A Bermuda Short

For me, it all began with our honeymoon. Sandy had lobbied for a trip to the mid-Atlantic island of Bermuda, with its pink sand beaches, oleander-lined lanes, and white-roofed pastel cottages. We were immediately beguiled, and we were not alone in our fascination. Earlier visitors, harried by North American life, had long regarded Bermuda as “the isles of rest.” Mark Twain travelled there seven times, telling his friends, “You go to heaven if you want to — I’d druther stay here.” Winslow Homer revelled in the verdant territory’s sapphire seas. And Princess Louise, the bohemian wife of Canada’s fourth governor general, fled Ottawa’s cold for “Nature’s Fairyland” in 1883. Even Mackenzie King extolled Bermuda’s charm, writing in his diary that it was “Italy without smells and dirt.”

My wife and I have since become avid Bermudaphiles, filling our home with books and memorabilia that...