THE
‘MOSELLE
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past the limit, and θ?îo? ?v???s, are not to be met with in these times. But if not with inspired men, I might fall in at any rate with sensible men who would talk on things which I wanted to know. Winter and spring in a warm climate were pleasanter than a winter and spring at home; and as there is compensation in all things, old people can see some objects more clearly than young people can see them. They have no interests of their own to mislead their percep tion. They have lived too long to believe in any formulas or theories. ‘ Old age,’ the Greek poet says, ‘ is not wholly a misfortune. Experience teaches things which the young know not.’ Old men at any rate like to think so. 1
The ‘ Moselle,’ in which I had taken my passage, was a large steamer of 4,000 tons, one of the best where all are good— on the West Indian mail line. Her long straight sides and rounded bottom promised that she would roll, and I may say that the promise was faithfully kept; but except to the stomachs of the inexperienced rolling is no disadvantage. A vessel takes less water on board in a beam sea when she yields to the wave than when she stands up stiff and straight against it. The deck when I went on board was slippery with ice. There was the usual crowd and confusion before departure, those who were going out being undistinguishable, till the bell rang to clear the ship, from the friends who had accompanied them to take leave. I discovered, however, to my satisfaction that our party in the cabin would not be a large one. The West Indians who had come over for the Colonial Exhibition were most of them already gone. They, along with the rest, had taken back with them a conscious ness that their visit had not been wholly in vain, and that the interest of the old country in her distant possessions seemed quickening into life once more. The commis-
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