preparations. Don't leave so much as the unlocking of a trunk to be done
after sailing. In the few precious minutes when the ship stands still,
before she weighs her anchor, set your house, that is to say, your state
room, as much in order as if you were going to be hanged; place every
thing in the most convenient position to be seized without trouble at a
moment's notice; for be sure that in half an hour after sailing an
infinite desperation will seize you, in which the grasshopper will be a
burden. If any thing is in your trunk, it might almost as well be in the
sea, for any practical probability of your getting to it.

Moreover, let your toilet be eminently simple, for you will find the
time coming when to button a cuff or arrange a ruff will be a matter of
absolute despair. You lie disconsolate in your berth, only desiring to
be let alone to die; and then, if you are told, as you always are, that
"you mustn't give way," that "you must rouse yourself" and come on deck,
you will appreciate the value of simple attire. With every thing in your
berth dizzily swinging backwards and forwards, your bonnet, your cloak,
your tippet, your gloves, all present so many discouraging
impossibilities; knotted strings cannot be untied, and modes of
fastening which seemed curious and convenient, when you had nothing else
to do but fasten them, now look disgustingly impracticable.
Nevertheless, your fate for the whole voyage depends upon your rousing
yourself to get upon deck at first; to give up, then, is to be condemned
to the Avernus, the Hades of the lower regions, for the rest of the
voyage.

Ah, _those_ lower regions!--the saloons--every couch and corner filled
with prostrate, despairing forms, with pale cheeks, long, willowy hair
and sunken eyes, groaning, sighing, and apostrophizing the Fates, and
solemnly vowing between every lurch of the ship, that "you'll never