She is right, as usual. Such hopes and intentions do lie, ruined and
hopeless now, strewn about the placid contentment of my mental life,
as the old pensioners sit about the grounds at Greenwich, maimed and
musing in the quiet morning sunshine. Many a one among them thinks
what a Nelson he would have been if both his legs had not been
prematurely carried away; or in what a Trafalgar of triumph he would
have ended, if, unfortunately, he had not happened to have been blown
blind by the explosion of that unlucky magazine.
So I dream, sometimes, of a straight scarlet collar, stiff with gold
lace, around my neck, instead of this limp white cravat; and I have
even brandished my quill at the office so cutlass-wise, that Titbottom
has paused in his additions and looked at me as if he doubted whether
I should come out quite square in my petty cash. Yet he understands
it. Titbottom was born in Nantucket.
That is the secret of my fondness for the sea; I was born by it. Not
more surely do Savoyards pine for the mountains, or Cockneys for the
sound of Bow bells, than those who are born within sight and sound of
the ocean to return to it and renew their fealty.
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