Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1883-08-13
AUGUST.

August, Notwithstanding its robust
name, is sort of fabby, watering
place month. 1t is fy-time, it is
dog-days time, it is Irritation time.
1t is period of general listlessness
and indecision. 1t is said to be very
difficult in August to make up the
mind either to accept or reject him.
And, worse still, it is apt to be the
latter part of the month before he
makes up his mind to propose. In
deed, to speak of making up the
mind at all in August is nearly alb
surd, for there is no mind to make
up. Nature and people-if the eX-
preston may be permitted-feel
seedy. Inland it is muggy, on the
sea coast it is foggy. In the cities
all the taste has gone out of life;
even in the hills every one is languid
and disposed to lounge on piazzas
and watch things simmer. The
world, like a garden, owns itself
played out. The days are growing
short again, and it might be expect
ed that the Incorporate heat of July
would abate, but the heat continues,
although it is not the clear sun-heat
of the growing season, but sort of
overhead steaming up from the
earth. 1t is the month to get away
from everything, even from ones
self. Even the churches slow down.
Yet there are good things about
August. The schools are shut up,
the everlasting process of education
is eased off, and a chance is given
for the mind to stretch itself and
grow little naturally. People for
get that the mind needs those periods
of semi-doze in which to ripen. We
understand all about the convolutions
and the gray matter of the brain,
and know just where the memory
cells are, and where lie the coils of
Imagination and ideality, can put
your finger on the spot that, if eX-
cited, makes man willing to pay his
debts, and on the spot where exists
the impulse to forgive our debtors if
our creditors will forgive us; but no
one can tell how it is that if a thought
is dropped into the brain overnight,
and left to simmer there. and, indeed,
remains for time wholly unheeded,
it will be found, when again called
up, to have blossomed into a sermon,
or an essay, or magazine paper
worth ten dollars a page. L know a
clergyman who is obliged to set his
sermons overnight in this way, exact
ly like q batch of bread, or it will not
rise in the morning. The idea seems
to be yeast, and that furnished, the
brain will go on unconsciously, and
| work out the rest itself. The trOu-
BILE with a good many sermons and
essays is that they don't have any
| yeast in them. Perhaps August,
which seems so stupid, is the yeast
month of the year, and perhaps this
is the reason that so many authors
find September the most fruitful
month of the year.
August is also lawyers vacation,
and their clients have a rest, and an
opportunity to settle up their differ
ences in an amicable way. When
the lawyers quit the ship it is sign
that everybody else ought to go-to
be off to the Rockies, to the North
woods, to Norway, to the rocks by
the sounding ser, if there is by that
time rock anywhere on our thou
sands of miles of coast that has not
young lady sitting on it, with a
spread parasol and novel in her
hand, and still more interesting
work of nature and art at her feet,
talking languidly about friendship,
and how you can know if two people
are suited to each other, don't you
know. 1t is the harvest month of
the novelist, for then every one wants
a novel-to put in the pocket in the
woods, or to carry down to the beach,
or to leave lying round with the split
zephyr. People will buy novels in
August, if they cannot borrow them,
and if they are in cheap editions. II
is nice holiday, August, just be-
cause it has no vitality in it. Pity il
cannot be more of holiday to more
people. For the shops ought to