I saw the _Great Eastern_ sail away. The afternoon was exquisite--one of
the cool, clear, perfect days that followed the storm in the middle of
August; and it seemed to hang over the great ship like a cordial smile.
But it was the only smile the poor Leviathan received. There was a
Christian resignation in her departure. The big ship, like Falstaff, "'a
made a finer end and went away, an it had been any christom child: 'a
parted even just between" four and five, "ev'n at turning o' the tide."
But as when a prince is born, and the bells are rung, and the cannon
fired, and the city is illuminated, and with music and shouting the
people swarm the streets--and when the same prince, grown to be a bad
king and tyrant, dies, outcast and contemned, with never a tear to fall
nor a bell to toll for him--even such was the coming and the going of
the _Great Eastern_.
I remember also the June afternoon when she arrived, and at the same
hour. The city was excited as London used to be by the news of a famous
victory. It was reported early in the morning that she was below, and
public expectation, which had been feeding upon print and picture of
her, was despatching the population to the Battery, to the wharves, to
the excursion boats, and wherever she could be seen. At four o'clock you
could see, off Staten Island, a pyramid of towering masts above all
other masts. She looked a mighty admiral; and as she came up the bay,
attended by the little boats--for all other craft are little beside
her--you could easily remember the approach of Columbus to the shore and
the canoes of curious savages that darted and swarmed around his ship.
Her very size gave her a kind of superiority: the silence of her
progress was full of majesty.
The shores teemed with people. The heights of Staten Island twinkled
and fluttered with the gay toilets of the spectators that covered them.
The Jersey shores were alive. The Battery looked white with human faces.
The piers upon the river, the decks of vessels in the stream, and the
windows and roofs of the buildings that commanded the water, were
crowded with eager watchers. But the prettiest sight was the convoy of
every kind that attended the surprising guest. Yachts, sloops,
schooners, steamers, and tow-boats, large and small, moved down towards
her, came out from the shore, sailed round her, sailed beside her,
crossed her bows, followed her, so that the bay was bewitched with
excitement. Cannon roared, bells rang, flags waved, and the crowd
huzzaed welcome.
Through all the great ship glided majestically on. In response to each
fresh salute of steam-whistle the bell was touched upon the deck--it was
the quiet nod or smile of a prince in reply to the noisy complimenting
of a Common Council. There was an air of dignity and of grandeur in the
size and movement of the ship; and as the public was not disappointed
in her size, but found that she really looked as large as she had been
described and represented; and as every circumstance of her arrival was
propitious, so that she slipped quietly into her dock, like a
ferry-boat--it may fairly be claimed that the _Great Eastern_ had
already won the hearty regard of the New York public.
How she lost it--is it not all related in indignant reports and letters
and caricatures? How she dared to charge a dollar for admission--how
hapless sailors lost their lives--how she went to Cape May--and there
black night rushes down upon the tale. After a visit of forty-nine days,
in which she had unhappily, but too surely, worn out her welcome, she
prepares to depart. But at the last moment petty suits almost detain
her. She shakes them off, however, and with them the cables that bound
her to our shore. She slips into the stream. She promptly points her
head down the bay. It is a lovely afternoon--it is the same river full
of craft--there are the wharves, the windows, the roofs--but where, oh!
where are the people? She fires her departing gun. A few loiterers, whom
chance or business has called to the water-side, look up for a moment as
she goes by. Idle boys upon the wharves joke and jeer at her. Where are
the wolves, naughty boys? How dare you cry bald-head? Everything in the
river and the city slouches in the every-day costume of habit. There are
no gala garments, no fluttering flags, and merry bells, and booming
guns, and cheering crowds. The _Great Eastern_ is going away--who cares?
She will never come back--so much the better! Alas! the poor old King of
yesterday is dying, and there is no one to close his eyes. No; the
courtiers are booted and spurred to dash away the moment the breath is
out of his body and salute the young Prince, the next Sensation, who
shall rule the realm for a day.
When she came in I saw her come up the bay. I saw her come down as she
departed. In the distance, blending with the spires of the city and the
lesser masts, there was the towering cluster rising above all. I
listened for the guns. I looked for the attendant craft. There were
neither, except a brief salute from the Cunarder in port. But the bay of
New York will be watched for many a year before so grand and stately a
sight will be seen again as that great ship making her way through the
Narrows to the sea. When she entered the bay she seemed majestic and
conciliatory; as she left it, she was majestic and disdainful. Yet this
was only the impression of a moment and of the distance. As she neared
the forts at the Narrows entirely alone, with no accompanying steam or
sail vessel, with all the hard luck of her life behind her and following
her even to the latest hour of her stay in America, with the fact that
she had utterly lost all hold upon public interest made glaringly
palpable by the absolute loneliness of her departure, she yet fired a
proud salute as she swept out of the upper bay--a stern farewell that
echoed coldly from unanswering shores--and with the stars and stripes
floating at her peak, magnificent and majestic, the _Great Eastern_
departed.
Gradually, as she passed far down the lower bay, she returned into the
same hazy vastness that I remembered when I first saw her--in which, in
the memories of all who saw her, she will forever remain.