The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-22

splenetie and exhausted. fou coquetted with
your good health in the summer time and your
good health is coquettng with you in the winter
time fragment of Pauls charge to the taller
would be an appropriate inscription for the hotel
register in every watering place: do thyself no
harm
Another temptation lowering around the
watering -place is the formation of hasty and
lifelong alliances. The watering places are re-
sponsble for more of the domestic infelicities of
this country than all other things combined.
Society is so artificial there that no sure judg-
ment of character can be formed. They who form
cempanionships amid such circumstances, go
into lottery where there are twenty blanks to
one prize. In the severe tug of life you want
more than glitter and splash Life is not ball
room. where the music decides the step and bow,
and prance and graceful swing of long trail can
make up for strong common sense. You might
as well go among tae gally- painted yachts or
summer regatta to find war vessels as to go
among the light spray of the summer watering
place to find character that can stand the test of
the great struggle of human life All, in the
battle of life you want a stronger weapon than
q lace fan or a croquet maliet! The load of life
is 50 heavy that In order to draw it you want a
team stronger than one made up Of a masculine
grasshopper and feminine butterfly. If there
is any man in the community that excites my
contempt, and that ought to excite the contempt
of every man and woman, it is the softhanded,
soft-headed fop, who, perfumed until the air is
actually sick, spends his summer in taking kill
ing attitudes and waving sentimental adieus,
and talking inhnitesinal nothings, and hnding
his heaven in the set of lavender KID
glove. Boots as tight as an inquisition;
two hours of consummate skill exhibited in the
tie of a flaming cravat His conversation made
up of f'ahsl" and 'ohsl' and 'he-hees!p 1t would
take 500 of them stewed down to make tea
spoonful of alfs-foot jelly There is only one
counterpart to such man as that, and that is
the frothy young woman at the watering places
her conversation made up Of French moonshine
what she has on her head only equalled by what
she has on her back; useless ever since she was
born, and to be useless until she is dead; ana
what they will do with her in the next world
do not know except to set her up OIL the banks
of the River of Life for eternity to look sweet.
God intends us to admire music, and fine faces,
and graceful step; but amid the heartlessness
and the imitation, and the fantastic influences OF
modern watering places, beware how you
make lifelong covenants.
IT srINGETH LIKE AN ADDER.
Another temptation that will hover over the
watering place is that of baneful literature
Almost every one starting off for the summer
takes some reading matter. 1t is a book out of
the library, or off the book stand, or bought Of
the boy hawking books through the 1
really believe there is more pestiferous trash
read among the intelligent classes in July and
August than in all the o ther ten months of the
year Men and women who at home would not
be satisfied with book that was not really SEN
sible, found sitting on hotel piazza, or under
the trees reading books, the index of which
would make them blush if they knew that you
knew what tho book was. "Oh," they say, s'you
must have intellectual recreation" Yes there
is no need that you take along into watering
place Hamilton's Metaphysics, or some thunder
GUS discourse on the DEGREES, or Brady's Philoso-
phv. There are many easy books that are good
You might as well say: II propose, now. to give
little rest to my digestive organs, and instead
of eating heavy meat and vegetables, will for
little while take lighter food-a little strych-
nine and few grains of ratsbane." "
Literary poison in August is as bad as literary
poison in December. Mark that Do not let
the frogs and the lice of corrupt printing press
jump and crawl into your Saratoga trunk or
White mountain valise. Would it not be an
awful thing for you to be struck with lighting
some day when you had in your hand
one of these paper-covered romances-the
hero Partisan roue, the heroine an unprincipled
firt-chapters in the book that you would not
read to your children at the rate of a hundred
dollars line. Throw out all that stuff from
your summer baggage Are there not good books
that are easy to read-books of entertaining
travel, books of congenial history; books of pure
fun; books of poetry ringing with merry canto;
books of fine engraving; books that will rest the
mind as we'll as purify the heart ard elevate the
whole lifel My hearers, there will not be an
hour between this and the day of your death
when you can afford to read q book lacking in
moral principle.
Another temptation lowering all around our
watering places is to intoxicating beverage am
told it is becoming more and more fashionable for
women to drink. / care not how we'll a woman
may dress, If she has taken enough of wine to
flush her cheek and put glassiness on her eye,
she is intoxicated. She may be handed into
So, 500 carriage. and have diamonds enough to
confound the TiffanysH-she is intoxicated. She
may be graduate of Packer Institute and the
daughter of some man in danger of be-
ing nominated for the presidency-she
is drunk. You may have larger
vocabulary than have. and you may
say in regard to her that she is sconvivial," or
she is merry" or she is festive" or she is Eek
hilarated, but you cannot with all your garlands
ofverbage cover up the plain fact that it is an
old-fashioned case of drunk Now, the watering
places are full of temptations to mer and women
to tipple. At the close of the tenpin or billiard
game they .ippe. At the close of the cotillon
they tipple Seated on the piazza cooling them
selves off they tipple. The tinged glasses come
around with bright straws, and they tpple.
First they take slight wines" as they call them;
but light wines" are heavy enough to debase the
appetite. There is not very long road between
champagne at five dollars bottle and whisky at
five cents glass. Satan has three or four grades
down which he takes men to destruction. One
man he takes up and through one spree pitches
him into eternal darkness. That is a rare case.
Very seldom indeed can you find man who will
be such fool as that. Satan will take another
man TO a grade, to a descent at angle about
like the Pennsylvania coal-shute or the Mount
Washington rail track and shove him off. But
that is very rare. When a man goes down to
destruction, Satan brings him to plane. 1t is
almost level. The depression is so slight that
you can hardly see it. The man does not actually
know that he is on the down grade, and it tips
only a little toward darkness-justa little. And
the first mile it is claret, and the second mile it
is sherry, and the third mile it is punch, and the
fourth mile it is ale, and the fifth mile it is
porter, and the sixth mile it is brandy, and then
it gets sleeper and sleeper, and sleeper. and the
man gets frightened and says "Oh, let
me get off," NO. says the conductor,
this is ar express train, and it
don. stop until it gets to the Grand Cent?
depot of Smashuptonp' All. "look not thou upon
the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color
In the cup when it movcth itself Alright Attic
last it biteth like serpent and stingeth like an
adder" And If any young of my congre-
CATION should get astray this summer in this di-
rection il will not be because | have not given