The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-06-13
Correspondence.
AN OUTING" PRELIMINARY.
BY EMILY L. SHERWOOD,

Where Are You Going this Season
The spring housekeeping we'll out of
the way, those of us who have not quite
settled yet what we shall do with our.
selves during the long warm days of
summer are considering the diversified
merits of the inland lakes, Chautauqua,
the Adirondacks, Saratoga or the sea.
Those who go to Europe this year have
made up their minds and route long
ago.
Where we shall land after all our can
wasting, all depends the length of our
purses, our tastes and how long we can
be spared from home. Some can idle
away season with impunity, while
others have to content themselves with
few weeks or month. And there are
still other some of us. who will conclude
on the whole they can be more comfort
able at home during the extreme heat,
in dressing gowns and wrappers. and in
their own large sleeping rooms. with
cool tiled bathroom on the same floor,
all to themselves. than they possibly could
be in the modern caravansary known as
the Grand Hotel where the rooms are so
small and high up, and the prices so
high these hard times, it throws one into
a perspiration just to think of them and
the intolerable heat, the mosquitoes
and bad French ~ cooking. At home the
wide verandas invite one to semi-neg-
ligee, repose, and comparative quiet,
since only the very conservative old
fogies, like ourselves, are at home to drop
in onus in an informal way.
Well, everybody to his notion. And
some of us do find an attraction in the
cottage sojourn by the inland lakes,
where fashion has not yet set up her
reign. And away we go. resolving to
slough off all artificial habits possible
and enter upon a regime of simplicity
that tends to health and happiness.
How we did enjoy the pretty little sails
on those sheets of Laughing waters" SO
mysteriously scattered through the in
terror of New York, last year! There
were fishing excursions on cloudy days
when fish are supposed to bite more
readily, although l could never under
stand the why and the wherefore, and
those long dreary hours under the droop-
ing water-elm or sycamore trees, and
the charming books we took with us and
held in our hands, but did not read, for
the droning of the bees who were pillag-
ing a buckwheat field near by, and the
morning and evening songs of more birds
than we had ever heard before. That is
a captivating picture daguerreotyped, or
should l say snapped shot? into our
brains.
Don't Decide In a Hurry.
Very few people are so mentally con-
structed it is safe for them to go twice
to the same place for summer outing. 1t
seldom happens the conditions are the
same two consecutive seasons, and it is
better. unless one owns cottage, to try
new place which gives the zest which
comes OF novelty and variety, since to get
out OF rut and new point of view is
one object for leaving home.
Those people who go to Europe may
go for culture and improvement, but
may go just because it is fashionable
and about as cheap as to go anywhere
nearer home, the travel is not more
than the series of hops" and
out door fetes that fill up the evenings
at the fashionable resort and supple
ment the evening reception and grand
ball of the city season. Some o. us
would rather be dead and cremated.
since that is fashionable too, than out of
the swim with those who are at the top
Of the social ladder.
II we do not go to Europe this year
We may possibly spend part of the gay