The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, August, 1851Various
History
The International Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, August, 1851
Various
Art, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- History -- Periodicals
Weeping and trembling, Bilderdyk aided in raising the disfigured
corpse, and wrapped it up in the net-work of the balloon, which the
hands still grasped firmly. The shock, acting on his excitable
temperament, threw him into a dangerous illness, from which, however,
he recovered, and returned to his native country. There he published
an admirable treatise, "The Theory of Vegetable Organization," and a
poem entitled, "The Destruction of the Primeval World." A French
critic has placed this latter work in the same rank with "Paradise
Lost," and says: "Old Milton has nothing finer, more energetic, or
more vast, in his immortal work." An English critic, however, would
probably scarcely concur in this judgment.
Bilderdyk died in the town of Haarlem on the 18th of December, 1831.
From Household Words.
OUR PHANTOM SHIP: CHINA.
Since a typhoon occurs not much oftener than once in about three
years, it would be odd if we should sail immediately into one; but we
are fairly in the China seas, which are the typhoon's own peculiar
sporting ground, and it is desperately sultry, and those clouds are
full of night and lightning, to say nothing of a fitful gale and angry
sea. Look out! There is the coast of China. Now for a telescope to see
the barren, dingy hills, with clay and granite peeping out, with a few
miserable trees and stunted firs. That is our first sight of the
flowery land, and we shall not get another yet, for the spray begins
to blind us; it is quite as much as we can do to see each other. Now
the wind howls and tears the water up, as if it would extract the
great waves by their roots, like so many of old Ocean's teeth; but he
kicks sadly at the operation. We are driven by the wild blast that
snaps our voices short off at the lips and carries them away; no words
are audible. We are among a mass of spars and men wild as the storm on
drifting broken junks; a vessel founders in our sight, and we are
cast, with dead and living, upon half a dozen wrecks entangled in a
mass, upon the shore of Hong Kong;--ourselves safe, of course, for we
have left at home whatever could be bruised upon the journey. How many
houses have been blown away like hats, how many rivers have been
driven back to swell canals and flood the fields, (whose harvest has
been prematurely cropped on the first warning of the typhoon's
intended visit,) we decline investigating. The evening sky is very
wild, and we were all last night under the typhoon at sea; to-night we
are in the new town of Victoria, and will be phantom bed-fellows to
any Chinaman who has been eating pork for supper. The Chinese are very
fond of pork, or any thing that causes oiliness in man. A lean man
forfeits something in their estimation; for they say, "He must have
foolishness; why has he wanted wisdom to eat more?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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