McCook weekly tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 188?-1886, 1883-10-25
City Versus Country.
November Atlantic.

November Atlantic.
/ have heard good people declaim
against the social life of cities rs if there
were really something criminal in
fondness for dinner parties, receptions
and balls, and high degree of virtue
in abstaining from such pleasures by
those who could not have them If they
would. have had considerable expe-
rience Of life in rural towns, and SO far
rs it informs me am willing to main
est, dignlfied with worthy interests and
aims, than life in cities, but merely
less busy and duller thing. The friv-
olous city girls day is filled with en-
gagements from morning to night
with shopping, paying and receiving
visits, driving in the park, and theatre
or ball going in the evening. Her mind
is taken up with these things to the ex-
clusion of anything like intellectual oc-
cupation-for novel-reading does not
come under that head. She is absorbed
in pleasure-seeking in all its various
kinds. The frivolous country girl has
more time on her hands, but does she
do anything better with 1t? She, too,
seeks her pleasures, as many as are to
be had, and signs that there are no
more of them. She shops and pays calls,
and plays tennis in the afternoon in
stead of driving on the avenue; wishes
there were dance for the evening, but
since there is not stays Sat home and
does some fancy-work, finishes heb
novel, or chats with some intimate who
"drops inn on her. What real differ
ence in her character is made by the
fact that she has had but one party to
attend during the week, where the 9th
er girl has had six? n worldliness
worse because it is on a larger scale?
Is scandal about the last elopement in
fashionable society more demOralizing
than gossip about ones next-door
neighbours son and the attention he is
paying to Miss So-and-SO? The virtue
of minding ones own business is not
more commonly practiced in rural
places than in larger ones. l know of
city girls who mingle with their pleas
ures an active care for the Door and
sick, spending as much thought and
time in charitable work as those who,
living in country places, have less de-
mand upon their leisure. 1t is sad to
see a man or woman spending life in
thoughtless gayety; to me, it is equally
sad to see one wasting it in simple, neg
atively virtuous insanity. | know GER
tain worthy persons, the mere sight of
whom is depressing beyond words. The
vacancy of their mind Expresses
me as Il suspension in 4 STRAIN of music
distresses the ear; the duilness of their
undeveloped sensiblities, the contrac-
ton of the mental and spiritual space
they are shat up IL, affects me rs "a
positive pam. Ii It We're an external
necessity that compelled to this way of
existence, the. case would be hard
enough; but being, as l know it is, the
result of choice and habit, and that,
again, the outcome of sluggish temper
amert and minds deprived of proper
stimulus, the pity of it is SO much the
greater. Sometimes such people do
suffer from this species of self-starva-
ton, yet without knowing it, or at least
without comprehension of the true
cause of their dull unrest. Perhaps it
is just such a one, of all persons, whom
you will hear speaking in disparage-
ment of fashionable" society. In the
name of reason, one exclaims Internal
ly, is it not better at least to enjoy ones
self than to make an absolute nothing
of ones life? TIE be pleased with trifles
is at least no crime, but you would
make it a virtue TO be pleased with