Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1858 edition. Excerpt: ... BELLE BRITTAN AT NEWPORT. LETTER No. I. Newport, > July 15, 1856. S My Dear: May I have an occasional corner in your " virtuous sheet" to tell the world what is going on at this delightful place ? If you print this, I shall go ahead and give you more of the same sort. If I draw largely on adjectives and superlatives, you must make due allowance for a young girl's enthusiasm who is "just out"--who sees the sea for the first time; and to whom a " watering place" and watering-place ways are novelties. Speaking of the old blue sea, which everybody has read of, reminds me of a shockingly severe conundrum proposed to us yesterday. A certain New-York editor, with whose name I dare not take liberties, was sitting in the carriage with us, quietly looking at the merry, motley group of bathers, when he .gravely asked, why a plunge in the surf was like suicide ? Because it was a feel o' de sea! I threatened to report him, and I have done it. But I want to express my delight at everything and everybody here; and I dont know where to begin or stop. There are not as many nice beaux here as I expected to find; but they tell me it is hardly time for them yet. They say the " season" will " open" about the middle of this week, with the first hop. There is a school of young ladies here from Philadelphia, with an old French teacher watching and patronizing them, driving them in out of the damp, and sending them up stairs to bed at ten o'clock. Poor little spring chickens, how I pity them. I haven't seen any of the horrid Abolitionists yet--(I didn't tell you that " I came from Alabama;") but I heard a gentleman from St. Louis (a very pious man) say, that they wouldn't let him eat the sacrament in Boston a week ago Sunday, because he owned slaves!...