Year: 1874

"When we are Dead" said Hawthorne one
evening, sitting down In one OF the lOVeliest
of New-England cemeteries, "when we are
"dead, we Americans begin to enjoy our
"selyes" There has been a change since
Hawthorne's time in nothing more than this
We Americans betake ourselves now to en-
ioyment every Summer for week, or for
months, as the case may be; in a practical,
scientific way, it is true, meaning to make
ait pay,n with one eye on our improved dl-
gestion and the other on our nervous system,
taking fresh air and Nature, as if they were
quinine or cod liver oil, as tOnics. 1t does
not matter so much, however. what reason
drags us at first to the country. We shall
find better motives there for ourselves after
awhile


We have been giving from time to time list
of cheap and pleasant resorts in the neigh
borhood for the benefit of those of our clti-
.ens who want the pure air and quiet OF cOun-
try life, but who are forced to consult economy
i'm the search Of them, and who must remain
near the city. Others however, who are free
footed, and who have culture and taste to
appreciate the wonders of our American seem
cry, dawdle the Summer idly away in the tedi-
Gus glare of seaside hotel, or go over to
.dor France or England again from sheer
ignorance of anywhere else to co. We follow
each other in herds like sheep too
much in this country. English and Ger
man tourists are hurrying even now
with contemptuous sniff past our fash
iOnable resorts, to explore the Yellow
stone or the canOns of Colorado, while we
crowd, in painting, well-dressed gangs after
Mr.. Murray up the Adirondacks, or after the
President and John Chamberlin to the races
at Long Branch. All honor to Mr.. Murray for
opening up that pretty little mountain region;
but why should we shut ourselves for all time
into it? Our artists have made themselves
usually the pioneers in exploring new haunts.
AS early as May this year they were off plant
ing their camp-stoOls and yellow umbrellas in
mountain nights and on lonely stretches
of sea-beach, whose names the vulgar know
not, and which are to be found
on no list of excursion tickets. Far be ii from
us to betray them and turn the tide of Sara
tOga trunks, crOquet boxes, and champagne
baskets in upon their solitude. But we would
urge upon any of our readers whose taint of
vagabond blood rebels at Nature in living at
Newport and the pretty pastebOard villas of
our suburban retreats, not to leave any longer
the untold wonders of our own Western ter
ritOries to foreigners to discover. No country
in the world contains such variety of mag
nificent scenery as tho United States, but the
majority of her people know only her tamest
and most commonplace landscapes. The lovely
lakes of Minnesota, the horrors of Colorado
rivers, the grassless deserts and mountain ranges
of Arizona, awful in their lfelessness as any
home of the damned in Dantes Inferno, we
scarcely care to read of, much less to explore.
We are apt, too, to excuse our lack of inter-
est in our own country by contempt for its
vulgar newness; forgetting that in the great
southwestern deserts are cities and burying
places, beside which London and Paris are
but of yesterday. Many of these have been
seen by but one or two white men.


If any Of our readers would like the excite
ment of cheaper exploring tour nearer home,
we could hint to them of odd discoveries to
be made along the Nova Scotlan coast; of
deer and bear and trout streams in desolate
mountain gorges in Pennsylvania. where the
foot of Summer boarder' hath never trOd
of sleepy villages five thousand feet above the
sea level, among the passes and brilliant sun
sets of the Black Mountains; of CHEEKY coun-
try neighborhoOds in Virginia, where board
(plentiful and gOOd) may be had for twelve
dollars month; of jaunts to be made on
horseback or in private cOnveyances to a
thousand curious corners down in the bowels
of the earth or somewhere up in the sky. But
the man for whom these choice bits belong
needs no guide-book or finger-post to point
him to them, nor would he care to have them
published to the whole world in THE TRIBUNE.