There are many people who continue to pursue pleasure while they
pretend to hunt for health. Here as at Aix-les-Bains, Baden-
Baden, and Ostend, it is the glitter and pomp of the place which
attract them. Here fashion and folly, side by side, call them
with siren voices, instead of the medicinal qualities of their
healing waters. If they can't furnish as an excuse that they
have a pain under the left shoulder blade and are fearful for
their lung, then they may say they have a twitching of the upper
right eyelid and are almost certain of a nervous breakdown
unless they secure a few weeks' rest beside the life-giving sea.
Even if they are unable to furnish such justifiable excuses as
these, they might take some aged, wealthy relative to a health
resort for the purpose of boiling the rheumatism out of him.
Then, after tucking him away for the night, how much easier to
spend the evening at the dance or card party!
The days for elegant ladies to trail elaborate gowns along the
hotel corridors are past. How styles do change!
There are more people thronging the bathing beaches, who know a
good poker hand when they see one, than those who can appreciate
a fine ocean scene, and even though the states have all gone
dry, alas how many still prefer champagne to mineral water from
a spring! As Thoreau put it: "More people used to be attracted
to the ocean by the wine than the brine."
At Newport you constantly hear jokes, laughter and song, but
studying the drama of the various faces one sees pride,
sensuality, cruelty, and fear that no ocean brine can cleanse.
Mingled with these, too, are noble countenances lighted up by
the fires of holy living within, whose radiance seems to
overflow in kindly thoughts and deeds, attracting those sublime
qualities to them as the moon the tides. How grand it is to see
here the faces of age wearing that calm look of serene hope;
victory over self and purity of soul plainly dramatized there!
Then, too, how glorious the face of youth glowing with life's
enthusiasm, whose dream of the yet unclouded future is the Fata
Morgana which he pursues. A noble ambition seems to linger in
his soul and transfigure his countenance until we see the light
of joy and nobleness shining there. What a contrast the dejected
look of those who travel the paths of ease and self-indulgence
affords!
Many there are who meet here not on the common ground of the
brotherhood of man, but of human appetite and desire. Whether
they hail from Japan, Spain, or Turkey, or whether they come
from Maine or California, they all succumb to the same
allurements.
