The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-12-30


that fearful period, the simulacrum of the saw
age was present to my mind in such fearful
yIyidness that L came to regard it as real
bodily presence and positive incarnation, and
as such was In constant communication with it.
And so forcibly was | affected by it. that it was
long after had recovered from the effects of
famine, ere could dispossess my mind of the
idea that the incubus was reality, and that.
like Frankenstein, | had palpable spectre
haunting my footsteps. AS soon as / could
persuade myself that it acos simply an optical
illusion, caused IN the first place by disease,
and cnging to me afterwards through the
natural chronic tendency of habit, | was able
to dispel it entirely, and without any great ex-
ercise OF will. But during its continuance there
is no wonder should have raved for of all the
horrors that can rob life of its zest, conjecture
that tins sense of being followed up, haunted
by a spectre invisible to all save ones self is
the most terrible.pl
As yet, however, all is not lost with JASPER
The craft borders on, but not touches, the reef
the casker Is OH the bud but SO far has spared
its vitals. More dark and moody still is what
follows below, written some time after the
VISION" One cannot easily bring himself to
associate such fancies with whale-killing con-
Stunning of " salt-horse," and merry frolics with
gay inSoniam islanders. Yet so it stands in
the journal; on one page, some suspiciously-
glowing phrases in regard to brown-limbed
maiden, with passion-melted eye" who, with
others, swan like a mermaid out from some
island to the ship, and laughingly donned Jas
pers old trowsers, (he had gotten him another
pair, now,) while, on the very next leaf we find
it written thus
"What a failure has been my lifel ] am one
God-curst. The veil of an eternal woe en-
shrouds me. Yet no; is not all around me the
same? Are any happy? Do any make feast
| of existence, and drink off beaded bumpers to
the inspiring soul? What reward has effort !?
Why should we tug at the capstan? LIES cable
drags up no anchor. was made to be happy,
one would say; to love to fill my lungs with
healthy air, my heart with healthy feelings my
brain with with healthy thoughts to do good,
mayhap; to build up myself for myself; to be
recorded as one who worked for the world s
| welfare. Ha-ah! we dream of Paradise, and
our awakng is in Zaarah Here | am y
what lachrylnOSe me UOice it is, to be sure y
:" wretched sailor upon this monotonous ocean.
Oh, Pacific why art thou not also Pacifer :?
Here | am, with never kindred spirit, with no
object worthy my concern, save only this one
rough Brawny Back, and he can care for him.
self. | find no sphere of action | am locked
in like the toad in boulders heart, my mind
preying miserably upon itself. Fairly wound
ed snake, exercising its envenomed fangs in
impotent despair upon its own vitals. Rid me
of this! Oh, Anchor, why vert thou ever craven,
the false deceiving augury of a future more dis
tant to me than decrepitude Dark thoughts,
dark mind Oh for purpose, even if to carry
it through 'twere needed these limbs should roast
at the stake !"
In somewhat different vein, he muses. on the
death of the whale" less moodily, perhaps, but
still by far too mtrovertively:
"And thou art dead Leviathan, and hast in
anely turned up thy sleek belly to the vulgar
gaze Thou, the strong, the mighty, the ruler OF
the blue deep, the tempest-churner the crested
wave! Thou whose heart is as firm as stone ;
yea, as hard as piece of the neither milestone.
Thou who sportest In thy pride, though God be
angry, and heaven is dark, and the sqrging Gle
ments rage madly; thou who sovest the awful
mysteries of the silent depths; who knowest the
cunning secrets of the jewelled caverns, and
where the mermaidens tell their loves-thou
hast come to this base use; art unresisting
towed about by man, and rendered into grease,
to feed some vulgar lampl Fe upon thee, and
thy beasty might Mayhap, though, by this
feeding, thou mayst cast informing rays upon
precious pages of mans records mayst give
light in aid Of the lahors of some mighty one,
whose strength is to thine as the might of Sam
son to futile green withes, and as easily SUI
preme--nayst enable him to compose some
fabric more marvellous than thy huge frame,
to conjure up wonders more wonderful than all
that thy swimmings and depth-solving divings
have opened up to thee. | saw thee yesterday,
Leviathan, ere thou knewest thou vert doomed :
! saw thee basking buely deep DOM aneath
the wave, with thy goodly company of wives
lovingly about thee. Cock of the watery WAYS
vert thou then, twinking Sdefantly thy small
eye at me, lazily Tapping thy great fins, softly
swaying TO and fro thy great fan-ike rudder ;
yet here thou art, oh Leviathan, and sea-critics
around thee, saying, ~ praise Of ~ fesliueA4,
that thou art an Eighty -Barreller; while out
of thy sleek sides the sharp-teethed hungry
sharks nip masses of flesh, for they know that
man hath made thee powerless, that thou cans:
be taken with hook No lougeF IN thy
neck reiaaineth strength, no more Shall sorrow
he turned into JOY before thee For thou, that
vert a king over the children of pride, art for
ever fallen; the foot of the conquer0r is upon
thy neck, and in his scorn he spitteth upon
thee
We shall make next an extract from Soma
pages written afterwards y, the Friendly islands
which show much more healthy tone of
thought and are put together in n much more
conmendable style, than those above quoted.
dis hose was no longer so much umtrlssed. nor
the points Of his dopblet SO carelessly united
/" How beautiful il natqfe lefG," Ae writes
SIN what troplc layishness does she spread
abroad her charms, taking no heed of profusion,
tor she Well knows her inexhaustibility. How
artistic the grouping of these archipelagoes,
and what perfect landscape does each island
make in itself! One cannot do less than admire.
too sensuous though they be, in their impress
sions, to permit the look beyond. While in the
generalization of them there il but single we,
end th1s tho au,hndir,e nj &c ,,a,f,ntton 1t
infinitely variable as soon as we descend to the
observation of particulars Note the general
outline-it is always the same ! The central hill,
with its green shadegroves, its dark ravines,
all lovely and grown over with flowers, down
among Which TICKLE the Eills, gurglnlg in their
journey to the shore with such nelodya Naides
use to praise their own beauty the misty, far
stretching wales, corridors to Gods holy tenn
pei and the graceful contour and veitetv slopes
Of the lower hills. How beautiful the clear
bright sunshine, wherein objects stand forth
manifestly, all distinct and opalescent, against
the sky's deep blue. How beautiful those hay
days, when bridal-veiled nature wears all the
MeiHns blended Indebtedness pf languid sum
mer dream, and her bosom, jewelled with emer
aid, seems to throb responsive to the painting
culver OF the air. How the painted waters glow
with life, life rich AZ purple how the forests
and the thieksts the buising air and the springy
sod, are all sweety reaoent of life, ofiigRtning
throbbing, passionate, tropic life ! Oh, all is
very beautiful Melts not the eternal camnoss
Of y9p empysean into thy soul, as melt the ten
def glances from thy maiden's soft eyes into thy
heart Wakes not the ripple of yon breeze from
the cocoa-grove memories of her dear voice, war
bling bankruptcies at thy too needless ear
All, what thoughts come back |
who never loneed and loved N
He knows not gre { like mine