Litchfield enquirer., 1854-08-10
SEA FROM SHORE.


 In the month of June, Prue and I like to walk upon the Battery toward sunset, and watch the steamers, crowded@wilh passengers, bound for the pleasant places along the coast where people pass the hot months. Sea side lodgings are not very comfortable, am told, but who would not be a little pinched in his cham her if his windows looked upon the sea In such praises of the ocean do indulge at such times. and 90 respectfully do regard the sailors who may chance ;o pass that Prue often says, with her shrewd smile, that my mind is kind of Chelsea Hospital, full of aborIive marine hopes and wishes, broken legged intentions, blind regrets, and desires. whose hands have been shot away in some hard battle of experience. so that they cannot gtasp the results towards which they reach.- She is T ight as usu l. Such hopes and intentions do lie, ruined and hopeless no" strewn about tine placid contentment oi my mental life, as the old pensioners sit about the grounds at Chelsea. maimed and musing in the quiet morning sun. shine. Many one among them think what Nelson he would have been it both his legs had not been prematurely carried away; or in what Trafalgar oi triumph he would have ended, if, unfor ,unately, he had not happened to have been blown blind by the explosion of that unlucky magazine. So I dream, some times, of sttai ight scarlet collar, stiff with gold lace. around my neck, instead of this limp white cravat; and I have even brandished my quill at the office so cutlass wise, that Tubottom has paused in his additions and looked at me if he doubted whether sht uld come out quite square in my petty cash. Yet he under stands it. Titbottom was bo,n in Nan. tucket. .......
 That is the secret of my fondness for the sea :: l was born by it. Not more su'ely do Sayoyads pine for the mount. aims, or Cockneys for the sound of Bow bells, than those who are born within sight and sound of the ocean to return to i! and renew their feal,y. In dreams the childIen of the sea hear its voice. l have in some book of travels that certain tribes of Arabs have no name for the ocean and that when they came 10 the shore for the first time, they asked with cage, sadness. as if penetrated by the convic- ton ofRsuperior beauty, why is that desert ~ Water more beautiful than the land ?" And in the translation of Ge' man stories which Adonnam and the other children read, ald into which l DC. casionall, look in the evening when they are gone 10 bed,-for like 10 know wha, interests my children.-l find that in the Germans, who do not live near the sea. love the fairy lore of water, and tell the sweet stories of Undine and Melusina, as if they had especial charm for them. be- cause their country is inland.
 We who know tue sea lave less fairy feeling about it, but our realities are TO nance. My earliest rcmemb ances a,e of long range of old, half d,lapidated stores red brick stores with steep wood- en roofs and stone window frames aud door frames. which stood upon docks built as if for immense trade with al quarters of the globe. Generally the,e were only few sloops moored to the tremendous posts, which fancied could easily hold fast Spanish Armada in a tropical hurricane. But sometimes a great ship, an East Indiaman, with rusty scanned, blistered sides, and dingy sails. with an air of indolent self impo' tance and consciousness of superiority. which inspired me with profound respect. l. the ship had ever chanced to run down row boat or a sloop. or any specimen of smaller craft, should only have won- dered at the temerity of any floating thing in crossing the path of such supreme ma jesty. The ship was chained and cablrd to the old dock. and then came the dis embowelling.
 How the stately monster had been fat. teniDg upon foreign spells How it had gorged itself (such galleons did never seem to me of the feminine gender) w;'h the lucious treasures of the tropics l. had lain its lazy length slong the shores of China, and sucked in whole howc'y barvests of tea The equatorial sun flash ed through the strong wicker prisons. bursting with bananas and ncctaran fruits that eschew the temperate zone. Streams of camphor. of sandal wood. arose from the hold. Sailors chanting cabalistic strains, that had tc my gar sh,ill and monotonous palhos. like the uniform ii sing and falling of an autumn wind, turn ed cranks thar lifted the bales and boxes and crates. and swung them ashore. Bu' to my mind the spell of their singing raised the fragrant weight. and not the c'ank. Madagascar and Ceylon appear ed at the mystic bidding of the song The placid sunshine of the docks was per tuned with lndIa. The universal calm of southern seas pou'ed from the bosom ol the ship over the quiet, half-dec"yiDg old northern port. Long after the con ' 4. F al.