BIOGRAPHICAL 149 



bined to present a picture of elegant and 

 dignified prosperity. The merchant gave 

 liberally to church and charity, encouraged 

 learning, was a power in politics, enter- 

 tained royally and was in the best sense of 

 the word a polished gentleman. 



But it is not given to all to succeed, and 

 if after a manly fight, the boy now grown 

 old returned to his native village unfortu- 

 nate and little better off in worldly wealth 

 than when he left it as cabin boy, if he 

 found that the clerk or farm hand whose 

 humdrum life he had despised had passed 

 him in the race, still his life at sea had 

 taught him to accept the mutabilities of 

 fortune; and as memory went back over 

 the kaleidoscopic changes of his career, he 

 could say with some satisfaction at least, I 

 have lived. 



It was not given to Captain Lamson to 

 succeed, but he certainly had lived. 

 Wrecked when a mere boy on Cape Cod, 

 wrecked in mature life on the "Blue Cai- 

 cos," alternately a prisoner on French and 



