remedies. Where the cry used to be "drugs," it now is "hygiene." But
hygiene itself might be changed for the better. We can imagine a few
improvements in the materia medica of the future. Where the physician
used to order a tonic for a feeble pulse, he will simply hold his
watch thoughtfully for sixty seconds and prescribe "Paris." Where
he was wont to recommend a strong emetic, he will in future advise
a week's study of the works of art at our National Capital. For
lassitude, a donkey-ride up Vesuvius. For color-blindness, a course
of sunrises from the Rigi. For deafness, Wachtel in his song of "Di
quella Pira." For melancolia, Naples. For fever, driving an ice-cart.
But when the doctor's most remunerative patient comes along, the pursy
manufacturer able to afford the luxury of a bad liver, let him consult
the knob of his cane a moment and order "Atlantic City."

--Because it is lazy, yet stimulating. Because it is unspoilt, yet
luxurious. Because the air there is filled with iodine and the sea
with chloride of sodium. Because, with a whole universe of water,
Atlantic City is dry. Because of its perfect rest and its infinite
horizons.

But where and what _is_ Atlantic City? It is a refuge thrown up by the
continent-building sea. Fashion took a caprice, and shook it out of
a fold of her flounce. A railroad laid a wager to find the shortest
distance from Penn's treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: it dashed into
the water, and a City emerged from its freight-cars as a consequence
of the manoeuvre. Almost any kind of a parent-age will account for
Atlantis. It is beneath shoddy and above mediocrity. It is below
Long Branch and higher up than Cape May. It is different from any
watering-place in the world, yet its strong individuality might have
been planted in any other spot; and a few years ago it was nowhere.