Excerpt from The Isles of Summer, or Nassau and the Bahamas IN offering this book to the reading public the author of the Isms OF summer is not unmindful of the maxim that silence is golden. But silence is often a grave mistake, and may be a crime. The gift of speech has rendered possi ble the intellectual development which distinguishes the human race. The different stages in the progress and perfection of language are the tide marks of civilization. Take from man the power to express his thoughts, and you degrade him to a beast. There is a time to speak and a time to abstain from speaking. More than golden are those gems of thought which inspired genius has in by-gone times wedded to imperishable language and given as a rich' legacy to the ages. But he is a wise man who knows how properly and when to address the great public and challenge its attention. The loud din of a garrulity stale and insipid, is ever mingled with the elevated and ennobling notes of inspired voices. Many of the utterances that evidence man's divine origin, to which the Present listens, broke the stillness of dim and distant ages in the morning of civilization, while the genius of each succeeding age has imparted to the literary air vibrations of its own, that mingle with those of the past, and a great tide of melody that never ebbs, rolls grandly down to our own times. It would seem to be sufficient for the Present to sit at the footstool of the Past and listen. The public ear is not only filled but trained, educated and critical, so that a new voice has no more chance of being heard, than a little ripple of attracting attention when ocean's great heart throbs with the quickening breath of a hurricane. A new book by a new author is like a new leaf amid the evergreen and varied foliage of a tropical forest. When one unknown to fame, takes his first born literary child in manuscript sheets to any of the notable publishers in either of our great cities, the cordiality with which he is received is like that with which a tramp is welcomed at the front door of a palatial dwelling. The chance that the latter is an angel in disguise, is com sidered equal to the probability that the former is inspired. In many cases. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Isles of Shoals in Summer Time Now I fully admit that you must see these in a sunny light, or else they are nothing, and worse than nothing; and I have a friend, who, because he went in a rainstorm and returned in a rainstorm, believes that there is no place on the globe more forlorn and empty of all interest than those same islands. And when I remind him that I go thither yearly, he asks, is not life hard enough, and dreary enough, any way, without adding to it by going down to the Isles of Shoals? Ah sunshine is every thing in the world outside of us, and in the world in side of us, and you want sunshine of course to make the Shoals pleasant. But given sunshine, and the place is just glorified. What do you ask better for a few days than a clean little island out at sea, with no dust, with the thermometer nailed at 70, a fine breeze every day, and that breeze, let it come from N., E., S, . Or W., laden with the ocean's cooln'ess. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.