On the way back from the lovely _campanile_ to the hotel, I stumbled over
a scattering of artificial hillocks surrounding two mud-puddles connected
by a gutter. This monstrosity turned out to be a relief-map of Palestine.
Little children, with uncultivated voices, shouted at each other as they
lightly leaped from Jerusalem to Jericho; and waste-paper soaked itself to
dingy brown in the insanitary Sea of Galilee.--Then I encountered a wooden
edifice with castellated towers and machicolated battlements, which called
itself (with a large label) the Men's Club; and from this I fled, with
almost a sense of relief, to the hotel itself, now sprawling low and dark
beneath its Boston-brown-bread cupola.
Thus my first impression of Chautauqua was one of melancholy and
resentment. But, in the subsequent few days, this emotion was altered to
one of impressible satiric mirth; and, subsequently still, it was changed
again to an emotion of wondering and humble admiration. I had been assured
at the outset, by one who had already tried it, that, if I stayed long
enough, I should end up by liking Chautauqua; and this is precisely what
happened to me before a week was out.
But meanwhile I laughed very hard for three days.
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