O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless and our souls as free,
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire and behold our home!
"Sir," said the Honourable Mister Pigeonbarley of Missouri, "we _air_
a peculiar people. Jes so!"
Have you never noticed how, when travelling on a long journey, the
wheels of the railway carriage in which you are sitting seem always to
be rattling out some carefully studied tune, to which the jolts of the
vehicle beat a concerted bass; while, the slackening of the coupling
chains, in combination with the concussion of the buffers as they hitch
up suddenly again, sounds a regular obbligato accompaniment--the scream
of the steam whistle, and the thundering whish and whirr of the train
through a deep cutting or tunnel, or over a bridge with water below,
coming in occasionally as a sort of symphony to the main air?
Have you never noticed this?
No? Bless me, what a _very_ unimaginative person you are! I have,
frequently; and yet, I do not think I am any brighter than the ordinary
run of people.
Drawn some odd thousands of miles by the iron horse, as it has been my
fortune to be during different periods of my life, I have seldom failed
to associate his progress thus with those lesser Melpomenean nymphs, who
may be selected to watch over the destinies of the steam god and fill up
their leisure hours by "riding on a rail," in the favourite fashion of
the South Carolinian darkeys.
Of course the carriage wheels do not perpetually sing the same song:--
that would be monotonous.
They know better than that, I can assure you. Sometimes they rattle out
the maddest of mad waltzes--such as that which the imprudent German
young lady, living near the Harz Mountains, found herself dancing one
day against her will, when she had given expression to the very improper
statement, that, she would "take the devil for a partner," if he only
would put in an appearance at the gay and festive scene at which she was
then present. Sometimes, again, they will evolve, note by note, the
dreariest air that the composer of the Dead March in _Saul_ could have
devised; or, croon you out a soothing lullaby, should you feel sleepy,
to which the charming melody of "The Cradle Song" would bear no
comparison. In fact, the nymphs know their work well; and so alter
their strains as to suit every mood and humour of the variously-tempered
travellers that listen to their musical cadences.
As I proceeded now on my way to Southampton, where I was to take the
ocean steamer for my passage to America, the railway nymphs were busy
with their harmonies.
Not sad or dispiriting by any means, but briskly enlivening was their
lay.