 | THE LORGNETTE. The lorgnette, or, Studies of the town |  |
A TASTE OF THE SPRINGS.
—cum tamen in confesso sit, Thermas illas et fontes, virtutes suas, ex
venis mineralium, per quas permeant, nancisci. Hane igitur partem,
de imitatione naturæ in balneis artificialibus, desiderari censemus.
Bacon. De Augment. Scient. Liv. IV.
Lord Bacon laments that science, in his day,
after all its study of poisons, could not make up a
watering-place. The venerable Chancellor had
never taken a Seidlitz powder, nor `put up' at Congress
Hall. Were this old lord Verulam upon his
legs now, and equal to a summer divided between
Sharon and Saratoga, he would find abundant topic,
not only for Augmentis Scientiarum, but, if I do
not greatly misjudge, for an entirely new series of
the Interiora Rerum.
It hurts my modesty grievously, Fritz, to drop
an ego so near the name of the great philosopher; but
the truth is, that this system of periodic paragrahing
does so dull one's diffidence, and so deprave his
native sense of decency, that unless I use great
forbearance, I shall soon find myself expressing
opinions, with all the assurance of Mr. Bennett, or
of the Boston Post.
Our towns-people are not a rural people, my
dear Fritz,—scamper as they will, to watering-places,
of a summer. The love of country is no
way infectious with New Yorkers. Were there
only some Hyde Park convenient to the city, for
evening drives, or some Prater with its brilliant
Cafés, or some Bois de Boulogne with its retired
and unfrequented copses, I question very much if
the infirmities of our belles would demand the sulphurous
action of Saratoga.
Here and there, it is true, some old gentleman,
who has been, on a visit abroad, hospitably entertained
at Hampstead, or Twickenham; and who
is anxious to follow out the English ideas of comfort,
will buy himself a magnificent country seat,—
hire, upon Thorburn's recommendation, a Scotch
gardener, and go out for three months in the summer
to amuse himself with astonishing the neighbors,
cursing the musquitoes, reading the newspapers,
and feigning content with his larder. But in
nine cases out of ten, he will be very ready and
very anxious to hurry back to his `brick-house' on
Washington Square, and enjoy his cigar in the
basement.
We have got very few of that class of men, who,
like hundreds along Lombard, or Thread and Needle
street, have their little suburban places, flanked
by a pet of a garden,—as far off from the city as
Clapton, or Stamford hill from the Bank,—where
they go each night, at five, to enjoy a luxurious dinner,
a pint of London-dock Port, a quiet smoke
under the trees, and a talk with John, the gardener,
about the dahlias, and the honeysuckles. Our
suburban men have got no ruddy-looking daughters
to run down to the green gate, to meet them,
smile a home-sort of welcome, as the city man
moves up the gravel walk, at a pace which says,
as plainly as words could say it,—that he has a
capital appetite for his dinner. I doubt very much
whether one Pearl street man in twenty, could distinguish
the Camelia from the Azalia; or say
which was native, or which exotic. Such native
taste as may come to the town with him, is scorched
off by the harrowing years of his trade travail.
There are no Regent's Parks, or Jardins d'hiver to
keep it alive.
Thus it happens, Fritz, that no country place is
secured, in the majority of instances, until the
wife, or the position, demand it for talk or show.
And then, unless our townsman be fortunate in his
gardener, and architect, the country seat will offer
a sad spectacle of God's work, at the mercy of a
taste refined in Pearl street, or cultivated by assiduous
study of the South street wharves.
This matter, however, of city cottages, suburban
taste, and cockney ruralities, is a good subject for
a full chapter: and you may be assured that it
shall have my early attention. Meantime we must
follow our city families to those resorts, which receive
them, in lieu of country seats. And these resorts
show the temper of our town; they are not
they are bustling, overflowing, noisy, showing a
sort of city festivity, transplanted to the fields, or
the shore.
Occasionally, it is true, some town family will
find quarters in a country village, where the air is
good, and the society respectable; but ten to one,
the family is encumbered with a short string of
town infants, to whom it is necessary to give good
breathing room, and liberal toilettes. But once let
the little misses twist their nursery tails under a
comb, and drop the broad hem in their dresses, and
they will pine for the pungent waters of Saratoga,
and sigh for the salty saturations of Newport.
Our watering-places, like our town routs, have
their scales and grades,—not of hygienic properties,
merely, but of caste and respectability. And, as
in the town, it is worth while to foist one's self upon
the set, where Madame Goodstyle is received, so it is
well to become the familiar visitant of such springs
as help the gout of somebody's Excellency, or as
cure some distinguished dyspepsia. Indeed, watering-places
might easily be divided into
First class watering-places,
Second class watering-places, and
Third class watering-places.
The first group, to give the matter philosophic
wit, the easily accessible, and the not
easily accessible.
The easily accessible will be honored with the
presence of a vast many fashionable persons, of
known worth and position, spiced with a considerable
number of ambitious and deserving people, desirous
of being `genteel,' and assiduously studying
how to be. There will also be suddenly-rich
people, following in brilliant wake, and an incredible
number of barbers, gamblers, pleasant young
gentlemen in moustache, and nankeen pantaloons,
male dancers, and other Epicene persons, who, like
the camp-women, pick up a tolerable living by doing
small services for the rank and file.
Those places, difficult of access, are not overrun
by givers of concerts, or by men of uncertain tone
in any calling. Being well protected, they are in
high favor; they are much sought after by Bostonians,
and by `old families' generally. They are
attended, however, by an annoying mixture of the
newly rich, who have the shrewdness not to husband
their pennies, when dignity and refined intellectual
intercourse are in the market, at so very
cheap a rate.
The second class watering-places, are either first
class a little gone by, or they are growing places,
come to the first rank. They are generally towns
possessing really valuable springs, where you will
see a great many honest-looking old people hobbling
with a rheumatism, which they call the gout; and
a great many stout, red-faced ladies, who are `very
delicate.' This very seriousness is utterly antagonistic
to the spirit of the first class; and a genuine
invalid at Sharon, or Newport, is almost as
rare as a thoroughly well-man at Lebanon, or at the
unctuous springs of Avon.
As for the third class, they are quiet little country
spots, where many a man of sense will go for
undisturbed enjoyment of the country, and whose
worst visitants will be some rough, honest country
people, whose yellow silk handkerchiefs and promiscuous
use of napkin, would serve as the nucleus
for a capital period in one of Mr. Cooper's
American novels.
Of all these classes, my dear Fritz, you shall have
from time to time a report, and shall bear me company
in type, now to Newport or the Mountain House,
and again to Nahant or Crawford's,—or as you have
already borne me company in person, at the Vier Jahreszeitzen
of Wiesbaden,—on Frascati's beach, in
Frascati's bathing robes, or stretched through the livelong
night upon the hard floor of that little highland
Oich.
I shall entertain you now with a letter, which,
like a great many books now-a-days, `was never
intended for publication.' It has come to me
through the hands of my friend Tophanes, who is
on intimate terms with the parties. He says it is
characteristic; I should think it very likely. I
suspect it must describe the young lady's first visit.
Here we are at length, and what a charming
place!—such trees, and dinners, and then the
bowling alley; (do you ever bowl?) if you do, get
a pair of those pretty gaiters at what-d'ye-call-him's.
Papa has taken two rooms for us in the
east wing, and Marie sleeps in a little alcove just
out of mine. The galleries stretch around inside
the wing, and several gentlemen—married gentlemen,
ma says—(but very handsome) pass very
often. You don't know how pleasant it is to sit in
the window, in that deshabille you said was so becoming.
Ma begins to think so too, for Miss Figgins
has got one just like it.
They say the company is not very good yet, so,
of course it isn't; but you don't know how many
down by the office. I can see them now and then
through the trees. I think there is rather too
much shade; it looks gloomy, you know.
Ma don't know a great many people yet; and
she says I am too backward; I am backward; but
then it is very awkward always to come up and
interrupt mamma, when she is talking with a
strange gentleman. She says it's very proper; do
you think so? There are some foreign-looking
gentlemen (don't you like a moustache?) who
somehow manage to talk without being introduced.
I like that; there is something so romantic in it;
and then beside, you don't know but you may be
talking to some foreign prince. I walked for an
hour last night, under the front colonnade with
such a dear man! I shall be quite ashamed of
cousin Dick when I get back to the city.
Papa tries to make us go to the Springs early
every morning, but ma and I don't wish to. One's
eyes look so heavy after sitting up till twelve.
Besides, none but old gentlemen go to the Springs
in the morning, and some of them are vulgar acquaintances
of ma's; and they are so abominably
familiar, that I will not bear it. Marie says it is
vulgar to go to breakfast in bare arms; but the
Fidges do; and there's a gentleman nearly opposite
hard at them, he scarce eat anything.
I wish papa would keep a man-servant to stand
behind us at table; a great many do who are not
half so rich as pa; who, he says, owe him; but
he can't get it. Droll, isn't it? The bareges are
all the fashion; so are those dear little charms; I
wish I had bought more of them. If you are down
at Black's buy me a little dagger, a coral dog, a
hand with a ring, and a cornelian heart, and anything
else that's sweet, and send them up by express.
You know I walk well, at least Marie says so,
and it's a great thing here; such everlasting promenades
in the galleries; if you mean to come, you
had better practice. In the morning I write letters,
up by my window, in the white muslin, with
a flower or two in my hair. Then I dress for dinner,
which takes about three hours. I wish papa
loved hock; to be sure it's sour stuff; but then it
looks so distinguished to have the green glasses;
the Figginses do. I don't eat much at table; you
know one is so watched; and then, I don't know
why it is, but I never have an appetite. Marie,
good soul, brings me up a nice plate of cold beef
and pickles, every night.
Pa eats just as he does at home, and Ma can't
the way he eats spinage and salads! I overheard
a gentleman who was looking at him the other
day, whisper something about dejeuner à la fourche,
at which the lady next him—a perked-up sort of
thing—laughed very hard. What does it mean?
I always thought it was fourchette. Isn't it?
After dinner we go into the parlor, where it is
very dull, until the gentlemen have finished smoking.
Sometimes, though, we go out to ride. Ma
and I went yesterday with Mr. Templeton, out to
somebody's lake,—one of the wildest places. Mr.
Templeton repeated some of Willis's lines. He
said it reminded him (the lake, not the lines,) of
Salvating Rosa. He is a very talented young man,
and I will introduce you when you come up. I
believe he knows French; at any rate, he pronounces
soirée and amour beautifully. Before teatime
we are all walking, and, perhaps, go down to
the Spring, or stroll up to the railway upon the hill.
I like it; but there seems to be nobody but vulgar
people riding, so ma has forbidden it.
Do you think, Papa took boiled onions yesterday,
and then offered to help mamma, though she looked
the other way, and then he wanted to know if the
Springs had changed her taste? I thought mamma
would have gone off.
You have n't sent me the last number of the
Lorgnette. They say John Timon is here, I think
I saw him yesterday; he is a thin, tallish man,
with sandy moustache, but not at all distinguished-looking.
I should say he was about forty-five;
and, would you believe it, he has got a wife and
baby. Who would have thought it?
Some of Pa's friends stopped at the Union, and
they wanted us to go there. But one don't see
half so much, or get into notice half so quick. To
be sure Uncle Dick says there are better men to
marry at the Union, but they are not half so good
to flirt with.
A handsome gentleman sitting under the trees,
is reading a newspaper (or pretending to,) and looking
every little while up to my window. I am getting
tired, Kitty, so I shall close.
walked with the other evening,—a charming man;
he has just bowed to me.
next.
Now, my dear Fritz, do not knock the ashes from
your cigar with a petulant flip of the finger, and
say—`this is all sad stuff.'
I like its naive variety, and brokenness of utterance;
it shows you, moreover, the habit of the hour,
and of the time. It is one of those gossamer playing
shadows, which the sun of the summer life
throws upon the dial of American habit. It is a
small side-view, which goes to make up a part of
our social history, as we advance toward a perfected
civilization.
Read considerately, then; sip composedly of
your port, in all charity; and I, when my letter
shall be sealed, will balance the kindness of your
thought in a wee-bit of iced Geissenheimer.
| THE LORGNETTE. The lorgnette, or, Studies of the town | |