There is nothing more delightful than the gravity with which the game of
Newport is played. To assist at one of the solemn "functions" like a
coach parade is not unlike attendance upon a function of the ancient
Church in Rome. On a true Newport afternoon, as soft and sweet and
luminous an air as can be breathed, Newport, in every kind of stately
and comfortable and light and graceful carriage, with the finest horses
and the most loftily disdainful of coachmen, proceeds down the avenue to
behold the stately procession along the ocean drive.
Of its kind there is no more beautiful drive in the world. The shore
winds among rocks which are massed, a shrewd-eyed traveller said, as on
the shores of Greece. The bold character of the coast of Rhode Island
and its picturesque effects are wholly unknown upon its neighbor Long
Island. The endless reach of sand and the monotony of the vast level
land on Long Island have a certain vague charm as of a sea-shore
becoming or about to become picturesque. But that point is fully reached
by its northern neighbors of the New England coast, and the ocean drive
in Newport is in itself incomparable.
For its company on the day of a great social function it is quite as
incomparable. Hyde Park, the Bois, the Cascine, the Prater, show no such
sumptuous display. If the street boy were a philosopher, he would say,
probably, as he watched the spectacle, "My eyes! money plays here for
all it is worth." The American street boy of every degree is not
supposed to need any stronger impression of the value of money than he
already possesses. But Newport is the great school for that instruction,
and it is open free to the whole world. Money elsewhere has the same
instincts and desires. But in a city, in winter, its sports and effects,
however splendid, are divided and hidden. In summer Newport they are
concentrated under most fortunate conditions and proceed in the open
air.
It is all the more striking because money has built its summer city
close by and just above one of the oldest and most historic of our
cities. It has improvised its magnificence and mad profusion upon the
outskirts of simplicity and moderation are observant, for all their
plainness. When they were asked what effect the new town produced upon
the old, whether the rollicking city on the hill harmed or helped the
plodding seaport, they answered: "Until Croesus and Midas came, it was
beneficial. But they have ruined Newport."
Perhaps not, however. The Newport on the hill of to-day is the
legitimate offspring of the earlier summer retreat. That was a group of
the select who came to Newport to enjoy themselves for the summer. They
were well-to-do, some of them. But not many dwelt in cottages. The
multitude lived in hotels. They danced, they dined, they drove, they
sauntered. It was the green tree. It was less money enjoying itself as
more money enjoys itself now. The gossip, the flirting, the display were
not of another kind, they were the same as to-day, but the scale was
more limited. Mrs. Candour, Mrs. Malaprop, Sir Benjamin Backbite, and
the brothers Surface were already there. The standards of conduct, the
ideals of honor, were not essentially different.
A generation ago Sir Benjamin bowed and danced and supped at Mrs.
Malaprop's ball with all the gay world of that time, which is now in
wigs, caps, turbans, or heaven; and the next day, dining with Mrs.
Candour, Sir Benjamin told, with infinite relish and to the great
amusement of the table, the story of his hostess's verbal trips and
stumbles. It did not seem to be conduct essentially base, because this
sparkling summer realm by the sea is like Charles Lamb's conception of
the artificial comedy of the eighteenth century: "I confess, for myself,
that, with no great delinquencies to answer for, I am glad for a season
to take an airing beyond the diocese of the strict conscience--not to
live always in the precincts of the law courts--but now and then, for a
dream-while or so, to imagine a world with no meddling restrictions, to
get into recesses whither the hunter cannot follow me--
"'secret shades
Of wooded Ida's inmost grove,
While yet there was no fear of Jove.'"
To take permanent lodgings beyond the diocese of the strict conscience,
however, is a critical enterprise. If you take a house in Capua, you
must needs breathe the Capuan air. The magnetic rock in Sindbad's story
drew out the nails of the ships that ventured too near. Old Mithridates
fed on poisons until they "became a kind of nutriment," as Dr.
Rappaccini fed his daughter, until, too late, he discovered that she was
doomed. The graybeards who drive out to see the coach parade, and recall
the days, before the ocean drive, when the rocks beyond Lily Pond were a
glimmering land of Beulah, may prattle of the golden age of Newport as
of a happy past in which the graybeards were born. But will they
seriously contend that the age of Croesus and Midas is not the golden
age of Newport?
While they are gossiping, the coaches approach. They have been through
the town, and are driving out by the Fort road; and as they appear, the
vast throng of carriages which have driven out to meet them pull to the
side of the road to allow a free course. A multitude of spectators
awaiting a festal procession, which at last is coming, naturally
suggests applause. But there is profound silence. There is no cheer for
every spectator to catch up and pass on. The first coach is at hand, and
gravely passes at a deliberate pace, and the great world in carriages
gravely looks on. The second coach deliberately follows, and is surveyed
with equal gravity. The next perhaps will strike a spark of applause.
But the next passes deliberately amid a silence profound. One friend,
perhaps, in the stately procession gravely nods to another gravely
gazing from a carriage. The "function" proceeds. Far out at sea the
white sails flash, and the summer surf breaks gently along the shore.
Every coach rolls slowly by. The moment for cheering has not yet
arrived. Indeed, it does not arrive before the pageant has passed, and
the reviewing carriages are turning and following on in its wake. It is
truly a solemn function. Graybeard recalls nothing like it for multitude
and display in the old drives on "beach days" along the beach in what he
calls the golden age. But does he doubt that old Newport would have done
it gladly if it could have done it?
If the ghost of Heliogabalus haunts the villa'd shore, it is with no
hope of resuming the imperial crown. His court merely makes a pretty
summer spectacle when the opera ends. The coach and the stately equipage
and the flashing splendor of busy idleness are the pageant which is
kindly displayed gratis for the passengers in the omnibus, for the
pedestrians and the nurses. They sit and stroll and stare at their ease
while the gay play proceeds before their eyes. Nowhere more constantly
than in the summer Newport does the remark of the little child watching
the march of the soldiers recur--"Mamma, how good they are to make such
a show!"