The greatest piece of good luck that can befall a Continental village is
the discovery, within its limits, of a spring supplying some kind of
malodorous water. From that moment the entire community, abandoning all
other plans, give themselves over to hatching their golden egg,
experience having taught them that no other source of prosperity can
compare with a _source thermale_. If the water of the newfound spring,
besides having an unpleasant smell, is also hot, then Providence has
indeed blessed the township.
The first step is to have the fluid analyzed by a celebrity, and its
medicinal qualities duly set forth in a certificate. The second is to
get official recognition from the government and the authorization to
erect a bath house. Once these preliminaries accomplished, the way lies
plain before the fortunate village; every citizen, from the mayor down to
the humblest laborer, devotes himself to solving the all-important
problem how to attract strangers to the place and keep and amuse them
when they have been secured.
Multicolored pamphlets detailing the local attractions are mailed to the
four corners of the earth, and brilliant chromos of the village, with
groups of peasants in the foreground, wearing picturesque costumes, are
posted in every available railway station and booking-office, regardless
of the fact that no costumes have been known in the neighborhood for half
a century, except those provided by the hotel proprietors for their
housemaids. A national dress, however, has a fine effect in the
advertisement, and gives a local color to the scene. What, for instance,
would Athens be without that superb individual in national get-up whom
one is sure to see before the hotel on alighting from the omnibus? I am
convinced that he has given as much pleasure as the Acropolis to most
travellers; the knowledge that the hotel proprietors share the expenses
of his keep and toilet cannot dispel the charm of those scarlet
embroideries and glittering arms.
After preparing their trap, the wily inhabitants of a new watering-place
have only to sit down and await events. The first people to appear on
the scene are, naturally, the English, some hidden natural law compelling
that race to wander forever in inexpensive by-ways and serve as pioneers
for other nations. No matter how new or inaccessible the spring, you are
sure to find a small colony of Britons installed in the half-finished
hotels, reading week-old editions of the _Times_, and grumbling over the
increase in prices since the year before.
As soon as the first stray Britons have developed into an “English
colony,” the municipality consider themselves authorized to construct a
casino and open avenues, which are soon bordered by young trees and
younger villas. In the wake of the English come invalids of other
nationalities. If a wandering “crowned head” can be secured for a
season, a great step is gained, as that will attract the real paying
public and the Americans, who as a general thing are the last to appear
on the scene.
At this stage of its evolution, the “city fathers” build a theatre in
connection with their casino, and (persuading the government to wink at
their evasion of the gambling laws) add games of chance to the other
temptations of the place.
There is no better example of the way a spring can be developed by clever
handling, and satisfactory results obtained from advertising and
judicious expenditure, than Aix-les-Bains, which twenty years ago was but
a tiny mountain village, and to-day ranks among the wealthiest and most
brilliant _eaux_ in Europe. In this case, it is true, they had tradition
to fall back on, for Aquæ Gratinæ was already a favorite watering-place
in the year 30 B.C., when Cæsar took the cure.
There is little doubt in my mind that when the Roman Emperor first
arrived he found a colony of spinsters and retired army officers (from
recently conquered Britain) living around this spring in _popinæ_ (which
are supposed to have corresponded to our modern boarding-house), wearing
waterproof togas and common-sense cothurni, with double cork soles.
The wife of another Cæsar fled hither in 1814. The little inn where she
passed a summer in the company of her one-eyed lover—while the fate of
her husband and son was being decided at Vienna and Waterloo—is still
standing, and serves as the annex of a vast new hotel.
The way in which a watering-place is “run” abroad, where tourists are
regarded as godsends, to be cherished, spoiled, and despoiled, is
amusingly different from the manner of our village populations when
summer visitors (whom they look upon as natural enemies) appear on the
scene. Abroad the entire town, together with the surrounding villages,
hamlets, and farmhouses, rack their brains and devote their time to
inventing new amusements for the visitor, and original ways of enticing
the gold from his pocket—for, mind you, on both continents the object is
the same. In Europe the rural Machiavellis have had time to learn that
smiling faces and picturesque surroundings are half the battle.
Another point which is perfectly understood abroad is that a cure must be
largely mental; that in consequence boredom retards recovery. So during
every hour of the day and evening a different amusement is provided for
those who feel inclined to be amused. At Aix, for instance, Colonne’s
orchestra plays under the trees at the Villa des Fleurs while you are
sipping your after-luncheon coffee. At three o’clock “Guignol” performs
for the youngsters. At five o’clock there is another concert in the
Casino. At eight o’clock an operetta is given at the villa, and a comedy
in the Casino, both ending discreetly at eleven o’clock. Once a week, as
a variety, the park is illuminated and fireworks help to pass the
evening.
If neither music nor Guignol tempts you, every form of trap from a
four-horse break to a donkey-chair (the latter much in fashion since the
English queen’s visit) is standing ready in the little square. On the
neighboring lake you have but to choose between a dozen kinds of boats.
The hire of all these modes of conveyance being fixed by the
municipality, and plainly printed in boat or carriage, extortions or
discussions are impossible. If you prefer a ramble among the hills, the
wily native is lying in wait for you there also. When you arrive
breathless at your journey’s end, a shady arbor offers shelter where you
may cool off and enjoy the view. It is not by accident that a dish of
freshly gathered strawberries and a bowl of milk happen to be standing
near by.
When bicycling around the lake you begin to feel how nice a half hour’s
rest would be. Presto! a terrace overhanging the water appears, and a
farmer’s wife who proposes brewing you a cup of tea, supplementing it
with butter and bread of her own making. Weak human nature cannot
withstand such blandishments. You find yourself becoming fond of the
people and their smiling ways, returning again and again to shores where
you are made so welcome. The fact that “business” is at the bottom of
all this in no way interferes with one’s enjoyment. On the contrary, to
a practical mind it is refreshing to see how much can be made of a
little, and what a fund of profit and pleasure can be extracted from
small things, if one goes to work in the right way.
The trick can doubtless be overdone: at moments one feels the little game
is worked a bit too openly. The other evening, for instance, when we
entered the dining-room of our hotel and found it decorated with flags
and flowers, because, forsooth, it was the birthday of “Victoria R. and
I.,” when champagne was offered at dessert and the band played “God Save
the Queen,” while the English solemnly stood up in their places, it did
seem as if the proprietor was poking fun at his guests in a sly way.
I was apparently the only person, however, who felt this. The English
were much flattered by the attention, so I snubbed myself with the
reflection that if the date had been July 4, I doubtless should have
considered the flags and music most _à propos_.
There are also moments when the vivid picturesqueness of this place comes
near to palling on one. Its beauty is so suspiciously like a set scene
that it gives the impression of having been arranged by some clever
decorator with an eye to effect only.
One is continually reminded of that inimitable chapter in Daudet’s
_Tartarin sur les Alpes_, when the hero discovers that all Switzerland is
one enormous humbug, run to attract tourists; that the cataracts are
“faked,” and avalanches arranged beforehand to enliven a dull season.
Can anything be more delicious than the disillusion of Tartarin and his
friends, just back from a perilous chamois hunt, on discovering that the
animal they had exhausted themselves in following all day across the
mountains, was being refreshed with hot wine in the kitchen of the hotel
by its peasant owner?
When one visits the theatrical abbey across the lake and inspects the too
picturesque tombs of Savoy’s sovereigns, or walks in the wonderful old
garden, with its intermittent spring, the suspicion occurs, in spite of
one’s self, that the whole scene will be folded up at sunset and the
bare-footed “brother” who is showing us around with so much unction will,
after our departure, hurry into another costume, and appear later as one
of the happy peasants who are singing and drinking in front of that
absurdly operatic little inn you pass on the drive home.
There is a certain pink cottage, with a thatched roof and overhanging
vines, about which I have serious doubts, and fully expect some day to
see Columbine appear on that pistache-green balcony (where the magpie is
hanging in a wicker cage), and, taking Arlequin’s hand, disappear into
the water-butt while Clown does a header over the half-door, and the
cottage itself turns into a gilded coach, with Columbine kissing her hand
from the window.
A problem which our intelligent people have not yet set themselves to
solve, is being worked out abroad. The little cities of Europe have
discovered that prosperity comes with the tourist, that with increased
facilities of communication the township which expends the most in money
and brains in attracting rich travellers to its gates is the place that
will grow and prosper. It is a simple lesson, and one that I would
gladly see our American watering-places learn and apply.
CHAPTER 24—The Better Part
As I watch, year after year, the flowers of our aristocratic hothouses
blooming behind the glass partitions of their conservatories, tended
always by the same gardeners, admired by the same amateurs, and then, for
the most part, withering unplucked on their virgin stems, I wonder if the
wild flowers appreciate the good luck that allows them to taste the storm
and the sunshine untrammelled and disperse perfume according to their own
sweet will.
To drop a cumbersome metaphor, there is not the shadow of a doubt that
the tamest and most monotonous lives in this country are those led by the
women in our “exclusive” sets, for the good reason that they are
surrounded by all the trammels of European society without enjoying any
of its benefits, and live in an atmosphere that takes the taste out of
existence too soon.
Girls abroad are kept away from the “world” because their social life
only commences after marriage. In America, on the contrary, a woman is
laid more or less on the shelf the day she becomes a wife, so that if she
has not made hay while her maiden sunshine lasted, the chances are she
will have but meagrely furnished lofts; and how, I ask, is a girl to
harvest always in the same field?
When in this country, a properly brought up young aristocrat is presented
by her mamma to an admiring circle of friends, she is quite a _blasée_
person. The dancing classes she has attended for a couple of years
before her début (that she might know the right set of youths and
maidens) have taken the bloom off her entrance into the world. She and
her friends have already talked over the “men” of their circle, and
decided, with a sigh, that there were matches going about. A juvenile
Newporter was recently overheard deploring (to a friend of fifteen
summers), “By the time we come out there will only be two matches in the
market,” meaning, of course, millionnaires who could provide their brides
with country and city homes, yachts, and the other appurtenances of a
brilliant position. Now, the unfortunate part of the affair is, that
such a worldly-minded maiden will in good time be obliged to make her
début, dine, and dance through a dozen seasons without making a new
acquaintance. Her migrations from town to seashore, or from one country
house to another, will be but changes of scene: the actors will remain
always the same. When she dines out, she can, if she cares to take the
trouble, make a fair guess as to who the guests will be before she
starts, for each entertainment is but a new shuffle of the too well-known
pack. She is morally certain of being taken in to dinner by one of fifty
men whom she has known since her childhood, and has met on an average
twice a week since she was eighteen.
Of foreigners such a girl sees little beyond a stray diplomatist or two,
in search of a fortune, and her glimpses of Paris society are obtained
from the windows of a hotel on the Place Vendôme. In London or Rome she
may be presented in a few international salons, but as she finds it
difficult to make her new acquaintances understand what an exalted
position she occupies at home, the chances are that pique at seeing some
Daisy Miller attract all the attention will drive my lady back to the
city where she is known and appreciated, nothing being more difficult for
an American “swell” than explaining to the uninitiated in what way her
position differs from that of the rest of her compatriots.
When I see the bevies of highly educated and attractive girls who make
their bows each season, I ask myself in wonder, “Who, in the name of
goodness, are they to marry?”
In the very circle where so much stress is laid on a girl’s establishing
herself brilliantly, the fewest possible husbands are to be found. Yet,
limited as such a girl’s choice is, she will sooner remain single than
accept a husband out of her set. She has a perfectly distinct idea of
what she wants, and has lived so long in the atmosphere of wealth that
existence without footmen and male cooks, horses and French clothes,
appears to her impossible. Such large proportions do these details
assume in her mind that each year the husband himself becomes of less
importance, and what he can provide the essential point.
If an outsider is sufficiently rich, my lady may consent to unite her
destinies to his, hoping to get him absorbed into her own world.
It is pathetic, considering the restricted number of eligible men going
about, to see the trouble and expense that parents take to keep their
daughters _en évidence_. When one reflects on the number of people who
are disturbed when such a girl dines out, the horses and men and women
who are kept up to convey her home, the time it has taken her to dress,
the cost of the toilet itself, and then see the man to whom she will be
consigned for the evening,—some bored man about town who has probably
taken her mother in to dinner twenty years before, and will not trouble
himself to talk with his neighbor, or a schoolboy, breaking in his first
dress suit,—when one realizes that for many maidens this goes on night
after night and season after season, it seems incredible that they should
have the courage, or think it worth their while to keep up the game.
The logical result of turning eternally in the same circle is that nine
times out of ten the men who marry choose girls out of their own set,
some pretty stranger who has burst on their jaded vision with all the
charm of the unknown. A conventional society maiden who has not been
fortunate enough to meet and marry a man she loves, or whose fortune
tempts her, during the first season or two that she is “out,” will in all
probability go on revolving in an ever-narrowing circle until she becomes
stationary in its centre.
In comparison with such an existence the life of the average “summer
girl” is one long frolic, as varied as that of her aristocratic sister is
monotonous. Each spring she has the excitement of selecting a new
battle-ground for her manœuvres, for in the circle in which she moves,
parents leave such details to their children. Once installed in the
hotel of her choice, mademoiselle proceeds to make the acquaintance of an
entirely new set of friends, delightful youths just arrived, and bent on
making the most of their brief holidays, with whom her code of etiquette
allows her to sail all day, and pass uncounted evening hours in remote
corners of piazza or beach.
As the words “position” and “set” have no meaning to her young ears, and
no one has ever preached to her the importance of improving her social
standing, the acquaintances that chance throws in her path are accepted
without question if they happen to be good-looking and amusing. She has
no prejudice as to standing, and if her supply of partners runs short,
she will dance and flirt with the clerk from the desk in perfect good
humor—in fact, she stands rather in awe of that functionary, and admires
the “English” cut of his clothes and his Eastern swagger. A large hotel
is her dream of luxury, and a couple of simultaneous flirtations her
ideal of bliss. No long evenings of cruel boredom, in order to be seen
at smart houses, will cloud the maiden’s career, no agonized anticipation
of retiring partnerless from cotillion or supper will disturb her
pleasure.
In the city she hails from, everybody she knows lives in about the same
style. Some are said to be wealthier than others, but nothing in their
way of life betrays the fact; the art of knowing how to enjoy wealth
being but little understood outside of our one or two great cities. She
has that tranquil sense of being the social equal of the people she
meets, the absence of which makes the snob’s life a burden.
During her summers away from home our “young friend” will meet other
girls of her age, and form friendships that result in mutual visiting
during the ensuing winter, when she will continue to add more new names
to the long list of her admirers, until one fine morning she writes home
to her delighted parents that she has found the right man at last, and
engaged herself to him.
Never having penetrated to those sacred centres where birth and wealth
are considered all-important, and ignoring the supreme importance of
living in one set, the plan of life that such a woman lays out for
herself is exceedingly simple. She will coquette and dance and dream her
pleasant dream until Prince Charming, who is to awaken her to a new life,
comes and kisses away the dew of girlhood and leads his bride out into
the work-a-day world. The simple surroundings and ambitions of her youth
will make it easy for this wife to follow the man of her choice, if
necessary, to the remote village where he is directing a factory or to
the mining camp where the foundations of a fortune lie. Life is full of
delicious possibilities for her. Men who are forced to make their way in
youth often turn out to be those who make “history” later, and a bride
who has not become prematurely _blasée_ to all the luxuries or pleasures
of existence will know the greatest happiness that can come into a
woman’s life, that of rising at her husband’s side, step by step,
enjoying his triumphs as she shared his poverty.