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CAPE COD. 
air, and the storms of autumn and winter even, are ne^ 
cessary in order that we may get the impression which 
the sea is calculated to make. In October, when the 
weather is not intolerably cold, and the landscape wears 
its autumnal tints, such as, methinks, only a Cape Cod 
landscape ever wears, especially if you have a storm 
during your stay, — that I am convinced is the best time 
to visit this shore. In autumn, even in August, the 
thoughtful days begin, and we can walk anywhere with 
profit. Beside, an outward cold and dreariness, which 
make it necessary to seek shelter at night, lend a spirit 
of adventure to a walk. 
The time must come when this coast will be a place 
of resort for those New-Englanders who really wish to 
visit the sea-side. At present it is wholly unknown to 
the fashionable world, and probably it will never be 
agreeable to them. If it is merely a ten-pin alley, or a 
circular railway, or an ocean of mint-julep, that the 
visitor is in search of, — if he thinks more of the wine 
than the brine, as I suspect some do at Newport,—I trust 
that for a long time he will be disappointed here. But 
this shore will never be more attractive than it is now. 
Such beaches as are fashionable are here made and un¬ 
made in a day, I may almost say, by the sea shifting its 
sands. Lynn and Nantasket! this bare and bended arm 
it is that makes the bay in which they lie so snugly. 
What are springs and waterfalls ? Here is the spring 
of springs, the waterfall of waterfalls. A storm in the 
fall or winter is the time to visit it; a light-house or a 
fisherman’s hut the true hotel. A man may stand there 
and put all America behind him. 
Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
