to find
it so. Don't you think it's more refined, and, don't you know, sort of
cultivated, and subdued, and Boston? You notice the gentlemen who get
out at all these stations, to go to their country-houses, how highly
civilized they look, and ineffably respectable and intellectual, all
of them presidents of colleges, and substantial bank directors, and
possible ambassadors, and of a social cult (isn't that the word?)
uniting brains and gentle manners."

"You must have been reading the Boston newspapers; you have hit the idea
prevalent in these parts, at any rate. I was, however, reminded myself
of an afternoon train out of London, say into Surrey, on which you are
apt to encounter about as high a type of civilized men as anywhere."

"And you think this is different from a train out of New York?" asked
the artist.

"Yes. New York is more mixed. No one train has this kind of tone. You
see there more of the broker type and politician type, smarter apparel
and nervous manners, but, dear me, not this high moral and intellectual
respectability."

"Well," said the artist, "I'm changing my mind about this country. I
didn't expect so much variety. I thought that all the watering-places
would be pretty much alike, and that we should see the same people
everywhere. But the people are quite as varied as the scenery."

"There you touch a deep question--the refining or the vulgarizing
influence of man upon nature, and the opposite. Now, did the summer
Bostonians make this coast refined, or did this coast refine the
Bostonians who summer here?"

"Well, this is primarily an artistic coast; I feel the influence of
it; there is a refined beauty in all the lines, and residents have not
vulgarized it much. But I wonder what Boston could have done for the
Jersey coast?"

In the midst of this high and useless conversation they came to the
Masconomo House, a sort of concession, in this region of noble villas
and private parks, to the popular desire to get to the sea. It is a
long, low house, with very broad passages below and above, which give
lightness and cheerfulness to the interior, and each of the four corners
of the entrance hall has a fireplace. The pillars of the front and back
piazzas are pine stems stained, with the natural branches cut in unequal
lengths, and look like the stumps for the bears to climb in the pit at
Berne. Set up originally with the bark on, the worms worked underneath
it in secret, at a novel sort of deco