The Portland daily press., 1874-05-27
From the New York Tribune.
HighrOadS and Railroads.

The shade OF the elder Weller il il still
stalks the stables and baunts the sites of the
old London coaching houses Belle Savage or
Marks of Granby-must feel inexpressioe
comfort, for there promises TO be resurrec-
tion OF the coach and-four in England The
railways are no longer tn monopolze traye-
lers land travel. The four-in-hand, after an
almost total disappearance as a means of
journeying, is again becoming familiar, and
one newspaper goes so tar as to anticipate
that soon ''the road and not the rail will be
the CHOSEN way of going flor the affluent
classesl upon an excursion ofmere pleasure"
A coaching company has been organized in
Liverpool, and Others of the same kind are
spoken OF. 1t will be remembered that DIR.
johnson said one day to Boswell, as they
were driven rapidly along toward Stratford-
On-Avon in post-chaise: '.Life has not
many things better than this He after
wards said: 'If had no duties, and no ref
erence to fuiurity,I would spend my lie driv-
| ing briskly in post-chaise with pretty wo-
| man." His love of hurry arose perhaps
| from morbid anxiety to be rid of himself, and
| our express trains would, without doubt
have been very much TO his mind. Healthy
natures, however, will avoid over haste as
they would undue sleep, and those who trav-
| ell to see country hardly promote that end
| by travelling so fast that they do not see it at
all. Journeying almost ceases to be recrea-
often in the night, and with opportunity on
ly for the observation of distant points Of ar
rival and departure. The ennui which tardi-
ness engendered may be equally provoked by
prolonged celebrity. Scenery, once Tor all, we
must give up. Rural nature and rustic man
must remain unstudied. Provincial humor
can no longer be observed in the country inn.
Ii we are travelling tor resuscitation, the
time which morally belongs to that duty-for it
is q short VI CHI fa1
out of half our vacation. We fiud restless
ness and not rest-the long, quiet rest with
those We love, away from pursuits which
have overtasked our energies, from objects
which have become hackneyed, and from in
| fuences which have ceased to pique our ac-
| tivities. Often we make our holiday hard
| working one. and have nothing in our excur-
| sion to brae of except the distances achieved
Unquestionably the railway saves time, but
| it may happen that time is just what wisdom
| commands us to lavlshly squander. Idleness,
perfect and complete-a surrender merely to
the sensation Of living-an abandonment of
all cares and anxieties, and of all duties ex-
cept the duty OF recovering mental and phys
ical tone-these may be what most we n eed
and can least afford, upon principles of the
| strctest economy, to forego, Then it is that
haste is precisely what we should study to es-
| cape. Then il is that time tables should be
| unto us an abominatiOn. Then it is that in
doieneo becomes a yiisue ana-lUnfness a-svrt
| of religion.
Time is money, if a market can be foun
for the commodity, but It will go badly with
us If we forget that money is not all, whether
| it be OF paper or of gold. Ii mans business
| compels him to travel, for him properly are
| the swift, tireless, screecbing night-trains,
| with their abnormal waking and their fitfnl
| and troubled slumber. Travelling for rest
and to gain something better than money
health, serenity, consolation, temporary OBJ
| livion OF sorrows which are weighing down
the heart; travelling for change OF scene and
to divert the lmind from thoughts which are
burden, and from apprehensions which are
| torture-this is a resource the more likely
| to be effective, the more deliberately pursued
| If peasuretour is undertaken 10 get rid of
business, we shall lamentably fail if we make
a business of the tour.
1t is curious TO consider that rapid railway
travelling should have created a new luxury,
viz: slow travelling by coach for those who
can afford it-in their own vehicles by those
| who possess an equipage, this being perhaps
| the very perfection OF "meandering." The
| immense convenience, the economy and the
| comfortable appointments of the railway re-
| main; but he travels best who travels inde
| pendently, resting when he pleases, and GO
| ing on only when he has rested, confined to
| no positive and fixed route, at liberty to i'll
| terpolate excursions to the right or to the
| LETT and making nature as he goes deiber-
ate instructive and entertaining study.