THE KEGRETTED WATCH. 215 



the air immediately above the waves. But enough I can dwell upon 

 the scene no longer. A loud, wild, universal, unearthly shriek an- 

 nounced the approach of the catastrophe and in a moment the 

 doomed-vessel and its tenants were engulphed beneath the waters ! 



Having detained thee, indulgent reader ! longer than I intended in 

 this preliminary, but I hope not to thee uninteresting, detail, I shall 

 now proceed forthwith to enlighten thee on the real subject-matter of 

 this narrative of the Regretted Watch. 



A party, consisting of the surviving officers, passengers, and crew 

 of the doomed vessel, were enjoying themselves after partaking 

 of a farewell dinner, in an hotel in New York, to which port we had 

 been brought by an American vessel, with which we had fallen in 

 the day after the disaster. We had been recounting our various per- 

 sonal losses of which mine own, as thou must remember, intelligent 

 reader, was no little matter ; and were confessing to such particular 

 articles of mere sentimental regard, as we most esteemed or valued 

 among our unsaved effects. Portraits, locks of hair, letters in short, 

 all gifts or memorials, however otherwise trifling and valueless, of 

 distant objects of affection, were, with one single and singular excep- 

 tion, the universal theme of regret and lamentation; for it is when 

 in distant lands unknown, uncherished and alone, that the heart most 

 clings to such memorials, the only visible links that bind us to the 

 absent and the beloved ! and they only who have been separated by 

 the mighty waters from the objects of their affection, and felt the 

 priceless value of such cherished mementos, can conceive the poignant 

 affliction occasioned by their irretrievable loss ! 



One of the late cabin-passengers was an American gentleman of 

 considerable fortune, who had large estates somewhere south of the 

 Potomac, and was on his return from a lengthened tour over Europe. 

 He had had a classical education, was not without taste, and had col- 

 lected in his travels, a great variety of rare books, curiosities, and 

 objects of virtu, all of which had shared the fate of my muslins and 

 broad-cloths. Although possessing an immensity of information upon 

 all sorts of subjects, he was always exceedingly reserved and extraor- 

 dinarily silent; in short, he was cold and phlegmatic, without being 

 particularly disagreeable. The only object in the world that seemed 

 to have awakened the slightest interest in his affections was a gold 

 watch, a repeater, of somewhat curious workmanship, for which he 

 had paid an enormous sum to an ingenious artist in Geneva, and the 

 merits of which was the only subject upon which he had ever con- 

 descended to be communicative and eloquent. This highly-prized 

 watch had been left suspended in his state-room, on the first alarm 

 occasioned by the discovery of the leak, and, incredibile dictu ! was 

 unthought of until after the going down of the ship, when its loss 

 was discovered, and appeared to be the sole and entire object of 

 regret to its owner. 



At the farewell dinner alluded to, the loss of this watch was the 

 only theme of his remarks and lamentations, and the recovery of it, 

 could such a thing be possible, seemed the only thing on earth that 

 could restore him to his wonted phlegmatic reserve and silence. 



Now it so happened, that being among the last who got into the 



