Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 27, June, 1873Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 27, June, 1873
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
In truth, under that moral and physical dyspepsia to which we bring
ourselves regularly every summer, the fine crags of the north become
just the least bit of a bore. They necessitate an amount of heroic
climbing under the command of a sort of romantic and do-nothing Girls
of the Period, who sit about on soft shawls in the lee of the rocks,
and gather their shells and anemones vicariously at the expense of
your tendon achilles. We know it, for we have suffered. We calculate,
and are prepared to prove, that the successful collection of a single
ribbon of ruffled seaweed, procured in a slimy haystack of red dulse
at the beck of one inconsiderate girl, who is keeping her brass heels
dry on a safe and sunny ledge of the Purgatory at Newport, may require
more mental calculation, involve more anguish of equilibrium, and
encourage more heartfelt secret profanity than the making of a
steam-engine or the writing of a proposal.
No, no, we would admire nothing, dare nothing, do nothing, but only
suck in rosy health at every pore, pin our souls out on the holly
hedge to sweeten, and forget what we had for breakfast. Uneasy daemons
that we are all winter, toiling gnomes of the mine and the forge--"O
spent ones of a workday age"--can we not for one brief month in our
year be Turks?
[Illustration: LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET.]
Our doctors, slowly acquiring a little sense, are changing their
remedies. Where the cry used to be "drugs," it now is "hygiene." But
hygiene itself might be changed for the better. We can imagine a few
improvements in the materia medica of the future. Where the physician
used to order a tonic for a feeble pulse, he will simply hold his
watch thoughtfully for sixty seconds and prescribe "Paris." Where
he was wont to recommend a strong emetic, he will in future advise
a week's study of the works of art at our National Capital. For
lassitude, a donkey-ride up Vesuvius. For color-blindness, a course
of sunrises from the Rigi. For deafness, Wachtel in his song of "Di
quella Pira." For melancolia, Naples. For fever, driving an ice-cart.
But when the doctor's most remunerative patient comes along, the pursy
manufacturer able to afford the luxury of a bad liver, let him consult
the knob of his cane a moment and order "Atlantic City."
--Because it is lazy, yet stimulating. Because it is unspoilt, yet
luxurious. Because the air there is filled with iodine and the sea
with chloride of sodium. Because, with a whole universe of water,
Atlantic City is dry. Because of its perfect rest and its infinite
horizons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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