for them to see all the historical sights. So we staid on
just the same till after Goodwood. And the races ended my pleasure, for
next we started for Lucerne.

I said all along there would be no one in the place. Of course people
do go there, but on their way to somewhere else, or coming home at odd
times, and not for too long. There is never really any society there. I
knew it. I have had experience with it. Besides, we know the places
that every one does go to in July and August. I preferred Homburg, with
Aix at the end, but I would have put up with Trouville first, or
Ostend, or even Dinard. But no, Switzerland it was! I hate it; I always
did. It's too like its photographs. It has absolutely no style. It's
all nature, nature, _nature_! The mountains and lakes, no matter how
old they really may be, still always have the _beaute du diable_; and
for a woman of my age--who has to resort to art to keep herself looking
the slightest little bit younger than she is!--it gets on one's nerves,
all this natural beauty! I prefer some _place_ that has to resort to
art, too, and make itself up a little with gorgeous hotels, casinos,
theatres, and baccarat tables. Mountains bore me, and I hate to go on
the water. There at Lucerne the mountains stood continually and
solemnly around, just like elderly relatives at a family reunion, and
the flat lake lies as uninteresting as the conversation of these
estimable creatures would be. And then the people! The town crowded to
suffocation, scarcely breathing space, and yet _nobody_ there. To be
sure once in a while one notices an extraordinary old frump go by, who
turns out to be the Duchess of this, or Princess that, but I assure you
one would have been ashamed to drive in the park with her (at home),
unless she was placarded. Now and then somebody decent from New York or
Boston arrived on a morning train, but, of course, they usually left in
the evening, driven away by the glare, or the white dust, or by the
eternal tourists. That man Cook has done more to spoil attractive
places than any other dozen people in the world put together.
Sometimes, of course, they are amusing. One day I went to see the Lion!
Don't laugh. John bet me five hundred dollars I wouldn't go. So, of
course, I did. Fortunately I'd heard the children explaining it or I
shouldn't have enjoyed so much the following joke.

A woman and her daughter, both Cooks, (tourists I mean, of course, tho'
heaven knows what the mother