our Northern winter, he may have a mighty hunger and thirst,
when he is thawed out, to see human faces and hear human
voices; but even then Saratoga is not the place to go to, on
account of this very artificialness. By artificial I do not
mean deceitful. I saw nobody but nice people there, smooth,
kind, and polite. By artificial I mean wrought up. You don't
get at the heart of things. Artificialness spreads and spans
all with a crystal barrier,--invisible, but palpable. Nothing
was left to grow and go at its own sweet will. The very
springs were paved and pavilioned. For green fields and
welling fountains and a possibility of brooks, which one
expects from the name, you found a Greek temple, and a
pleasure-ground, graded and grassed and pathed like a cemetery,
wherein nymphs trod daintily in elaborate morning-costume.
Everything took pattern and was elaborate. Nothing was left
to the imagination, the taste, the curiosity. A bland, smooth,
smiling surface baffled and blinded you, and threatened
profanity. Now profanity is wicked and vulgar; but if you
listen to the reeds next summer, I am not sure that you will
not hear them whispering, under, "Thunder!"

For the restorative qualities of Saratoga I have nothing to
say. I was well when I went there; nor did my experience ever
furnish me with any disease that I should consider worse than
an intermittent attack of her spring waters. But whatever it
may do for the body, I do not believe it is for the soul. I
do not believe that such places, such scenes, such a fashion
of life ever nourishes a vigorous womanhood or manhood. Taken
homeopathically, it may be harmless; but become a habit, a
necessity, it must vitiate, enervate, destroy. Men can stand