And I do not feel sure that I can ever tear myself away.

I am reminded of good old Dr.Watts, who was invited by Lady Abney to pass a fortnight at her home, and remained for forty years.
Here we all unconsciously eat the lotus in some occult fashion, are straightway bewitched and held willing captives.

I have looked up the lotus, about which so much is said or sung and so little definitely known, and find it is a prickly shrub of Africa, bearing a fruit of a sweet taste, and the early Greeks knew all about its power.

Homer in the Odyssey says that whoever ate of the fruit wished never to depart nor again to see his native land.

Many of Ulysses' sailors ate this fruit, and lost all desire for home.
The last letter received by me from New Hampshire, April 3d, begins in this way: "It is like the middle of winter here, good sleighing and still very cold." And then comes a sad series of announcements of sickness and deaths caused by the protracted rigors of the season.