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T r ; . . t THE 8 UPEESTITION OF SAILOBS . : > r "Al \ sailors , it is notorious , are superstitious ; partly , I suppose , from looking out so much upon the wilderness of waves , empty of all human life ; for mighty attitudes are generally fear-haunted and fear-peopled ; such , for instance , as the solitudes of forests , where , in the absence of human forms and ordinary human Bounds , are discerned forms more dusky and vague , not referred by the eye to any known type , and sounds imperfectly intelligible . And , therefore , are all German coal-burners , wood-cutters , &c ., superstitious . Now the sea is often peopled , amidst its ravings , with what seem innumerable human voices—such voices , or as ominous , as what were heard by Kubla Khan—' ancestral voices prophesying war ; ' oftentimes laughter mixes , from a distance ( seeming to come also from distant times , as Well as distant places ) , with the uproar of waters ; and doubtless shapes of fear , or shapes of beauty not less awful , are at times seen upon the waves by the diseased eye of the sailor , in other cases besides the somewhat rare one of calenture . This vast solitude of the sea being taken , therefore , as one condition of the superstitions fear found so commonly among sailors , a second may be the perilous insecurity of their own lives , or ( if the lives of sailors , after all , by means of large immunities from danger in other shapes are not so insecure as is supposed , though , by the way , it is enough for this result that to themselves they seem so ) yet at all events the insecurity of the ships in which they sail . In such a case , in the case of battle , and in others where the empire of chance seems absolute , there the temptation is greatest to dally with supernatural oracles and supernatural means of consulting them . Finally , the interruption habitually of all ordinary avenues to information about the fate of their dearest relatives ; the consequent agitation which must often possess those who are re-entering upon home waters ; and the sudden burst , upon stepping ashore , of heart-shaking news in long accumulated arrearsthese are circumstances which dispose the mind to look out for relief towards signs and omens as one way of breaking the shock by dim anticipations . Bats leaving a vessel destined to sink , although the political application of it as a name of reproach is purely modern , must be ranked among the oldest of omens ; and perhaps the most sober-minded of men might have leave to be moved with any augury of an ancient traditional order , such as had won faith for centuries , applied to a fate so interesting as that of the ship to which he was on the point of committing himself . " - What writing ! If your mood is for grand writing , open this volume at any page , or linger over this on THE NATION OF LONDON " . " It was a most heavenly day in May of this year ( 1800 ) , when I first beheld and first entered this mighty wilderness , the city- —no ! not the city , but the nation —of London . Often since then , at distances of two and three hundred miles or more from this colossal emporium of men , wealth , arts , and intellectual power , have I felt the sublime expression of her enormous magnitude in one simple form of ordinary occurrence , viz ., in the vast droves of cattle , suppose upon the great north roads , all with their heads directed to London , and expounding the size of the attracting body , together with the force of its attractive power , by the never ending succession of these droves , and the remoteness from the capital of the lines upon which they were moving . A suction so powerful , felt along radii bo vast , and a consciousness , at the same time , that upon other radii still more vast , both by land
and by sea , the same suction is operating , night and day , raminw and winter , and hurrying for ever into one centre the infinite means needed for her infinite purposes , and the endless tributes to the skill or to the luxury of her endless population , crowds the imagination with a pomp to which there is nothing corresponding upon this planet , either amongst the things that have been , or the things that are . Or , if any exception there is , it must be sought in ancient Borne . We , upon this occasion , were in an open carriage , and , chiefly ( as I imagine ) to avoid the dust , we approached London by rural lanes , where any such could be found , or , at least , along by-roads , quiet and shady , collateral to the main roads . In that mode of approach , we missed some features of the sublimity belonging to any of the common approaches upon a main road ; we missed the whirl and the uproar , the tumult and the agitation , which continually thicken and thicken throughout the lart
dozen miles before you reach the suburbs . Already , at three stages' distance ( say , forty miles from London ) , upon some of the greatest roads , the dim presentiment of some vast capital reaches you obscurely , and like a misgiving . This blind sympathy with a mighty hut unseen object , some vast magnetic range of Alps , in your neighbourhood , continues to increase , you know not how . Arrived at the last station for changing horses , Barnet , suppose , on one of the north roads , or Hounslow on the western , you no longer think ( as in all other places ) of naming the next Btajre : nobody says , on pulling up , ' Horses on to London' —that would sound ludicrous one mighty idea broods over all minds , making it impossible to suppose any other destination . Launched upon this final stage , you soon begin to feel vourself entering the stream as it were of a Norwegian maelstrom ; and the stream at length becomes the rush of a cataract . What is meant by the Latin
word trepidatio ? Not anything peculiarly connected with panic ; it belongs as much to the hurrying to and fro of a coming battle , as of a coming flight ; to a marriaeo festival as much as to a massacre ; agitation is the nearest English word . This trepidation increases both audibly and visibly at every half milo , pretty much as one may suppose the roar of Niagara and the thrilling of the ground to grow upon the senseVin the last ten miles of approach , with the wind in its favour until at lem ? th it would absorb and extinguish all other sounds whatever , finally for miles before you reach a suburb of London , such as Islington , for instance , a last . rreat » ign and augury of the immensity which belongs to the coinm * metropolis forces itself upon tho dullest observer , in the growing sense of his own utter iiwighorses attendants
niflcanco . Everywhere else in England , you yourself , , carnage , flf vou travel with any ) , are regarded with attention , perhaps even curiosity : at all events you are seen . But , after passing tho final post-house on cyory avenue to London , for tho latter ton or twelve miles , you become aware that , you are no longer noticed : nobody sees you ; nobody hears you ; nobody regards you ; you do not even regard yourself . In fact , bow should you , at tho moment of first ascertaining your own total unimportance in tho sum of things—a poor shivering unit hi theaggregate of human HfeP Now , for tho n > t time , whatever manner of m « n you were , or seemed to be at starting , nquiro or ' squ . roen , lord or lordW , Zd however related to that city , hamlet , or solitary house , from which yesterday or to-day you slipped your cable . -beyond disguise you find yourself but one wave Z atoti Atlantic , one plant ( and a parasitical plant besides , needing alien props )
in a forest of America . , ; , , , - " These are feelings which do not belong by preference to thoughtful peoplo-- fttr le « a t o people merely sentimental . No man ever waa left to himself for the flmt
of meeting the travelling party , if , at so late an hour , it could yet be expected to arrive . In fact , to our general surprise , we met it almost immediately , but , coming at so slow a pace , that the fall of the horses' feet was not audible until we were close upon them . I mention the case for the sake of the undying impressions which connected themselves with the circumstances . The first notice of the approach was the sudden emerging of horses' heads from the deep gloom of the shady lane ; the next was the mass of white pillows against which the dying patient was reclining . The hearseJike pace at which the carriage moved recalled the overwhelming spectacle of that funeral which had so lately formed part in the most memorable event of my life . But these elements of awe , that might at any rate have struck forcibly upon the mind of a child , were for me , in my condition of morbid nervousness , raised into abiding grandeur by the antecedent experiences of that particular summer night . The listening for hours to the sounds from horses *
hoofs upon distant _ roads , rising and falling , caught and lost , upon the gentle undulation of such fitful airs as might be stirring—the peculiar solemnity of the houra succeeding to sunset—the glory of the dying day—the gorgeousness which , by description , so well I knew of sunset in those West Indian islands from which my father was returning—the knowledge that he returned only to die—the almighty pomp in which this great idea of Death apparelled itself to my young sorrowing heart—the corresponding pomp in which the antagonistic idea , not less mysterious , of life , rose , as if on wings , amidst tropic glories and floral pageantries , that seemed even more solemn and pathetic than the vapoury plumes and trophies of mortality —all this chorus of reitless images , or of suggestive thoughts , gave to my father ' s return , which else had been fitted only to interpose one transitory i-ed-letter day in the calendar of a child , the shadowy power of an ineffaceable agency among my dreams . " What strange dream-picturing power in those sentences !
A CHILD AWAITING HIS FATHER S ABBIVAL FBOM ABBOAD . " It was a summer evening of unusual solemnity . The servants , and four of us children , were gathered for hours , on the lawn before the house , listening for the sound of wheels . Sunset came—nine , ten , eleven o'clock , and nearly another hour had passed—without a warning sound ; for Greenhay , being so solitary a house , formed a terminus ad quern , beyond which was nothing but a cluster of cottages , composing the little hamlet of Greenhill ; so that any sound of wheels coming from the winding lane which then connected us with the Busholme road , carried with it , of necessity , a warning summons to prepare for visitors at Greenhay . No such summons had yet reached us ; it was nearly midnight ; and , for the last time , it we determined that we should move in a body out of the grounds , on the chance
like a pageant of phantoms . The great length of the streets in many quarters of London ; the continual opening of transient glimpses into other vistas equally farstretching , going off at right-angles to the one which you are traversing ; and the murky atmosphere which , settling upon the remoter end of every long avenue , wraps its termination in gloom and uncertainty ; all these are circumstances aiding that sense of vastness and inimitable proportions which for ever brood over the aspect of London in its interior . " For a poem , read this : —
time in the streets , as yet unknown , of London , but he must have been saddened and mortified , perhaps terrified , by the sense of desertion and utter loneliness which belong to his situation . No loneliness can be like that which weighs upon the heart in the centre of faces never-ending , without voice or utterance for him ; eyes innumerable , that have ' no speculation' in their orbs which he can understand ; and hurrying figures of men and women weaving to and fro , with no apparent purposes intelligible to a stranger , seeming like a mask of maniacs , or , oftentimes ,
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We should do our utmoBt to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourag « itself . —GoktBb .
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THE HAYTHORftE PAPERS . No . VI . THE VALUE OP EVIDENCE . flTH Spirit-rappings and Table-movings still the rage , and with the belief in Spontaneous Combustion still unextinguished , it seems desirable that something should be said in justification of that general scepticism with which the philosophical meet the alleged wonders that periodically recur amongst us . Nothing less than a good sized octavo would be needed to contain all that might be written on the matter ; and unfortunately such an octavo , when written , would be little read by those most requiring it . A brief hint or two , however , may find listeners amongst them .
" I tell you I saw it myself , " is the so-thought conclusive assertion with which many a controversy is abruptly ended . Commonly those who make this assertion think that after it nothing remains to be urged ; and they arc astonished nt the unreasonableness of those who still withhold their belief . Though they reject many tales of witchcraft , many ghost-stories whose marvels were testified to by eye-witnesses—though they have repeatedly seen stage-conjurers , of the Robin tribe , seem to do things which they do
not believe were really done—though they have heard of the Automaton Chess-player , and the Invisible Girl , and have perhaps seen explanations of the modes in which the public were deluded by them—though in all these cases they know that the facts were other than the spectators supposed them to be—yet they , cannot imagine that their own perceptions have been Vitiated by the same influences that vitiated the perceptions of others . Or , to put the thing more charitably and perhaps more truly , they forget for the time being that such vitiations are constantly occurring .
To observe correctly , though popularly thought very easy , every man of science know * to be extremely difficult . Our faculties are liable to report falsely from two opposite causes—the presence of hypothesis , and the absence of hypothesis . To the dangers arising from one or other of these , every observation we make is necessarily exposed ; and between the two it
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JtJKE , 25 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 619
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Leader (1850-1860), June 25, 1853, page 619, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1992/page/19/
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