The beauty and freshness of this calm retreat, in the very dawn and
greenness of summer - it was then the beginning of June - were
exquisite indeed. Leaving it upon the sixth, and returning to New
York, to embark for England on the succeeding day, I was glad to
think that among the last memorable beauties which had glided past
us, and softened in the bright perspective, were those whose
pictures, traced by no common hand, are fresh in most men's minds;
not easily to grow old, or fade beneath the dust of Time: the
Kaatskill Mountains, Sleepy Hollow, and the Tappaan Zee.
CHAPTER XVI - THE PASSAGE HOME
I NEVER had so much interest before, and very likely I shall never
have so much interest again, in the state of the wind, as on the
long-looked-for morning of Tuesday the Seventh of June. Some
nautical authority had told me a day or two previous, 'anything
with west in it, will do;' so when I darted out of bed at daylight,
and throwing up the window, was saluted by a lively breeze from the
north-west which had sprung up in the night, it came upon me so
freshly, rustling with so many happy associations, that I conceived
upon the spot a special regard for all airs blowing from that
quarter of the compass, which I shall cherish, I dare say, until my
own wind has breathed its last frail puff, and withdrawn itself for
ever from the mortal calendar.
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