Naushon Island,1 11th August, 1862.
My Dear Charles,
— Here we have been for a week to-morrow, and in the salt sea air we all seem
to be perfectly well. It is only about thirty miles from the southern point of
Rhode Island, so I breathe my native Narragansett air and am electrified. The
island is about eight miles long and one or two broad. It is beautifully
broken, with superb beechwoods rising and opening into bare uplands, from which
you see the ocean or Vineyard Sound, and again opening into sunny, grassy nooks
and spaces with clusters of shrubs in which the deer lie or feed. Day before
yesterday we started a pair of magnificent bucks. The paths and dells are endless.
From the house you have a sea horizon and the entire sky, with woods almost to
the horizon, and holding azure crescents of sea (as in " Maud ") in
their tops. The house is immense, the life simple, the hospitality unbounded.
To-day the governor and three of his suite are here, beside ourselves and three
or four other visitors. There are riding, driving, rowing, sailing, shooting,
fishing, billiards, dancing, — what you will. You join the doers, or you go apart
and do nothing or mind your own business. Mrs. Forbes is incessantly working on
preserves and comforts for the soldiers, and we all pull lint at intervals. I
have been reading here Tocqueville's “Ancien Régime.” It is very calm and wise.
_______________
1 The summer residence of Mr. John M. Forbes.
SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p.
157-8
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