St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-08-30
THE SEASON IN THE EAST.

The season at the seashore, as far as
hotel life is concerned, ends with the
first week in September. Even if the
weather continues warm later than
this, such places cease to be attractive
because many have already made their
plans for leaving, which it is not easy
to alter, and those who remain behind
find it doleful to spend their days in the
midst of good byes, of baggage packed
and labeled for the city, and of hauntS
deserted where a little while before
everything was hustle and gayety. The
seashOre after the first OF September is
like a ball room in the morning after
the ball, or like country mansion after
a house party has left it. The glory is
departed, and it takes poetic and sOme-
what morbid temperament to find pleas
ure in what it has to offer.
In the last twenty years, since wealth
has increased and became settled in the
possession of many families, pleasure
seekers in the East spend the fall among
the mountains of New England and
New York. A great many delightful
places have grown up in the interior,
which, after the seashore is no longer
available, are frequented by those who
have money and the leisure. The hills
of Northwestern Connecticut and of
Western Massachusetts and Vermont
are studded with villages which have
developed into Importance in response
to this fashion. Litchfield and the
towns surrounding it, Stockbridge,
LenoX, Pittsfeld, Great Darlington, st.
Johnsbury, St. Adams and great many
other such places a quarter of a century
ago were country hamlets with no par
ticular vitality; but now, in the brisk
fall days, their streets are gay with
handsome eQuipages and pleasant peo-
pie, and at night within the walls OF
their houses are well metaled dinner
parties, dances and the other amenities
which are the expression of modern
social life.
This supplementary season is con-
tinued quite well on to the first of No
vember, OF later, and it is not until then
that activity is resumed IN the cities.
The amusements at Len0X or Litchfield
have a studied simplicity and self-re-
straint which is in deep contrast with
their style at the seashore. There is
some affectatiOn of the country life,
and some conscious aping Of the Eng
fish rural methods. 1t is not as robust
as the English system, however. There
is neither shooting nor fishing at these
American resorts. The men spend their
time in such outdoor sports as are pos
sible. Tennis and such things are much
in vogue, and riding and driving are
very popular. The roads through the
mountains are good, the scenery is
beautiful, the frost-nipped foliage makes
a charming background, and long eX
cursiOnS through the woods and over
the crests of the hills are eXhilarating
preludeS to substantial dinners and
evenings spent around the open fire
places in the society of books and ones
friends.
There are criticisms to be made on all
this, as an evidence of the growth of a
leisured class in our country. and of the
spread of luxury and self-indulgenee
which are very foreign to the ambitions
and ideals of our forefathers. 1t has to
be taken as a fact, nevertheless, and is
commented on here in this spirit, and
in this spirit only. Under its influence
the character of rural New England is
much changed. The intrusion of the
urban population into the homes of the
farmer has spread abroad notions which
have allured the farmers SONS and
| daughters to venture into the whirl and
| chances of the city. The demand for
farms, not for Investments or sources of
income, but for luXuries and places Of
residence. has, combined with the COM
petition of our richer Western lands,
depopulated the fields which were once
carefully but somewhat unpr0fitably
| cultivated. New England is in proc
ess Of transformation from country
of small towns, partly supported by the
trade of neighboring farmers and partly
by a factory or two, into a region where
there are many big cities, many farms
kept up as holiday places, and handsome
| villages filled with ambitious mansions
and peopled by rich men and women.
living there part of the year and else
where the rest. the East has become
a center of high civilization of COM
| pick pattern, with the attractions which
| attend such a life, as well as its tempta-
tons and objections.