk five hundred
miles in six days. We presume he thinks this
performance really an amusement, though
there are many men who would consider it a
labor to walk from the Battery to Central
; forms his pedestrianism from recreation tc
business. The man with the steam leg, ot
whom We have read, could not be more
thoroughly the slave of necessity than
Mr. Weston, and it is probable
that his ideal of earthly bliss is
perpetual motion. Heaven he imagines to
be one vast treadmill. Then there are the
base. ball players, the most of whom have
long ago changed the game from an amuse-
ment to a trade. The average baseball player
works almost as hard as o street car con.
ductor, and when he goes into the contest
takes risk like that of soldier in battle
It is much the same with horse racing, skat
ing, fishing, cunning and many other out
door sports. The delight and excitement o.
physical exercise is often converted into ar
Unsuitable passion, which makes even the
pursuit of pleasure monotony. The billiard
amateur too often becomes the slave of his
pastime, and has no amusement except when ht
emulates with his cue the brilliant strokes O
GARNER or Dion. The theatre goer goe.
year after year to see plays for which he doe
not really care, because habit is stronger will
him than enterprise, and the boy who attended
the circus every evening for no better reason
than that he could not afford to waste the op
portunities season ticket conferred was no
more foolish in his views The whist player con
ceives of no higher recreation than to Leaf
trumps when he holds five in his hand, t.
establish his long suit, or to win the odd tricl
when honors are easy. The backgammon
PLAYER will throw skies and aces for hours re
peating the same moves, making the sam
bar point with endless zeal. The chess player
especially, becomes absorbed in his gambit
till he ceases to care for weariness or hunger
Life becomes to him little more than tn
movements of pawns and queens. He forget
the third term in thinking Of his king
spends his Sundays away from church will
irrehgious bishops, and occupies all hi
days with knights. There is no end 10 thi
perpetual performance of the same thin
, again and again, like the tolls of the architec
, Pisani, who in his dreams always saw his owl