One old dame with a glowing face like an ocean sunset and a gown
that for richness of color and vivid contrast would have made
Joseph's coat of many colors appear very ordinary, remarked that
she came out on the board walk to study types. But types of
what? Perhaps she was observing the lilies of the board walk
whose raiment was so dazzling that Solomon would not have
arrayed himself like one of these even though he could. They are
true lilies for they toil not, neither do they spin, unless it
be a fabulous yarn about some fair rivals, and for this lack of
toil they lose the real meaning and significance of life.
Everything about them is toil, not that grinding toil with no
final goal to reach but that exhilarating joyful kind as seen in
the waves, in bees and flowers. The waves come running up to
shore sending silver reflections glinting along the beach,
always blending beauty and usefulness; the air about the linden
trees is melodious with multitudes of murmuring toilers
preparing for a winter's need; the purple fox-glove, that good
Samaritan among the flowers, in modest beauty holds aloft its
purple bells all unmindful of the cheer it brings to lonely
hearts or the hope it bears to thousands of sufferers.
It is surprising to see that by far the greater numbers of
people turn their backs on the ocean while they scan the daily
papers for sensational items or the latest styles. It seems a
cruel waste of glorious linden trees to say nothing of the
wealth of sweets that the bees have lost to record at least some
vamp's trial in a murder case or some miserably rich woman's
divorce scandal.
There are those who go to Europe who bring back to their native
land only the latest fashions of Paris with a little knowledge
of foreign profanity picked up from the cafes and boulevards.
They can tell nothing about the wonders of the Louvre; the
grandeur of Raphael's Madonnas; the beauty and charm of the
Mediterranean shores. Their souls perhaps have never been
touched by the grand sublimity of the Alps. What feasts they
have attended, taking away only the husks! Far away in some
foreign land they have spent years vainly seeking for pleasure
only to learn that:
"Pleasures are like poppies spread.
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed.
Or like the snowfall in the river
A moment white, then melts forever.
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm."
The first cool breeze blows away the froth of fashion, for it is
composed of delicate flowers that the first chill wind of
adversity causes to wilt and droop and lose their fragrance.
"Now the cool forenoon serenity of the ocean is no longer
profaned." They have followed the siren voices of this
bewildering region until they have arrived on some shoals that
hint of a coming winter, and emerge with duller plumes like
birds of passage, ready to flock to sunnier climes. They remind
one, too, of the gorgeous colored butterflies which flew about
all summer, at first things of beauty, dazzling the eye with
their brilliant colors; haunting the most fragrant flowers for
nectar, reveling in the sunshine the whole day long. Now they
appear in their torn and faded robes to hover over a few pale
flowers as if "loath to leave the scenes of their summer's
revelings."
Only the more hardy remain to enjoy the grandeur of the winter
ocean like the chickadees and cardinal grosbeaks that enliven
our winter woods. The many flowered asters remain regal and
cheery though a thousands winds may blow. Those who see the real
beauty and indescribable grandeur of the ocean here, if they
cannot remain, will show evidences in their beneficent lives
that they have had a wonderful summer by the sea. Here amid the
most beautiful manifestations of Nature's power and grandeur
they have gained broader hopes, higher aspirations and a purer
life. They leave the frivolous things of life on its remotest
shores, where a few returning tides bury them in the sands of
forgetfulness or the receding waves wash them like clams far out
to sea.
Look at the fate of summer flowers,
Which blow at daybreak, droop ere evensong
And, grieved for their brief date, confess that ours
Measured by what we are and ought to be,
Measured by all that, trembling we foresee,
Is not so long!
The deepest grove whose foliage hid
The happiest lovers' Arcady might boast,
Could not the entrance of this thought forbid:
O be thou wise as they, soul-gifted maid!
Nor rate too high what must so quickly fade,
So soon be lost!
Then shall love teach some virtuous youth
To draw out of the object of his eyes
The whilst they gaze on thee in simple truth
Hues more exalted a refined form,
That dreads not age, nor suffers from the worm,
And never dies! - Wordsworth.
CHAPTER VI
HURRIED FLIGHT THROUGH NEW JERSEY
An eight-hour drive through the interior of New Jersey is
attended with much interest and some surprises. Leaving Camden,
which is reached by ferry across the Delaware from Philadelphia,
the road traverses many miles of level, sandy country which is
almost entirely given over to truck gardening and poultry
raising. To those who all their lives have been accustomed to
fields of wheat, oats and corn the almost interminable rows of
beets, beans, sweet potatoes and melons are very interesting.
Proceeding onward through this highly cultivated section by a
somewhat circuitous route, there was gradually entered as day
merged into night, a wild, sparsely cultivated region which
contrasted strangely with the orderly acres left behind.
The land here is flat, largely of a swampy nature, covered
mostly with a thick growth of saplings, ferns and bushes.
