As for myself, by one of those anomalous
changes of feeling of which we are all the subjects, I found that I
was in a state of indifference, for which I could by no means account.
A year before, while carrying hides on the coast, the assurance that
in a twelve month we should see Boston, made me half wild; but now
that I was actually there, and in sight of home, the emotions which
I had so long anticipated feeling, I did not find, and in their
place was a state of very nearly entire apathy. Something of the
same experience was related to me by a sailor whose first voyage was
one of five years upon the North-west Coast. He had left home, a
lad, and after several years of very hard and trying experience, found
himself homeward bound; and such was the excitement of his feelings
that, during the whole passage, he could talk and think of nothing
else but his arrival, and how and when he should jump from the
vessel and take his way directly home. Yet when the vessel was made
fast to the wharf and the crew dismissed, he seemed suddenly to lose
all feeling about the matter. He told me that he went below and
changed his dress; took some water from the scuttle-butt and washed
himself leisurely; overhauled his chest, and put his clothes all in
order; took his pipe from its place, filled it, and sitting down
upon his chest, smoked it slowly for the last time.
Pages:
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647