The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1883-11-24
City Versus Country.

l. nave n6dIu SOOu people ueCadlm
against the social life of cities as if there
we're really something criminal in a
fondness for dinner parties, receptions
and balls, and a high degree of virtue in
sustaining from such pleasures by those
who could not have them if they would.
l have had considerable experience of
life in rural towns, and SO far as it in
forms me / am willing to maintain that
life In them is no earnest, digni-
fed with worthy interests and aims,
than life in cities, bnt merely a less busy
and a duller thing. The frivolous city
girls day is filled with engagements
from morning to night-with shopping,
paying and receiving visits, driving III
the park, and theatre or ball going in
the evening. Her mind is taken up
with these things to the exclusion of
anything like intellectual occupation
novel. reading docs not come under that
head. She is absorbed in pleasure-seek-
ing in all its various kinds. The frivol-
GUS country girl has more time on her
hands, but does she do anything better
with it2 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 instead Of
driving on the avenue; wishes there
were d dance for the evening, but since
there is not stays at home and does some
fancy work, finishes her novel, or chats
with some intimate who drops in" On
her. What real difference in her char
acter is made by the fact that she has
had but one party to attend during the
u,anly rylnra fhn cfhnr civil hay hod civC
Is worldliness worse because it is on a
larger scale? rs scandal about the last
elopement in fashionable society more
demoralizing than gossip about ones
next door neighbours son and the atten-
ton 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. | know Of
city girls who mingle with their pleas,
ures an active care for the poor and sick,
spending as much thought and time in
charitable work rs those who, living in
country places, have less demand upon
their leisure. Ii is sad to see a man or
woman spending life in thoughtless gay
ETY.; TO me, it is equally sad to see one
wasting it in simple, negatively virtuous
inanity. / know certain worthy per
sons the mere sight of whom is
depressing beyond words. The vacancy
of their minds Expresses me as a suspen-
sion in q strain Of music d~istresses the
ear; the dullness of their undeveloped
sensibilities, the contraction ofthe men
tai and spiritual space they are shut UP
in, affects me as a positive pain. fit
were an external necessity that com
PEELED to this way of existence, the case
would be hard enough; but being, as !
know it is, the result OF choice and hab-
it, and that, again, the outcome ofslug-
gish temperament and minds deprived
Of proper stimulus, the pity of it is so
much the greater. Sometimes such
people do suffer from the species Of
self. starvation, yet without knowing it.
or at least without comprehension OF
the true cause Of their dull unrest. Per.
haps it is just such a one of all persons,
whom YOU Will hear speaking in dispar-
agement of fashionable society. In the
name of reason, one exclaims internally,
is it not better at least to enjoy ones
self than to make an absolute nothing OF
ones life? To be pleased with tribes is
al least no crime, but You would make
it a virtue to be pleased with nothing.
November Atlantic.