Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/153

Rh “Then everything is not lost yet!” said I, laughing; and as I saw Professor Hart coming up the steps to my airy saloon, I hastened to make him acquainted with the ‘American Harp,’ and leaving her to him I vacated the field.

Such harps are to he met with in all countries, but in none do they sound forth with such naïveté as here.

A young poet from the city of the Friends, with a beautiful, dramatic talent, and a head like Byron, and a family of refinement and amiability belong to my agreeable acquaintance here, of whom I would see more, but who all come and go like the waves of the ocean.

August 16th.—There is now an end to my good time! To-day I set off to New York. To-morrow, my friends, the Harts, return to Philadelphia. My companion to New York is a lawyer, an elderly gentleman, very estimable and good-hearted, I believe, but who has the fault of having too good a memory forverses, and a fancy for repeating, long and often, very prosaic pieces from the German, French, and English authors, which are less amusing to prosaic listeners.

At dinner I exchanged my place, and the sharks who now saw empty seats opposite them, looked about for me with a hungry mien; it seemed to me, as if they felt the want of a living foreground to their feast.

I regret leaving Cape May which is to me so quiet and invigorating; but I must not linger any longer, I have so much yet to see and to learn in this country.

I shall now go and take my last bathe in the sea, and think the while, that you also are bathing in the health-giving waves of the ocean. The waves of the Atlantic Sea and the North Sea flow into the same great bath; and in it thou bathest with me and I with thee!

“Miss Agatha, may I have the pleasure of taking a bathe with you?”

And thus I embrace you heartily, all through the sea!