her children with one hand, and shaking from the other an infinity of
toys and diversions; while for those of more thoughtful bent the
sea turns without ceasing its ancient pages, written all over with
inexhaustible romance.

The great architect of the city was the Power who graded those
streets of immaculate sand, and who laid out that park of mellow,
foam-flowered ocean. Its human founders have done what seemed suitable
in providing shelter for a throng of fitful sojourners, not forgetting
to put up six neat and modest churches, where suitable praise and
adoration may be chanted against the chanting of the sea. In several
respects the place grows somewhat curiously. For instance, a lawn of
turf is made by the simple expedient of fencing off the cattle: the
grass then grows, but if the cows get in they pull up the sod by the
roots, and the wind in a single season excavates a mighty hollow where
the grassy slope was before. So much for building our hopes on
sand. An avenue of trees is prepared by the easy plan of thrusting
willow-stems into the ground: they sprout directly, and alternate
with the fine native cedars and hollies in clothing the streets with
shadow. Several citizens, as Mr. Richard Wright and Mr. Thomas C.
Hand, whose handsome cottages are tasteful specimens of our seaside
architecture, have been tempted by this facility of vegetable life
at Atlantic City to lay out elaborate gardens, which with suitable
culture are successful. Fine avenues of the best construction lead off
to Shell Beach or to the single hill boasted by the locality. Finally,
remembering the claims of the great democracy to a wash-basin, the
aediles invited Tom, Dick and Harry, and set up the Excursion or
Sea-View House, with its broad piazzas, its numberless facilities
for amusement, and its enormous dining-hall, which can be changed on
occasion into a Jardin Mabille, with flowers and fountains.