ring formed, and the prospect of a lovely "row,"--and I did it; but a
police-officer sprang up, full-armed, from somewhere underground, and
undid it all, and enforced a reluctant peace.

* * * * *

And so we are at Saratoga. Now, of all places to stay at in the
summer-time, Saratoga is the very last one to choose. It may have
attractions in winter; but, if one wishes to rest and change and root down
and shoot up and branch out, he might as well take lodgings in the
water-wheel of a saw-mill. The uniformity and variety will be much the
same. It is all a noiseless kind of din, narrow and intense. There is
nothing in Saratoga nor of Saratoga to see or to hear or to feel. They
tell you of a lake. You jam into an omnibus and ride four miles. Then you
step into a cockle-shell and circumnavigate a pond, so small that it
almost makes you dizzy to sail around it. This is the lake,--a very nice
thing as far as it goes; but when it has to be constantly on duty as the
natural scenery of the whole surrounding country, it is putting altogether
too fine a point on it. The picturesque people will inform you of an
Indian encampment. You go to see it, thinking of the forest primeval, and
expecting to be transported back to tomahawks, scalps, and forefathers;
but you return without them, and that is all. I never heard of anybody's
going anywhere. In fact, there did not seem to be anywhere to go. Any
suggestion of mine to strike out into the champaign was frowned down in
the severest manner. As far as I could see, nobody ever did anything.
There never was any plan on foot. Nothing was ever stirring. People sat on
the piazza and sewed. They went to the springs, and the springs are
dreadful. They bubble up salts and senna. I never knew anything that
pretended to be water that was half as bad. It has no one redeeming
quality. It is bitter. It is greasy. Every spring is worse than the last,