60 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



" homes have occurred, and ' three removes are as bad 

 " ' as a fire.' 



" I have already alluded to my painful susceptibility 

 "to ghostly fears. In my imagination, a skeleton, or 

 * even a corpse, was nearly the same thing as a ghost. 

 " This spring, the body of a drowned sailor was picked 

 "up in the harbour, and laid under a shed on our 

 "premises, covered with a sail, till it could be buried. 

 " My morbid curiosity impelled me to look on it ; and 

 " Captain Stevens turned back the sail, to show me the 

 " face. The corpse had evidently lain long in the water, 

 " so that only the greenish-white bones were left — at least, 

 "in the parts not protected by the clothes. I felt a 

 "great awe and revulsion as I looked at it; and the 

 "grim grinning skull haunted my dreams, and would 

 " suddenly come up before my eyes, when alone in the 

 "dark, for months. It was the first time I had ever 

 " beheld the relics of poor deceased humanity. 



" Among the numerous scraps which had lain, from 

 " time immemorial, in my father's great portfolio, there 

 " was an engraving by Bartolozzi, in his peculiar manner 

 " imitating red chalk. It was a Venus bathing, after 

 " Cipriani, — a most exquisite thing. This I had taken 

 "possession of, and had brought to Newfoundland. 

 "There was a servant girl, named Mary March, living 

 " in one of the houses near our premises, whom I used 

 "to see occasionally, as she came with her pitcher to 

 " fetch water from the clear cold brook that ran along 

 " at the end of our platform. Mary was quite a toast 

 "among our chaps — a pleasant, smiling, perfectly modest 

 " girl ; but what attracted my eager interest was that her 

 " face was the exact counterpart of that of my most 

 " lovely Venus of Bartolozzi's." 



