When first I began to throw writings overboard I was careful to tear
them into small pieces, supposing that they might be picked up. I soon
learned that this was useless. The captain seeing me do it told me that
he would be willing to throw any writing into the sea fearless of its
being found and read. In a very little while the water would reduce
it to pulp, the incessant motion would destroy it, and even if it
did not, the chance of its being picked up or washed ashore would be
many millions to one of its ever coming into anybody’s hand. Among the
countless things which we had seen afloat we never saw at sea a piece
of writing. After this I took some old manuscripts on deck and threw
them overboard, leaf by leaf. A sermon which one of the children at
home had written for me in pencil from dictation I had copied in ink
and the original was now useless. Mother Cary’s chickens flew down upon
the pages as they one after another settled on the water, and finally
a large albatross came, lighted on the water, watched the leaves as
they floated along and tried to eat one. We little imagined, that rainy
afternoon as we sat on the piazza at Milton, that the leaves which one
who may read this held in her hand would pass under the eye of a Cape
Horn albatross on the Pacific Ocean.