We should take back for our winter's need
bits of brightness gleaned from our summer sojourn by the sea.
As we thought of our coming departure, these questions came to
us: Have we treasured up a few of the tints in our lives like
the rare colors of the dawn on the boundless sea? Have we filled
our earthly horizon with golden thoughts, fair visions of the
sea of memory that reach the infinite? Are they transient as the
crimson and rose-colored west or shall they flash and gleam
silent, yet eternal as the stars above?
How often will the ocean's clean-washed sands, those ever-
changing hues and sunsets re-appear when we shall long have been
absent from them! How often, too, shall we hear in fancy as we
do now in reality the moaning of the storm and the booming
breakers along the shore!
The sirens were still calling and their weird enticing melodies
yet rippled through our memories. Out over the harbor beyond
those enchanted rocks the water was o'erspread with the delicate
blue bloom. Later they seemed to withdraw, fading slowly away
into blue and mysterious shadows in the deepening twilight. "Far
out toward the horizon we watched a vessel fade in the violet
dusk; the evening star trembled low on the horizon as if
enamored of the waters." Thus Newport passed into memory.
RHODE ISLAND
Little Rhode Island! What a surprise it was to find in this,
this smallest member of a family group of forty-eight states, so
much of the wild and primeval wilderness. Through long stretches
of forest bordered road, stony fields and rough pasture land our
road led. Great clusters of ferns grew in the swampy meadows,
and many brilliant colored swamp flowers were in blossom, giving
the otherwise desolate scene a touch of color. Stone fences
bordered some of the meadows and now and then a rustic cottage
with its brown-stained sides appeared. For a number of miles we
passed through a country where on both sides of the road grew
thickets of oak, yellow and white birch and fragrant pine.
Interspersed among this growth were numberless chestnut, maple
and larch trees.
We soon emerged from this desolate region, however, and at a
more attractive spot our eyes fell upon a boulder monument
erected by the state of Rhode Island in memory and honor of
Thomas Wilson Dorr, whom in an earlier time was considered a
menace to his country. How long this man was in receiving the
true verdict of his country! Pausing to read the latter verdict,
so different from the former, we noted these significant words:
"Thomas Wilson Dorr, 1805-1854; of distinguished lineage, of
brilliant talents, eminent in scholarship, a public spirited
citizen, lawyer, educator, statesman, advocator of popular
sovereignty, framer of the people's Constitution of 1842,
elected Governor under it, adjudged revolutionary in 1842.
Principle acknowledged right in 1912." Then below these words
were added:
