New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-11-27
REUNIONS, FEASTING, Fun
LITTLE NARY'S BUSY DAY.
Services in MaHg ChHrches-RagG-
mullins Held the Streets.

And yesterday was THANKSGIVING,
1t may be that Little Mary assents to this
statement with a pIaintive accent OF grief. for
Little Mary can be plaintive on occasion And
Little Mary bears her share OF the burden CT
Thanksgiving Day. BE her mood glad or gay.
however there are other reminders The even
ing roast fowl doth cOldly furnish forth the
breakfast table. and one gOeth forth to his
labors again. and the football season Is over
There is indeed. something melancholy Ga peril
word to use. perhaps. with The Lark so
late in the magazine heavens9 about the morn
ing after Thanksgiving more or less tangible
sense Of loss and desoIation. A subtle SINH
Iarity exists between Nature and the pantry
shelves; both are depleted. wasted and bur
dened with the bones and remnants of the feast
The apples have been gathered into the cider
press: the turkey has strutted his little day;
pumpkins that grew golden in the summer sun
down amid the corn and cleaned like giant balls
on the brown stubble fields Of autumn, have
been brought to the pie plate: and they have
been devoured, and the winter is upon
1t Is always autumn until Thanksgiving which
is the crown of autumn But the next morning
it is winter. The transition is abrupt. cruel
The old man who yesterday the life Of the
family feast this morning feels his years; the
youth who yesterday went twice around the
links before dinner and achieved a new course
hears in memory the last call Of the quail be-
yond the ninth bunker as sad as a waltz OF
vanished seasons. and for bit the world for
him is blank and gray But. most OF all. the
little boy knows the change and feels IL be-
cause his life IS lived close to the fields and
woods: his moods the moods Of Nature He
saws nothing about it, but he knows that sum
raer and misty autumG-summer with its JOY
and autumn with it's incense and its solemnity-
are over and gone. And there is not yet snow.
or black ice and hockey!
THANKSGIVING IN TOWN
Rut what do they in city pent'' know Of ali
+bis2 In town Yesterday dinners were eaten,
and families united, and gastrOnOmic regrets re-
corded But what moods of Nature are reflected
BIZ asphalt streets and towering walls of stone
and steel or how is winter heralded except by
the display of furs in the shop windows and the
newspaper accounts of the first snowfall in
Vermont? What is Thanksgiving in town but
a holiday when a good dinner is cooked a rest
secured (perhaps) theatre party carried out,
and an after like its before, tomorrow OF the
same complexion as it's yesterday?
Well that is a question for each individual
fnhab itant Of Nev-York 20 answer for himself
Different men Will always md different outlets
FOR the optimism which exists in solution with
experience in every human heart. but many will
surely find one in a belief that even in Manhattan
the moods OF Nature to some degree do permeate.
that even in the artificial. restless prosafe. mad
form Of life which has been of necessity evolved
on Manhattan Island some notes Of the song
universal do make themselves heard; in short.
that the resident of F1fth-ave. or the cave
dvveIIe- A. Harlem looking this morning on the
last pie,. of pumpkin pie. sees in vision a brown
and barren pasture and feels the sadness of the
davs that are no more If this be true. then
Thanksgiving yearly brings a cause for graft
trde and true thanksgiving may be silently
offered by all as uerfunctory thanksgiving Is
sure to be offered a few who suppose that
the mission of a holiday can remain unchanged
for more than two generations Nature and
the deem calm Of Nature and the constituencies
+b.+ ia bred BY contact with her shifting
moods are far from the urban life OF to-day.
and the deep undersong of poetry which they
lend to the life Of man. city jewellers must too
often get II at all. from the pages of a book.
But how much pIeasanter to get it from roast
turkey and mince pie
THE ORIGIN OF THE DAY.
After all there was something richly pagan
about the New-England origin Of Thanksgiving
Day. and Christian prayers in the white meet
ing houses but thinly yelled the fact that good
appetites waited on the produce Of the brown
hiusides. with which the New Englanders. bear
felt a bond Of brotherhood and dependence none
the less mystic and poetic because earthly.
There was something Greek and childliSe
about il all. with a sense Of ensuing desolation
too strong TO he banished by considerations Of
an ultimate return of spring. and certainly
bringing into life a variety Of deep-lyinS moods
quite unknown 10 the deadly uniform city HE
OF to-day. which IS so generally and 50 falsely
Thought TO be varied as opposed TO the "monot-
ouv~ Of Nature. II is man, rot Nature that Is
raonotonous. The feverish existence between
Harlem. Wall Street and the Ratio Is a Jahsie
1et hin, give thanks. indeed. Who from a pump
kin pie at Thanksgivingtide. can catch once
more. the real rhythm OF life
But hold on minute. cries the Geht'e
x,.,dar whose address is Manhattan Is all
tbts meant TO imply that to have any poetry in
- ,o,,I a man must be born in New England?
Humpht
NJ AZ all Keats born a livery
IN or near one. and he is generally accepted
e.,.>.rPA Al CHANGE OF TINE on PENNSYI-
NANTA RAILROAD