New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1883-05-23
At Sea,

AuOtncTz VI BONN DurfOugn NcllgnCe
full essays appears in the April Century,
the subject being the transatlantic voy-
age. In keeping with the text is the
ideal full-page engraving, by Elhridge
Kingsley, Of 4 ship in mid-occa., which
was drawn with the sraver We quote
the following from the writer's impress
sions:
One does not seem really to have got
out OF doors till he goes to sea. On the
land he is shut in by the hills or the for
ests, or more or less housed by the sharp
lines of his horizon. But at sea he finds
the roof taken off, the walls taken down;
he is no longer in the hollow of the
earth's hand, but upon its naked back,
with nothing between him and the inn
mensities. He is in the great cosnlic
out-of-doors, as much so us if voyaging
to the moon or to Mars. An astronomic
solitude and vacuity surrounds him; his
only guides and landmarks are stellar;
the earth has disappeared; the horizon
has gone; he has only the sky and it's
orbs left; the cold, vitreous, blue-black
liquid through which the ship plows is
not water, but some denser form of the
cosmic ether. He can now see the curve
of the sphere which the hills hid from
him; he can study astronomy under i'm
proved conditions. If he was being
borne through the interplanetary spaces
on an immense shield, his impressions
would not perhaps be much different.
For it must be admitted that voyage
at sea is more impressive to the imagina-
ton than to the actual sense. The world
iS loft hoEir1. oil c%nr s. IS
magnitude, of distance, are vanished;
there is no size, no form, no perspective;
the universe has dwindled to little cir
Gle OF crumpled water, that journeys
with you day after day, and to which
you seem bound by some enchantment.
The sky becomes shallow, close fitting
dome, or else pail of cloud that seems
ready to descend upon you. You can
not see or realize the vast and vacant
surrounding; there is nothing to define
it or set it off. Three thousand miles of
ocean space are less impressive than
three miles bounded by rugged noun
tain walls. Indeed, the grandeur of
form, of magnitude, of distance, of pro-
portion, etc., are only upon shore. A
voyage across the Atlantic is ten-day
sail through vacancy. There is no sensi-
BILE progress; you pass no fixed points.
Is it the steamer that is moving, or is it
the sea? or is it all dance and illusion
of the troubled brain? Yesterday, to-day
and tomorrow, you are in the same pa
renthesis of nowhere. The three hun
dred or more miles the ship daily makes
is ideal, not real. Every night the stars
dance and reel there in the same place
amid the rigging; every moraing the
sun comes up from behind the same
wave, and staggers slowly across the
sinister sky. The eye becomes a-hunger
for form, for permanent lines, for hori-
zon wall to lift up and keep off tho sky,
and give it a sense of room. One un-
derstands why sailors become an mag
NATIVE and superstitious race; it is the
reaction from this narrow horizon in
which they are put-this ring of fate
surrounds and Expresses them. They
escape by invoking the aid of the super
natural. In the sea itself there is far
less to stimulate the Imagination than
in the varied forms and colors of the
land. How cold, how merciless, how
elemental it looks!