News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-09-07

type of large number of men still ex
tant. The picture was an American
one; but its general truth was so felt
that had the book been written by al
Englishman, its immediate popularity
could not have been greater in thil
country, nor its keenness as home
thrust more fully admitted. But, apart
from its value as an exquisite photo
graph of the life of merchant sailor al
sea, it possesses fascination absolutely
irresistible to the seaman. Its English
has the freshness and naivete of Defoe;
no other diction than what Dana chose
to write in could have so finely carried
the descriptions and reflections he
| desired to set before his readers. 1t
Is as clear as piece of crystal,
and beauties every image seen
in it with its own prismatic
radiance. He is minute to degree,
vigorously exact. Nothing escapes him.
If he has to set sail the clew-lines must
be overhauled, and there must be song
on the deck; if he has to haul down a
iib every hank must utter its metallic
note and the watch below. disturbed
by the noise of ropes fuug down over
head, must mutter one to the other that
the {" old man" is doing so-and-so, and
that 1t was so-and-so's voice who is
bawling down from the foretop-mast
cross-trees to haul taut the lee toprgal-
liant brace. Yet, whatever the landsman
may think of this abundant interlarding
of unintelligible cries and terms, to the
sailor the treat is rich one. He fol-
lows the narrative eagerly; he knows
that every order is the right one; that
whether the rigging has to be set up, the
royal masthead painted from the truck
to the eyes of the royal rigging, new
sail to be bent, the relieving tackles
hooked on, it is Jack who is talking,
sitting on his chest with sooty pipe be-
tween his lips, and waving brown fore
finger in the glimmering light of the
forecastle lamp, as he recites his yarn
amid the muffled thunder of the bow
wave that breaks from the stem and
runs kissing and seething past the ves-
sci.
There never was bolder and truer
experiment than "Two Years Before
the Mast" nor of its kind more sue
cessful one. There had been marine
writers before Dana but they had
looked at the sea as novelists they
viewed it as theme that must be made
interesting for men and women who
knew very little about ships and the
habits and thoughts of sailors, and for
boys and girls who liked exciting
stories. They went to the navy
for their incidents, very well know
ing the literary value of gunpowder,
dashing exploits, the chase, the capture,
the imprisonment, and the escape. 1t
is impossible not to speak without
reverence of Marryat, nor without deep
admiration of Michael SCOTS exquisite
pictures of the sea but what terms
shall fitly express the triumph and the
merit of a writer who, discarding the
CT the marine painting,
the dashing frigate, the sparkling epau-
let's, the humors of the gun-room, and
the amours of midshipmen in cooked
hats, goes for his subject into the fore
castle of little crazy brig, bound On a
long voyage roand the Horn to the
lonely coasts of the California of that
day, there to load with hides How
could he hope to find an audience for
such a narrative? Who was likely to
take any interest In the talk and habits
of common Sailors" class of beings
known to landsmen mainly in the pages
of the novelists who were nimble only
in the reconstruction of the remains of
the dummies in pig-tails, full of drink
and curses, and the lowest species of
libertinism, which had come down to
them from the days of Smollett? But
Dana's keen eye, sharpened by the
noblest sympathy and the wisest knowl-
edge, pierced through the rough clothes
and still rougher manners of the poor
fellows among whom he had cast his
lot, and beheld there such wild, new,
ocean-echoing poetry as he felt must
win the world to the side of the simple
hearted, mute, and toiling sailor, could
he only reproduce it with something of
the magic with which it appealed to him.
One sees him stepping aboard at Boston,
s'fresh from the light dress-coat, silk
cap, and kid gloves of an under graduate
at Cambridge" but now attired in
loose duck trousers, checked shirt, and
tarpaulin hat of sailor. One follows
him as, almost PROSTATE with sea-sick-
ness, he is forced aloft by the order of
the mate to grease down the royal mast.
One follows him into the dim little fore
castle, there to find men whom he at
once pities and honors, whom he clings
to with shipmate's affection and parts
from with shipmate's reluctance and
sorrow, and to whose pitiful, obscure,
and perilous life he devotes his genius.
His book could not, forty years ago, be
read without emotion, and cannot be
perused now without deep regret that,
in spite of the efforts of a few upright
men, the sailor should still be able to
look his country in the face and COM
plain of neglect that leaves him with
out religion, without education, and
without recognition of the hundred
troubles and trials of the hidden life
which he has not the power to make
known by words.
"No sooner" says Dana, "has the
young sailor begun his new life in ear
nest than all the fine drapery falls off,
and he learns that it is but work and
hardship after all This is the true
light in which sailors life should be
viewed and if, in our books and ami
versary speeches, we would leave out
much that is said about blue water
blue jackets, open hearts, seeing
Gods hand on the deep, and so forth,
and take this up like any other practical
subject, / am quite sure we should do
fully as much for those we wish to bene-
fit" This is the key mote of his writ
ings on the subject of sailors. There is
never any cant, never any sort of
''gush." His "Seaman's Manual" sur
prisingly illustrates his perfect mastery
of the minuti@ of life on shipboard.
There is, indeed, nothing, SO far as re-
CARDS the advice it tenders to masters,
mates and men, in the language to COM
pare with it, unless the late Capt. Kelly's
l.