Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/168

Rh because that must be almost too much for you. Your own indisposition must prevent your bearing that of others calmly. I endeavour to console myself with the reflection that you are now at Marstand, away from the sorrows and anxieties of the day, and that you are gaining new strength by bathing, which is always so beneficial to you. Ah! if that sea-bathing could but be to you what those seventeen or eighteen days at Cape May have been to me! I have now only remaining of my former indisposition a slight tendency to palpitation of the heart, and some degree of sleeplessness; but my little homœopathic globules never fail to relieve me in these respects.

As regards my remaining here for some months yet, that has become almost an indispensable thing. I should be unable to go so far, or to see that which I must see before winter sets in. My journey to the West hes before me yet unaccomplished. This could not be done properly in less than ten or twelve weeks, and that would take me far into November, and to return home from North America without having seen the great West and its growing life, would be to me like seeing the opera of “Gustavus Wasa” played without the part of the hero. In the month of December I might return home, but I acknowledge that I am a little timid at the thoughts of that long sea-voyage at that season of the year (although I would not say anything about it), yet even then I should leave unseen a great deal which would be of infinite advantage to me to have seen, and to have become acquainted with, and which I may never again have an opportunity of being within reach of. In about four or five months, on the other side of December, I should hope to have accomplished all which I think I ought to do here, and then, my darling, I could return and be with you at Marstrand, in Stockholm, at Årsta, or wherever you might be, and then we could talk, and think, and read, and write, and, please God, enjoy life together with our good,