New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-05-25
fairly and impartially, and have wiser legisla-
NOW FOR THE NINETTES !

Everybody knows what $50 above means.
Its sudorifc suggestion is OF cool drinks, thin
wear under and over, light hats, ices OF water
and of cream, fruit, open windows, ana 1or'y
other things. The chambermaid takes cover
or two from the bed. The slOp-seller hangs
ont the gossamer vests and drawers at only
fifty cents each. Wool and fur are put away
in camphOr The markets become arbors
of general grecnery. The druggists
shops are noisy with one perpetual
fzz of the soda fountains. The corners
from uptown are hot through and through at
nine o'clock in the morning. The curious con-
sult the large thermometer hung out for
sign. The women who sell flowers at the
corners diminish their prices and enlarge their
stocks. Papa, mamma, and the girls have held
high council concerning the dog-day retreat,
and sea-shOre or mountain has been fixed
upon. The tenement houses have begun to
swarm to the pavement. Another Summer Is
here In doors for the present is abandoned.
We shall live in fresco for some time to come
It is curious to notice how much it is the
business of life to make itself comfortable.
There may be ATTITUDES in which Dolce jar
niente is the rule-a land Of lOtOs-eating, in
(Which it seems always afternoons" but Tor
us of the Saxon seed, in an intem-
perately temperate zone, there can be no
doing and no drifting. Heaven has denied
us the sweet talent of laziness. We are
the slaves of our own superuous mo-
blity, and doing nothing is the hardest work
we do. The Greek after his moment of fierce
energy, when the hot hour of battle was over,
in undQr
soft blue of the Egean sky, he dreamed of
Paphian pleasures through all the sleep to
which the perpetual chirp of the cicada had
wooed him. Half tho day the sybarite OF
Horace below the placid shade of the ar
butus, quaifed full bowls Of mellow Massic
and slept and Weakened to quaff and to sleep
again. But this is a charming inertia to which
we do not readily accustOm ourselves. The
doom of work is upon us. We have hardly
any luxury which is not marked with price
and sold in the bazars. Leisure itself, which
would seem in the nature of things to be most
readily at our command, is perhaps the cost
lest of all our commodities We have no time
for rest, for thoughts which are their
Gown exceeding great reward" for pleasures
which bring no income save their own grace
and purity. The practical, the prudent, the
productive, the everlasting usury-these mOnOp-
Ollie our minds and our muscles. If there is a
sin which we consider worthy Of capital pun
shmcnt, it is the sin of laziness.
But, after all, do we lapse into paradox
when we say that laziness is sometimes the
most profitable of all work. Does not Nature
sometimes say to us in her most persuasive
tone: Now, my children, be as lazy as you
can? Indeed she does and, for that matter,
she says it as often as once in twenty four
hours. IL she did not regularly compel US
practically to abdicate being, to become as if
we were not, to stop part of the machinery
of life for repairs, we should wear out in a
year, and some of us would 60 mad in the
wearing Sometimes our Over-intense energy
actually deprivcs us of this resource. We fool
with our nerves as q child NEEDLES with a
watch; when we would fain sleep the boon is
denied us, and the morning finds us as weary
and listlcss and inefficient as ever. Nature
takes this method of bcsecching us to be lazy,
and we shall go on tOiling, fretting, shaving,
and so perish by excess of life. She brings a
season in which excrtion, whether physical or
intellectual, is distasteful and noxiOus; and
even if we suspend work we do so in grudg-
ing way which spOs all.
If we go into the country ON hot day in
June, the first thing which strikes us is the
noon tide hush. The very boughs seem to have
forgotten their whisper. The wise husband
man has adjourned his toll and is sleeping in
the shadow of the caves. In the meadows the
cattle have abandoned even the exertiOn of
eating, and are standing under the foliage, or
with their feet in the cooling water. What con-
trast to the artificial turmoil of the town at the
same meridian hour For, deplete the city as
we may motion here never ceases; and thou
sands will be grinding here all Summer for the
hundreds who have gone away-wOrkng when
work means sunstroke, and apOplexy, and fever
and death. In the hot and stifled chamber,
the little child will sicken and die. Through all
the open windows, of certain quarters, will
float, not the pure air which alone is fit for
breathing, but miasma and stenches and all
the food of typhus and of cholera. There is
no help for it, There are evils which we may
mitigate, but which we cannot altogether
abolish. Something we may do for others; but
the one thing which we should do for ourselves,
if possible, is TO rest.