The moss was the first
primeval coating of vegetation just clothing those lava-rocks again.
But the time was coming when we must bid good-bye to picturesque
Fayal. We had been there from November to May; it had been a winter of
incessant rains, and the first necessary of life had come to be a change
of umbrellas; it had been colder than usual, making it a comfort to look
at our stove, though we never lighted it; but our invalids had gained
by even this degree of mildness, by the wholesome salt dampness, by
the comforts of our hotel with its respectable Portuguese landlord and
English landlady, and by the great kindness shown us by all others. At
last we had begun to feel that we had squeezed the orange of the Azores
a little dry, and we were ready to go. And when, after three weeks of
rough sailing in the good bark Azor, we saw Cape Ann again, although it
looked somewhat flat and prosaic after the headlands of Fayal, yet we
knew that behind those low shores lay all that our hearts held dearest,
and all the noblest hopes of the family of man.
* * * * *
MIDSUMMER AND MAY.
I.
Very probably you never saw such a superb creature,--if that word,
creature, does not endow her with too much life: a Semiramis, without
the profligacy,--an Isis, without the worship,--a Sphinx, yes, a Sphinx,
with her desert, who long ago despaired of having one come to read her
riddle, strong, calm, patient perhaps.
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