the short, narrow, streets to the office. Yet, believe it, every dream
of that day, as I watched the vessel, was written at night to
Prue. She knew my heart had not sailed away.

Those days are long past now, but still I walk upon the Battery and
look towards the Narrows and know that beyond them, separated only by
the sea, are many of whom I would so gladly know, and so rarely
hear. The sea rolls between us like the lapse of dusky ages. They
trusted themselves to it, and it bore them away far and far as if into
the past. Last night I read of Antony, but I have not heard from
Christopher these many months, and by so much farther away is he, so
much older and more remote, than Antony. As for William, he is as
vague as any of the shepherd kings of ante-Pharaonic dynasties.

It is the sea that has done it, it has carried them off and put them
away upon its other side. It is fortunate the sea did not put them
upon its underside. Are they hale and happy still? Is their hair
gray, and have they mustachios? Or have they taken to wigs and
crutches? Are they popes or cardinals yet? Do they feast with Lucrezia
Borgia, or preach red republicanism to the Council of Ten? Do they
sing, _Behold how brightly breaks the morning_ with Masaniello?
Do they laugh at Ulysses and skip ashore to the Syrens? Has Mesrour,
chief of the Eunuchs, caught them with Zobeide in the Caliph's garden,
or have they made cheese cakes without pepper? Friends of my youth,
where in your wanderings have you tasted the blissful Lotus, that you
neither come nor send us tidings?

Across the sea also came idle rumors, as false reports steal into
history and defile fair fames. Was it longer ago than yesterday that
I walked with my cousin, then recently a widow, and talked with her of