d out of a year's
growth, when I heard about gentlemen and ladies going into the salt-sea
waves together, and submerging themselves like mermaids in the swell and
foam of the ocean. I said, in the heat and glow of modest feminine
shrinkitiveness, that nothing on earth, or in the water, should induce
me to do it; but circumstances alter cases, and the capacity of eternal
change is the essence of genius, which is always making new combinations
and discarding old prejudices.

I say it with reluctance, but truth demands frankness. Sometimes I am a
little hasty in my conclusions.

Have I said enough--need I go on to explain that the result of a thing
proves its propriety?

Now, bathing in company, in the abstract, does seem--well, peculiar. I
might add other words which at one time came uppermost in my mind; but,
looking toward results, I feel constrained to say nothing on the social
aspect of multitudinous ablutions, but go into the high moral question
which has slowly presented itself to my understanding.

Isn't there a passage of Scripture somewhere that speaks about "fishers
of men"? I think there is, and I am inclined to see that kind of
business from a high moral stand-point. If men are to be legally caught
with a dripping dress and an old straw hat for bait, who shall say that
the thing is wrong? If men are told to go down to the sea in ships, what
should prevent a female woman from going down in a four-cornered straw
hat, a flannel tunic, and--well, pantalettes on? Everything depends on
the point of view from which one sees a thing.

As a marine picture, salt-sea waves rushing in upon a sandy beach can
hardly be considered complete without throwing a little life into the
foreground; but when that life is composed of a flock of old straw hats,
and a lot of staggery, blinded, dripping people under them, I can't say
that I hanker after this particular marine view.

From an artistic stand-point then I reject the whole subject; but as the
means of catching a heart afloat, that same picture offers numerous
facilities.

Well, sisters, as a social institution I no longer sneer at sea-bath
flirtations. When two days of them end in matrimony, it isn't worth
while to fight out the question on that line any longer. I give in.

Such engagements may be unstable as water, but a damp engagement is
better than none at all.

With these sentiments, I finished off my bathing-dress, and put a red
ribbon over a high-crowned, sq