For several years every one crowded during hot August mornings onto the airless lawns and piazzas of the new establishment. It seems on looking back as if we must have been more fond of seeing each other in those days than we are now. To ride up and down a beach and bow filled our souls with joy, and the "cake walk" was an essential part of every ball, the guests parading in pairs round and round the room between the dances instead of sitting quietly "out." The opening promenade at the New York Charity Ball is a survival of this inane custom.
The disappearance of the Ocean House "hops" marked the last stage in hotel life. Since then better-class watering places all over the country have slowly but surely followed Newport's lead. The closed caravansaries of Bar Harbor and elsewhere bear silent testimony to the fact that refined Americans are at last awakening to the charms of home life during their holidays, and are discarding, as fast as finances will permit, the pernicious herding system. In consequence the hotel has ceased to be, what it undoubtedly was twenty years ago, the focus of our summer life.
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