At this point of Old Jack's story, however, a cabin-boy came from aft, to say that the captain wanted him. The old seaman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, which he had smoked at intervals in short puffs, put it in his jacket pocket, and got up off the windlass end. "Why, old ship!" said the man-o'-war's-man, "are ye goin' to leave us in the lurch with a _short yarn_?" "Can't help it, bo'", said Old Jack; "orders must be obeyed, ye know," and away he went. "Well, mates," said one, "what was the upshot of it, if the yarn's been overhauled already? I did'nt hear it myself." "Blessed if I know" said several--"Old Jack didn't get the length last time he's got now." "More luck!" said the man-o'-war's-man; "'tis to be hoped he'll finish it next time!" EASTLAKE'S LITERATURE OF THE FINE ARTS. We are surrounded by an external world, which it has pleased the great Maker of the universe to clothe with infinite beauty, cognisable to us through the senses, yet scarcely ours, until, by a more intimate appropriation through the mind, we have added ourselves to it, made it a part of, and in some no inconsiderable degree subject to, the will of our own nature. The inventive faculties of the mind gather all within their reach, which it is their province to combine, and remodel, and revivify with human feeling; and thus, by becoming to a limited extent creative ourselves, we are the more enabled to look up, and in admiration adore the divine power that has made all things out of nothing, and the divine goodness which has given us a perception of a portion of His works. Through the senses we know indeed but imperfectly--more imperfectly than those who have not considered the subject will allow. They minister first to our actual wants, presenting few charms and enticements but such as barely suffice to refresh the mind under the weariness of its daily experience. The bulk of mankind are under a hard necessity, which limits their senses to the work of life: were they enlarged to a greater capacity, that work would be the more irksome. The senses are then, like the air we breathe, reduced from an extreme fineness and purity, for the temporary use of yet unpolished humanity. But they are not intended to continue ever in this state of imperfection.