Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1874 — Postponing Pleasure. [ARTICLE]

Postponing Pleasure.

No one can settle down in a European city or village, says Dr. Holland, and observe the laboring classes without noticing the difference between their aspirations, ambitions and habits and those of corresponding classes in this country. The European expects always to be a tenant, the American intends ’ before he dies so own the house he lives in. If the city forbids this he goes to the suburbs for his home. The European knows that life and labor are cheap, and that he cannot hope to win by- them the wealth which will realize for him the dream of future ease; the American finds his labor dear and its rewards comparatively- bountiful, so that his dream of wealth is a rational one. He, therefore, denies himself, works early and late, and bends his energies and directs those of his family into profitable channels, all for the great good that Reckons him on from the faroff golden future. The ty-pical American never inthe present. If he indulges in a recreation it is purely for healths sake, and at long intervals, or in great emergencies. He does not taste money or pleasure, and does not approve of those who do. He lives in a constant fever of hope and expectation, or grows sour with hope deferred or blank disappointment. Out of it all grows the worship of wealth, and that demoralization which results in unscrupulousness concerning the methods of its acquirement. So "America presents the anomaly of a laboring class with unprecedented prosperity and privileges and unexampled discontent and discomfort. There is surely something better than this. There is something better than a life-long sacrifice of content and enjoyment for a possible wealth, which, however, may never be acquired, and which

has not the power when won to yield its holder the boon which he expects to purchase. To withhold from she frugal wife the frugal gown which she desires, to deny her the journey which would do so much to break up the monotony of her home-life, to rear children in mean ways, to shut away from the family life a thousand social pleasures, to relinquish all amusements that have cost attached to them, for wealth which may may not come when the family life is broken up forever—surely this is neither sound nor wise economy. We would not have the Americap laborer, farmer and mechanic become impn -vident, but we would very much like *. «see them happier than they are, by n sort to the daily social enjoyments which are always at their hand. Nature is strong in the young, and they will have society and play of some sort. It should remain strong in the old, and does remain strong in them until it is expelled by the absorbing and subordinating passion for gain. —Home Journal.