Brant Point Lighthouse, on Nantucket Harbor
“Say the words ‘New England,’ and one person will think of a white church spire and a village green; another will see a covered bridge or the Vermont hills in the autumn; and still another will conjure up a farm along the Connecticut River. For me, the words evoke the sounds and smells of the sea, and the storms and the fogs that make life along the New England seacoast a good deal like living on an actual ship, subject to the whims of the weather.’’
— Nathaniel Benchley (1915-1981), in “The Sea,’’ in the book New England: The Four Seasons (1980). A writer himself, he was the son of the celebrated humorist and the father of Jaws author Peter Benchley. He spent his later years living on Nantucket. In his humorous novel The Off-Islanders, he wrote:
''The islands that lie to the south of Cape Cod are low and sandy, and the moors and dunes and bogs blend together in a rolling landscape that repeats itself in island after island. At one time, they were all part of the Cape: they now form a ragged chain behind the shifting sandbars that curve farther to the south. From the air, they all look very much alike. Through a periscope, they are indistinguishable.''
Nantucket from space. Chappaquiddick Island is at the left.
