Regretting that we could see no more of St.John, that we could scarcely see our way through its dimly lighted streets, we found the ferry to Carleton, and a sleeping-car for Bangor.It was in the heart of the negro porter to cause us alarm by the intelligence that the customs officer would, search our baggage during the night.Asearch is a blow to one's self-respect, especially if one has anything dutiable.But as the porter might be an agent of our government in disguise, we preserved an appearance of philosophical indifference in his presence.It takes a sharp observer to tell innocence from assurance.During the night, awaking, I saw a great light.A man, crawling along the aisle of the car, and poking under the seats, had found my traveling-bag and was "going through" it.
I felt a thrill of pride as I recognized in this crouching figure an officer of our government, and knew that I was in my native land.
End of Volume One of The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley WarnerThe Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Volume 2by Charles Dudley Warner CONTENTS:
SAUNTERINGS
MISAPPREHENSIONS CORRECTED
I should not like to ask an indulgent and idle public to saunter about with me under a misapprehension.It would be more agreeable to invite it to go nowhere than somewhere; for almost every one has been somewhere, and has written about it.The only compromise I can suggest is, that we shall go somewhere, and not learn anything about it.The instinct of the public against any thing like information in a volume of this kind is perfectly justifiable; and the reader will perhaps discover that this is illy adapted for a text-book in schools, or for the use of competitive candidates in the civil-service examinations.
Years ago, people used to saunter over the Atlantic, and spend weeks in filling journals with their monotonous emotions.That is all changed now, and there is a misapprehension that the Atlantic has been practically subdued; but no one ever gets beyond the rolling forties" without having this impression corrected.
I confess to have been deceived about this Atlantic, the roughest and windiest of oceans.If you look at it on the map, it does n't appear to be much, and, indeed, it is spoken of as a ferry.What with the eight and nine days' passages over it, and the laying of the cable, which annihilates distance, I had the impression that its tedious three thousand and odd miles had been, somehow, partly done away with; but they are all there.When one has sailed a thousand miles due east and finds that he is then nowhere in particular, but is still out, pitching about on an uneasy sea, under an inconstant sky, and that a thousand miles more will not make any perceptible change, he begins to have some conception of the unconquerable ocean.
Columbus rises in my estimation.
I was feeling uncomfortable that nothing had been done for the memory of Christopher Columbus, when I heard some months ago that thirty-seven guns had been fired off for him in Boston.It is to be hoped that they were some satisfaction to him.They were discharged by countrymen of his, who are justly proud that he should have been able, after a search of only a few weeks, to find a land where the hand-organ had never been heard.The Italians, as a people, have not profited much by this discovery; not so much, indeed, as the Spaniards, who got a reputation by it which even now gilds their decay.That Columbus was born in Genoa entitles the Italians to celebrate the great achievement of his life; though why they should discharge exactly thirty-seven guns I do not know.Columbus did not discover the United States: that we partly found ourselves, and partly bought, and gouged the Mexicans out of.He did not even appear to know that there was a continent here.He discovered the West Indies, which he thought were the East; and ten guns would be enough for them.It is probable that he did open the way to the discovery of the New World.If he had waited, however, somebody else would have discovered it,--perhaps some Englishman; and then we might have been spared all the old French and Spanish wars.Columbus let the Spaniards into the New World; and their civilization has uniformly been a curse to it.If he had brought Italians, who neither at that time showed, nor since have shown, much inclination to come, we should have had the opera, and made it a paying institution by this time.Columbus was evidently a person who liked to sail about, and did n't care much for consequences.
Perhaps it is not an open question whether Columbus did a good thing in first coming over here, one that we ought to celebrate with salutes and dinners.The Indians never thanked him, for one party.
The Africans had small ground to be gratified for the market he opened for them.Here are two continents that had no use for him.
He led Spain into a dance of great expectations, which ended in her gorgeous ruin.He introduced tobacco into Europe, and laid the foundation for more tracts and nervous diseases than the Romans had in a thousand years.He introduced the potato into Ireland indirectly; and that caused such a rapid increase of population, that the great famine was the result, and an enormous emigration to New York--hence Tweed and the constituency of the Ring.Columbus is really responsible for New York.He is responsible for our whole tremendous experiment of democracy, open to all comers, the best three in five to win.We cannot yet tell how it is coming out, what with the foreigners and the communists and the women.On our great stage we are playing a piece of mingled tragedy and comedy, with what denouement we cannot yet say.If it comes out well, we ought to erect a monument to Christopher as high as the one at Washington expects to be; and we presume it is well to fire a salute occasionally to keep the ancient mariner in mind while we are trying our great experiment.And this reminds me that he ought to have had a naval salute.