Dike, and Una behaved like a consummate
lady, although she frolicked like a child. Mrs. Dike gave her some
beautiful silver playthings, with which she had a tea-party. Rebecca
Manning [a little cousin] was there, and over their airy tea Una
undertook to be agreeable, and began of her own accord to converse,
and tell Rebecca about her life in Concord. She said, "In Tontord Zuna
went out into the orchard and picked apples in her little basket, for
papa and mamma to eat." And then, with a countenance and tone of
triumph, she exclaimed, "And papa's boat!"
A long letter written by George William Curtis is a bright ray from a
beautiful personality, containing these descriptions:--
ROME, January 14, 1847.
MY DEAR FRIENDS,--How often in the long sunny silence of that summer
voyage, when in the Atlantic all day the sea rippled as gently about
the ship as the waters of Walden pour against their shore, and in the
Mediterranean the moon would have no other mirror, but entranced its
waves to an oily calmness in which she shone unbroken, did I figure
you gliding with us on our fairy way to France, Italy, and in the next
summer, Switzerland! One day in our voyage we passed the Straits of
Gibraltar--seeing land for the first time in twenty-eight days. We
came so near and passed so rapidly, saw so distinctly the dusky gray
olive foliage of Spain and the little round towers whence the old
Spaniards looked for the Moors; and on the other side, so grim and
lonely, the intricate mountain outline of Africa, so distinctly, and
at night again, and for many days after, the same broad water; that it
lies more dreamily in my memory than anything else.
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