New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-07-31

activity. Even now, in our time of tropical
heat we know no tropical languors. We take
our summer rest not because we have lost the
inclination to work, nor because there is any
thing in tho arid air which invites to repose, but
because experience or the doctor has told us
that rest we must or burn out altogether, if in
deed we have not already been driven to the
point of exhaustion and our jaded bodies refuse
to be whipped or spurred to any further
strain. But there are always compensations.
Leisure with life in it is better than torpidity,
Even rest is more refreshing when every sense
and faculty is alert. Treasures Of courage and
patience and health and hope are not gathered
by slumbering in some Lotos-land where it is
always afternoon. If our climate hurries us
into more wasteful expenditure of life it is
more potent to renOvate and reanimate.
Most persons instinctively turn to nature for
q genuine recreation. No matter how hard
and prosaic our lives may become, there is a
remnant, or at least a "Reminiscences, of child
hood in us ALL The thrill Of awe and reverence
and love which everyone remembers to have
felt in early life at some exhibition of strength
or beauty in natural objects may never come
again as it came in the years when Heaven Law
about us. But in some indelinable way we are
still sOothed and exhilarated and strengthened
by what we hear and see and muse upon when
brought In contact with the mystery and
majesty of nature. 1t is more than fresh air
we lind when spending vacation in the country
we need not dissect our emotions to discover
why the restless and ever-mOaning sea should
be so tranquillizing, why the glories of sunset
should inspire US at once with longing and with
hope, why the aspect of broad fields clothed
with gray-grecn herbage should be so uni
fOrmly cheerful, or why towering mountain
masses should awe us into reverence 1t is
enough to know that we can surrender our
selves to these influences with perfect trust, and
that the results will be genuine and certain.
Some satisfaction and refreshment we could
absorb even in our most passive moods but
when every faculty is eager and every sense is
whetted to its keenest edge, the mysteries
which surround us are more deeply penetrated
and yield their most profound and enduring
impressions.
1t should not he matter of regret, therefore,
that in these yellow midsummer days tho dry
air Is still charged with stimulating electric
force. We cannot dream away our vacation if
we would. Our senses were not more thor
oughly awake in crisp February weather than
they are now when the sky is quivering with
heat. Fortunately, too, at this noontide of the
year there is as much to engage our awakened
interest rs spring can furnish with all its mar
velious surprises, or autumn with its ripened
abundance. Warmth is life, and now the vital
energies OF nature are ut their high tide.
Those who turn to nature to find delight i'm the
soothing beauty of the woods and waters, those
who search for u less emotional but moro
thoughtful pleasure in tho pursuit OF natural
science or those more favored ones to whom in
special way some viewless spirit brings tho
the summer prodigality of life enough to fur
nish worthy and absorbing occupation for
every scnse, however keen and ardent Iii is
climate then which wears us out before our
time by driving us to overwork, it Is our own
fault IL we do not avail ourselves OF the same
influences which furnish the best conditions
for successful recupcration.