Border and Bastille

Оглавление

George A. Lawrence. Border and Bastille

Border and Bastille

Table of Contents

L'ENVOI

BORDER AND BASTILLE

CHAPTER I

A FOUL START

CHAPTER II

CONGRESSIA

CHAPTER III

CAPUA

CHAPTER IV

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL

CHAPTER V

THE FORD

CHAPTER VI

THE FERRY

CHAPTER VII

FALLEN ACROSS THE THRESHOLD

CHAPTER VIII

THE ROAD TO AVERNUS

CHAPTER IX

CAGED BIRDS

CHAPTER X

DARK DAYS

CHAPTER XI

HOMEWARD BOUND

CHAPTER XII

A POPULAR ARMAMENT

CHAPTER XIII

THE DEBATABLE GROUND

CHAPTER XIV

SLAVERY AND THE WAR

Отрывок из книги

George A. Lawrence

Published by Good Press, 2019

.....

Quite crippled for the time being by rheumatism, I was in bad form for clambering about the sloping, slippery planks; nevertheless I did contrive to crawl up to the hurricane-deck just before sundown, about the crisis of the gale. I confess to being disappointed in the "rollers:" it may be that their vast breadth and volume takes off from their apparent height, but I scarcely thought it reached Dr. Scoresby's standard—from 26 to 30 feet, if I remember right, from trough to crest. One realizes thoroughly the abysmal character of the turbulent chaos, and there is a sensation of infiniteness around and below you not devoid of grandeur; but as an exhibition of the puissance of angry water, I do not think the mid-ocean tempest equal to the storm which brings the thunder of the surf full on the granite bulwarks of Western Ireland.

It must be owned, that the conversational powers of our small society were limited. Very often some selfishness mingled with my sincere compassion for the prostrated sufferings of my Philadelphian friend of the tug-boat; for whenever his weary aching head would allow of the exertion, he could talk on almost any subject, fluently and well. He was returning from a long visit to Paris, and a rapid tour through Germany and Southern Europe. Most of the countries, that he had been compelled to hurry over, I had loitered through in days past, and I ought to have been shamed by the contrast in our recollections—his, so clear and systematical—mine, so vague and dim. An intellectual American travelling through strange lands does certainly look at nature, animate and inanimate, after a practical business-like fashion peculiar to his race; but it would be unfair to infer that such minds are, necessarily, unappreciative. At all events, that concentrative, synthetical power, that takes in surrounding objects at a single glance, and retains them in a tolerably distinct classification, is rather enviable, even as a mental accomplishment.

.....