Page [153]

THEE NEiT A
OCTOBER, 1865.
A YARN    BY AN    OLD   SALT.
(CONCLUDED.)
THE material for study to- be re-
commended for both artist and critic,
is properly his own personal expe-
riences and observations; if lie feels
pleased by anything seen or heard, let
him analyze his pleasure, find its true
cause, and he will then know how to
produce the same pleasure in the minds
of others, or at least as near it as his
individuality will permit. This may be
illustrated by the statement of one who
had learned the "mystery of the sea,"
in-as nearly as possible-his own
words: "' When a small boy, I was rid-
ing in a carriage, got sleepy, and closed
my eyes, and suddenly thought the car-
riage was going backward, and looked;
no, all was right; but, by repeated trial,
I found that, with my eyes shut, the
motion felt like the reverse of the fact;
the feeling could not be reasoned away,
and puzzled me much. About the same
date, while standing on a solid stone-
and-earth wharf, looking at the waves
passing, it seemed as if the wharf moved
and the waves stood still; reason could
not overcome the feeling except by a
mechanical effort of the nerves and
muscle of the eye, and so perfect was
the impression on my mind, of thie
wharf's motion that I stamped and
jumped on the stones to assure myself
of their immobility; again I sought the
'why,' and was puzzled. A few years
later, a-going down the bay in a sailing
craft, of scarcely perceptible motion, as
I lay in the cabin almost asleep, I felt
the sloop turn; I looked, but there was
not even a ray of sunlight, not an ap
pearance altered, yet I knew that the
sloop had turned; I went on deck; our
course was altered several points, though
such alteration involved no noise, no
change of the relative position of the
parts of the vessel. The thing often oc-
curred afterwards, but ' Why? I  These
feelings are as strong now as ever; thus,
when walking the street, if I close my
eyes, I seem going backward; when the
ferry-boat starts it looks as if the piles
of the 'slip' were in motion, not the
boat; when asleep in my berth on the-
'Sound boat,' I always awaken with
the swing around the New London light
boat; or, going the other way, get dis-
turbed at Sandy Point, awaken fully
around Throg's Neck, and am restless
from there around the Battery. This is
not mere habit; it acts in the cars, over
roads travelled for the first time; and
in all manner of conveyances, ashore
and at sea, whenever the mind is settled
and calm enough to perceive the impres-
sion. I have read no author who cor-
rectly explains these things, but I haves
spent much of my life in a way that
compelled me to be awake o' nights; to
walk the deck, in situations where books.
and newspapers could not disturb the
action of the brain; where the officers
we saw little of, took all the care and
anxiety of navigating and commanding
the vessel, and one's companions all,
calm, unexcited like myself, invariably
fell into similar trains of study, and their
influence favored my meditation rather-
VOL. II.]
[No. 10.