  There is no event, by which sorrow is brought to mankind, which arouses in the mind of old and young a livelier horror than “shipwreck.” There is something so terrible in the loneliness and obscurity of the sea, something so deplorable in the utter helplessness of the sailors, that there is scarcely any danger which we would not rather encounter. When we read of one, either near at hand or afar off, we involuntarily close our eyes, as if to shut out the awful scene; the noble ship helplessly reeling and tumbling on the billows, the pall of clouds, the driving rain, the white spray and foam drifting like ghosts over the water, some boat perhaps crowded with human beings, some broken mast or spar to which cling drowning wretches, and alone, all alone on the ocean-desert, with no hope of aid or succor. Vainly do we strive to shut our ears to the cries of misery and despair, to the wail of the wind, the loud lamenting of the surge, the deep groans of the vessel as her timbers part, and the noblest fabric of human skill is about to be torn to fragments and utterly destroyed. Lord Byron, describing a ship under full sail, uses the forcible expression, “She walks the water like a thing of like.” There is as much truth as beauty in this. Indeed it is difficult to imagine so proud and glorious an object, moving obedient to reason and command, to be nothing more than an inanimate mass. Behold her, as she sets out upon her voyage, with a fair sky and favoring breeze! How gracefully she parts the waters and sweeps onward! Is not that form instinct with feeling and endowed with intellect? No! she is but a wonderful piece of mechanism; but the dullest fancy might imagine her a being, an intelligence, capable of volition, powerful in deed. Observe her, too, when overmastered by the tempest and made subject to the waves, she drifts powerless along! Does she not seem to suffer human pangs in her struggles, and to die with all of mortal agony? The attachment, I might say friendship, which seamen entertain for particular vessels is not to be wondered at. The deck is the home of the mariner: here the greater number of his days are spent: the masts, sails, rigging are to him familiar objects, the objects of his constant care and solicitude, and he feels for them a species of paternal love. When these are destroyed, lost, wrecked, he mourns them with a real sorrow. It is my lot to live within constant sight of the sea. I am on one of the grand highways from Europe to New York. Ships of all nations pass my door. Many a noble vessel has been wrecked within a mile from my dwelling. My mind therefore often reverts to this most fearful calamity, and it is difficult —— |
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