SEARCH AFTER PLEASURE. "The power of human mind had its growth in the wilderness; much more must the love and the conception of that Beauty whose every line and hue is, at the best, a faded image of God's daily work and an attested ray of some star of creation, be given chiefly in the places which He has gladdened by planting there the fir-tree and the pine. Not within the walls of Florence, but among the far-away fields of her lilies, was the child trained who was to raise the headstone of Beauty above the towers of watch and war." RUSKIN THERE are some people in the world, who, though not averse to some of the aspects of fashionable life, yet dislike watering places. To seek change by going where the whole dull round of the winter is repeated-ruminated, as it were; to seek rural beauty where nature is put in stocks and stays, and trodden down and travestied in every possible way; to seek retirement where the crowd is more selfish and more encroaching even than in town-seems to them as absurd as odious. These originals-these contemners of an authority from which there is no appeal, none the less confess a love of pleasure. They do not claim to be above the need of relaxation-satisfied with variety in duty-living martyrs to the serious and the sad in life. They have their own simple and odd way of seeking amusement; a way so odd and so obscure that we have fancied a little sketch of it might possess for the fashionable world something of the zest of novelty; it is so natural for those who live in a whirl of excitement to fancy that nobody can of choice live out of it. Perhaps it will seem not life exactly, but only existence. True fashionable life is, however, but partially naturalized on our fresh American soil, and in our unworn American hearts In spite of our efforts to appear as if we were born to it, many an inward whisper of demur writes itself upon our faces; many an awkward non-compliance shames our consistency, while it does honor to our sincerity and humanity. Nature, nursed by the mere shadow of our forests and the breath of our virgin soil, is too strong for us. We have not yet been successfully schooled into heartlessness. Love, and Charity, and Sympathy, still yearn within us, though they are repudiated by Fashion, who insists upon undivided sway. So those who would plead for simple people and simple pleasures may yet hope a hearing. Whether fifty years or five before the time at which we write, it matters not for we treat of things with which exact chronology has nothing to do-a circle of friends and neighbors, living in and near a town used in summer as a watering-place, resolved for once to avoid the tedious pleasures and lonely bustle which the long days always brought about their homes, by retreating to an undiscovered, or, at least, uncelebrated nook, where nature had as yet leave to make what faces she liked, and where no impertinent blunder of art had attempted to improve her tournure. It seemed a somewhat rash experiment, this; for the selection of members of such a party, not being made by secret ballot, could not be wholly candid and exclusive. It was by no means certain that six weeks' of summer abandon would not prove too much for the philosophy of some; and that near and constant intercourse, under circumstances of less that homeconvenience, might not end in unhappy revelations as to the temper of others. But the experiment was worth trying, especially as it was of too quiet and humble a kind to excite invidious remark. Then the thing had no unpleasant trammels about it. There were no inclosing mountains about this "happy valley," forbidding egress to those who were tired of happiness. There was even no fixed time for rustication; nor were friends from without prohibited from joining the party for a longer or shorter period, in case the taste for rurality should spread. Whatever liberty can do for constancy was provided for, and the most prudent examination of the materials of the mass discovered no dangerous elements. There was not even too much friendship,— as might easily be, since friendship is at least as sensitive and jealous as love. No sentiment beyond kind neighborly feeling, and the esteem which intelligent habitual intercourse engenders, had prompted the choice of companionship; the affinities were all of the most harmless kind. Love was almost out of the question, as will be seen when we have introduced our coterie of seceders. Speaking naturally, we begin with Miss Ingoldsby, because her image rises first to our thoughts. She was one of those women who are more lovely at five and twenty than at sixteen, because their beauty lies largely in the expression of soul. There was a wonderful depth of harmony in this young lady's face, that made one forget to notice the rich coloring of her complexion, and the corresponding and heightening darkness of eyes and hair which served as shadow to those velvet roses. Tall, quiet, and perhaps a little stately Her eyes alone smiled constantly; her lips had serious sweetness, You could think of her only as unique; you never thought of likening her to any one else. Yet none had less the air of pretension, or even consciousness. She was always occupied, and, whether with mind or fingers, never with self. Elegant tastes she had, but they were for simple things-things whose charm or value depends not at all on exclusive possession. She talked well, but not with intention; or if with intention, only so for the sake of others' pleasure or advantage; never merely to shine, or to make some chance scrap of knowledge tell, or to frame in some poetical quotation. Cultivation made Miss Ingoldsby only more natural, for she had learned above all things how hateful is affectation; and indeed she had always had small temptation that way, being inevitably charming, and living sur rounded by eyes that assured her she was all they desired. There is no telling how much ruinous affectation and unlovely effort we might save if we yielded admiration and love more generously. It is deprecation or defiance of expected criticism. that causes half the paltry airs that spoil society. Her father was with her, and she was his earthly all; no wonder she walked with an unconscious queenliness, for what gives such grace and tender dignity to the manners as the sense of being wholly loved? Would-be people felt her air to be a little reserved the ill-natured among them said haughty; but if so, it was only in self-defence. Refinement cannot always wholly disguise its suffering, and vulgarity bitterly resents the slightest manifestation of distaste or weariness. But Miss Ingoldsby was as generally liked as so admirable a woman could be, and the love of her friends was a kind of quiet enthusiasm, which did not flow out into the praise which stimulates envy. When the summer-flitting was planned, the first thought was whether Mr. and Miss Ingoldsby would be disposed to try it. Mrs. Marston, and her son,-an overgrown boy of sixteen, a college sophomore, who fancied that study had injured his health, are to be counted next; Mrs. Marston, staid, reasonable, well-read, well-principled; the youth one just calculated to keep such a mother's heart in a continual flutter. These were near neighbors of the Ingoldsbys at home, and the families had an habitual liking for each other; traditional, indeed, for their forefathers had inhabited the very same spots, and left many vestiges of their old neighborliness during the troublous days of the Revolution. So they were well past the critical stage, and took each other for granted very kindly—a state of things favorable to harmonious companionship, even where there is no great mental or spiritual affinity. After these we come to Mr. Berry, a bachelor, one of the soberest; but so full of thought, and feeling, and poetry, and all romantic lore, that no one cared to inquire his age, which might have troubled him, for, though something of a philosopher, he was human and unmarried. His worst fault was a disposition to moralize, (some said dogmatize); unless we consider as such his propensity to quote poetry, of which ample proof will be found hereafter. This habit proved infectious, too, or else the natural influence of woods and fields waked up the latent fires of others |