Their Pilgrimage - Charles Dudley Warner

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Blifill, who runs a little steamboat upon one of the inland creeks where the alligator is still numerous enough to be an entertainment—that Mr. King was no doubt malarious himself when he sailed over Florida. Blifill says he offended a whole boatfull one day when they were sailing up the St. John's. Probably he was tired of water, and swamp and water, and scraggy trees and water. The captain was on the bow, expatiating to a crowd of listeners on the fertility of the soil and the salubrity of the climate. He had himself bought a piece of ground away up there somewhere for two hundred dollars, cleared it up, and put in orange-trees, and thousands wouldn't buy it now. And Mr. King, who listened attentively, finally joined in with the questioners, and said, “Captain, what is the average price of land down in this part of Florida by the—gallon?”

      They had come down to the booths, and Mrs. Benson was showing the artist the shells, piles of conchs, and other outlandish sea-fabrications in which it is said the roar of the ocean can be heard when they are hundreds of miles away from the sea. It was a pretty thought, Mr. Forbes said, and he admired the open shells that were painted on the inside—painted in bright blues and greens, with dabs of white sails and a lighthouse, or a boat with a bare-armed, resolute young woman in it, sending her bark spinning over waves mountain-high.

      “Yes,” said the artist, “what cheerfulness those works of art will give to the little parlors up in the country, when they are set up with other shells on the what-not in the corner! These shells always used to remind me of missionaries and the cause of the heathen; but when I see them now I shall think of Atlantic City.”

      “But the representative things here,” interrupted Irene, “are the photographs, the tintypes. To see them is just as good as staying here to see the people when they come.”

      “Yes,” responded Mr. King, “I think art cannot go much further in this direction.”

      If there were not miles of these show-cases of tintypes, there were at least acres of them. Occasionally an instantaneous photograph gave a lively picture of the beach, when the water was full of bathers-men, women, children, in the most extraordinary costumes for revealing or deforming the human figure—all tossing about in the surf. But most of the pictures were taken on dry land, of single persons, couples, and groups in their bathing suits. Perhaps such an extraordinary collection of humanity cannot be seen elsewhere in the world, such a uniformity of one depressing type reduced to its last analysis by the sea-toilet. Sometimes it was a young man and a maiden, handed down to posterity in dresses that would have caused their arrest in the street, sentimentally reclining on a canvas rock. Again it was a maiden with flowing hair, raised hands clasped, eyes upturned, on top of a crag, at the base of which the waves were breaking in foam. Or it was the same stalwart maiden, or another as good, in a boat which stood on end, pulling through the surf with one oar, and dragging a drowning man (in a bathing suit also) into the boat with her free hand. The legend was, “Saved.” There never was such heroism exhibited by young women before, with such raiment, as was shown in these rare works of art.

      As they walked back to the hotel through a sandy avenue lined with jig-saw architecture, Miss Benson pointed out to them some things that she said had touched her a good deal. In the patches of sand before each house there was generally an oblong little mound set about with a rim of stones, or, when something more artistic could be afforded, with shells. On each of these little graves was a flower, a sickly geranium, or a humble marigold, or some other floral token of affection.

      Mr. Forbes said he never was at a watering-place before where they buried the summer boarders in the front yard. Mrs. Benson didn't like joking on such subjects, and Mr. King turned the direction of the conversation by remarking that these seeming trifles were really of much account in these days, and he took from his pocket a copy of the city newspaper, 'The Summer Sea-Song,' and read some of the leading items: “S., our eye is on you.” “The Slopers have come to their cottage on Q Street, and come to stay.” “Mr. E. P. Borum has painted his front steps.” “Mr. Diffendorfer's marigold is on the blow.” And so on, and so on. This was probably the marigold mentioned that they were looking at.

      The most vivid impression, however, made upon the visitor in this walk was that of paint. It seemed unreal that there could be so much paint in the world and so many swearing colors. But it ceased to be a dream, and they were taken back into the hard, practical world, when, as they turned the corner, Irene pointed out her favorite sign:

      Silas Lapham, mineral paint.

       Branch Office.

      The artist said, a couple of days after this morning, that he had enough of it. “Of course,” he added, “it is a great pleasure to me to sit and talk with Mrs. Benson, while you and that pretty girl walk up and down the piazza all the evening; but I'm easily satisfied, and two evenings did for me.”

      So that, much as Mr. King was charmed with Atlantic City, and much as he regretted not awaiting the arrival of the originals of the tintypes, he gave in to the restlessness of the artist for other scenes; but not before he had impressed Mrs. Benson with a notion of the delights of Newport in July.

       Table of Contents

      

      The view of the Catskills from a certain hospitable mansion on the east side of the Hudson is better than any mew from those delectable hills. The artist said so one morning late in June, and Mr. King agreed with him, as a matter of fact, but would have no philosophizing about it, as that anticipation is always better than realization; and when Mr. Forbes went on to say that climbing a mountain was a good deal like marriage—the world was likely to look a little flat once that cerulean height was attained—Mr. King only remarked that that was a low view to take of the subject, but he would confess that it was unreasonable to expect that any rational object could fulfill, or even approach, the promise held out by such an exquisite prospect as that before them.

      The friends were standing where the Catskill hills lay before them in echelon towards the river, the ridges lapping over each other and receding in the distance, a gradation of lines most artistically drawn, still further refined by shades of violet, which always have the effect upon the contemplative mind of either religious exaltation or the kindling of a sentiment which is in the young akin to the emotion of love. While the artist was making some memoranda of these outlines, and Mr. King was drawing I know not what auguries of hope from these purple heights, a young lady seated upon a rock near by—a young lady just stepping over the border-line of womanhood—had her eyes also fixed upon those dreamy distances, with that look we all know so well, betraying that shy expectancy of life which is unconfessed, that tendency to maidenly reverie which it were cruel to interpret literally. At the moment she is more interesting than the Catskills—the brown hair, the large eyes unconscious of anything but the most natural emotion, the shapely waist just beginning to respond to the call of the future—it is a pity that we shall never see her again, and that she has nothing whatever to do with our journey. She also will have her romance; fate will meet her in the way some day, and set her pure heart wildly beating, and she will know what those purple distances mean. Happiness, tragedy, anguish—who can tell what is in store for her? I cannot but feel profound sadness at meeting her in this casual way and never seeing her again. Who says that the world is not full of romance and pathos and regret as we go our daily way in it? You meet her at a railway station; there is the flutter of a veil, the gleam of a scarlet bird, the lifting of a pair of eyes—she is gone; she is entering a drawing-room, and stops a moment and turns away; she is looking from a window as you pass—it is only a glance out of eternity; she stands for a second upon a rock looking seaward; she passes you at the church door—is that all? It is discovered that instantaneous photographs can be taken. They are taken all the time; some of them are never developed, but I suppose these impressions are all there on the sensitive plate, and that the plate is permanently affected by the impressions. The pity of

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