solitary ocean; and has an air of melancholy grandeur, which in its
soft and gentle influence, seems to comfort while it saddens. I
recollect when I was a very young child having a fancy that the
reflection of the moon in water was a path to Heaven, trodden by
the spirits of good people on their way to God; and this old
feeling often came over me again, when I watched it on a tranquil
night at sea.
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Dickens, Charles – American Notes for General Circulation
The wind was very light on this same Monday morning, but it was
still in the right quarter, and so, by slow degrees, we left Cape
Clear behind, and sailed along within sight of the coast of
Ireland. And how merry we all were, and how loyal to the George
Washington, and how full of mutual congratulations, and how
venturesome in predicting the exact hour at which we should arrive
at Liverpool, may be easily imagined and readily understood. Also,
how heartily we drank the captain’s health that day at dinner; and
how restless we became about packing up: and how two or three of
the most sanguine spirits rejected the idea of going to bed at all
that night as something it was not worth while to do, so near the
shore, but went nevertheless, and slept soundly; and how to be so
near our journey’s end, was like a pleasant dream, from which one
feared to wake.
The friendly breeze freshened again next day, and on we went once
more before it gallantly: descrying now and then an English ship
going homeward under shortened sail, while we, with every inch of
canvas crowded on, dashed gaily past, and left her far behind.
Towards evening, the weather turned hazy, with a drizzling rain;
and soon became so thick, that we sailed, as it were, in a cloud.
Still we swept onward like a phantom ship, and many an eager eye
glanced up to where the Look-out on the mast kept watch for
Holyhead.
At length his long-expected cry was heard, and at the same moment
there shone out from the haze and mist ahead, a gleaming light,
which presently was gone, and soon returned, and soon was gone
again. Whenever it came back, the eyes of all on board, brightened
and sparkled like itself: and there we all stood, watching this
revolving light upon the rock at Holyhead, and praising it for its
brightness and its friendly warning, and lauding it, in short,
above all other signal lights that ever were displayed, until it
once more glimmered faintly in the distance, far behind us.
Then, it was time to fire a gun, for a pilot; and almost before its
smoke had cleared away, a little boat with a light at her masthead
came bearing down upon us, through the darkness, swiftly. And
presently, our sails being backed, she ran alongside; and the
hoarse pilot, wrapped and muffled in pea-coats and shawls to the
very bridge of his weather-ploughed-up nose, stood bodily among us
on the deck. And I think if that pilot had wanted to borrow fifty
pounds for an indefinite period on no security, we should have
engaged to lend it to him, among us, before his boat had dropped
astern, or (which is the same thing) before every scrap of news in
the paper he brought with him had become the common property of all
on board.
We turned in pretty late that night, and turned out pretty early
next morning. By six o’clock we clustered on the deck, prepared to
go ashore; and looked upon the spires, and roofs, and smoke, of
Liverpool. By eight we all sat down in one of its Hotels, to eat
and drink together for the last time. And by nine we had shaken
hands all round, and broken up our social company for ever.
The country, by the railroad, seemed, as we rattled through it,
like a luxuriant garden. The beauty of the fields (so small they
looked!), the hedge-rows, and the trees; the pretty cottages, the
beds of flowers, the old churchyards, the antique houses, and every
well-known object; the exquisite delights of that one journey,