Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/197

152 months ago. My visit to Jamaica becomes every year more filled with hiatuses of recollection, and more and more reduces itself to a general hue; lovely and empurpled, indeed, it will ever be, but one in which it requires more and more effort to trace sequences and to separate adventures; while of early life how large a portion seems (perhaps only seems) consigned to absolute oblivion! Yet here and there, along the line of retrospective glance, there are points and prominences, which seem as if they could never die, occurrences which are, as it were, burnt-in on the memory, and which the haziness of approximate scenes and incidents serves only to place in bolder relief; just as an increase of distance often makes more conspicuous the mountain peaks, which the proximity of a multitude of minor objects concealed or obscured.

Suddenly the wind fails; ruffles up a little, then fails again; another little puff; but all in vain. The sea becomes as smooth as a table, as glassy as a mirror. There is a dancing, glimmering haze all round the horizon, which tells us it is all over with us; and the sun looking out of a sky unveiled by a cloud, pours down his ire upon our heads in the most ferocious manner possible;—and we a couple of leagues from home! I thought of the Ancient Mariner:—

Nothing remained but to unstep the mast, and put