The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-04-13
The Amusements of the Rich.


True amusement is of two kinds, viz:
active and passive. The active and
weary man and woman-those who ex-
haust every day their vital energies in
work-take naturally to passive amuse-
ment. A lady of our acquaintance, en-
gagged daily in severe intellectual tasks,
says that nothing rests her like seeing
other people work. For this she goes
to the theater, and the play upon her
emotions there rests, and reereates her.
Indeed, 1T is the emotional side of the
nature, and not the active, which fur
nlshes play to those who are weary with
the use of their faculties. This fact COW
ers the secret of the popular success of
what is called emotional preaching.
People who have been engaged all the
week in exhausting labor of any kind
do not take kindly to high intellectual
feast on Sunday. They want to be
moved and played upon. This rests
and interests them, while the profound
discussion of great problems in life and
religion wearies and bores them. They
are not up to it. They are weary and
jaded in that part of their nature which
such a discussion engages. The emo
tiOns which have been blunted and sup
pressed by their pursuits are hungry.
So every form Of amusement that truly
meets their wants must be emotive, and
must leave them free to rest in those
faculties which are weary.
On the other hand the young who
are brimming with animal life and who
fail to exhaust it in study, call for ac-
tive amusements, and they must have
them. And here the parent is in danger
of making a great mistake. Unless q
boy is milk-sop, he must do some
thing or die. If he cannot do something
in his home, or in the homes of his
companions, he will do something else
where. 1t is only within a few years
that parents have begun to be sensible
upon this matter. The billiard table,
which few years ago was only asso-
ciated with dissipation, now has an
hOnored place and the largest room in
every rich mans house. The card-table,
that once was synonym of wicked
ness, is part of a rich mans furniture,
which his children may use at will, in
the pursuit of harmless game. A good
many manufactured sins have been de-
thrOned from their fictitious eminence
and put to beneflcent family service on
behalf of the young. Athletic sports,
such as skating, boating, shooting, ball
| playing, running and leaping, have
sprung into great prominence within
the past few years-amusements of Just
the character for working of the exces-
sive vitality of young men, and develop
| ing their physical power. This is all
well-a reform in the right direction.
Much of this is done before the public
eye, and the presence of young women,
which tends to restrain all tendencies to
eNcesses and to dissipation.
The activities of young women take
another direction, and nothing seems to
US more hopeful than the pursuits in
which they engage. The rich young
woman in these days, who does not
marry, busies herself in tasteful and in
tellectual pursuits. The reading club,
the Shakespeare club, the drawing class,
and kindred associations, employ her
spare time; and now there is hardly
more busy person living than the rich
young woman who is through with her
boarding-schOol. The poor, who sup
pose that the rich young woman leads
an idle life, are very much mistaken.
The habits of voluntary industry now
adopted and practiced by the young
woman of America, in good circum-
stances, are most gratefully surprising.
One of them who is not so busy during
the winter that she really needs a recu-
perating summer, is an exception. Our
old ideas of the lazy, fashionable girl
must be set aside. They are all at work
at something. 1t may not bring them
money, but it brings what is much bet
ter to them-the content that comes of
an earnest and fruitful pursuit. 1t may
take the form of amusement, but it re-
suits in a training for self-helpfulness
and industry.
So, while not much can be done for
the adult in this matter of amusement,
much is done for the young, and much
that will help to give US generation of
older men and women, who will not be
content with the poor business of kill
ing time. For it must be remembered
that while the young women "assist"
at the athletic games of young men, the
young men are indispensable to the In
tellectual associations of the young
women. They meet together, and slim
ulate and help each other; and it does
not seem possible that either party
should ever subside into those time
killers who haunt the clubs established
for men, or those jaded women who
drag themselves around to dinners and
lunches and thronged assemblies.-Dr.
Holland, in Scribner for March.