Lake George Revisited
Lake George has haunted me since I saw it. I thought to abide at peace in mine easy-chair this summer, but Lake George was not visible from my windows; and how could I let the summer days shine on its beauty and I not by to see? and then that glorious Hudson! for a sight of which I am always longing. There was no help for it; I went through the packing purgatory, and set sail. Commend me to steamboat travel over and above all the cars that ever screeched under and above ground; but, alas! steamboats have a drawback which cars have not. You get a comfortable seat on deck, on the shady side; in a chair with a back to it. You say this is pleasant, as you fold your hands—Ugh! So does a man, or a group of them near you, who have just lighted their cigars, or worse, their pipes. Puff—puff—puff; straight into your face; right and left; fore and aft. Is this the “fresh air” for which you were travelling? You reluctantly change your place. You even take a seat in the sun, to rid yourself of the smoke. Puff—puff; another smoker sits, or stands, near you; you turn disgusted away, only to encounter another group, who evidently regard the beautiful Hudson only in the light of an enormous spittoon.
Now I protest against this lack of decency and chivalry. If no other woman dare brave these gentlemen, (?) I will, though I know well what anathemas I shall incur. I call, moreover, upon all decent steamboat-captains to provide a den for these tobacco-absorbing, tobacco-emitting gentry, in some part of the boat where women are not. If they must smoke, which point I neither deny nor admit, do not suffer them to expel ladies, to whom they are so profuse in——fine speeches—to the stifling air of the ladies’ cabin, to avoid it. This at least seems but reasonable and fair. The only place where one is really in no danger of this nuisance at present is in church; though I am expecting every Sunday to see boots on the tops of pews, and lighted cigars behind them. Oh, I know very well that some ladies pretend to “like it,” because they had rather endure it than resign the attentions of a gentleman who don’t know any better than to ask them “if it is disagreeable.” Of course, it is disagreeable, for women are clean creatures; and if they tell you it is not, know that they tell you a good-natured but most unmitigated fib; and you should be ashamed of availing yourself of it to make yourselves such nuisances.
That lovely midnight glide up the Hudson! Lying dreamily on one’s pillow; just asleep enough to know nothing disagreeable, and awake enough to see with half-closed eyes through your little window the white sails, and green shores, and listen to the plashing water. Daylight and Albany, with its noisy pier, seem an impertinence. “Breakfast?” ah, yes—we are human, and love coffee; but the melancholy figures and faces, as we emerge from our state-room! Rosy mouths agape; bright eyes half-veiled with heavy lids; cloaks and mantles tossed on with more haste than taste; hair tumbled, bonnets awry. Pull down your veils, ladies, and prepare yourselves for a general dislocation of every bone in your body, as you thunder up to the hotel in that omnibus, which is bound back again in exactly three seconds, for another hapless cargo.
Your “unprotected female” is to be met everywhere. Is my countenance so benevolent that she should have singled me out, as I waited at the hotel for my breakfast? There she was—with spectacles on nose, carpet-bag in hand; alert—nervous—distracted.
“Was I travelling North or South?”
Was it for want of coffee, or geography, that I curtly replied: “I haven’t the least idea, Ma’am.”
“Was I alone, dear?”
“Husband, Ma’am.”
“Where’s the —— House, dear?”
“This is it, Ma’am.”
“Lord bless me—I thought it was the Depot!”
There may be individuals existing who have not ridden in that stage-coach from “Moreau Station” to Lake George. If so, let him or her, particularly her, bear in mind, in selecting her attitude on sitting down, that it is final and irrevocable, spite of cramps, for thirteen good miles of sunny, sandy, up-and-down-hill, bumping, thumping travel. However, there’s fun even in that. Jolts bring out jokes. After punching daylight through the ribs of one’s neighbor, one don’t wait for an “introduction.” Your Cologne bottle becomes common property, also your fan. If there is an unlucky wight on top, whose overhanging boots betoken a due respect for the eighth commandment, of course he can have the refusal of your sun umbrella to keep his brains from frying, particularly as you don’t know what to do with it inside. Yes—on the whole, it is fun; but it isn’t fun to arrive at a hotel faint, dusty, hungry, and hear, “We are running over, but we can feed you here, if you’ll lodge in the village.” May do for men, groan out the green veils; try at another house. Ah, now it is our turn; installed by some hocus-pocus in two rooms commanding a magnificent view of the lake, we can afford to pity hungry wretches who can’t get in. Now we breathe! Our feet and arms—yes, they are all right, for we just tried them. Now we toss off our bonnet, and gaze at those huge mountains and their dark shadows on the lake; now we see the little row-boats glide along, to the musical, sparkling dip of the oar; now we hear the merry laughs of the rowers, or perhaps a snatch of a song in a woman’s voice. Now the clear, fresh breeze sweeps over the hills, and ruffles the lake, bringing us spicy odors. Oh, but this is delicious. Dress? What, here? No, indeed; enough of that in New York. Who wants to see dresses may look in our trunks. That hill is to be climbed, that shore to be reached, that boat to be sailed in, and how is that to be done if one “dresses”? We are for a tramp, a sail, a drive—anything but dressing.
Lake George by moonlight, at midnight! oh, you should see it, with its shining, quivering path of light, as if for angel footsteps. I know not whether another world is fairer than this; but I do know that there are no sighs, no weary outstretching of the hands for help, no smothered cry of despair.
Self-Help.—We pity those who do not and never have “labored.” Ennui and satiety sooner or later are sure to be their portion. Like the child who is in possession of every new toy, and who has snapped and broken them all, they stand looking about for something—anything new and amusing; and like this child, they often stoop to the mud and the gutter for it. It is an understood principle of human nature, that people never value that which is easily obtained. Bread which has been purchased with unearned money has never the flavor and sweetness of that which is won by the sweat of one’s own brow.