New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-07-05
THE JULY EXODUS.


With this first week in July the universal
social uprocting begins. Il is not now only
the townspooplc who go to the country, but the
country people who go to the local springs or
big fashionable boarding -houscs of which there
Is one in every county in the States, and the
Westerncrs who come East, and the Southern
crs who hio to some halfway stopping
place on their old road northward to Sara
tOga. People who travel much through the
year, or who are in the habit of seeing differ
ent phases OF human nature will not trouble
themselves about the crowds they meet, I'M
less it be to keep cleHr of them But the great
mass go out OF the shell Of their own houses
and social circle az critics. They weigh, value
and label every iaan b. their own rules
In the old days, before Worth founded a
cult OF clothes making, every village mantua-
maker received twice a year the fashion
from Newly 1t was single model of
dress, and into that every woman in
the town who could afford new gown had
to go. Young or old, lean or stout, dark or
fair, 1T was all the same. A puckcr here
pun there-all precisely alike to a BUTTON
they marched to church, the happy and trium-
plant seamstress looking on. Now the unfre-
quent traveller is sure to take along with him
on his summer jaunt something of the same
sort-a model " fashion" by which he meas
ures every soul he meets. Ii is his idea of
what man or woman ought to be. Into it
they all co. and just in proportion as they fill
it out does he hold them fit to live. Our adj
vice to him is, leave it at home In this queer
riddie or world no man lis just what you think
he ought to be. Worse than that, no man is
what, from his circumstances and the class To
which he belongs, you would expect him to be.
tn Il u-bn a..
have thrilled you Ike the highest music, and
he Gobbcs his soup talks through his nose
OF all boresome platitudes. You go with trepi-
dation and awe Ia pay homage TO some broad
souled rciormcr who has given his III. to
elevate the prisoner or the negro, and Won ind
IA pcevish little man sqnabbling with his wife
about the sporting of an omelct. Iou I..o. n
man who makes swindling his profc, 30. and
You find tender son to his old r.u,'i,., as,i a
father who IS bringing M his hey, H. most
n%ld morality. Littrc, whom the Ch.'siian
world dreaded as anti-Chrst, was in the
eyes of his wife Ga gentle saint" and
we once hapl ancd TO know conple of
muidercis under sentence Of death who. in
sudden emergency. showed a fine courtesy and
admirable manly feeling hat would have done
honor to bishop. Leave Your model nj home.
leave yoT critical acunen, your social even
your religious rules. Take your hammer and
your lin case and hunt up specimens of fern
or ore, if you choose. These You can classify:
bat the fluitagc and capitalization of that
unknown element called human life is beyond
any measurement or rule save One
TO any man who has both keen pcrceptiops
and broad common sense, contact with the
diversity of character to be met with at any
place of popular resort would teach humility
nd inf, III
advanced disciple of church, whose lofty
creed puts the Christ down to the same plane
with himself and draws his own soul up TO
the furthest height, and beside him is some
illiterate pious woman from The backwoods
whose hard life and true cudeavor have dis
titled out of n few half-cOmprchended. narrow
dogmas living water such as it is given to few
souls to drink. She shuddcrs at the free
thinker as an atheist, and he laughs mt her IA
an Ignorant bigot; yet they keep step with
each other not badly in real faith and practice.
AT the same table, perhaps, is a good Cath
Ole, just back from pilgrimage to Knock
Hebrew of the Hebrews, whose faith. az
gwen by Moses, has not been tainted by four
thousand years Of changing creeds; shrewd
man OF the world, a simple minded, half
starved Methodist clergyman from some poor
parish, all looking askance at each other. 1t
would do them good to sit shoulder to shoulder
Tor two or three weeks, to pass the butter to
watch the young folks play tennis, or go
fishing for trout together, if the contact helps
them to see that they all alike are sincere, that
they all reverence the same invisible, many-
named Spirit of Good above them, that they
all are doing the best they can, according to
their light, to keep their souls clean and honest
to set their children's feet in straight paths
and to help their neighbors when they can.
If the general migration out-of doors which
Americans now make in summer does not
always teach lessons far reaching as tbis.
it at least is giving us the intelligence, the
patience, the appreciation of mutual forbear-
ance and courtesy which friction with Others
always teaches. 1t is a pity, for this reason.
that separate sects aud classes should concre
gate together, rs they begin to do. Clergy
men, fashionable folk, Methodists, Presbyteri-
ans, even the different professions and trades.
are now making their separate encampments.
in order to find congcnial associates. Ii is not