I have since become a salt-water man, but sometimes in summer there are days when the restlessness of the tides and the fearful cold of the sea water and the incessant wind that blows across the afternoon and into the evening make me wish for the placidity of a lake in the woods.

White contrasts two beloved New England landscapes—the ocean and an inland lake—to register an emotional truth about place. Having adopted the sea (with its tides, wind, and cold) as his adult element, he still feels, on certain summer days, a pull toward the calmer, enclosed world of a wooded lake. The sentence captures his characteristic attentiveness to weather and sensation, and it suggests that attachment to a home landscape is not exclusive: one can belong to the sea yet still long for the steadiness and shelter associated with earlier experiences. The quote also hints at the sea’s grandeur as a kind of beautiful discomfort, against which the lake represents repose and memory.