their
remedies. Where the cry used to be "drugs," it now is "hygiene." But
hygiene itself might be changed for the better. We can imagine a few
improvements in the materia medica of the future. Where the physician
used to order a tonic for a feeble pulse, he will simply hold his
watch thoughtfully for sixty seconds and prescribe "Paris." Where
he was wont to recommend a strong emetic, he will in future advise
a week's study of the works of art at our National Capital. For
lassitude, a donkey-ride up Vesuvius. For color-blindness, a course
of sunrises from the Rigi. For deafness, Wachtel in his song of "Di
quella Pira." For melancolia, Naples. For fever, driving an ice-cart.
But when the doctor's most remunerative patient comes along, the pursy
manufacturer able to afford the luxury of a bad liver, let him consult
the knob of his cane a moment and order "Atlantic City."

--Because it is lazy, yet stimulating. Because it is unspoilt, yet
luxurious. Because the air there is filled with iodine and the sea
with chloride of sodium. Because, with a whole universe of water,
Atlantic City is dry. Because of its perfect rest and its infinite
horizons.

But where and what _is_ Atlantic City? It is a refuge thrown up by the
continent-building sea. Fashion took a caprice, and shook it out of
a fold of her flounce. A railroad laid a wager to find the shortest
distance from Penn's treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: it dashed into
the water, and a City emerged from its freight-cars as a consequence
of the manoeuvre. Almost any kind of a parent-age will account for
Atlantis. It is beneath shoddy and above mediocrity. It is below
Long Branch and higher up than Cape May. It is different from any
watering-place in the world, yet its strong individuality might have
been planted in any other spot; and a few years ago it was nowhere.
Its success is due to its having nothing importunate about it. It
promises endless sea, sky, liberty and privacy, and, having made you
at home, it leaves you to your devices.

[Illustration: CONGRESS HALL.]

Two of our best marine painters in their works offer us a choice of
coast-landscape. Kensett paints the bare stiff crags, whitened with
salt, standing out of his foregrounds like the clean and hungry
teeth of a wild animal, and looking hard enough to have worn out the
painter's brush with their implacable enamel. From their treeless
waste extends the sea, a bath of deep, pure color. All seems keen,
fres