14 iSLES OF SUMMER. 



Hence, after the dwellers in tlie north have each in his genera- 

 tion for untold thousands of years been snow-bound and ice- 

 anchored, their descendants in our day arc able at winter's 

 approach, to migrate with the birds, and thus secure perfect 

 exemption from its discomforts. To many, suffering from dis- 

 ease, or with blood whieli age has made sluggish, tliis is a great 

 boon. 



In the winter of 18T9, and again in 1880, the author influenced 

 mainly by sanitary considerations, fled from frost to the islands 

 of unending summer, spending sometime in Florida when going 

 and returning in 1879, and again on his way home in 1880. The 

 knoAvledge he was thus enabled to acquire, is in part contained 

 in these pages. Most of his notes upon Florida may perhaps 

 form the ground work of a future volume. 



On a clear morning in January, A. D, 1879, the author looked 

 out of his office window upon New Haven's beautiful "Green," 

 and saw its noble elms in tlicir maturity, lifting tlieir long bare 

 brown arms towards heaven as if in supplication, while a white 

 and beautiful carpet of snow revealed the shadows and reflected 

 the sunlight. Three days afterwards, he sat upon tlie deck of 

 an ocean steamer, in a pleasant summer atmosphere, within one 

 hundred and fifty miles of the city of Savannah, witli notliing 

 in view but the blue dome of the sky, the restless ocean waves, 

 and some daring sea birds which hovered high in air above the 

 steamer's foaming track, and watched witli tlieir telescopic eyes, 

 and waited for tlieir share of the noon-day meal. The contrast 

 was most striking; the change from a life of care and of continu- 

 ed moil and toil, to a state of calm and peaceful rest, was as 

 agreeable as it was marked and sudden. But life is full of start- 

 ling and unexpected contrasts. There is seemingly no stability 

 but instability, nothing constant but unrest. Change itself be- 

 comes changeless in its unvarying mutability. 



