ding the old fields of former
glory in far Kansas--but his voice will soon again greet you from this
social spot, and again spread before you the ripe fruits of a manly
experience.

Our other Honorable Editor is also afar, striving in other climes to
serve our country, yet constantly giving us reason to know, from his
frequent and loyal contributions, that he is gathering honey for THE
CONTINENTAL, and has not deserted his arduous post in spending and being
spent for the land he loves. May our two Honorables soon return to
dispense, as they alone can, the hospitalities of our Editor's Table!

But we should not complain, when we can offer you, in this month of hot
suns and motionless airs, such invigorating breaths of fresh, salty
wind, directly from the bosom of the surging sea, as we are about to do
in the following essay from the pen of A. J. S. He is the author of the
vigorous sketch of 'The Southern Colonel' given in our July issue. He
has now dipped his pen in the tints of the rainbow and the freshness of
the salty wave, and given us:

'FROM THE SEA SHORE.'

Where the land enchants, the sea intoxicates--its sparkle, its mobility,
its translucence excite the fancy, as wine does the blood--it combines
those elements which produce at once awe and ecstasy in the soul--the
unknown, the resistless, the beautiful. One may be melancholy by the
sea, but never morbid or supine. Between it and the land there are no
gradations; you do not come imperceptibly under its influence, as, in
ascending a mountain, you come into the cooler atmosphere; as you
approach, you are suddenly enveloped and animated by a crystalline,
vivifying element: this is the sea air; those saline qualities, so harsh
to the taste, prove a delicious stimulant in the lungs. The sea is
incommunicable--neither words, or canvas prepare you for it, as they may
often for landscapes; like Livingston's untutored savage, you are always
startled and overwhelmed at first sight of it; you feel, like him, an
impulse to leap into its waves. If you want to surrender yourself wholly
to the sea influence--to study it and assimilate your mind to all its
phases--you should choose, as was my fortune, a little fishing town, on
the shore, with a sheltered bay to the south and west and the ocean
eastward. Here you will find life stripped of care and conventionality;
idealized, seductive, and illusive, the days swinging from charm to
charm, like bubbles in the sunlight. On s