“In the fourteen millions of inhabitants in the United States,” Willis explains, “there are precisely four authenticated and undisputed aristocratic families. There is one in Boston, one in New York, one in Philadelphia, and one in Baltimore. With two hundred miles’ interval between them, they agree passably, and generally meet at one or another of the three watering-places of Saratoga, Ballston, or Lebanon. Their meeting is as mysterious as the process of crystallization, for it is not by agreement. As it is not known till the moment they arrive, there is, of course, great excitement among the hotel-keepers in these different parts of the country, and a village that has ten thousand transient inhabitants one summer, has, for the next, scarcely as many score. The vast and solitary temples of Pæstum are gay in comparison with these halls of disappointment.” It is, for the most part, the life of this society which Willis so engagingly portrays in the “Slingsby” sketches. His heroes are devil-may-care young fellows, who wander about from one fashionable resort to another, composing love verses, flirting, dancing, eloping, or assisting at elopements. It was the era of the buck or beau, a joyous, flamboyant creature who wore figured waistcoats, was a knowing whip, danced with vigor, loved pink champagne, serenaded the ladies, was gallant in speech, dashing and confident in bearing, and never in the least _blasé_. This freshness and youthfulness, this air of stir, adventure, excitement, hope, which was impressed upon American life, books, and society of that date are reflected from Willis’s sparkling pages and give them even a sort of historical interest, apart from their claims as literature. There is a breath of morning wind in them. With the homelier side of life he had little concern, and his writing lacks gravity and simplicity. Whenever he grows serious, it is to grow sentimental. “F. Smith” is perhaps the most artistic of these sketches, and the most representative of its author’s talent, in its quick interchange of poetic description, bright dialogue, light, malicious humor, and natural sentiment; neither mood in excess, nor dwelt on long enough to fatigue. It is a trifling episode--the caprice of a summer belle at Nahant. Its hero is the same “gentle monster” who reappears in many of the “Inklings”--in “Edith Linsey,” “The Gypsy of Sardis,” and “Niagara,” a Green Mountain Frankenstein and Quixote in one, absent-minded and uncouth of aspect, but with a soul filled with enthusiasm for beauty and a delicate, chivalrous devotion to women. He is half hero and half butt, and introduced as a constant foil to Slingsby, the dandy exquisite and man of the world.