But The Gentlemen Overruled His
Arguments, Which We Were All Very Sorry For Afterwards, When We
Found Ourselves Becalmed On The Little Belt Ten Hours, Tacking About
Without Ceasing, To Gain The Shore.
An oversight likewise made the passage appear much more tedious,
nay, almost insupportable.
When I went on board at the Great Belt,
I had provided refreshments in case of detention, which remaining
untouched I thought not then any such precaution necessary for the
second passage, misled by the epithet of "little," though I have
since been informed that it is frequently the longest. This mistake
occasioned much vexation; for the child, at last, began to cry so
bitterly for bread, that fancy conjured up before me the wretched
Ugolino, with his famished children; and I, literally speaking,
enveloped myself in sympathetic horrors, augmented by every fear my
babe shed, from which I could not escape till we landed, and a
luncheon of bread and basin of milk routed the spectres of fancy.
I then supped with my companions, with whom I was soon after to part
for ever - always a most melancholy death-like idea - a sort of
separation of soul; for all the regret which follows those from whom
fate separates us seems to be something torn from ourselves. These
were strangers I remember; yet when there is any originality in a
countenance, it takes its place in our memory, and we are sorry to
lose an acquaintance the moment he begins to interest us, through
picked up on the highway.
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