“How this gliding river makes one think of life and eternity! Not because the grand old simile lives in every language. Not because we have read and heard it, in a hundred forms and more. A savage from the Rocky Mountains feels the same idea—for ideas strongly stamped pierce into the feelings. “Why does the mind so glide away to some calm sea of melancholy, when we stand and gaze intently upon flowing water? And the larger the spread of the water is, and the grander the march of the current, the deeper and more irresistible grows the sadness of the gazer. “That naval captain, so well known as an explorer of the Amazon, who dined with us at Nowelhurst one day last July, was a light–hearted man by nature, and full of wit and humour. And yet, in spite of wine and warmth, he made the summer twilight creep with the sadness of his stories. Nevertheless, we hung upon them with a strange enchantment; we drew more real pleasure from them than from a world of drolleries. Poor Clayton tried to run away, for he never could bear melancholy; but all he did was to take a chair nearer to the voyager. As for me, I cried; in spite of myself, I cried; being carried away by the flow of his language, so smooth, and wide, and gliding, with the mystery of waters. “And he was not one of those shallow men who talk for effect at dinner–parties. Nothing more than a modest sailor, leaving his mind to its natural course. Only he had been so long upon that mighty river, that he nevermore could cease from gliding, ever gliding, with it. “Once or twice he begged our pardon for the sweep of hazy sadness moving (like the night on water) through his tales and scenery. He is gone there again of his own free choice. He must die upon that river. He loves it more than any patriot ever loved his country. Betwixt a man and flowing water there must be more than similitude, there must be a sort of sympathy.” “_Tap–Robin_, ahoy there! Ahoy, every son of a sea–cook of you. Heave us over a rope, you lubbers. Would yer swamp us with parson aboard of me?” This was Mr. Jupp, of course, churning up Cradʼs weak ideas, like a steam–paddle in a fishpond. Perhaps the reason why those ideas had been of such sad obscurity, and so fluxed with sorry sentiment, was that the vague concipient believed himself to be shipped off for an indefinite term of banishment, without even a message from Amy. Whereas, in truth, he was only going for a little voyage to Ceylon, in the clipper ship _Taprobane_, A 1 for all time at Lloydʼs, and never allowed to carry more than twice as much as she could.