The sea seems to reproach us for leaving it. But I am glad we are
going, for I feel so homesick that I want constant change to divert my
thoughts. How troublesome feelings and affections are! When one ought
to forget, they are strongest.
Your loving niece,
U. H.
I thought that the petty lodging in which we were established was an
odd nook for my father to be in. I liked to get out with him upon the
martial plain of sand and tremendous waves, where folly was not, by
law of wind and light of Titan power, and where the most insignificant
ornament was far from insignificant: the whorl of an exquisite shell,
beautiful and still, as if just dead; or the seaweeds, that are so
like pictures of other growths. I felt that this scene was a worthy
one for the kind but never familiar man who walked and reflected
there. We enjoyed a constant outdoor life. But in those uninspired
hours when there was no father in sight, and my mother was resting in
seclusion, I played at grocer's shop on the sands with a little girl
called Hannah, whom I then despised for her name, her homely neat
clothes, her sweetness and silence, and in retrospect learned to love.
As we pounded brick, secured sugary-looking sands of different tints,
and heaped up minute pebbles, a darkly clad, tastefully picturesque
form would approach,--a form to which I bowed down in spirit as,
fortunately for me, my father. He would look askance at my utterly
useless, time-frittering amusement, which I already knew was withering
my brain and soul.
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