There is Patterson the banker for instance, the employer of Rogers. He can go where he pleases, and he goes to Newport. One can see him any afternoon driving augustly on Bellevue Avenue or along the ocean drive, well gloved, well shod, and brilliantly necktied, in his landau beside Mrs. Patterson. They have been to Newport for years in summer, and their house, with its beautiful outlook to sea, has doubled and trebled in value. How do they pass their time? Entertain and let themselves be entertained. Dinners with formal comestibles, late dances, champagne luncheons, _paté de fois gras_ picnics on a coach are their daily associations. Mr. and Mrs. Patterson are close upon sixty themselves, but they follow--a little more solemnly than formerly, but still without stint--the same programme, which grows more and more elaborate with each succeeding year. It was there that their youngest daughter was married six months ago, with widely heralded splendor, to a Russian nobleman who speaks beautiful English. May her lot be a happy one! The son, who went through the Keeley cure, and the elder daughter, who is separated from her husband, have spent their summers at Newport from their youth up. There are comparatively few who have the means to live, or who do live just like Patterson, but there is many a man of fine instincts and with a sufficient income to maintain a summer home, who finds himself to-day oppressed by the incubus of things. He seeks rest, books, fresh air, the opportunity to enjoy nature--the sea, the foliage, the flowers--and yet he is harassed by things, the very things he has all winter, with a garnishment suitable to hot weather. He wishes to be still; and things keep him moving. He yearns to strip off, if not all his clothing, at least enough of it to give his lungs and his soul full play; but things keep him faultlessly dressed. He intends to slake his thirst only from the old oaken bucket or the milk-pail, and things keep his palate titillated with champagne and cocktails. Our old-time simplicity in summer is perhaps no longer possible in the large watering-places. It is even with considerable satisfaction that we don, and see our wives and children don, the attractive clothing which has taken the place of shirt-sleeves and flannel shirts as articles of toilette; but is it not time to cry halt in our procession toward luxury, if we do not wish to live on our nerves all the year round?