When She Left, I Opened The
Street-Door For Her, And With Both Her Hands In Mine, Bade
Her 'Farewell.' Then The Tears Fell, And Her Parting Words
Were:
'I am leaving England never to see it again.' She was
seized with cholera the night she reached Bombay, and died
the following day.
To return to her father, the eminent engineer. He was
distinctly a man of genius, and what is called 'a character.'
He was always in the clouds - not in the vapour of his
engine-rooms, nor busy inventing machines for extracting
sunbeams from cucumbers, but musing on metaphysical problems
and abstract speculations about the universe generally. In
other respects a perfectly simple-minded man.
It was in his palmy days that he invited me to run down to
Sheerness with him, and go over the 'Great Eastern' before
she left with the Atlantic cable. This was in 1865. The
largest ship in the world, and the first Atlantic cable, were
both objects of the greatest interest. The builder did not
know the captain - Anderson - nor did the captain know the
builder. But clearly, each would be glad to meet the other.
As the leviathan was to leave in a couple of days, everything
on board her was in the wildest confusion. Russell could not
find anyone who could find the Captain; so he began poking
about with me, till we accidentally stumbled on the
Commander. He merely said that he was come to take a parting
glance at his 'child,' which did not seem of much concern to
the over-busy captain.
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