Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1883-11-22
CITY versus Country.

/ have heard good people declaim
against the social life of cities as if
here were really something criminal in
4 fondness for dinner parties, recep-
ions, and balls, and q high degree of
virtue in abstaining from such pleas
Tres by those who could not have them
f they would. | have had considerable
experience of life in rural towns, and so
FAR as it informs me [ am willing to
maintain that life in them is no more
earnest, dignified with worthy inter-
asts and aims, than life in cities, but
merely less busy and duller thing.
The frivolous city girls day is filled
with engagements from morning to
night, with shopping, paying and re-
;eiying visits, driving in the park, and
Gheater or ball going in the evening.
Her mind is taken up with these things
to the exclusion of anything like intel
lectual occupation, -for novel reading
does not come under that head. She
is absorbed in pleasure-seeking in all
It's various kinds. The frivolous coun-
try girl has more time on her hands,
but does She do anything better with
it? 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 was a dance for
the evening, but since there is not stays
at home and does some fancy-wOrk, fin
ishes her novel, or chats with some in
innate who ''drops in" on her. What
real difference in her character is made
by the fact that she has but one party
to attend during the week, where the
other girls have had six? Is worldli
ness worse because it is on a larger
scale? Is scandal about the last elope-
ment in fashionable society more de-
moralizing 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. | 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 works 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,
negatively yirtuous inanity. know GER
tain worthy persons the mere sight of
whom is depressing beyond words.
The vacancy of their minds Expresses
me as a suspension in a strain of music
distresses the ear; the dullness OF their
undeveloped sensibilities, the contrac-
ton of the mental and spiritual space
they are shut up in, affects me as posi-
tive pain. Ii it were an external neces-
sity that compelled to this way of eX-
istence, the case would be hard enough;
but being, as | know it is, the result of
choice and habit, and that, again, the
outcome of sluggish temperament and
minds deprived of proper stimulus, the
pity of it is the much the greater.
Sometimes such people do suffer from
this species of self-starvation, yet with
out 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 disparagement of fashion
| able" 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? TIC
be pleased with trifes is at least nc
crime, but you would make it virtue
| to be pleased with nothing. -NOUen1be1
| atlantic.