Yet within this floating world I am upon, sympathies are narrowed down; they can not range, as upon the land, over a thousand objects. You are strangely attracted toward some frail girl, whose pallor has now given place to the rich bloom of the sea life. You listen eagerly to the chance snatches of a song from below, in the long morning watch. You love to see her small feet tottering on the unsteady deck; and you love greatly to aid her steps, and feel her weight upon your arm, as the ship lurches to a heavy sea. Hopes and fears knit together pleasantly upon the ocean. Each day seems to revive them; your morning salutation is like a welcome, after absence, upon the shore; and each “good-night” has the depth and fullness of a land “farewell.” And beauty grows upon the ocean; you can not certainly say that the face of the fair girl-voyager is prettier than that of Isabel; oh, no! but you are certain that you cast innocent and honest glances upon her as you steady her walk upon the deck, far oftener than at the first; and ocean life and sympathy makes her kind; she does not resent your rudeness one-half so stoutly as she might upon the shore. She will even linger of an evening—pleading first with the mother, and standing beside you—her white hand not very far from yours upon the rail—look down where the black ship flings off with each plunge whole garlands of emeralds; or she will look up (thinking perhaps you are looking the same way) into the skies, in search of some stars—which were her neighbors at home. And bits of old tales will come up, as if they rode upon the ocean quietude; and fragments of half-forgotten poems, tremulously uttered—either by reason of the rolling of the ship, or some accidental touch of that white hand. But ocean has its storms when fear will make strange and holy companionship; and even here my memory shifts swiftly and suddenly. —It is a dreadful night. The passengers are clustered, trembling, below. Every plank shakes; and the oak ribs groan as if they suffered with their toil. The hands are all aloft; the captain is forward shouting to the mate in the cross-trees, and I am clinging to one of the stanchions by the binnacle. The ship is pitching madly, and the waves are toppling up, sometimes as high as the yard-arm, and then dipping away with a whirl under our keel that makes every timber in the vessel quiver. The thunder is roaring like a thousand cannons; and at the moment the sky is cleft with a stream of fire that glares over the tops of the waves, and glistens on the wet decks and the spars—lighting up all so plain that I can see the men’s faces in the main-top, and catch glimpses of the reefers on the yard-arm, clinging like death; then all is horrible darkness.