"
"There is a richness in the atmosphere, when sunset melts into moonrise,
that makes one fancy it enveloping the earth like the bloom on a plum."
"And see how it has powdered the sea! The waters look like the wings of
the _papillon bleu_."
"It seems that you love the sea."
"Oh, certainly. I have thought that we islanders were like those Chinese
who live in great _tanka_-boats on the rivers; only our boat rides at
anchor. To climb up on the highest land, and see yourself girt with
fields of azure enamelled in sheets of sunshine and fleets of sails, and
lifted against the horizon, deep, crystalline, and translucent as a
gem,--that makes one feel strong in isolation, and produces keen races.
Don't you think so?"
"I think that isolation causes either vivid characteristics or idiocy,
seldom strong or healthy ones; and I do not value race."
"Because you came from America!"--with an air of disgust,--"where there
is yet no race, and the population is still too fluctuating for the
mould of one."
"I come from India, where, if anywhere, there is race."
"But, pshaw! that was not what we were talking about."
"No, Mademoiselle, we were speaking of an element even more fluctuating
than American population.
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