"Ah! senza amaro
Andare sul mare,
Col sposo del mare,
Non puo consolare."

It is for the same reason that I did not care to dine with you and
Aurelia, that I am content not to stand in St. Peter's. Alas! if I
could see the end of it, it would not be St. Peter's. For those of us
whom Nature means to keep at home, she provides entertainment. One man
goes four thousand miles to Italy, and does not see it, he is so
short-sighted. Another is so far-sighted that he stays in his room and
sees more than Italy.

But for this very reason that it washes the shores of my possible
Europe and Asia, the sea draws me constantly to itself. Before I came
to New York, while I was still a clerk in Boston, courting Prue, and
living out of town, I never knew of a ship sailing for India or even
for England and France, but I went up to the State House cupola or to
the observatory on some friend's house in Roxbury, where I could not
be interrupted, and there watched the departure.

The sails hung ready; the ship lay in the stream; busy little boats
and puffing steamers darted about it, clung to its sides, paddled away
from it, or led the way to sea, as minnows might pilot a whale. The
anchor was slowly swung at the bow; I could not hear the sailors'
song, but I knew they were singing. I could not see the parting
friends, but I knew farewells were spoken. I did not share the
confusion, although I knew what bustle there was, what hurry, what
shouting, what creaking, what fall of ropes and iron, what sharp