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Untitled Article
I continued watching with a feverishness of sense , which was relieved as I marked the gradual diminishing of the object in distance ; and descended again to the steerage , but could not rest . After another interval I looked out ; not a speck was visible ; I was sure that at that moment the solid earth was gladdening his foot , and he was bounding over the verdure . Two or three hours elapsed before he was missed
from the ship , and all questions and inquiries resulted in the supposition that he must have fallen overboard during the night , and was drowned . I , of course , affected to believe this , and took my cue accordingly to be as sad and afflicted as I could p rev ail on myself to appear ; but it was a very difficult task to be sorry at all ; for I was counting over the number of miles he had progressed , aiid joyfully anticipating the pleasure of receiving an account of his safe arrival at B— There was much kindness in the altered manner of the sailors :
. they subdued their uproariousness , and laid aside their rude jestings , as if they sympathized in my sorrow , but I remember I was not pleased with this . There was a poor old woman too , who had been allowed to come on board for passage round to Plymouth , to see her son in one of the ships of war there . How she annoyed me by her condolences ! I really disliked her . My hypocrisy transformed her sincerity
of sorrow into a seeming ; and the proffered apples and pears , of which she had brought a stock on board in a box , I declined ; they were nauseous from her hand . What a metamorphosis was there in my palate , that it should be averse to apples and pears , I felt that her sympathy was undeserved , and shrank from it . Truly this essay at counterfeiting was a most vile employment : but I was more desolate than ever in a day or two , and after much painful pro and con I sat
down to write an imploring letter to my father ; but to the chief source of my penitence I did not once allude . I imagined he would ridicule my idea of degradaticn from the society into which I was thrown ; that he would laugh at any fear of disgraceful companionship . I am better informed now , and I do most heartily rejoice that I omitted the only arguments which were likely to prevail with him . I consider it one of the most fortunate events of my life , that my father paid no
attention to my letter ; he never replied to it , perhaps he did not receive it . 1 have some consolation in hoping it never came to hand , for I am sure , although 1 should have escaped much of other kinds of misery , if I had been released from that particular one , 1 should have lost most of the happiness which I have experienced , and have acquired hope and capacity still to feel . 1 rejoice that I was not released from that captivity . How much the mind and disposition of youth are bent and swayed by trifles , may be as strongly illustrated by my history , as by that
of any other living man , perhaps . Jt is because mine were so influenced , that I think it advisable to relate trifling circumstances , which , isolatedly taken , must be regarded by the reader as very insipid ( or rapid—is that the phrase ?) While the ship was yet lying" at anchor , I amused myself by climbing the rigging , and making my way into the tops , and soon growing superior to the road through * lubber ' s hole , ' I mastered the futtock * shrouds : in doing so one day , a book , containing scribbled thoughts and memoranda , dropped from my bosom , and fell on the forecastle . The lieutenant , who was then walking the
Untitled Article
704 Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1833, page 704, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2624/page/44/
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