Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/33

 profound word or expression, as well as another fresh conviction of the weakness of human nature.

I have read here also Miss Martineau's “Life in the East.” I like to study pictures of the East, and of the earliest period of the cultivation of our race in opposition to the West—that promised land which I am approaching with a thousand questions in my soul. But I am disturbed in Miss Martineau's book by her evident endeavour to force her own religious opinions upon the life and history of antiquity. Some great and beautiful thoughts, nevertheless, run through the book, like a refreshing breeze. In them I recognise that noble spirit before which I often bowed myself in awe, and before which I bowed last when reading her “Life in a Sick Room.”

The calmest day we have yet had on board! And this calm is really beautiful after the last day's storm. Little sparrows swarm around our vessel in the evening, with greetings from land. They remind me of the birds which brought to Columbus the first intelligence from the shores of the New World. What must have been his state of mind on seeing them!

To-morrow morning, early, we may set foot on American soil at Halifax; but as we there fall in again with “Old England,” I take the matter coolly. I have been on deck for a long time. Sea and sky are calm, and of an uniform light grey, like the everyday life of the north. We leave a broad, straight pathway behind us on the sea, which seems to fade away towards the horizon.

I have been annoyed to-day by the behaviour of some gentlemen to a little storm-driven bird which sought for rest in our vessel. Wearied, it settled down here and there upon our cordage, but was incessantly driven away, especially by two young men, an Englishman and a Spaniard, who seemed to have nothing to do but to teaze this poor little thing to death with their hats and handkerchiefs. It was distressing to see how it endeavoured