The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-04-14

Within the past few years marked
drift toward suburban and rural life has
been noted in all parts of the country.
People with money enough to own estates
have built costly country homes. others
with less money have contented themselves
with a few acres and an inexpensive cot
tage, while many one has endeavored TO
satisfy his yearnings for things rural by
building a house on narrow lot out at
the city's edge. This drift has come about
through a variety of causes. There is al
the minds of city residents who were
oountry-bred and who look back to the
early days, seeing only their pleasures and
none of their clouds. The literature of rural
life, too, has been something of a fad.
Nature books are innumerable, and not
a magazine can be found without one or
more contributions reciting directly or in
directly the charms of country living.
Writers about birds, about animals about
gardens-the garden literature makes a Ii
brary in itself-about the delights and prof
its of flower raising and fruit raising and
chicken raising, have not only aroused the
memories of those who were once familiar
with these things, but excite longings for
such knowledge in the minds of many
whose days have been spent within city
walls. To love nature is quite the correct
thing in these days, and many there be
who affect to cherish the sentiment The
building of interurban electric roads has
fac tod he ToIl
a host of people are planning for and
dreaming of the future joys of country
life.
Doubtless such joys exist for the elect
few capable of appreciating and valuing
them above and beyond all accompanying
disadvantages, but there are disadvantages,
there is another side to the story. There is
the loneliness of the country, for example.
One phase of this felt in closely-settled
rural England is not likely to be expert
enced in this country. at least to the same
extentAnamely, the lack, to educated per-
sons, of congenial companionshp. An adj
vertisement in a London paper begs lone
or two ladies (evangelicaD or an elderly
retired vicar, either TO take lodgings in the
village or rent small furnished house.
and be company for the evangelical vicar"
Education not being such an exclusive
thing in this country the resident of the
rural district is not more likely to suffer
from intellectual isolation than when he
lived in the city. Indeed, it is not unlike
ly that he may find his farmer neighbors
even better informed upon the affairs of
the world than himself
Nevertheless, the country is lonely to
those who have not been accustomed to it,
to those who have been used to the sights
and sounds of the city or town. Some, even
who were born and have lived all their
lives distant from trolley car and paved
streets admit that they find life dull oc-
casionally, and long for lively environ
ment. But it is the transplanted urbanite
who feels most deeply that while the coun-
try has delights it has also its drawbacks.
The very silence, for instance gets on his
nerves-the so-cailed peaceful silence of
which poets who could not be persuaded to
live beyond the hearing of street gongs write
so enticingly. The zephyrs that watt the
scent Of clover across the fields become q
different thing when they wall and moan
| about the lonely house at night or lash
| the trees angrily. Bird-songs are delight
| ful, but the blood-curdling screech of the
owl at midnight is another thing entirely.
| The 'watchdogs honest bark may be
| cheering, but the melancholy howl of a
| dog baying the moon produces different
| effect as 1t Is borne across the fields.
| Sensitive persons have been known to con-
| template suicide after hearing the chorus of
| the frogs on a spring night The elements
| are not always conducive to joy, whatever
| the environment, but in the city one may
| forget that it is raining outside or even
look out at it with interest. In the country
| not even the contemplation of possible ag-
| ricultural benefits can make the world
| other than sodden and depressing when
| the downpour has done its worst The
| nights are very dark in the country when
the moon is not at the full or when clouds
| are in the sky and in the gloom objects
familiar by day loom large and strange
| The air becomes full of stealthy sounds;
| the shrilling of insects here and there &C.
| centuates the stiffness. The very spirit OF
! loneliness is abroad, and he is a nature
| lover, indeed, who in the night watches
does not long for the flare of Inc electric
lights, for the changing of the street-car
gong. for the echo of passing footsteps OF
the sound of CHEEKY whistling. In daytime
, too, the contemplation of earth and sky
and far horizon becomes oppressive 10 the
| simple human soul not attuned to natures
vastness. and he will wish for the compan.
ionship of his kind.
1t is well to live in the country; the coun-
try has beauties innumerable: joy and in.
spiration are there-but it sometimes hap
pens that it affords more inspiration tc
the one who admires it from affair than t.
him who is on the ground. Therefore on,
who dreams OF the rural home which car
only exist in dreams may, after all, enjoy
the best of country living.
The quarrel up In the north end over tn,