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They had read to be sure of wrecks, of noble ships sinking or being burned, of men being castaway on desert islands, with little or no food on which to subsist, of boats long floating on the ocean, till one by one those on board had died of starvation or thirst, or from the exposure they were doomed to endure.
We long to strike back at the human traits which have wronged us, and the satiric depiction of hateful characters whose seeming virtues are turned upside down to expose their impossible hearts feeds our craving for vicarious revenge. We dote upon vinegarish old maids, self- righteous men, and canting women when they are exposed by narrative art, and especially when poetic justice wrecks them.
In 1882, the members of the Fish Commission, studying the frightful record of wrecks and drownings among the Gloucester and Marblehead fishermen, reached the conclusion that an improved model fishing boat might be the means of saving scores of lives. The old model was seen to be too heavily rigged, with too square a counter, and insufficient draught.
And over the whole sea of stationary billows, light is shed like an ethereal raiment, with spare colour blue and grey, and parsimonious green in the near foreground. The detail is somewhat dry and monotonous; for these so finely moulded hills are made up of washed earth, the immemorial wrecks of earlier mountain ranges.
In a certain Cape Cod village, for instance, it had long been the custom to profit from the wrecks that happened upon the dangerous shore, until at last the setting of false lights and the appropriation of the lost cargoes became a legitimate business. The birds of prey flocked to make prize of the booty.
All the best actions of war and peace ... all help given to relatives and strangers and the poor and old and sorrowful and young children and widows and the sick, and to all shunned persons ... all furtherance of fugitives and of the escape of slaves ... all the self-denial that stood steady and aloof on wrecks and saw others take the seats of the boats ... all offering of substance or life for the good old cause, or for a friend's sake or opinion's sake ... all pains of enthusiasts scoffed at by their neighbors ... all the vast sweet love and precious sufferings of mothers ... all honest men baffled in strifes recorded or unrecorded ... all the grandeur and good of the few ancient nations whose fragments of annals we inherit ... and all the good of the hundreds of far mightier and more ancient nations unknown to us by name or date or location ... all that was ever manfully begun, whether it succeeded or no ... all that has at any time been well suggested out of the divine heart of man or by the divinity of his mouth or by the shaping of his great hands ... and all that is well thought or done this day on any part of the surface of the globe ... or on any of the wandering stars or fixed stars by those there as we are here ... or that is henceforth to be well thought or done by you whoever you are, or by any one these singly and wholly inured at their time and inure now and will inure always to the identities from which they sprung or shall spring ... Did you guess any of them lived only its moment?
"See here," continued Haco, warming with his subject as he led Susan past the dormitories where the Russians, who had been maimed during the recent wrecks, were being supplied with dinner in their berths, "see here, another o' the best o' the institootions o' this land looks arter them poor fellers, an' pays their shot for 'em as long as they're here, an' sends them to their homes free of expense that's the Shipwrecked Fishermen's and Mariners' Society.
Ponder old history, and duly frame Your souls to meek acceptance of the thong. Lo! of hundreds who aspire, Eighties perish-nineties tire! They who bear up, in spite of wrecks and wracks, Were season 'd by celestial hail of thwacks. Fortune in this mortal race Builds on thwackings for its base; Thus the All-Wise doth make a flail a staff, And separates his heavenly corn from chaff.
Thus, after a fierce battle and great destruction of ships and men on both sides, the Syracusans and their allies gained the victory. They gathered up the wrecks and bodies of the dead, and sailing back to the city, erected a trophy. The Athenians, overwhelmed by their misery, never so much as thought of recovering their wrecks or of asking leave to collect their dead.
Sometimes they come in a large family all together, the females with their hymn-books, and the men with their different musical instruments, bits of pet salvage from the wrecks of cottage homes. The women have sometimes children in their arms, or led by the hand; and they sometimes carry music-books for the men. I have seen them, too, with little handkerchiefs of rude provender for the day.
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