Staten Island in the distance, a schooner lying at anchor. Then we
cross Newark Bay, pure opaline in a clear, pale blue light. H.G.
Dwight is the only other chap who really enjoys Newark Bay the way
it deserves to be. He wrote a fine poem about it once.

But we had one great disappointment. For an hour or so we read a
rubbishy novel, thinking to ourself that when the Max Beerbohm
Express reached that lovely Huntington Valley neighbourhood, we
would lay down the book and study the scenery, which we know by
heart. When we came to the Neshaminy, that blithe little green
river, we were all ready to be thrilled. And then the train swung
away to the left along the cut-off to Wayne Junction and we missed
our bright Arcadia. We had wanted to see again the little cottage at
Meadowbrook (so like the hunting lodge in the forest in "The
Prisoner of Zenda") which a suasive real-estate man once tried to
rent to us. (Philadelphia realtors are no less ingenious than the
New York species.) We wanted to see again the old barn, rebuilt by
an artist, at Bethayres, which he also tried to rent to us. We
wanted to see again the queer "desirable residence" (near the gas
tanks at Marathon) which he did rent us. But we had to content
ourself with the scenery along the cut-off, which is pleasant enough
in its way--there is a brown-green brook along a valley where a
buggy was crawling down a lane among willow trees in a wealth of
sunlight. And the dandelions are all out in those parts. Yes, it was
a lovely morning. We found ourself pierced by the kind of mysterious
placid melancholy that we only enjoy to the full in a Reading
smoker, when, for some unknown reason, hymn tunes come humming into
our head and we are alarmed to notice ourself falling in love with
humanity as a whole.