AN OCTOBER ABROAD 233 



captain among the passengers, "and eight points 

 to the right in the northern hemisphere will be 

 the centre of the storm, and eight points to the 

 left in the southern hemisphere." I remembered 

 that, in Victor Hugo's terrible dynamics, storms re- 

 volved in the other direction in the northern hem- 

 isphere, or followed the hands of a watch, while 

 south of the equator they no doubt have ways 

 equally original. 



Late in the afternoon the storm abated, the fog 

 was suddenly laid, and, looking toward the setting 

 sun, I saw him athwart the wildest, most desolate 

 scene in which it was ever my fortune to behold the 

 face of that god. The sea was terribly agitated, and 

 the endless succession of leaping, frothing waves 

 between me and the glowing west formed a picture 

 I shall not soon forget. 



I think the excuse that is often made in behalf 

 of American literature, namely, that our people are 

 too busy with other things yet, and will show the 

 proper aptitude in this field, too, as soon as leisure 

 is afforded, is fully justified by events of daily occur- 

 rence. Throw a number of them together without 

 anything else to do, and they at once communicate 

 to each other the itch of authorship. Confine them 

 on board an ocean steamer, and by the third or 

 fourth day a large number of them will break out 

 all over with a sort of literary rash that nothing 

 will assuage but some newspaper or journalistic en- 

 terprise which will give the poems and essays and 

 jokes with which they are surcharged a chance to 



