Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. Say you are in the country in some high land of lakes. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?
Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues,- north, east, south, and west.
And there they stand-miles of them-leagues. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?īut look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. But these are all landsmen of week days pent up in lath and plaster- tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. Some leaning against the spiles some seated upon the pier-heads some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. What do you see?-Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.Ĭircumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs-commerce surrounds it with her surf. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword I quietly take to the ship. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off-then, I account it high time tozz get to sea as soon as I can. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Some years ago-never mind how long precisely-having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.
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