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diff --git a/old/whcsc10.txt b/old/whcsc10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5710665 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/whcsc10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,920 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Confessions of a Summer Colonist +#34 in our series by William Dean Howells + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of +this file, for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before +making an entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + + +LITERATURE AND LIFE--The Confessions of a Summer Colonist + +by William Dean Howells + + + + +CONFESSIONS OF A SUMMER COLONIST + + +The season is ending in the little summer settlement on the Down East +coast where I have been passing the last three months, and with each +loath day the sense of its peculiar charm grows more poignant. +A prescience of the homesickness I shall feel for it when I go already +begins to torment me, and I find myself wishing to imagine some form of +words which shall keep a likeness of it at least through the winter; some +shadowy semblance which I may turn to hereafter if any chance or change +should destroy or transform it, or, what is more likely, if I should +never come back to it. Perhaps others in the distant future may turn to +it for a glimpse of our actual life in one of its most characteristic +phases; I am sure that in the distant present there are many millions of +our own inlanders to whom it would be altogether strange. + + + + +I. + +In a certain sort fragile is written all over our colony; as far as the +visible body of it is concerned it is inexpressibly perishable; a fire +and a high wind could sweep it all away; and one of the most American of +all American things is the least fitted among them to survive from the +present to the future, and impart to it the significance of what may soon +be a "portion and parcel" of our extremely forgetful past. + +It is also in a supremely transitional moment: one might say that last +year it was not quite what it is now, and next year it may be altogether +different. In fact, our summer colony is in that happy hour when the +rudeness of the first summer conditions has been left far behind, and +vulgar luxury has not yet cumbrously succeeded to a sort of sylvan +distinction. + +The type of its simple and sufficing hospitalities is the seven-o'clock +supper. Every one, in hotel or in cottage, dines between one and two, +and no less scrupulously sups at seven, unless it is a few extremists who +sup at half-past seven. At this function, which is our chief social +event, it is 'de rigueur' for the men not to dress, and they come in any +sort of sack or jacket or cutaway, letting the ladies make up the pomps +which they forego. From this fact may be inferred the informality of the +men's day-time attire; and the same note is sounded in the whole range of +the cottage life, so that once a visitor from the world outside, who had +been exasperated beyond endurance by the absence of form among us (if +such an effect could be from a cause so negative), burst out with the +reproach, "Oh, you make a fetish of your informality!" + +"Fetish" is, perhaps, rather too strong a word, but I should not mind +saying that informality was the tutelary genius of the place. American +men are everywhere impatient of form. It burdens and bothers them, and +they like to throw it off whenever they can. We may not be so very +democratic at heart as we seem, but we are impatient of ceremonies that +separate us when it is our business or our pleasure to get at one +another; and it is part of our splendor to ignore the ceremonies, as we +do the expenses. We have all the decent grades of riches and poverty in +our colony, but our informality is not more the treasure of the humble +than of the great. In the nature of things it cannot last, however, and +the only question is how long it will last. I think, myself, until some +one imagines giving an eight-o'clock dinner; then all the informalities +will go, and the whole train of evils which such a dinner connotes will +rush in. + + + + +II. + +The cottages themselves are of several sorts, and some still exist in the +earlier stages of mutation from the fishermen's and farmers' houses which +formed their germ. But these are now mostly let as lodgings to bachelors +and other single or semi-detached folks who go for their meals to the +neighboring hotels or boarding-houses. The hotels are each the centre of +this sort of centripetal life, as well as the homes of their own scores +or hundreds of inmates. A single boarding-house gathers about it half a +dozen dependent cottages which it cares for, and feeds at its table; and +even where the cottages have kitchens and all the housekeeping +facilities, their inmates sometimes prefer to dine at the hotels. +By far the greater number of cottagers, however, keep house, bringing +their service with them from the cities, and settling in their summer +homes for three or four or five months. + +The houses conform more or less to one type: a picturesque structure of +colonial pattern, shingled to the ground, and stained or left to take a +weather-stain of grayish brown, with cavernous verandas, and dormer- +windowed roofs covering ten or twelve rooms. Within they are, if not +elaborately finished, elaborately fitted up, with a constant regard to +health in the plumbing and drainage. The water is brought in a system of +pipes from a lake five miles away, and as it is only for summer use the +pipes are not buried from the frost, but wander along the surface, +through the ferns and brambles of the tough little sea-side knolls on +which the cottages are perched, and climb the old tumbling stone walls of +the original pastures before diving into the cemented basements. + +Most of the cottages are owned by their occupants, and furnished by them; +the rest, not less attractive and hardly less tastefully furnished, +belong to natives, who have caught on to the architectural and domestic +preferences of the summer people, and have built them to let. The +rugosities of the stony pasture land end in a wooded point seaward, and +curve east and north in a succession of beaches. It is on the point, and +mainly short of its wooded extremity, that the cottages of our settlement +are dropped, as near the ocean as may be, and with as little order as +birds' nests in the grass, among the sweet-fern, laurel, bay, wild +raspberries, and dog-roses, which it is the ideal to leave as untouched +as possible. Wheel-worn lanes that twist about among the hollows find +the cottages from the highway, but foot-paths approach one cottage from +another, and people walk rather than drive to each other's doors. +From the deep-bosomed, well-sheltered little harbor the tides swim +inland, half a score of winding miles, up the channel of a river which +without them would be a trickling rivulet. An irregular line of cottages +follows the shore a little way, and then leaves the river to the +schooners and barges which navigate it as far as the oldest pile-built +wooden bridge in New England, and these in their turn abandon it to the +fleets of row-boats and canoes in which summer youth of both sexes +explore it to its source over depths as clear as glass, past wooded +headlands and low, rush-bordered meadows, through reaches and openings of +pastoral fields, and under the shadow of dreaming groves. + +If there is anything lovelier than the scenery of this gentle river I do +not know it; and I doubt if the sky is purer and bluer in paradise. This +seems to be the consensus, tacit or explicit, of the youth who visit it, +and employ the landscape for their picnics and their water parties from +the beginning to the end of summer. + +The river is very much used for sunsets by the cottagers who live on it, +and who claim a superiority through them to the cottagers on the point. +An impartial mind obliges me to say that the sunsets are all good in our +colony; there is no place from which they are bad; and yet for a certain +tragical sunset, where the dying day bleeds slowly into the channel till +it is filled from shore to shore with red as far as the eye can reach, +the river is unmatched. + +For my own purposes, it is not less acceptable, however, when the fog has +come in from the sea like a visible reverie, and blurred the whole valley +with its whiteness. I find that particularly good to look at from the +trolley-car which visits and revisits the river before finally leaving +it, with a sort of desperation, and hiding its passion with a sudden +plunge into the woods. + + + + +III. + +The old fishing and seafaring village, which has now almost lost the +recollection of its first estate in its absorption with the care of the +summer colony, was sparsely dropped along the highway bordering the +harbor, and the shores of the river, where the piles of the time-worn +wharves are still rotting. A few houses of the past remain, but the type +of the summer cottage has impressed itself upon all the later building, +and the native is passing architecturally, if not personally, into +abeyance. He takes the situation philosophically, and in the season he +caters to the summer colony not only as the landlord of the rented +cottages, and the keeper of the hotels and boarding-houses, but as +livery-stableman, grocer, butcher, marketman, apothecary, and doctor; +there is not one foreign accent in any of these callings. If the native +is a farmer, he devotes himself to vegetables, poultry, eggs, and fruit +for the summer folks, and brings these supplies to their doors; his +children appear with flowers; and there are many proofs that he has +accurately sized the cottagers up in their tastes and fancies as well as +their needs. I doubt if we have sized him up so well, or if our somewhat +conventionalized ideal of him is perfectly representative. He is, +perhaps, more complex than he seems; he is certainly much more self- +sufficing than might have been expected. The summer folks are the +material from which his prosperity is wrought, but he is not dependent, +and is very far from submissive. As in all right conditions, it is here +the employer who asks for work, not the employee; and the work must be +respectfully asked for. There are many fables to this effect, as, for +instance, that of the lady who said to a summer visitor, critical of the +week's wash she had brought home, "I'll wash you and I'll iron you, but I +won't take none of your jaw." A primitive independence is the keynote of +the native character, and it suffers no infringement, but rather boasts +itself. "We're independent here, I tell you," said the friendly person +who consented to take off the wire door. "I was down Bangor way doin' a +piece of work, and a fellow come along, and says he, 'I want you should +hurry up on that job.' 'Hello!' says I, 'I guess I'll pull out.' Well, +we calculate to do our work," he added, with an accent which sufficiently +implied that their consciences needed no bossing in the performance. + +The native compliance with any summer-visiting request is commonly in +some such form as, "Well, I don't know but what I can," or, "I guess +there ain't anything to hinder me." This compliance is so rarely, if +ever, carried to the point of domestic service that it may fairly be said +that all the domestic service, at least of the cottagers, is imported. +The natives will wait at the hotel tables; they will come in "to +accommodate"; but they will not "live out." I was one day witness of the +extreme failure of a friend whose city cook had suddenly abandoned him, +and who applied to a friendly farmer's wife in the vain hope that she +might help him to some one who would help his family out in their strait. +"Why, there ain't a girl in the Hollow that lives out! Why, if you was +sick abed, I don't know as I know anybody 't you could git to set up with +you." The natives will not live out because they cannot keep their self- +respect in the conditions of domestic service. Some people laugh at this +self-respect, but most summer folks like it, as I own I do. + +In our partly mythical estimate of the native and his relation to us, he +is imagined as holding a kind of carnival when we leave him at the end of +the season, and it is believed that he likes us to go early. We have had +his good offices at a fair price all summer, but as it draws to a close +they are rendered more and more fitfully. From some, perhaps flattered, +reports of the happiness of the natives at the departure of the +sojourners, I have pictured them dancing a sort of farandole, and +stretching with linked hands from the farthest summer cottage up the +river to the last on the wooded point. It is certain that they get +tired, and I could not blame them if they were glad to be rid of their +guests, and to go back to their own social life. This includes church +festivals of divers kinds, lectures and shows, sleigh-rides, theatricals, +and reading-clubs, and a plentiful use of books from the excellently +chosen free village library. They say frankly that the summer folks have +no idea how pleasant it is when they are gone, and I am sure that the +gayeties to which we leave them must be more tolerable than those which +we go back to in the city. It may be, however, that I am too confident, +and that their gayeties are only different. I should really like to know +just what the entertainments are which are given in a building devoted to +them in a country neighborhood three or four miles from the village. It +was once a church, but is now used solely for social amusements. + + + + +IV + +The amusements of the summer colony I have already hinted at. Besides +suppers, there are also teas, of larger scope, both afternoon and +evening. There are hops every week at the two largest hotels, which are +practically free to all; and the bathing-beach is, of course, a supreme +attraction. The bath-houses, which are very clean and well equipped, +are not very cheap, either for the season or for a single bath, and there +is a pretty pavilion at the edge of the sands. This is always full of +gossiping spectators of the hardy adventurers who brave tides too remote +from the Gulf Stream to be ever much warmer than sixty or sixty-five +degrees. The bathers are mostly young people, who have the courage of +their pretty bathing-costumes or the inextinguishable ardor of their +years. If it is not rather serious business with them all, still I +admire the fortitude with which some of them remain in fifteen minutes. +Beyond our colony, which calls itself the Port, there is a far more +populous watering-place, east of the Point, known as the Beach, which is +the resort of people several grades of gentility lower than ours: so +many, in fact, that we never can speak of the Beach without averting our +faces, or, at the best, with a tolerant smile. It is really a succession +of beaches, all much longer and, I am bound to say, more beautiful than +ours, lined with rows of the humbler sort of summer cottages known as +shells, and with many hotels of corresponding degree. The cottages may +be hired by the week or month at about two dollars a day, and they are +supposed to be taken by inland people of little social importance. Very +likely this is true; but they seemed to be very nice, quiet people, and I +commonly saw the ladies reading, on their verandas, books and magazines, +while the gentlemen sprayed the dusty road before them with the garden +hose. The place had also for me an agreeable alien suggestion, and in +passing the long row of cottages I was slightly reminded of Scheveningen. +Beyond the cottage settlements is a struggling little park, dedicated to +the only Indian saint I ever heard of, though there may be others. His +statue, colossal in sheet-lead, and painted the copper color of his race, +offers any heathen comer the choice between a Bible in one of his hands +and a tomahawk in the other, at the entrance of the park; and there are +other sheet-lead groups and figures in the white of allegory at different +points. It promises to be a pretty enough little place in future years, +but as yet it is not much resorted to by the excursions which largely +form the prosperity of the Beach. The concerts and the "high-class +vaudeville" promised have not flourished in the pavilion provided for +them, and one of two monkeys in the zoological department has perished of +the public inattention. This has not fatally affected the captive bear, +who rises to his hind legs, and eats peanuts and doughnuts in that +position like a fellow-citizen. With the cockatoos and parrots, and the +dozen deer in an inclosure of wire netting, he is no mean attraction; but +he does not charm the excursionists away from the summer village at the +shore, where they spend long afternoons splashing among the waves, or in +lolling groups of men, women, and children on the sand. In the more +active gayeties, I have seen nothing so decided during the whole season +as the behavior of three young girls who once came up out of the sea, and +obliged me by dancing a measure on the smooth, hard beach in their +bathing-dresses. + +I thought it very pretty, but I do not believe such a thing could have +been seen on OUR beach, which is safe from all excursionists, and sacred +to the cottage and hotel life of the Port. + +Besides our beach and its bathing, we have a reading-club for the men, +evolved from one of the old native houses, and verandaed round for summer +use; and we have golf-links and a golf club-house within easy trolley +reach. The links are as energetically, if not as generally, frequented +as the sands, and the sport finds the favor which attends it everywhere +in the decay of tennis. The tennis-courts which I saw thronged about by +eager girl-crowds, here, seven years ago, are now almost wholly abandoned +to the lovers of the game, who are nearly always men. + +Perhaps the only thing (besides, of course, our common mortality) which +we have in common with the excursionists is our love of the trolley-line. +This, by its admirable equipment, and by the terror it inspires in +horses, has well-nigh abolished driving; and following the old country +roads, as it does, with an occasional short-cut though the deep, green- +lighted woods or across the prismatic salt meadows, it is of a +picturesque variety entirely satisfying. After a year of fervent +opposition and protest, the whole community--whether of summer or of +winter folks--now gladly accepts the trolley, and the grandest cottager +and the lowliest hotel dweller meet in a grateful appreciation of its +beauty and comfort. + +Some pass a great part of every afternoon on the trolley, and one lady +has achieved celebrity by spending four dollars a week in trolley-rides. +The exhilaration of these is varied with an occasional apprehension when +the car pitches down a sharp incline, and twists almost at right angles +on a sudden curve at the bottom without slacking its speed. A lady who +ventured an appeal to the conductor at one such crisis was reassured, and +at the same time taught her place, by his reply: "That motorman's life, +ma'am, is just as precious to him as what yours is to you." + +She had, perhaps, really ventured too far, for ordinarily the employees +of the trolley do not find occasion to use so much severity with their +passengers. They look after their comfort as far as possible, and seek +even to anticipate their wants in unexpected cases, if I may believe a +story which was told by a witness. She had long expected to see some one +thrown out of the open car at one of the sharp curves, and one day she +actually saw a woman hurled from the seat into the road. Luckily the +woman slighted on her feet, and stood looking round in a daze. + +"Oh! oh!" exclaimed another woman in the seat behind, "she's left her +umbrella!" + +The conductor promptly threw it out to her. + +"Why," demanded the witness, "did that lady wish to get out here?" + +The conductor hesitated before he jerked the bellpull to go on: Then he +said, "Well, she'll want her umbrella, anyway." + +The conductors are, in fact, very civil as well as kind. If they see a +horse in anxiety at the approach of the car, they considerately stop, and +let him get by with his driver in safety. By such means, with their +frequent trips and low fares, and with the ease and comfort of their +cars, they have conciliated public favor, and the trolley has drawn +travel away from the steam railroad in such measure that it ran no trains +last winter. + +The trolley, in fact, is a fad of the summer folks this year; but what it +will be another no one knows; it may be their hissing and by-word. In +the mean time, as I have already suggested, they have other amusements. +These are not always of a nature so general as the trolley, or so +particular as the tea. But each of the larger hotels has been fully +supplied with entertainments for the benefit of their projectors, though +nearly everything of the sort had some sort of charitable slant. I +assisted at a stereopticon lecture on Alaska for the aid of some youthful +Alaskans of both sexes, who were shown first in their savage state, and +then as they appeared after a merely rudimental education, in the +costumes and profiles of our own civilization. I never would have +supposed that education could do so much in so short a time; and I gladly +gave my mite for their further development in classic beauty and a final +elegance. My mite was taken up in a hat, which, passed round among the +audience, is a common means of collecting the spectators' expressions of +appreciation. Other entertainments, of a prouder frame, exact an +admission fee, but I am not sure that these are better than some of the +hat-shows, as they are called. + +The tale of our summer amusements would be sadly incomplete without some +record of the bull-fights given by the Spanish prisoners of war on the +neighboring island, where they were confined the year of the war. +Admission to these could be had only by favor of the officers in charge, +and even among the Elite of the colony those who went were a more elect +few. Still, the day I went, there were some fifty or seventy-five +spectators, who arrived by trolley near the island, and walked to the +stockade which confined the captives. A real bull-fight, I believe, is +always given on Sunday, and Puritan prejudice yielded to usage even in +the case of a burlesque bull-fight; at any rate, it was on a Sunday that +we crouched in an irregular semicircle on a rising ground within the +prison pale, and faced the captive audience in another semicircle, across +a little alley for the entrances and exits of the performers. The +president of the bull-fight was first brought to the place of honor in a +hand-cart, and then came the banderilleros, the picadores, and the +espada, wonderfully effective and correct in white muslin and colored +tissue-paper. Much may be done in personal decoration with advertising +placards; and the lofty mural crown of the president urged the public on +both sides to Use Plug Cut. The picador's pasteboard horse was attached +to his middle, fore and aft, and looked quite the sort of hapless jade +which is ordinarily sacrificed to the bulls. The toro himself was +composed of two prisoners, whose horizontal backs were covered with a +brown blanket; and his feet, sometimes bare and sometimes shod with +india-rubber boots, were of the human pattern. Practicable horns, of a +somewhat too yielding substance, branched from a front of pasteboard, and +a cloth tail, apt to come off in the charge, swung from his rear. I have +never seen a genuine corrida, but a lady present, who had, told me that +this was conducted with all the right circumstance; and it is certain +that the performers entered into their parts with the artistic gust of +their race. The picador sustained some terrific falls, and in his +quality of horse had to be taken out repeatedly and sewed up; the +banderilleros tormented and eluded the toro with table-covers, one red +and two drab, till the espada took him from them, and with due ceremony, +after a speech to the president, drove his blade home to the bull's +heart. I stayed to see three bulls killed; the last was uncommonly +fierce, and when his hindquarters came off or out, his forequarters +charged joyously among the aficionados on the prisoners' side, and made +havoc in their thickly packed ranks. The espada who killed this bull was +showered with cigars and cigarettes from our side. + +I do not know what the Sabbath-keeping shades of the old Puritans made of +our presence at such a fete on Sunday; but possibly they had got on so +far in a better life as to be less shocked at the decay of piety among us +than pleased at the rise of such Christianity as had brought us, like +friends and comrades, together with our public enemies in this harmless +fun. I wish to say that the tobacco lavished upon the espada was +collected for the behoof of all the prisoners. + +Our fiction has made so much of our summer places as the mise en scene of +its love stories that I suppose I ought to say something of this side of +our colonial life. But after sixty I suspect that one's eyes are poor +for that sort of thing, and I can only say that in its earliest and +simplest epoch the Port was particularly famous for the good times that +the young people had. They still have good times, though whether on just +the old terms I do not know. I know that the river is still here with +its canoes and rowboats, its meadowy reaches apt for dual solitude, and +its groves for picnics. There is not much bicycling--the roads are rough +and hilly--but there is something of it, and it is mighty pretty to see +the youth of both sexes bicycling with their heads bare. They go about +bareheaded on foot and in buggies, too, and the young girls seek the tan +which their mothers used so anxiously to shun. + +The sail-boats, manned by weather-worn and weatherwise skippers, are +rather for the pleasure of such older summer folks as have a taste for +cod-fishing, which is here very good. But at every age, and in whatever +sort our colonists amuse themselves, it is with the least possible +ceremony. It is as if, Nature having taken them so hospitably to her +heart, they felt convention an affront to her. Around their cottages, as +I have said, they prefer to leave her primitive beauty untouched, and she +rewards their forbearance with such a profusion of wild flowers as I have +seen nowhere else. The low, pink laurel flushed all the stony fields to +the edges of their verandas when we first came; the meadows were milk- +white with daisies; in the swampy places delicate orchids grew, in the +pools the flags and flowering rushes; all the paths and way-sides were +set with dog-roses; the hollows and stony tops were broadly matted with +ground juniper. Since then the goldenrod has passed from glory to glory, +first mixing its yellow-powdered plumes with the red-purple tufts of the +iron-weed, and then with the wild asters everywhere. There has come +later a dwarf sort, six or ten inches high, wonderfully rich and fine, +which, with a low, white aster, seems to hold the field against +everything else, though the taller golden-rod and the masses of the high, +blue asters nod less thickly above it. But these smaller blooms deck the +ground in incredible profusion, and have an innocent air of being stuck +in, as if they had been fancifully used for ornament by children or +Indians. + +In a little while now, as it is almost the end of September, all the +feathery gold will have faded to the soft, pale ghosts of that +loveliness. The summer birds have long been silent; the crows, as if +they were so many exultant natives, are shouting in the blue sky above +the windrows of the rowan, in jubilant prescience of the depopulation of +our colony, which fled the hotels a fortnight ago. The days are growing +shorter, and the red evenings falling earlier; so that the cottagers' +husbands who come up every Saturday from town might well be impatient for +a Monday of final return. Those who came from remoter distances have +gone back already; and the lady cottagers, lingering hardily on till +October, must find the sight of the empty hotels and the windows of the +neighboring houses, which no longer brighten after the chilly nightfall, +rather depressing. Every one says that this is the loveliest time of +year, and that it will be divine here all through October. But there are +sudden and unexpected defections; there is a steady pull of the heart +cityward, which it is hard to resist. The first great exodus was on the +first of the month, when the hotels were deserted by four-fifths of their +guests. The rest followed, half of them within the week, and within a +fortnight none but an all but inaudible and invisible remnant were left, +who made no impression of summer sojourn in the deserted trolleys. + +The days now go by in moods of rapid succession. There have been days +when the sea has lain smiling in placid derision of the recreants who +have fled the lingering summer; there have been nights when the winds +have roared round the cottages in wild menace of the faithful few who +have remained. + +We have had a magnificent storm, which came, as an equinoctial storm +should, exactly at the equinox, and for a day and a night heaped the sea +upon the shore in thundering surges twenty and thirty feet high. I +watched these at their awfulest, from the wide windows of a cottage that +crouched in the very edge of the surf, with the effect of clutching the +rocks with one hand and holding its roof on with the other. The sea was +such a sight as I have not seen on shipboard, and while I luxuriously +shuddered at it, I had the advantage of a mellow log-fire at my back, +purring and softly crackling in a quiet indifference to the storm. + +Twenty-four hours more made all serene again. Bloodcurdling tales of +lobster-pots carried to sea filled the air; but the air was as blandly +unconscious of ever having been a fury as a lady who has found her lost +temper. Swift alternations of weather are so characteristic of our +colonial climate that the other afternoon I went out with my umbrella +against the raw, cold rain of the morning, and had to raise it against +the broiling sun. Three days ago I could say that the green of the woods +had no touch of hectic in it; but already the low trees of the swamp-land +have flamed into crimson. Every morning, when I look out, this crimson +is of a fierier intensity, and the trees on the distant uplands are +beginning slowly to kindle, with a sort of inner glow which has not yet +burst into a blaze. Here and there the golden-rod is rusting; but there +seems only to be more and more asters sorts; and I have seen ladies +coming home with sheaves of blue gentians; I have heard that the orchids +are beginning again to light their tender lamps from the burning +blackberry vines that stray from the pastures to the edge of the swamps. + +After an apparently total evanescence there has been a like resuscitation +of the spirit of summer society. In the very last week of September we +have gone to a supper, which lingered far out of its season like one of +these late flowers, and there has been an afternoon tea which assembled +an astonishing number of cottagers, all secretly surprised to find one +another still here, and professing openly a pity tinged with contempt for +those who are here no longer. + +I blamed those who had gone home, but I myself sniff the asphalt afar; +the roar of the street calls to me with the magic that the voice of the +sea is losing. Just now it shines entreatingly, it shines winningly, in +the sun which is mellowing to an October tenderness, and it shines under +a moon of perfect orb, which seems to have the whole heavens to itself in +"the first watch of the night," except for "the red planet Mars." This +begins to burn in the west before the flush of sunset has passed from it; +and then, later, a few moon-washed stars pierce the vast vault with their +keen points. The stars which so powdered the summer sky seem mostly to +have gone back to town, where no doubt people take them for electric +lights. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Ladies make up the pomps which they (the men) forego . . . . . . . . . . +Summer folks have no idea how pleasant it is when they are gone. . . . . +Their consciences needed no bossing in the performance . . . . . . . . . + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Confessions of a Summer Colonist, +by William Dean Howells + |