in ribbons. Trees, in stretches of miles;
beeches, oaks, most numerous;--many of them hung with moss, looking
like bearded Druids; some coiled in the clasp of huge, dark-stemmed
grape-vines. Open patches where the sun gets in and goes to sleep,
and the winds come so finely sifted that they are as soft as
swan's down. Rocks scattered about,--Stonehenge-like monoliths.
Fresh-water lakes; one of them, Mary's lake, crystal-clear, full of
flashing pickerel lying under the lily-pads like tigers in the
jungle. Six pounds of ditto killed one morning for breakfast.
EGO fecit.

The divinity-student looked as if he would like to question my
Latin. No, sir, I said,--you need not trouble yourself. There is
a higher law in grammar, not to be put down by Andrews and
Stoddard. Then I went on.

Such hospitality as that island has seen there has not been the
like of in these our New England sovereignties. There is nothing
in the shape of kindness and courtesy that can make life beautiful,
which has not found its home in that ocean-principality. It has
welcomed all who were worthy of welcome, from the pale clergyman
who came to breathe the sea-air with its medicinal salt and iodine,
to the great statesman who turned his back on the affairs of
empire, and smoothed his Olympian forehead, and flashed his white
teeth in merriment over the long table, where his wit was the
keenest and his story the best.

[I don't believe any man ever talked like that in this world. I
don't believe _I_ talked just so; but the fact is, in reporting
one's conversation, one cannot help BLAIR-ing it up more or less,
ironing out crumpled paragraphs, starching limp ones, and crimping
and plaiting a little sometimes; it is as natural as prinking at
the looking-glass.]

--How can a man help writing poetry in such a place? Everybody
does write poetry that goes there. In the state archives, kept in
the library of the Lord of the Isle, are whole volumes of
unpublished verse,--some by well-known hands, and others quite as
good, by the last people you would think of as versifiers,--men who
could pension off all the genuine poets in the country, and buy ten
acres of Boston common, if it was for sale, with what they had
left. Of course I had to write my little copy of verses with the
rest; here it is, if you will hear me read it. When the sun is in
the west, vessels sailing in an easterly direction look bright or
dark to one who observes them from the n