The Portland daily press., 1874-07-15
The Summer Flight.

1t is an Oft quoted saying of Horace that
those who cross the sea change their skies
and not their minds. There is no special OBJ
lection to travelling in this maxim. Most of
those who go to Italy think more of its skies
than they do of their minds; and in any case
our average human is satisfied with the mind
he has summered and wmtered With. A
change in it, even if needed, is rarely desired.
One of our witty contemporaries some time
ago told us of young man who regretted
that his visit to Paris was spoiled because he
had previously experienced change of heart.
But there is another truth of more immedi-
ate application 10 ourselves than the aphOr-
ism OF the AuguStan poet; people who cross
the River land you may read it East or North
change neither their skies nor their minds.
There are few comforts the citizen finds in
the country which he does not leave behind,
and teW daily annoyances that do not accom-
pany him i'll his flight. When he packs his
trunk for the summer migration he is almost
sure to stow away somewhere in it enough
OF the cares of life to make him feel at home
wherever he may be.
We do not speak of those who have a Sec
ond home somewhere among the hills or the
lakes, or by bluff or seashore. These iortu-
nate ones are above the laws which govern
mere mortals. They can sit, in any weather,
on their hills like gods together, or singly,
ands who every year regard it as their duty
to break up housekeeping in.the city and to
move out TO some farmhouse in the coun-
try, some blazing tavern by the sea, some
hotel lost in the great hills, probably more
than half in their heart of hears consider it
delusion, and cordially wish they had
strength of mind enough to stay quietly and
sensibly at home. There is little gained and
very much lost by this change of place. The
difference in temperature is almost impercep-
tible. 1t is true that the houses and pave
ments absorb and retain a certain amount of
heat during the day, but there are few eve
nings when there is not a delicious breeze
from thebay blowing over the city, ,and prepar-
ing its tired denizens for rest and sleep. In ia
cilities for keeping cool a New York house has
a great advantage over an ordinary country
place. What farmhouse, with its upper
rooms heated seven times hotter than they
should be, its hair-cloth parlor and fy-haunt-
ed dining room, can be compared in COM
fort and convenience with thick-walled,
darkened, well-ventlated house in the city,
with an unlimited supply of water on every
floor, and the world around the corner ready
to supply any demand of appetite or caprice
on reasonable terms? There may be doubts
whether the country is more wholesome for
insects. The family in the country is be-
seged from first to last by mighty army of
bugs, slugs, grasshoDpers, grubs, and moths,
not TO mention that musical. .brigand who has
just made his portentous appariton in Eng
land under the name of the ''singing gnat."
We give him no name, because his presence
is never ,ntessed on any American farm,
though the rumor of his sultry wing is scan
dalously evident on every adjoining estate.
The truth probably is that the reason peo-
pie fly from New York in the summer lies
not in the mere heat of the city, but in a
species of Drapetomana-a disease which
leads slaves to run away from their work.
Fer the wife to escape housekeeping and the
man to escape his desk is blessing so great
that it compensates for all the nuisance of
the hegra and all the loss which absence
from town entails. Ii people could be firm
and sensible enough to take their vacation at
home, dividing their hours between their
houses and the park, letting the fear OF their
neighbors depart from their hearts, and ceas-
ing to read the money artice,in the newspa-
pers, they would tind what pleasures the
vast and beautiful metropolis reserves for
those Who truly love aud trust her.-N. Y.
Tribune.