LONG BRANCH, OCEAN GROVE

Mrs. Farquhar, Colonel Fane, and a great many of their first and second cousins were at the station the morning the Bensons and King and Forbes departed for the North. The gallant colonel was foremost in his expressions of regret, and if he had been the proprietor of Virginia, and of the entire South added thereto, and had been anxious to close out the whole lot on favorable terms to the purchaser, he would not have exhibited greater solicitude as to the impression the visitors had received. This solicitude was, however, wholly in his manner and it is the traditional-manner that has nearly passed away for underneath all this humility it was plain to be seen that the South had conferred a great favor, sir, upon these persons by a recognition of their merits.

“I am not come to give you good-by, but au revoir,” said Mrs. Farquhar to Stanhope and Irene, who were standing apart. “I hate to go North in the summer, it is so hot and crowded and snobbish, but I dare say I shall meet you somewhere, for I confess I don’t like to lose sight of so much happiness. No, no, Miss Benson, you need not thank me, even with a blush; I am not responsible for this state of things. I did all I could to warn you, and I tell you now that my sympathy is with Mr. Meigs, who never did either of you any harm, and I think has been very badly treated.”

“I don’t know any one, Mrs. Farquhar, who is so capable of repairing his injuries as yourself,” said King.

“Thank you; I’m not used to such delicate elephantine compliments. It is just like a man, Miss Benson, to try to kill two birds with one stone get rid of a rival by sacrificing a useless friend. All the same, au revoir.”

“We shall be glad to see you,” replied Irene, “you know that, wherever we are; and we will try to make the North tolerable for you.”

“Oh, I shall hide my pride and go. If you were not all so rich up there! Not that I object to wealth; I enjoy it. I think I shall take to that old prayer: ’May my lot be with the rich in this world, and with the South in the next!’”

I suppose there never was such a journey as that from the White Sulphur to New York. If the Virginia scenery had seemed to King beautiful when he came down, it was now transcendently lovely. He raved about it, when I saw him afterwards the Blue Ridge, the wheat valleys, the commercial advantages, the mineral resources of the State, the grand old traditional Heaven knows what of the Old Dominion; as to details he was obscure, and when I pinned him down, he was not certain which route they took. It is my opinion that the most costly scenery in the world is thrown away upon a pair of newly plighted lovers.

The rest of the party were in good spirits. Even Mrs. Benson, who was at first a little bewildered at the failure of her admirably planned campaign, accepted the situation with serenity.

“So you are engaged!” she said, when Irene went to her with the story of the little affair in Lovers’ Walk. “I suppose he’ll like it. He always took a fancy to Mr. King. No, I haven’t any objections, Irene, and I hope you’ll be happy. Mr. King was always very polite to me only he didn’t never seem exactly like our folks. We only want you to be happy.” And the old lady declared with a shaky voice, and tears streaming down her cheeks, that she was perfectly happy if Irene was.

Mr. Meigs, the refined, the fastidious, the man of the world, who had known how to adapt himself perfectly to Mrs. Benson, might nevertheless have been surprised at her implication that he was “like our folks.”

At the station in Jersey City a place suggestive of love and romance and full of tender associations the party separated for a few days, the Bensons going to Saratoga, and King accompanying Forbes to Long Branch, in pursuance of an agreement which, not being in writing, he was unable to break. As the two friends went in the early morning down to the coast over the level salt meadows, cut by bayous and intersected by canals, they were curiously reminded both of the Venice lagoons and the plains of the Teche; and the artist went into raptures over the colors of the landscape, which he declared was Oriental in softness and blending. Patriotic as we are, we still turn to foreign lands for our comparisons.

Long Branch and its adjuncts were planned for New York excursionists who are content with the ocean and the salt air, and do not care much for the picturesque. It can be described in a phrase: a straight line of sandy coast with a high bank, parallel to it a driveway, and an endless row of hotels and cottages. Knowing what the American seaside cottage and hotel are, it is unnecessary to go to Long Branch to have an accurate picture of it in the mind. Seen from the end of the pier, the coast appears to be all built up a thin, straggling city by the sea. The line of buildings is continuous for two miles, from Long Branch to Elberon; midway is the West End, where our tourists were advised to go as the best post of observation, a medium point of respectability between the excursion medley of one extremity and the cottage refinement of the other, and equally convenient to the races, which attract crowds of metropolitan betting men and betting women. The fine toilets of these children of fortune are not less admired than their fashionable race-course manners. The satirist who said that Atlantic City is typical of Philadelphia, said also that Long Branch is typical of New York. What Mr. King said was that the satirist was not acquainted with the good society of either place.

All the summer resorts get somehow a certain character, but it is not easy always to say how it is produced. The Long Branch region was the resort of politicians, and of persons of some fortune who connect politics with speculation. Society, which in America does not identify itself with politics as it does in England, was not specially attracted by the newspaper notoriety of the place, although, fashion to some extent declared in favor of Elberon.

In the morning the artist went up to the pier at the bathing hour. Thousands of men, women, and children were tossing about in the lively surf promiscuously, revealing to the spectators such forms as Nature had given them, with a modest confidence in her handiwork. It seemed to the artist, who was a student of the human figure, that many of these people would not have bathed in public if Nature had made them self-conscious. All down the shore were pavilions and bath-houses, and the scene at a distance was not unlike that when the water is occupied by schools of leaping mackerel. An excursion steamer from New York landed at the pier. The passengers were not of any recognized American type, but mixed foreign races a crowd of respectable people who take their rare holidays rather seriously, and offer little of interest to an artist. The boats that arrive at night are said to bring a less respectable cargo.

It is a pleasant walk or drive down to Elberon when there is a sea-breeze, especially if there happen to be a dozen yachts in the offing. Such elegance as this watering-place has lies in this direction; the Elberon is a refined sort of hotel, and has near it a group of pretty cottages, not too fantastic for holiday residences, and even the “greeny-yellowy” ones do not much offend, for eccentricities of color are toned down by the sea atmosphere. These cottages have excellent lawns set with brilliant beds of flowers; and the turf rivals that of Newport; but without a tree or shrub anywhere along the shore the aspect is too unrelieved and photographically distinct. Here as elsewhere the cottage life is taking the place of hotel life.

There were few handsome turn-outs on the main drive, and perhaps the popular character of the place was indicated by the use of omnibuses instead of carriages. For, notwithstanding Elberon and such fashion as is there gathered, Long Branch lacks “style.” After the White Sulphur, it did not seem to King alive with gayety, nor has it any society. In the hotel parlors there is music in the evenings, but little dancing except by children. Large women, offensively dressed, sit about the veranda, and give a heavy and “company” air to the drawing-rooms. No, the place is not gay. The people come here to eat, to bathe, to take the air; and these are reasons enough for being here. Upon the artist, alert for social peculiarities, the scene made little impression, for to an artist there is a limit to the interest of a crowd showily dressed, though they blaze with diamonds.

It was in search of something different from this that King and Forbes took the train and traveled six miles to Asbury Park and Ocean Grove. These great summer settlements are separated by a sheet of fresh water three-quarters of a mile long; its sloping banks are studded with pretty cottages, its surface is alive with boats gay with awnings of red and blue and green, and seats of motley color, and is altogether a fairy spectacle. Asbury Park is the worldly correlative of Ocean Grove, and esteems itself a notch above it in social tone. Each is a city of small houses, and each is teeming with life, but Ocean Grove, whose centre is the camp-meeting tabernacle, lodges its devotees in tents as well as cottages, and copies the architecture of Oak Bluffs. The inhabitants of the two cities meet on the two-mile-long plank promenade by the sea. Perhaps there is no place on the coast that would more astonish the foreigner than Ocean Grove, and if he should describe it faithfully he would be unpopular with its inhabitants. He would be astonished at the crowds at the station, the throngs in the streets, the shops and stores for supplying the wants of the religious pilgrims, and used as he might be to the promiscuous bathing along our coast, he would inevitably comment upon the freedom existing here. He would see women in their bathing dresses, wet and clinging, walking in the streets of the town, and he would read notices posted up by the camp-meeting authorities forbidding women so clad to come upon the tabernacle ground. He would also read placards along the beach explaining the reason why decency in bathing suits is desirable, and he would wonder why such notices should be necessary. If, however, he walked along the shore at bathing times he might be enlightened, and he would see besides a certain simplicity of social life which sophisticated Europe has no parallel for. A peculiar custom here is sand-burrowing. To lie in the warm sand, which accommodates itself to any position of the body, and listen to the dash of the waves, is a dreamy and delightful way of spending a summer day. The beach for miles is strewn with these sand-burrowers in groups of two or three or half a dozen, or single figures laid out like the effigies of Crusaders. One encounters these groups sprawling in all attitudes, and frequently asleep in their promiscuous beds. The foreigner is forced to see all this, because it is a public exhibition. A couple in bathing suits take a dip together in the sea, and then lie down in the sand. The artist proposed to make a sketch of one of these primitive couples, but it was impossible to do so, because they lay in a trench which they had scooped in the sand two feet deep, and had hoisted an umbrella over their heads. The position was novel and artistic, but beyond the reach of the artist. It was a great pity, because art is never more agreeable than when it concerns itself with domestic life.

While this charming spectacle was exhibited at the beach, afternoon service was going on in the tabernacle, and King sought that in preference. The vast audience under the canopy directed its eyes to a man on the platform, who was violently gesticulating and shouting at the top of his voice. King, fresh from the scenes of the beach, listened a long time, expecting to hear some close counsel on the conduct of life, but he heard nothing except the vaguest emotional exhortation. By this the audience were apparently unmoved, for it was only when the preacher paused to get his breath on some word on which he could dwell by reason of its vowels, like w-o-r-l-d or a-n-d, that he awoke any response from his hearers. The spiritual exercise of prayer which followed was even more of a physical demonstration, and it aroused more response. The officiating minister, kneeling at the desk, gesticulated furiously, doubled up his fists and shook them on high, stretched out both arms, and pounded the pulpit. Among people of his own race King had never before seen anything like this, and he went away a sadder if not a wiser man, having at least learned one lesson of charity never again to speak lightly of a negro religious meeting.

This vast city of the sea has many charms, and is the resort of thousands of people, who find here health and repose. But King, who was immensely interested in it all as one phase of American summer life, was glad that Irene was not at Ocean Grove.