The Smile of the Sea
HE had built up all the stones of sea-faring men into one tremendous imagining of the ocean. We went on board, ready for typhoons and euroclydons. We thought the sea a monster, with ships in its maw, and hurricanes in its mane. In our ten days’ voyage, we have seen it in various moods, but have been impressed with nothing so much as the smile of the sea. While we have not found the poetic “cradle of the deep,” we have concluded that the sea is only a vigorous old nurse that jolts the child up and down on a hard knee, without much reference to how much it can endure.
We cannot forget the briohtness of the morning in which we came down the bay, followed to Sandy Hook by five hundred friends, lashing us out to sea with waving pocket-handkerchiefs, and pelting us with their huzzas. The sun set, and the moon took the veil of a nun and went into the dark turrets of midnioht cloud, and the stars dropped their flakes of light into the water, and melted into the blackness; but the sunlight of the cheery faces at the starting has shone on three thousand miles of water. So many friendly hands helped steady the ship, and the breath of so many voices filled the sails, which, by the help of the great screw, are bearing us onward.
Though a gentleman has pronounced the sea one vast dose of ipecac, and though it may betray us in the future, we set down the sea as one of our best friends. We never were treated so well in all our life. We have had, since we started, some wild tossing, but the waves are swarthy giants, and you must expect that their play will not be that of kittens, but of a lioness with her cubs, or a leviathan with its young. When Titans play ball, they throw rocks. The heavy surge which rolls the ship while I write is probably only the effort of the sea to stop laughing. It has been In a grand gale, and Its sides are heaving yet with the uproarious mirthfulness.
There are physical constitutions that will not harmonize with the water; but one - half the things that writers record against the sea Is the result of their own intemperance. The sea-air rouses a wolf of an appetite, and nine-tenths of the passengers turn Into meat-stuffers. From morn till night, down go the avalanches of provender. Invalids, on their way to Europe for the cure of dyspepsia, are seen gorging themselves at nine o’clock, at twelve, at four, at seven, and at ten. I hear men who, at eleven o’clock last night, took pigeons, and chickens, and claret, and Hock, and Burgundy, and Old Tom, and Cheshire cheese, and sardines, and anchovies, and grouse, and gravies, complaining that they feel miserable this morning. Much of the sea-sickness is an Insurrection of the stomach against too great Instalments of salmon, and raisins, and roast turkey, and nuts, and damson pies, and an infinity of pastry. One-half of the same dissipation on land would necessitate the attendance of the family doctor, and two nurses on the side of the bed to keep the howling patient from leaping out of the third-story window.
Oh, the joy of the sea! The vessel bounds like a racer on the “home - stretch,” bending into the bit, its sides flanked with the foam, and its white mane flying on the wild wind. We have dropped the world behind us. Going to Long Branch, or Sharon Springs, our letters come, and the papers, but it would be hard for cares to keep up with a Cunard steamer. They cannot swim. They could not live an hour in such a surf They have been drowned out, and are forgotten.
On the land, when morning comes, it seems to run up from the other side of the hills, and, with its face red from climbing, stands looking through the pines and cedars. On the sea, it comes down from God out of heaven on ladders of light to bathe in the water, the waves dripping from her ringlets and sash of fire, or throwing up their white caps to greet her, and the sea-gull alights on her brow at the glorious baptism. No smoke of factory on the clear air. No shuffling of weary feet on the glass
THE SMILE OF THE SEA. Z’^7
of the water - pavement. But Him of Genesareth setting his foot in the snow of the surf, and stroking the neck of the waves as they lick His feet and play about Him.
He who goes to sea with keen appreciation of the ludicrous will not be able to keep his gravity. We are not conscious of having, in any three months of our lives, so tested the strength of our buttons as on this ten days’ trip. We confess our incapacity to see without demonstration of merriment the unheard-of posture taken by passengers on a rocking ship. Think of bashful ladies being violently pitched into the arms of the boatswain, and of a man like myself escorting two elegant ladies across the slippery deck, till, with one sudden lurch, we are driven from starboard to port, with most unclerical sprawl, in one grand crash of crinoline and whiskers, chignon catching in overcoat - pocket, and our head entangled in the folds of a rioolette. Imagine the steward emptying a bowl of turtle-soup into the lap of a New York exquisite; or one not accustomed to angling, fishing for herring under an upset
dinner - plate. Consider our agitation, when, in the morning, after waking our companion with the snatch of some famiHar tunes, we found her diving out of the berth head -foremost, to the tune of “Star Spangled Banner,” and Dundee, with the variations. If, in all the ships on the deep, there are so many grotesque goings-on as in our vessel, we wonder not that this morning the sea from New York to Liverpool is shaking its sides with roistering merriment.
But the grandest smile of the sea is, after a rough day, in the phosphorescence that blazes from horizon to horizon. Some tell us it is the spawn of the jelly - fish, and some that it is a collection of marin insects; but those who say they do not know what it is probably come nearest the truth. The prow of the vessel breaks it up into two great sheaves of light, and the glory keeps up a running fire along the beam’s - end till the mind falls back benumbed, unable longer to take in the splendor. In one direction, it is like a vast mosaic, and yonder it now quivers the “lightning of the sea.” Here it is crystal inlaid with jet; or the eyes of sea - serpents flashing through the hissing waters; or a tall wave robed in white, flying, with long trail, toward the East; or the tossing up in the palm of the ocean a handful of opals, answered by the sparkle on one finger of foam; and then the long -restrained beauty breaking out into a whole sea of fire. On this suspended bridge many of the glories of the earth and heaven come out to greet each other, and stand beckoning to ship, and shore, and sky, for all the rest of the glories to come and join them. Meanwhile, the vessel plunges its proboscis into the deep, and casts carelessly aside into the darkness more gems than ever came from Brazil and Golconda. Historians think it worth recording, that, at an ancient feast, a pearl was dissolved in the wine, and drank by a royal woman; but a million pearls are dissolved at this phosphorescent banquet of the deep, around whose board all nations sit drinking. The stars are to drop like blasted figs, and the sun is to be snuffed out; but when the ocean dies, its spirit will arise In white robe of mist, and lie down before the throne of God,” a sea of glass mingled with fire!’
N. B. — I hereby reserve the privilege of taking back all I have said, if, on my way to America, the sea does not behave itself well.