HUMAN NATURE AT SUMMER RESORTS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 48, 28 November 1891, Page 629

HUMAN NATURE AT SUMMER RESORTS.

It was a favourite adage of Napoleon’s that * Human nature was always and everywhere the same.’ it is certainly pretty much the same, year after year, at the different places of summer resort. There is your invalid, for example, to whom no topic is interesting that does not treat of the condition of his tongue and stomach, sitting on the sunny side of the piazza, buttoned up to his chin, in a chair that rests, like bis constitution, on its hind legs. He pounces on unhappy listeners, and bores them, always and everywhere the same, with minute desciiptions of his ailments. Then there is your country clergyman, who came to be jolly, and would fain be so : but. before he can make up his mind to it, must settle the important questions whether rolling ten pins would be considered a sacerdotal act by Deacon Grim of his parish, and whether he ought to countenance, by his presence in the ladies' par’our, any song but ‘ Hark from the Tombs a Doleful Sound.’ There is the bachelor who knows the flirtation ropes ; and though he has no objection to carry a young lady's shawl or parasol, also carries a rhinoceros hide over his heart, from which her little arrows glance harmless, though ever so skilfully aimsd from ribbon, slipper or curl. There is your widow—cultivated, relined, intelligent, self inspecting; yet fettered in every word and action by the knowledge that every person in the house imagines that her earliest and latest thoughts are employed in the construction of adroit mantraps. There is grandma — dear, saintly grandma—who, in her best cap and gown, sits hour after hour on the same rocking chair in the ladies' parlour, watching the tide of life as it ebbs and flows past her, well pleased to be spared the petty strife for place and power, anil smil-

ing benignly on young and old, as if to say : ‘ Some day you, like me, will be glad to rest ; meantime, my dears, get all you can out of it !’ And here is our belle —blonde or brunette, it matters not —with her wondrous changes of rainbow raiment, languishing or lively, as best suits her style, angling for admiration, with hook and line skilfully concealed, but none the less effective ; beautiful as a drcam, and, like a dream, very unsatisfactory to the wide awake ; numbeiing her victims by the thousand, and knowing nothing more earnest in life than a per fect toilet and an intoxicated adorer. From the tip of her wicked little slipper to her pearl of an ear, she is but a mockery and a snare. Then there is the wife who has waited weary weeks for the arrival of her husband, and now he’s coming She is a plain little woman, judging her artistically ; and yet tonight her face is quite beautiful with the illumnation of love. She has a natural flower in her hair, ami her little girl has on her best dress ; and all the guests feel her little interest in that stranger husband's arrival, and listen anxiously, like herself, for theeoming of the train, as she paces up and down the piazza, too restless to sit still. Now, if he should »of come after all ! Wouldn't he deserve lynching? That is the universal verdict. But he has come ! ‘ Papa ! Papa !—John ! John !’ It is dark at the station, but that kiss was heard ; and all went their sepaiate ways, satisfied, now justice had been done. Human love, imperfect as it is, is a beautiful thing. Husband ! wife! child 1 These ties, after all, are life.