son, who was poking about a good deal, strolling
along the lanes and getting into the rears of the houses, said, when
this book was discussed, that his impression was that the real object of
these fine places was to support a lot of English gardeners, grooms,
and stable-boys. They are a kind of aristocracy. They have really made
Newport (that is the summer, transient Newport, for it is largely a
transient Newport). "I've been inquiring," continued Mr. Benson, "and
you'd be surprised to know the number of people who come here, buy or
build expensive villas, splurge out for a year or two, then fail or get
tired of it, and disappear."

Mr. Snodgrass devotes a chapter to the parvenues at Newport. By the
parvenu--his definition may not be scientific--he seems to mean a person
who is vulgar, but has money, and tries to get into society on the
strength of his money alone. He is more to be pitied than any other
sort of rich man. For he not only works hard and suffers humiliation in
getting his place in society, but after he is in he works just as hard,
and with bitterness in his heart, to keep out other parvenues like
himself. And this is misery.

But our visitors did not care for the philosophizing of Mr.
Snodgrass--you can spoil almost anything by turning it wrong side out.
They thought Newport the most beautiful and finished watering-place in
America. Nature was in the loveliest mood when it was created, and art
has generally followed her suggestions of beauty and refinement. They
did not agree with the cynic who said that Newport ought to be walled
in, and have a gate with an inscription, "None but Millionaires allowed
here." It is very easy to get out of the artificial Newport and to come
into scenery that Nature has made after artistic designs which artists
are satisfied with. A favorite drive of our friends was to the Second
Beach and the Purgatory Rocks overlooking it. The photographers and the
water-color artists have exaggerated the Purgatory chasm into a Colorado
canon, but anybody can find it by help of a guide. The rock of this
locality is a curious study. It is an agglomerate made of pebbles and
cement, the pebbles being elongated as if by pressure. The rock is
sometimes found in detached fragments having the form of tree trunks.
Whenever it is fractured, the fracture is a clean cut, as if made by
a saw, and through both pebbles and cement, and the ends present the
appearance of a composite cake filled with almon