The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1886-07-30
OUT WITH THE TIDE.
The Ebb Which Sets in and "Takes
a Soul"

One of the most striking and dramatic
death-bed scenes ever sketched by the
master hand of Charles Dickens is tha
of the old BIudderstone carrier, Barkis
in David Copperfeld, which, if no
the most powerful of Dickens crea
tions, and occasionally little garru.
Ious, undoubtedly possesses a Rem.
brandt perspective and felicity Of
imaginative touch exceeded by nc
other. From a boy of ten my remem-
brance of the picture of the rough old
Yarmouth fisherman, whispering be-
hind his huge, horny, calOused, un-
couth hand: ''He's going out with the
tide, " has possessed the peculiar real
| ity of something actually remembered
| from visual contact, instead of the
mere vividness that inheres to the re-
membrance of scenes more or less
| graphically described. If psychologists
are correct in ascribing to the retina
of the eye memory of its own, inde-
| pendent of the mere cerebral recollee-
| tiOns of impressions, the explanation of
this fact is obvious. RecOllectiOns of
| scenes, faces or situations, which date
from previous visual impression, and
depend upon the faculty of the retina
for reproducing images, are necessarily
| imbued with a certain Photographic
vividness and fidelity, to which the
recollection of ideal pictures produced
by reflex action but dimly apprOximates.
Biographers say that Goethe and Shelley
were gifted with rare faculty of sec
Ondary vision, not shared by any COM
mon humanity, which enabled them at
will, by mere effort of the memory to
reproduce upon the retina of the eve
impressions that had once been pro-
iected upon that delicate membrane,
and thence transmitted to the brain-a
faculty whose influence can be traced
in their literature, in a certain pictorial
quality impaired to scenes purely
imaginary, as well as in a certain
graphic tone of imagery and descrip-
tiOn.
Not many handlers of the pen, how
ever, poets or mere rOmancers, gifted
with secondary vision or not, have
ever acquired the wizardry of touching
their descriptions with the simple and
direct reality of optical impression.
Such magic of the pen pertains only to
4ldS GGASs anu W GnCln OILY III JuGAT
highest moods-mOments of supreme
command of plastic materials such as
the reader may wade through pages of
commonplace to discover in the best
writer's. All the works of Dickens con-
tains scarcely a score of such passages;
and no other British writer, except
Mr.. Charles Kingsley in "AltoR
Locke" and George Eliot in "Silas
Mariner" the least of her creations in
bulk, the finest and most artistic in
reality, has ever touched, in evanescent
glimpses even, this supreme summit of
descriptive excellence.
The simple, direct, artistic pictur-
esqueness that appears in the narrative
of the death of Barkis-as if the writer
were describing from life-is thus,
then, probably due to his familiarity
with a superstition common to mari
time population, that the souls of dying
men pass away with the tide-OUt-out
far out TO sea. The touch of mystery
with which the superstition is imbued,
was of a kind TO quicken the active,
sympathetic imagination of Dickens;
and the result appears in the wizard
death-bed picture evoked by that con-
juror with the pen.
But is this weird belief about the
cOuA5 VI Ny il1G llCll GOlAlG Oub VIII bIlC
tide-which / find as deep-seated and
strong with the shrewd, hard-headed,
horny-handed farmer-fishermen of this
old New England town (Madison,
Conn as Dickens did, no doubt, with
the bloaters of old Yarmouth-merely
a groundless, but very natural, super
stititiOn of sea-gOing races, or is il a
fact that for some reason not yet faith
omed by science, the sick, old and en-
feebled are more apt to die at ebb-tide
than when the tide is rising. / remem-
Der, appropos of the foregoing, the
medical superintendent Of one of the
largest and finest asylums for the in
sane in this country once remarked to
me, speaking of the ancient notion of
the moon exercising a potent influence |
on the nervous system of man, that the |
cycle of recurrent phases through
which the mind of q madman periodic |
ally passes seldom or never varies from |
the limit of one mOnth-that is, coin |
cides substantially with the moons as |
poets. The learned expert did not pre- |
tend to explain why or how this coin /
cident occurs only that such is the |
fact, and that the ancients denoted it |
in their derivation of the word lunatic. |
In a similar manner, speaking with /
prominent physician in this section of /
the State of Connecticut. whose prac- /
tice embraces the three-shore towns of /
Guilford, Madison and Clinton, with /
large fishing and coast population, the |
old whim that men are prone to die at /
ebb-tide than at other hours of the day /
crops out from a source that entities It /
to consideration.
For more than thirty years, said /
the gray bearded old doctor, who /
gravely made this statement, as the re-
suit of his own personal observation, |
q have lived and observed among the /
rough, hardy souls hereabont; and for /
more than fifty, my father before me i
gathered facts and wisdom from prae- /
tice. often ride thirty miles Of a day /
along the coast; and / have stood by /
hundreds of death-beds of fishermen /
and farmers, old and young, during /
the last quarter Of century; but / can /
hardly recall a single instance Of per- /
son dying of disease who did not pass
away while the tide was ebbing. 1t is /
a fact that, in critical cases, I never /
feel concerned about leaving the pa
tent for an hour or two when the tide /
Is coming in; but when it is receding. /
and particularly in the later stages OF |
the ebb, ] always stay BY, II | can. un-