The New York herald., 1921-08-07
Dams Own Book Review

THE WRECK OF THE HESPERUS.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Cambridge
Dappleton Co.. New York
THIS pitiful yarn Of the sea is about
one OF these old hard headed sea
captains who know everything about
all things and will not take advice from
anybody. Sea captains are a funny lot
that way, and it gets them into a lot Of
to doing just exactly as they please while
they are on board ship and having every one
obey their orders implicitly that they have
a very rude shock when the wife tells them
to mend the ash can, rock the baby to sleep,
hoe the garden. sweep off the sidewalk and
then come in and help wash the dishes.
That's why they remain at sea so much.
The sea captain who Is married never really
does cease to struggle. He never makes a
complete surrender. He always feels that
as last resort about the time that the
skillets and the hatirons are flying he
can run to the harbor. dive through the
skylight the deck into the basement Of
the ship and hide behind a case OF hootch
until the domestic storm is over.
Now In the case of the rest OF us-but
we were considering the matter of the terrible
storm that wrecked the Hesperus and
drowned the crew on account of the hard
headed captain.
The trouble started when the captain in
sisted upon taking his little daughter on the
voyage with him. 1t was winter time and
bitter cold. lie ought to have had more
sense than to take a little girl to at that
season of the year. but he was selfish kind
OF man and wanted companionship.
When the storm arose one of the sailors
a big fellow who knew a good deal about
the sea- having sailed on the Spanish Main
hafn o1d 1,o tafr hat
some thick weather was coming and advised
him to put into port they happened to be
passing. but the captain gave the sailor the
merry ha, hal" and sailed right on.
Then the little girl got scared. so the
captain lashed her to plank. Finally she
began seeing and hearing things. as little
girls have habit Of doing. We will admit
she ran true to form because every time
she had a flight Of imagination she had
lot of questions to ask about IL.
First she heard bells. so the captain
told her she heard fog bells, which was not
at all unlikely and was very quick witted
OF him; that is. II a fog had in the mean
time come up. although the poem does not
actually state that the ship was in fog
Then the little girl heard guns, and the
captain said he guessed II was a ship In
distress firing off guns to announce that
she was In trouble. This whole thing II
must be remembered happened before the
invention of the wireless, so II was impossi-
BILE to send out any q signals Next
the girl said she saw light but the captain
did not answer because he had already
passed out of the picture. lie had frozen
stiff, from which we Judge It was quite
little time between the second and bird
question.
Well, everybody except the little girl
having been either frozen or washed over
board. the Hesperus drifted to q reef. and
after having hole knocked In her bottom
she sank.
The next morning the little girl was
washed ashore at q place called Normans
Woe. She had frozen waves on her chest
and frozen tears In her eyes.
The main trouble with the poem IL that II
is TOO darn sud. We were quite depressed
when we read 1t.