I am already beginning to use the language of the country. It is
certain that at the end of a month I shall speak nothing else. I
have picked up every dialect, wherever we have travelled; you have
heard my Platt-Deutsch and my Neapolitan. But, voyons un peu the
Bay! I have just called to Mr. Leverett to remind him of the
islands. "The islands--the islands? Ah, my dear young lady, I have
seen Capri, I have seen Ischia!" Well, so have I, but that doesn't
prevent . . . (A little later.)--I have seen the islands; they are
rather queer.



II. MRS. CHURCH, IN NEW YORK, TO MADAME GALOPIN, AT GENEVA.



October 17, 1880.

If I felt far away from you in the middle of that deplorable
Atlantic, chere Madame, how do I feel now, in the heart of this
extraordinary city? We have arrived,--we have arrived, dear friend;
but I don't know whether to tell you that I consider that an
advantage. If we had been given our choice of coming safely to land
or going down to the bottom of the sea, I should doubtless have
chosen the former course; for I hold, with your noble husband, and
in opposition to the general tendency of modern thought, that our
lives are not our own to dispose of, but a sacred trust from a
higher power, by whom we shall be held responsible. Nevertheless,
if I had foreseen more vividly some of the impressions that awaited
me here, I am not sure that, for my daughter at least, I should not