CHARLES DICKENS 147 



vault ; — and there is the head-wind of that January 

 morning. . . . 



. . . But what the agitation of a steam-vessel is, 

 on a bad winter's night in the wild Atlantic, it is 

 impossible for the most vivid imagination to con- 

 ceive. To say that she is flung down on her side 

 in the waves, with her masts dipping into them, 

 and that, springing up again, she rolls over on the 

 other side, until a heavy sea strikes her with the 

 noise of a hundred great guns, and hurls her back 

 — that she stops, and staggers, and shivers, as 

 though stunned, and then, with a violent throb- 

 ping at her heart, darts onward like a monster 

 goaded into madness, to be beaten down, and 

 battered, and crushed, and leaped on by the angry 

 sea — that thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, and 

 wind, are all in fierce contention for the mastery — 

 that every plank has its groan, every nail its shriek, 

 and every drop of water in the great ocean its howl- 

 ing voice — is nothing. To say that all is grand, 

 and all appalling and horrible in the last degree, 

 is nothing. Words cannot express it. Thoughts 

 cannot convey it. Only a dream can call it up 

 again, in all its fury, rage, and passion. 



Charles Dickens. 



