Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1885-10-31
SOCIAL LIFE IN AMERICA.
Its Beautiful and Admirable Cha rae, eris-
tics the Country Over.
New York Tribune.

tics the Country over.
New York Tribune.
But whatever may be true OF society in
New York, outside of New York there is
great, wide, independent world which
not only receives no law from New York,
but never thinks of New York, does not
know that there is New York. tits in
the city, in the country. 1t has all the
convenience, all the refnements many
of the luxuries of modern material life.
1t has as much intelligence as New York.
1t reads more, it thinks more, it deals
more with real things. 1t speaks as
gently, it stands more firm. Perched on
my sunny hilltop 1 survey the wide
wooded hills and the far stretching
fields, ard suppose there is not sin
gle dress coat within my great circling
horizon. Can civilization be without
dress-coats? see yonder in the south
western heavens the skylight of social
club which gathers every known flower
and bird and bug all summer and CLASH
fes and analyses them all winter. Here
is president of bank who leaves his
carriage to pluck green knob, cuts it
open with his penknife and shows you
the worm that nestles at its heart. A
tradesman points out in the smooth rock
under your horses hoofs the track of the
glacier a billion years ago-or is it the
swoop of Mr.. Donnelly's comet? From
yondsr shoemaker's little, square, grace
less shop comes man, learned in snakes,
who will lay down his lap stone and
teach you as deity how snake walks
as Ruskin teaches you the falsehood and
ignorance Of the LAGOON. On the north
east see pnan to whom the light of
heaven has been darkened these thirty
years, but before whom on that account
all the ways of the world seem only the
more clearly outlined and to whose ar
dent patriotism the manifest destiny of
this country is strangely blocked by the
most hopeless blindness of all-the
blindness of those who, having eyes, see
not. But fearing lest, in that new world
to which we are fastening, he shall find
light again only to learn that his beloved
classics have no circulation there, he is
having his dearest old Greek plays and
Latin epics and Hebrew songs read over
to him by every man and maid whose
mouth is fashioned to frame those un-
accustomed words-and they are not few!
Yonder is the simple, sweet home of
woman whose domestic virtues and gay
private benifcences make you forget
that the most chill and wintry scenery
of New England will grow gorgeous,
vivid, sentient under her glowing pen.
On that western slope gathering now
the amethystine tint of the setting sun, a
young girl breathed the breath of Italy,
drank the wine of Macenas, distilled the
honey of Hymettus, and in this new,
fresh world, wrought from the older
worlds such sweetness and light as dared
shine out full and free and bold even in
to Matthew Arnold's face. Time and
type would fail me to Lame the names
of those around me, poor and rich, who
have turned from the mere material
pleasures of wealth, who have forged
their way out from the stern restrictions
of poverty and by home study, by for
eign travel, from pure love, have joined
force with the simple great of all ages
and have added their own clear candor
and white radiance to the sweetness and
light of the world.