The Art of Living

I

What is the good American to do with himself or herself in summer? The busiest worker nowadays admits that a vacation of a fortnight in hot weather is at least desirable. Philanthropy sends yearly more and more children on an outing in August, as one of the best contributions to the happiness and welfare of the poor. The atmosphere of our large cities in midsummer is so lifeless and oppressive that every one who can get away for some part of the summer plans to do so, and fathers of families find themselves annually confronted by a serious problem.

I specify the father of a family because the problem is so much easier for a single man. The single man, and generally the single woman, can pack a bag and go to the beach or mountains, or to a hotel within easy distance from town, without much premeditation. The worst that can happen to them is that they may become engaged without intention; besides they can always come home if they are dissatisfied with their surroundings. But the family man who lives in a large city finds more and more difficulty every year, as the country increases in population, in making up his mind how best to provide for the midsummer necessities of his wife and children. There are several courses of action open to him.

He can remain in town and keep his family there.

He can remain in town himself and send his family to a distance.

He can hire a house or lodgings by the sea or in the country within easy reach of town by railroad or steamboat.

He can send his family to a summer hotel at a distance, or take a house or lodgings at a distance, making occasional flying trips to and from town, according to his opportunities.

To stay in town and keep one’s family there is a far from disagreeable experience except in very large cities in unusually hot weather. The custom of going away from home in summer is one which has grown by force of imitation. The inclination to change one’s surroundings, and to give the wife and children a whiff of country or sea or mountain air for a few weeks in the course of the year is an ambition which is neither godless nor extravagant. But it is not worth while to set this necessity up as an idol to be worshipped at the expense of comfort for the rest of the year, for, after all, our ancestors successfully reared large families of children, including some of us, without going away from home in the summer, and “the-can’t-get-aways” in our largest and most uncomfortable cities still outnumber those who can and do in the proportion of at least five to one. It costs more to go away than to stay in town; from which certain native philosophers, who maintain that any one who spends more than twenty-five hundred dollars on his family in any one year is not a good American, may argue that those who have both a summer and a winter home are aristocrats and materialists. Their argument is not likely to diminish summer travel, to bankrupt the summer hotels, or to induce the well-to-do American citizen to shut up his cottage. A change in summer, for a longer or shorter period, is generally recognized as one of the most healthful and improving advantages which a father in our civilization can give his family and himself. On the other hand, to go out of town simply because one’s neighbors do, when one cannot afford it, is a pitiful performance.

Moreover, the man who does not send his family out of town from motives of economy, has more than a clean conscience to comfort him. He can remember that probably one-third of the annual experiments in summer culture and health-giving recreation, made by his friends and acquaintance, turn out dire failures, and that another one-third result in mixed joy and comfort. He can reflect too, if he lives in the suburbs of a city, or in a town or small city, that, barring a few exceptionally hot days, he and his family are really very comfortable at home. Even if his household gods are in a parboiled metropolis, he will commonly be able to relieve his tedium and physical discomfort by some form of excursion. All our seaboard cities have their midsummer Meccas for the multitude in the form of beaches; and even where no ocean breezes blow, there is usually close at hand verdure, a lake, a grove, or a river where the philosophical soul can forget the thermometer, and cease to commiserate with itself on being kept in town. One’s own bed is never humpy, and the hollows in it are just fitted to one’s bones or adipose developments. One can eat and drink in one’s town-house without fear of indigestion or germs. Decidedly the happiness of staying at home is not much less than the happiness of passing one, two, or three months at a place where everything is uncomfortable or nasty, at a cost which one can ill afford, if at all. Good city milk and succulent city vegetables are luxuries which are rarely to be found at the ordinary summer resort.

It is difficult to convince one’s family of this in advance. Besides, man is always to be blessed. We are always hoping that the next summer will be a grand improvement on those which have gone before, and generally by the first of May we believe, or at least imagine, that we have discovered the genuine article – the ideal spot at last. Discovered it for our families. The American father has the trick of sending his family out of town for the summer, and staying at home himself. This had its origin probably in his supposed inability to escape from business in the teeth of the family craving to see something of the world outside of their own social acquaintance. Yet he acknowledged the force of the family argument that with such a large country to explore it would be a pity not to explore it; and accordingly he said, “Go, and I will join you if and when I can.” Paterfamilias said this long ago, and in some instances he has vainly been trying to join them ever since. There are all sorts of trying in this world, and perhaps his has not been as determined as some; nevertheless, he has maintained tolerably well the reputation of trying. The Saturday night trains and steamboats all over the country are vehicles, from July first to October first, of an army of fathers who are trying successfully to join their nearest and dearest at the different summer-resorts of the land.

To be separated for three months from one’s wife and children, except for a day or two once a fortnight, is scarcely an ideal domestic arrangement, in spite of the fact that it is more or less delightful for the dear ones to meet new people and see new scenes. The American father may not try very hard to leave his city home, but it must be admitted that he has been an amiable biped on the score of the summer question. He has been and is ready to suffer silently for the sake of his family and his business. But now that he has made up his mind at last that he prefers to leave his business for the sake of his family and his own health, the difficulties of sending them to a distance are more apparent to him. Ten or fifteen years ago it dawned upon him that the city in summer without his family was not the ideal spot his fancy had painted, and that the sea-side and country, especially the former, were, after all, the best place for an overworked, full-grown man on a summer’s afternoon. It dawned upon him, too, that there was sea-coast and country close at hand where he could establish his family and refresh himself at the end of every day’s work. Twenty-five years ago the marine and attractive suburban environs of our cities were substantially unappropriated. To-day they bristle with cottages, large and small, the summer homes of city men. Every available promontory, island, hill, nook, and crook, which commands a pleasing view or is visited by cooling breezes is, or soon will be, occupied. What can a busy man do better, if he can afford it, than buy or hire a cottage, as humble as you like, to which he can return in the afternoon to the bosom of his own family, and be comfortable and lazy until morning?

From the domestic point of view this is assuredly the most satisfactory arrangement for the father, and the American paterfamilias, ever since the truth dawned upon him, has been prompt in recognizing the fact. He has builded, too, according to his taste, whim, and individual idiosyncrasies. A sea-side cottage within easy reach of town includes, to-day, every variety of shelter from a picturesque villa of the most super-civilized type to the hulk of a ship fitted up as a camping-out home. To a large extent, too, the hotel has been discarded in favor of the domestic hearth, even though the single chimney smokes so that tears are perpetually in the domestic eye. The well-to-do city man who comes to town every day appreciates that a hotel is a poor place for children; consequently the long piazzas, where the terrible infant forever used to abound, are now trodden chiefly by visitors from a distance and transients who have escaped from the city for a day in search of a sea-bath and a clam chowder.

If the summer cottage to which the husband returns at night, is not the most satisfactory arrangement for the mother, she must blame herself or the civilization in which she lives. The sole argument in favor of passing the summer at a hotel is that the wife and mother escapes thereby the cares of housekeeping, too often so severe during the rest of the year that the prospect of not being obliged to order dinner for three months causes her to wake in the night and laugh hysterically. Formality and conventional ceremony are the lurking enemies of our American summer life, who threaten to deprive our mothers and daughters of the rest and vacation from the tension, excitement, and worry begotten by nine months of active domestic duties. Simplicity of living ought to be the controlling warm-weather maxim of every household where the woman at the head of the establishment does the housekeeping, as nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine women out of ten thousand in America do.

It may be argued that greater simplicity in living all the year round would enable the wife and mother to do without a vacation. Possibly. But unfortunately for her the trend of the tide is all the other way. Besides, simplicity is such a difficult word to conjure with. Her interests have become so varied that the wear and tear is quite as likely to proceed from new mental strivings as from a multiplicity of sheer domestic duties. At least there seems to be no immediate prospect that she will be less tired in the spring, however exemplary her intentions, and it therefore behooves her not to allow the wave of increasing luxury to bear her on its crest through the summer and land her in her town-house in October a physical and mental wreck.

The external attractiveness of the modern summer cottage, with its pleasing angles and comely stains, is easily made an excuse for an artistic interior and surroundings to match. But artistic beauty in summer can readily be produced without elaboration, and at comparatively slight cost, if we only choose to be content with simple effects. The bewitching charm of the summer girl, if analyzed, proves to be based on a few cents a yard and a happy knack of combining colors and trifles. Why need we be solicitous to have all the paraphernalia of winter-life – meals with many courses, a retinue of servants, wines, festal attire, and splendid entertainments? While we rejoice that the promiscuous comradeship of hotel life has largely given place at Newport, Bar Harbor, Lenox, and our other fashionable watering-places to the pleasant protection of the cottage home, is it not seriously deplorable that simplicity is too often lost sight of? To be comfortable is one thing, to be swathed in luxury or to be tortured by ceremony all the time is another. It seems strange to many of us, who cannot choose precisely what we will do and where we will go in summer, that those who can so often select a mere repetition of mid-winter social recreation.

There is Patterson the banker for instance, the employer of Rogers. He can go where he pleases, and he goes to Newport. One can see him any afternoon driving augustly on Bellevue Avenue or along the ocean drive, well gloved, well shod, and brilliantly necktied, in his landau beside Mrs. Patterson. They have been to Newport for years in summer, and their house, with its beautiful outlook to sea, has doubled and trebled in value. How do they pass their time? Entertain and let themselves be entertained. Dinners with formal comestibles, late dances, champagne luncheons, paté de fois gras picnics on a coach are their daily associations. Mr. and Mrs. Patterson are close upon sixty themselves, but they follow – a little more solemnly than formerly, but still without stint – the same programme, which grows more and more elaborate with each succeeding year. It was there that their youngest daughter was married six months ago, with widely heralded splendor, to a Russian nobleman who speaks beautiful English. May her lot be a happy one! The son, who went through the Keeley cure, and the elder daughter, who is separated from her husband, have spent their summers at Newport from their youth up.

There are comparatively few who have the means to live, or who do live just like Patterson, but there is many a man of fine instincts and with a sufficient income to maintain a summer home, who finds himself to-day oppressed by the incubus of things. He seeks rest, books, fresh air, the opportunity to enjoy nature – the sea, the foliage, the flowers – and yet he is harassed by things, the very things he has all winter, with a garnishment suitable to hot weather. He wishes to be still; and things keep him moving. He yearns to strip off, if not all his clothing, at least enough of it to give his lungs and his soul full play; but things keep him faultlessly dressed. He intends to slake his thirst only from the old oaken bucket or the milk-pail, and things keep his palate titillated with champagne and cocktails. Our old-time simplicity in summer is perhaps no longer possible in the large watering-places. It is even with considerable satisfaction that we don, and see our wives and children don, the attractive clothing which has taken the place of shirt-sleeves and flannel shirts as articles of toilette; but is it not time to cry halt in our procession toward luxury, if we do not wish to live on our nerves all the year round?

It is this difficulty in escaping the expenses and the formality of city life in the summer cottage or at the summer hotel, almost as much as the fact that the desirable locations near town have all been taken, which is inclining the American father to send his family to a distance. After twenty-five years of exploration the outlying beaches and other favorite resorts near our large cities have become so thoroughly appropriated that the man who wishes to build or own a summer home of his own is obliged to look elsewhere. As a consequence cottages have sprung up all along the line of our coast, from the farthest confines of Maine to New Jersey, on the shores of the lakes of the Middle West, and on the Pacific shore. Many of these are of a simple and attractive character, and generally they stand in small colonies, large enough for companionship and not too large for relaxation. With the similar double purpose of obtaining an attractive summer home at a reasonable price, and of avoiding the stock watering-place, city families are utilizing also the abandoned farm. There is not room for us all on the sea-coast; besides those of us whose winter homes are there are more likely to need inland or mountain air. There are thousands of beautiful country spots, many of them not so very far from our homes, where the run-down farm can be redeemed, if not to supply milk and butter, at least to afford a picturesque shelter and a lovely landscape during the season when we wish to be out of doors as much as possible. A very few changes, a very little painting and refurnishing will usually transform the farm-house itself into just the sort of establishment which a family seeking rest and quiet recreation ought to delight in. You may bring mosquito-frames for the windows if you like, and you must certainly test the well-water. Then swing your hammock between two apple-trees and thank Providence that you are not like so many of your friends and acquaintances, working the tread-mill of society in the dog-days.

Of course most men who have homes of this description at a distance cannot be with their families all the time. But, on the other hand, the conviction that a busy man can do better work in ten or eleven months than in twelve, is gaining ground, and most of us, if we only choose to, can slip away for at least three weeks. Many of the demands of modern civilization on the family purse cannot be resisted without leaving the husband and parent a little depressed; but it seems to me that a serious item of expense may be avoided, and yet all the genuine benefits and pleasures of a change of scene and atmosphere be obtained, if we only dismiss from our minds the idea of living otherwise than simply. A little house with very little in it, with a modest piazza, a skiff or sail-boat which does not pretend to be a yacht, a garden hoe and rake, a camera, books and a hammock, a rod which is not too precious or costly to break, one nag of plebeian blood and something to harness him to, rabbits in the barn and sunflowers in the garden, a walk to sunset hill and a dialogue with the harvest moon – why should we not set our summer life to such a tune, rather than hanker for the neighborhood of the big steam-yacht and polo-ground, for the fringe of the fashionable bathing beach, for the dust of the stylish equipage, and try in our several ways, and beyond our means, to follow the pace which is set for us by others?

II

Why? Largely on account of that newly created species, the American girl. From solicitude for her happiness and out of deference to her wishes. Many a father and mother would be delighted to pass the summer on an abandoned farm or in any other spot where it were possible to live simply and to be cool, comfortable, and lazy, but for fear of disappointing their young people – principally their daughters, who, unlike the sons, cannot yet come and go at will. Feminine youth has its inherent privileges everywhere, but the gentle sway which it exercises in other civilizations has become almost a sour tyranny here. Was there ever an American mother who knew anything portrayed in fiction? The American daughter is commonly presented as a noble-souled, original creature, whose principal mission in life, next to or incidental to refusing the man who is not her choice, is to let her own parents understand what weak, ignorant, foolish, unenlightened persons they are in comparison with the rising generation – both parents in some measure, but chiefly and utterly the mother. She is usually willing to concede that her father has a few glimmering ideas, and a certain amount of sense – horse business sense, not very elevating or inspiring – yet something withal. But she looks upon her poor dear mother as a feeble-minded individual of the first water. What we read in contemporary fiction in this realistic age is apt to be photographed from existing conditions. The newly created species of our homes does not always reveal these sentiments in so many words; indeed she is usually disposed to conceal from her parents as far as possible their own shortcomings, believing often, with ostrich-like complacency, that they have no idea what she really thinks of them. Quite frequently late in life it dawns upon her that they were not such complete imbeciles as she had adjudged them, and she revises her convictions accordingly. But often she lives superior to the end.