208 BRANDY AND SEA SICKNESS. 



real goodness of heart. Indeed, his general manners and con- 

 versation were not only pleasing, but even interesting; and I 

 struggled to believe his insensibility respecting the Dane philoso- 

 phical fortitude. For though the Dane was now quite sober, his 

 character oozed out of him at every pore. And after dinner, 

 when he was again flushed with wine, every quarter of an hour or 

 perhaps oftener he would shout out to the Swede, " Ho ! Nobi- 

 lity, go — do such a thing; Mr. Nobility! — tell the gentlemen 

 such a story, and so forth," with an insolence wliich must have 

 excited disgust and detestation, if his vulgar rants on the sacred 

 rights of equality, joined to his wild havoc of general grammar 

 no less than of the English language, had not rendered it so irre- 

 sistibly laughable. 



At four o'clock I observed a wild duck swimming on the 

 waves, a single, solitary wild duck. It is not easy to conceive, 

 how interesting a thing it looked in that round, objectless desert 

 of waters. I had associated such a feeling of immensity with 

 the ocean, that I felt exceedingly dissapointed, when I was out 

 of sight of all land, at the narrowness and nearneasy as it were, of 

 the circle of the horizon. So little are images capable of satis- 

 fying the obscure feelings connected with words. In the evening 

 the sails were lowered, lest we should run foul of the land, which 

 can be seen only at a small distance. And at four o'clock, on 

 Tuesday morning, I was awakened by the cry of land ! land ! 

 It was an ugly island rock at a distance on our left, called 

 Heiligeland, well known to many passengers from Yarmouth to 

 Hamburgh, who have been obliged by stormy weather to pass 

 weeks and weeks in weary captivity on it, stripped of all their 

 money by the exorbitant demands of the wretches who inhabit 

 it. So at least the sailors informed me. — About nine o'clock we 

 saw the main land, which seemed scarcely able to hold its head 

 above water, low, flat, and dreary, with light-houses and land- 

 marks which seemed to give a character and language to the 

 dreariness. We entered the mouth the Elbe, passing Neuwerk; 

 though as yet the right bank only of the river was visible to us. 

 On this I saw a church, and thanked God for my safe voyage, 

 not without affectionate thoughts of those I had left in England. 



Coleridge. 



