Page:Letters of Life.djvu/330

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318
LETTERS OF LIFE.

rador, under the shadow of the mountains of Persia, on the plains of Syria, in the wilds of Africa, under the Turkish crescent, amid the coral-reefs of the Sandwich Islands, the idol-worshipping Chinese, or the cannibals of Borneo.

In my list of short journeys, this to Mount Holyoke has ever been pleasantly remembered.

Finding, as do most of our inland dwellers, the influences of a saline atmosphere subsidiary to health, I have sometimes during summer paid short visits to the various localities on our own coast and that of our neighbor, little Rhoda, to Watch Hill, Stonington, Guilford, and Madison; the last being endeared by the hospitalities of the lady of Wildwood, Mrs. Washburn, as also is Newport by those of Mr. and Mrs. Pond, and New London by Miss F. M. Caulkins, the historian of Connecticut, and the family of her brother, the Hon. H P. Havens.

My longest excursion was to Europe. An incipient, yet apparently adhesive bronchial affection, induced our skilful physician, Dr. A. Brigham, to recommend a sea voyage. A visit to the older world had been a favorite dream in my childhood, but dispelled and dismissed by the realities of mature years. The opportunity of joining a party who would afford both protection and agreeable intercourse, an accomplished clergyman, now the Assistant Bishop of Connecticut, and his excellent mother, with the young son of an esteemed friend, was