There is no doubt that the “American girl” is there, as she is at divers other sea-and-land resorts; but the present peculiarity of this watering-place is that the American young man is there also.  Some philosophers have tried to account for this coincidence by assuming that the American girl is the attraction to the young man.  But this seems to me a misunderstanding of the spirit of this generation.  Why are young men quoted as “scarce” in other resorts swarming with sweet girls, maidens who have learned the art of being agreeable, and interesting widows in the vanishing shades of an attractive and consolable grief?  No.  Is it not rather the cold, luminous truth that the American girl found out that Bar Harbor, without her presence, was for certain reasons, such as unconventionality, a bracing air, opportunity for boating, etc., agreeable to the young man?  But why do elderly people go there?  This question must have been suggested by a foreigner, who is ignorant that in a republic it is the young ones who know what is best for the elders.

Our tourists passed a weary, hot day on the coast railway of Maine.  Notwithstanding the high temperature, the country seemed cheerless, the sunlight to fall less genially than in more fertile regions to the south, upon a landscape stripped of its forests, naked, and unpicturesque.  Why should the little white houses of the prosperous little villages on the line of the rail seem cold and suggest winter, and the land seem scrimped and without an atmosphere?  It chanced so, for everybody knows that it is a lovely coast.  The artist said it was the Maine Law.  But that could not be, for the only drunken man encountered on their tour they saw at the Bangor Station, where beer was furtively sold.

They were plunged into a cold bath on the steamer in the half-hour’s sail from the end of the rail to Bar Harbor.  The wind was fresh, white-caps enlivened the scene, the spray dashed over the huge pile of baggage on the bow, the passengers shivered, and could little enjoy the islands and the picturesque shore, but fixed eyes of hope upon the electric lights which showed above the headlands, and marked the site of the hotels and the town in the hidden harbor.  Spits of rain dashed in their faces, and in some discomfort they came to the wharf, which was alive with vehicles and tooters for the hotels.  In short, with its lights and noise, it had every appearance of being an important place, and when our party, holding on to their seats in a buckboard, were whirled at a gallop up to Rodick’s, and ushered into a spacious office swarming with people, they realized that they were entering upon a lively if somewhat haphazard life.  The first confused impression was of a bewildering number of slim, pretty girls, nonchalant young fellows in lawn-tennis suits, and indefinite opportunities in the halls and parlors and wide piazzas for promenade and flirtations.