FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   2087   2088   2089   2090   2091   2092   2093   2094   2095   2096   2097   2098   2099   2100   2101   2102   2103   2104   2105   2106   2107   2108   2109   2110   2111  
2112   2113   2114   2115   2116   2117   2118   2119   2120   2121   2122   2123   2124   2125   2126   2127   2128   2129   2130   2131   2132   2133   2134   2135   2136   >>   >|  
the ability to live naturally and to indulge the finer tastes in vacation-time? After all, King reflected, as the party were on their way to the Isles of Shoals, what was it that had most impressed him at Manchester? Was it not an evening spent in a cottage amid the rocks, close by the water, in the company of charming people? To be sure, there were the magical reflection of the moonlight and the bay, the points of light from the cottages on the rocky shore, the hum and swell of the sea, and all the mystery of the shadowy headlands; but this was only a congenial setting for the music, the witty talk, the free play of intellectual badinage, and seriousness, and the simple human cordiality that were worth all the rest. What a kaleidoscope it is, this summer travel, and what an entertainment, if the tourist can only keep his "impression plates" fresh to take the new scenes, and not sink into the state of chronic grumbling at hotels and minor discomforts! An interview at a ticket-office, a whirl of an hour on the rails, and to Portsmouth, anchored yet to the colonial times by a few old houses, and resisting with its respectable provincialism the encroachments of modern smartness, and the sleepy wharf in the sleepy harbor, where the little steamer is obligingly waiting for the last passenger, for the very last woman, running with a bandbox in one hand, and dragging a jerked, fretting child by the other hand, to make the hour's voyage to the Isles of Shoals. (The shrewd reader objects to the bandbox as an anachronism: it is no longer used. If I were writing a novel, instead of a veracious chronicle, I should not have introduced it, for it is an anachronism. But I was powerless, as a mere narrator, to prevent the woman coming aboard with her bandbox. No one but a trained novelist can make a long-striding, resolute, down-East woman conform to his notions of conduct and fashion.) If a young gentleman were in love, and the object of his adoration were beside him, he could not have chosen a lovelier day nor a prettier scene than this in which to indulge his happiness; and if he were in love, and the object absent, he could scarcely find a situation fitter to nurse his tender sentiment. Doubtless there is a stage in love when scenery of the very best quality becomes inoperative. There was a couple on board seated in front of the pilot-house, who let the steamer float along the pretty, long, landlocked harbor, past the Kitt
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   2087   2088   2089   2090   2091   2092   2093   2094   2095   2096   2097   2098   2099   2100   2101   2102   2103   2104   2105   2106   2107   2108   2109   2110   2111  
2112   2113   2114   2115   2116   2117   2118   2119   2120   2121   2122   2123   2124   2125   2126   2127   2128   2129   2130   2131   2132   2133   2134   2135   2136   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
bandbox
 

anachronism

 
sleepy
 

steamer

 

harbor

 
Shoals
 
indulge
 

object

 
chronicle
 

veracious


powerless
 
narrator
 

prevent

 

coming

 

pretty

 

introduced

 

shrewd

 

landlocked

 
dragging
 

jerked


fretting
 

running

 

obligingly

 

waiting

 

passenger

 

objects

 

longer

 

reader

 

aboard

 

voyage


writing

 
resolute
 
tender
 

sentiment

 

Doubtless

 

fitter

 

situation

 

happiness

 

absent

 

scarcely


inoperative

 

couple

 

seated

 
scenery
 
quality
 
notions
 

conform

 

conduct

 

fashion

 

trained