Places more civilized and attractive are to be found farther South, such as Pornice, Royan, Saint George, Arcachon, &c.
I spoke elsewhere of Saint George's, bordered by many a bitter and precious plant; and Arcachon, too, is as attractive, with its resinous and wholesomely pleasant odor of its pine woods. But for the worldly rush from that great and Wealthy Bordeaux, but for that flood of health seekers, which pours into it at certain seasons, it is at Arcachon that we would shelter the dearly beloved patient, that dear and delicate creature for whom we fear the rush and crush of the hard working day world. That place, as long as we contemplate it only within the inner basin, offers the contrast of an absolute and very deep calm with a terribly rough sea close by. Beyond the lighthouse is the terrible Gascon sea, within the bay a lazy tide, so lazy that you cannot hear its murmurs, as low, as light, as the quiet tread of lady's gentle footstep on the sea-weed carpet of that strand.
In an intermediate climate which is neither North nor South, neither Brittany nor Vendëe, I have visited again and again, and always with pleasure, the pretty and staid shelter of Ponice, with its frank seamen and its pretty girls, with their conical hats. It is a pretty quiet little place, which, protected as it is by the island (rather the peninsula) of Noirmantiers, receives only a slanting and exceedingly well behaved sea; that enters silken in its softness. And in that bay of several leagues, these creeks, with sloping shores, made, as it would seem, on purpose for baths for women and children, they are so sheltered and so safe. Those nice sandy beaches, parted by such sheltering rocks, conceal so much, and yet reveal so much of the sea life, the plain, blunt, yet ever kindly and courteous life of the seaman! But if those sheltering rocks do much good, they also do no little injury. The sheltered creek and safe haven, keeps out the Tempest;—but, it also keeps out the fishes. By little and little, but very regularly, the grand rush and the grand murmur of the sea are kept out, and yet, that half silence has a very great charm. No where else have I so much welcomed, or so richly enjoyed, that great luxury of the undisturbed Day-dreaming.
THE HOUSE.
Permit an ignoramus who, yet, has paid a pretty high price for what he does know, to give you some quiet advice upon certain points upon which books, hitherto, have told you little and Doctors nothing. That this advice may come the more directly to both head and heart, I will address them to an imaginary patient. Imaginary? Not so; I have met such a patient many times.
You meet a young lady seriously ill, or manifestly about to be so, she is very weak, and her young child is weaker still. The Winter has been hard upon them, and the Spring still harder. Yet it is only weakness;—lassitude, the tedium vitæ which Byron truly calls "more terrible than death itself." And she is sent to the sea-side for the Summer.
A great expense, that, for a fortune below even mediocrity; painful moving for the mistress of a family; hard separation, above all, for husband and wife who truly love each other. They bargain, they would fain shorten that separation. Would not one month be enough? But the wise Physician knows better, and says it would not; he well knows that a very short sojourn at the sea side is far more likely to injure than to benefit. The sudden, the severe shock of the sea bath is likely enough to injure even the strong; to the feeble it is simply murderous. You should first breathe the sea air;—acclimatize yourself. Do this during the month of June, then you shall have July, August, September, and, in some seasons, even October for your baths, and the bath and the great, strong, keen winds will harden your frame against the fast approaching Winter.