severest manner. As far as I could see, nobody ever did
anything. There never was any plan on foot. Nothing was ever
stirring. People sat on the piazza and sewed. They went to
the springs, and the springs are dreadful. They bubble up
salts and senna. I never knew anything that pretended to be
water that was half as bad. It has no one redeeming quality.
It is bitter. It is greasy. Every spring is worse than the
last, whichever end you begin at. They told apocryphal stories
of people's drinking sixteen glasses before breakfast; and yet
it may have been true; for, if one could bring himself to the
point of drinking one glass of it, I should suppose it would
have taken such a force to enable him to do it that he might
go on drinking indefinitely, from the mere action of the
original impulse. I should think one dose of it would render
a person permanently indifferent to savors, and make him, like
Mithridates, poison-proof. Nevertheless, people go to the
springs and drink. Then they go to the bowling-alleys and
bowl. In the evening, if you are hilariously inclined, you
can make the tour of the hotels. In one you see a large and
brilliantly lighted parlor, along the four sides of which are
women sitting, solemn and stately, in rows three deep, a man
dropped in here and there, about as thick as periods on a page,
very young or very old or in white cravats. A piano or a band
or something that can make a noise makes it at intervals at one
end of the room. They all look as if they waiting for something,
but nothing in particular happens. Sometimes, after the mountain
has labored awhile, some little mouse of a boy and girl will get
up, execute an antic or two and sit down again, when everything
relapses into its original solemnity. At very long intervals
somebody walks across the floor. There is a moderate fluttering