“Don't you think the whole social atmosphere has changed,” Miss Lamont suddenly asked, as they were running along in the train towards Manchester-by-the-Sea, “since we got north of Boston? I seem to find it so. Don't you think it's more refined, and, don't you know, sort of cultivated, and subdued, and Boston? You notice the gentlemen who get out at all these stations, to go to their country-houses, how highly civilized they look, and ineffably respectable and intellectual, all of them presidents of colleges, and substantial bank directors, and possible ambassadors, and of a social cult (isn't that the word?) uniting brains and gentle manners.”
“You must have been reading the Boston newspapers; you have hit the idea prevalent in these parts, at any rate. I was, however, reminded myself of an afternoon train out of London, say into Surrey, on which you are apt to encounter about as high a type of civilized men as anywhere.”
“And you think this is different from a train out of New York?” asked the artist.
“Yes. New York is more mixed. No one train has this kind of tone. You see there more of the broker type and politician type, smarter apparel and nervous manners, but, dear me, not this high moral and intellectual respectability.”
“Well,” said the artist, “I'm changing my mind about this country. I didn't expect so much variety. I thought that all the watering-places would be pretty much alike, and that we should see the same people everywhere. But the people are quite as varied as the scenery.”
“There you touch a deep question—the refining or the vulgarizing influence of man upon nature, and the opposite. Now, did the summer Bostonians make this coast refined, or did this coast refine the Bostonians who summer here?”
“Well, this is primarily an artistic coast; I feel the influence of it; there is a refined beauty in all the lines, and residents have not vulgarized it much. But I wonder what Boston could have done for the Jersey coast?”
In the midst of this high and useless conversation they came to the Masconomo House, a sort of concession, in this region of noble villas and private parks, to the popular desire to get to the sea. It is a long, low house, with very broad passages below and above, which give lightness and cheerfulness to the interior, and each of the four corners of the entrance hall has a fireplace. The pillars of the front and back piazzas are pine stems stained, with the natural branches cut in unequal lengths, and look like the stumps for the bears to climb in the pit at Berne. Set up originally with the bark on, the worms worked underneath it in secret, at a novel sort of decoration, until the bark came off and exposed the stems most beautifully vermiculated, giving the effect of fine carving. Back of the house a meadow slopes down to a little beach in a curved bay that has rocky headlands, and is defended in part by islands of rock. The whole aspect of the place is peaceful. The hotel does not assert itself very loudly, and if occasionally transient guests appear with flash manners, they do not affect the general tone of the region.
One finds, indeed, nature and social life happily blended, the exclusiveness being rather protective than offensive. The special charm of this piece of coast is that it is bold, much broken and indented, precipices fronting the waves, promontories jutting out, high rocky points commanding extensive views, wild and picturesque, and yet softened by color and graceful shore lines, and the forest comes down to the edge of the sea. And the occupants have heightened rather than lessened this picturesqueness by adapting their villas to a certain extent to the rocks and inequalities in color and form, and by means of roads, allies, and vistas transforming the region into a lovely park.
Here, as at Newport, is cottage life, but the contrast of the two places is immense. There is here no attempt at any assembly or congregated gayety or display. One would hesitate to say that the drives here have more beauty, but they have more variety. They seem endless, through odorous pine woods and shady lanes, by private roads among beautiful villas and exquisite grounds, with evidences everywhere of wealth to be sure, but of individual taste and refinement. How sweet and cool are these winding ways in the wonderful woods, overrun with vegetation, the bayberry, the sweet-fern, the wild roses, wood-lilies, and ferns! and it is ever a fresh surprise at a turn to find one's self so near the sea, and to open out an entrancing coast view, to emerge upon a promontory and a sight of summer isles, of lighthouses, cottages, villages—Marblehead, Salem, Beverly. What a lovely coast! and how wealth and culture have set their seal on it.