MY DEAR CHILDREN:--

You wish, first of all, to hear of the voyage. Let me assure you, my
dears, in the very commencement of the matter, that going to sea is not
at all the thing that we have taken it to be.

You know how often we have longed for a sea voyage, as the fulfilment of
all our dreams of poetry and romance, the realization of our highest
conceptions of free, joyous existence.

You remember our ship-launching parties in Maine, when we used to ride
to the seaside through dark pine forests, lighted up with the gold,
scarlet, and orange tints of autumn. What exhilaration there was, as
those beautiful inland bays, one by one, unrolled like silver ribbons
before us! and how all our sympathies went forth with the grand new ship
about to be launched! How graceful and noble a thing she looked, as she
sprang from the shore to the blue waters, like a human soul springing
from life into immortality! How all our feelings went with her! how we
longed to be with her, and a part of her--to go with her to India,
China, or any where, so that we might rise and fall on the bosom of that
magnificent ocean, and share a part of that glorified existence! That
ocean! that blue, sparkling, heaving, mysterious ocean, with all the
signs and wonders of heaven emblazoned on its bosom, and another world
of mystery hidden beneath its waters! Who would not long to enjoy a
freer communion, and rejoice in a prospect of days spent in unreserved
fellowship with its grand and noble nature?

Alas! what a contrast between all this poetry and the real prose fact of
going to sea! No man, the proverb says, is a hero to his valet de
chambre. Certainly, no poet, no hero, no inspired prophet, ever lost so