Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXVII, August 1852, Vol. V

by Various

I could never understand why we call our summer resorts Watering-Places. I am but an individual, quite anonymous, as you see, and only graduated this summer, yet I have "known life," and there was no fool of an elephant in our college town, and other towns and cities where I have passed vacations. Now, if there have been any little anti-Maine-Law episodes in my life, they have been my occasional weeks at the Watering-Places.

It was only this summer, as I was going down the Biddle staircase at Niagara, that Keanne, who was just behind me, asked quietly, and in a wondering tone, "Why do cobblers drive the briskest trade of all, from Nahant to Niagara?" I was dizzy with winding down the spiral stairs, and gave some philosophical explanation, showing up my political economy. But when in the evening, at the hotel, he invited me to accompany him in an inquiry into the statistics of cobblers, I understood him better.

So far from being Watering-Places, it is clear that there is not only a spiritual but a sentimental intoxication at all these pleasant retreats. There is universal exhilaration. Youth, beauty, summer, money, and moonlight conspire to make water, or any thing of which water is a type, utterly incredible. There is no practical joke like that of asking a man if he came to Saratoga to drink the waters. Every man justly feels insulted by such a suspicion. "Am I an invalid, sir? Have I the air of disease, I should like to know?" responds Brummell, fiercely, as he turns suddenly round from tying his cravat, upon which he has lavished all his genius, and with which he hoped to achieve successes. "Do I look weak, sir? Why the deuce should you think I came to Saratoga to drink the waters?"

At Niagara it is different. There you naturally speak of water—over your champagne or chambertin at dinner; and at evening you take a little tipple to protect yourself against the night air as you step out to survey the moonlight effects of the cataract. You came professedly to see the water. There is nothing else to see or do there, but to look at the falls, eat dinner, drink cobblers, and smoke. If you have any doubt upon this point, run up in the train and see. I think you will find people doing those things and nothing else. I am not sure, indeed, but you will find some young ladies upon the piazza overhanging the rapids, rapt and fascinated by the delirious dance of the water beneath, who add a more alluring terror to the weird awe that the cataract inspires, by wild tales of ghosts and midnight marvels, which, haply, some recent graduate more frightfully emphasizes by the ready coinage of his brain.

No, it is a melancholy misnomer. To call these gay summer courts of Bacchus and Venus Watering-Places, is like the delightful mummery of the pastoral revels of the king in the old Italian romance, who attired himself as an abbot, and all his rollicking court as monks and nuns, and shaping his pavilion into the semblance of a monastery, stole, from contrast, a sharper edge for pleasure.

I must laugh when you call Saratoga, for instance, a Watering-Place; because there, this very summer, I was intoxicated with that elixir of life, which young men do not name, and which old men call love. Let me tell you the story; for, if your eye chances to fall upon this page while you are loitering at one of those pleasant places, you can see in mine your own experience, and understand why Homer is so intelligible to you. Are you not all the time in the midst of an Iliad? That stately woman who is now passing along the piazza is beautiful Helen, although she is called Mrs. Bigge in these degenerate days, and Bigge himself is really the Menelaus of the old Trojan story, although he deals now in cotton. Paris, of course, is an habitué of Saratoga in the season, goes to Newport in the middle of August, and always wears a mustache. But Paris is not so dangerous to the connubial felicity of Menelaus Bigge, as he was in the gay Grecian days.

Now what I say is this, that you who are swimming down the current of the summer at a Watering-Place, are really surrounded by the identical material out of which Homer spun his Iliad—yes, and Shakspeare his glowing and odorous Romeo and Juliet—only it goes by different names at Saratoga, Newport, and Niagara. And to point the truth of what I say, I shall tell you my little story, illustrative of summer life, and shall leave your wit to define the difference between my experience and yours. It is of the simplest kind, mark you, and "as easy as lying."

I left college, in the early summer, flushed with the honors of the valedictory. It was in one of those quiet college towns which are the pleasantest spots in New England, that I had won and worn my laurels. After four years—so long in passing, such a swift line of light when passed—the eagerly-expected commencement day arrived. It was the greatest day in the year in that village, and I was the greatest man of the day.

Ah! I shall always see the gathering groups of students and alumni upon the college lawn, in the "ambrosial darkness" of broad-branching elms. I can yet feel the warm sunshine of that quiet day—and see our important rustling about in the black silk graduating gowns—I, chiefest of all, and pointed out, to the classes just entered, as the valedictorian, saluted as I passed by the homage of their admiring glances. Then winding down the broad street, over which the trees arched, and which they walled with green, again my heart dilates upon the swelling music, that pealed in front of the procession, while all the town made holiday, and clustered under the trees to see us pass. I hear still chiming, and a little muffled even now, through memory, the sweet church bell that rang gayly and festally, not solemnly, that day—and how shall I forget the choking and exquisite delight and excitement with which, in the mingled confusion of ringing bell and clanging martial instruments, we passed from the warm, bright sunshine without, into the cool interior of the church. As we entered, the great organ aroused from its majestic silence, and drowned bell and band in its triumphant torrent of sound, while, to my excited fancy, the church seemed swaying in the music, it was so crowded with women, in light summer muslins, bending forward, and whispering, and waving fans. The rattling of pew-doors—the busy importance of the "Professor of Elocution and Belles-Lettres"—the dying strains of the organ—the brief silence—the rustling rising to hear the President's prayer—it is all as distinct in my mind as in yours, my young friend fresh from college, and "watering" for your first season.

Then, when the long list was called, and the degrees had been conferred, came my turn—"the valedictory addresses." In that moment, as I gathered my gown around me and ascended the platform, I did not envy Demosthenes nor Cicero, nor believe that a sweeter triumph was ever won. That soft, country summer-day, and I the focus of a thousand enthusiastic eyes to which the low words of farewell I spoke to my companions, brought a sympathetic moisture—that is a picture which must burn forever, illuminating life. The first palpable and visible evidence of your power over others is that penetrating aroma of success—sweeter than success itself—which comes only once, and only for a moment, but for that single moment is a dream made real. The memory of that day makes June in my mind forever.