New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-08-23
TIE OLD FOLKS At HOME.

July and August have been this year, as
always, the young peoples season. Youth and
beauty, laughter and lOve-making have showed
business and old age quite into the back
ground. 1t is young men, irreprOachable as to
gloves and linen, who thrOng the hotel parlors
at Newport, Saratoga, or the Branch; young
men in equally effective mountaineer's cos
tune, who have fshed for trout, or humbly
camped out for night under the
command of ; guide, or scaled the
nights of Mount Desert or the Water-gap
with young ladies habited as mountain
nymphs according to the latest fashion, and
who sit with them at eventide now under
murmuring oaks, recalling their perils and
cutting their names on enormous Alpen stocks.
Beardess youths it is who, in picturesque
sailor rig have deserted Office and shop and
assault the coast this month from Maine to
Carolina, who roll in their gait and cock
nautical eye on the clouds, and whose whole
talk and bearing have an ancient and fish
like flavor. 1t is young men, too, who In the
inland towns make up parties for weeks
outbreak, which may be a jaunt "tO the
east" or a hunting expedition to the hills,
or a beastly drunken bout in the nearest large
city. The holiday is taken according to indi-
yidual fancy, but the holiday is taken as
matter of course by the younger men. 1t has
come to seem natural and right that the fun,
the relaxing of the bow, the adventure into
unknown ways, should belong to these who
have least weight in life to carry, and that
those who carry the weight should not lay it
down. The gray-haired old fellow who likes
to lead the German with his daughters, or who
will stand up to the waist in water trout fish
ing all day, is wondered at and liked as an
oddly, a rare specimen of genial manhood in
its prime, which it were unreasonable to ex-
pect to find duplicated in ordinary middle age.
Jack and Tom, therefore, fresh from college
or the office, make the most of the holiday at
the fashionable resort which their mother and
the girls affect, while the governor" comes
down on the late Saturday train, talks bust
ness over Sunday to other old men like him
self, and is off again on Monday before they
have finished their morning nap. The Z" old
man" on the farm watches Bob come down
in his Sunday fnery and set of across the
fields in the late sunset to the frOlic, or to
take Dolly to singing school, and is content to
smoke his pipe and 60 off to bed before the
sun Is fairly down. When the smart young
women in the quiet back streets of inland towns
nut on their evening muslin and tie pink ribbons
in their hair, and sit down to play waltzes on
the rafting new piano until "the beaux" come,
their father and mother hurry out OF the par
lor and stiie in the stuffy little dining room
until bed time. 1t never occurs to them or to
their daughters that the best room and the
cheerfulness and light and gayety should not
belong to the young people as matter OF
course. They "have had their turn" is the
argument which settles the whole matter.
What was it they had their turn of 2 Love,
pleasure, some daily Frightening of the dull
mechanic round of duty Is the old man dead
now to all these Z Did his heart harden and
grow callous as his hair whitened and his eye
sight failed Is not his feeling more tender,
the sense of loneliness more profound, the
yearning for cOmpaniOnship stronger with
every year that passes Z Try him with little
sympathy; the experiment is curious one,
and rarer than you think. Take him into your
confidence some day, instead of the dashing
young fellow whom you met last week and
recognized as a cOngenial SOUL Share the fun
with him some time. the joke, the little
scheme which you think 80 important. Test
the question whether this queer work a-day old
| gentleman whom you are ashamed to remember
You know best by his oddities and
differences from yourself, although he gave you
| life and all that has sustained life and made
you the Admirable CrichtOn that you are, has
really any human nature akin to your own in
the finer and sweeter sense. 1t really seems as
| il there might be some vein of sympathy be-
tween the younp man and the old. even on