Islands."

"I shall do no such thing. I liked the West Indies because there is life
there; because the air is a firmament of balm, and you grow in it like
a flower in the sun; because the fierce heat and panting winds wake and
kindle all latent color, and fertilize every germ of delight that might
sleep here forever. That's why I liked them; and you knew it just as
well before as now."

"Yes; but I wanted to see if you knew it. So you think there is life
there in that dead Atlantis."

"Life of the elements, rain, hail, fire, and snow."

"Snow thrice bolted by the northern blast, I fancy, by which time it
becomes rather misty. Exaggerated snow."

"Everything there is an exaggeration. Coming here from England is like
stepping out of a fog into an almost exhausted receiver; but you've no
idea what light is, till you've been in those inland hills. You think a
blue sky the perfection of bliss? When you see a white sky, a dome of
colorless crystal, with purple swells of mountain heaving round you, and
a wilderness of golden greens royally languid below, while stretches of
a scarlet blaze, enough to ruin a weak constitution, flaunt from the
rank vines that lace every thicket, and the whole world, and you with
it, seems breaking into blossom,--why, then you know what light is and
can do. The very wind there by day is bright, now faint, now stinging,
and makes a low, wiry music through the loose sprays, as if they were
tense harp-strings. Nothing startles; all is like a grand composition
utterly wrought out. What a blessing it is that the blacks have been