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[[underline]] To Willie, November 3, 1925:[[/underline]] Had a perfectly glorious walk this afternoon. We (Blanchard, his chum, Cummings, and I) took the Amsterdam car as far as the Boston & Maine railroad bridge (the good old B&M), crossed the river there, and struck directly up into those great high wooded hills that you maybe have noticed from the train just outside Schenectady. We followed the gorge cut by a little stream all the way up. It was quite a climb, something like 900 ft. in the first three-quarters of a mile, I believe, and 1200 all together. The stream cascaded down over the rocks in many places and occasionally we would suddenly come upon a real little waterfall, partly frozen, with the icicles sometimes freezing around little green plants and moss, making them look like plants inside glass. We climbed a great tall pine when we finally reached the top and, oh, what a view! If it had been clear, we could have seen cleal [[sic]] across into the Adirondacks. The valley lay spread out below us with an opal river winding down through it. I have never seen such a beautiful blue in my life, as the tint of the river today. The nearest thing to it is the blue of an opal. We decided we would have permanently bent ankles after walking along so many steep side hills. Which reminded me of "the famous Gillagahoola bird, who has one leg shorter than the other from running over the pyramids and can be caught by the natives, who chase him into the desert where he runs in a circle."
[[underline]]To Mother, November 3, 1925:[[/underline]] What lovely things Celia Thaxter said. I do not know who wrote "Goodbye Sweet Day." She may have written it. Sara Teasdale has written some beautiful poetry about the sea too. Did you ever read this one -- "Sea Longing."
[[handwritten]]" A thousand miles beyond this sea steeped wall 
Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand, 
The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land 
With the old murmur long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall 
And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow.
Though I am inland far, I hear and know, 
For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.   
I would that I were there and over me 
The cold insistence of the tide would roll 
Quenching this burning thing men call the soul 
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be 
Less than the smallest shell along the shoal. 
Less than the sea gulls calling to the sea"[[\handwritten]]
--Rivers to the Sea.