The ship had been built on the banks of the Dee, at a spot where it is too narrow for her to be launched directly across, and so she lay lengthwise of the river, and was so arranged as to take the water parallel with the stream. She is, for aught I know, the largest ship in the world; at any rate, longer than the Great Britain,—an iron-screw steamer,—and looked immense and magnificent, and was gorgeously dressed out in flags. Had it been a pleasant day, all Chester and half Wales would have been there to see the launch; and, in spite of the rain, there were a good many people on the opposite shore, as well as on our side; and one or two booths, and many of the characteristics of a fair,—that is to say, men and women getting intoxicated7 without any great noise and confusion.
The ship was expected to go off at about twelve o'clock, and at that juncture8 all Mr. ———'s friends assembled under the bows of the ship, where we were a little sheltered from the rain by the projection9 of that part of the vessel10 over our heads. The bottle of port-wine with which she was to be christened was suspended from the bows to the platform where we stood by a blue ribbon; and the ceremony was to be performed by Mrs. ———, who, I could see, was very nervous in anticipation11 of the ceremony. Mr. ——— kept giving her instructions in a whisper, and showing her how to throw the bottle; and as the critical moment approached, he took hold of it along with her. All this time we were waiting in momentary12 expectation of the ship going off, everything being ready, and only the touch of a spring, as it were, needed to make her slide into the water. But the chief manager kept delaying a little longer, and a little longer; though the pilot on board sent to tell him that it was time she was off. "Yes, yes; but I want as much water as I can get," answered the manager; and so he held on till, I suppose, the tide had raised the river Dee to its very acme13 of height. At last the word was given; the ship began slowly to move; Mrs. ——— threw the bottle against the bow with a spasmodic effort that dashed it into a thousand pieces, and diffused14 the fragrance15 of the old port all around, where it lingered several minutes. I did not think that there could have been such a breathless moment in an affair of this kind.
The ship moved majestically17 down toward the river; and unless it were Niagara, I never saw anything grander and more impressive than the motion of this mighty18 mass as she departed from us. We on the platform, and everybody along both shores of the Dee, took off our hats in the rain, waved handkerchiefs, cheered, shouted,—"Beautiful!" "What a noble launch!" "Never was so fair a sight!"—and, really, it was so grand, that calm, majestic16 movement, that I felt the tears come into my eyes. The wooden pathway adown which she was gliding19 began to smoke with the friction20; when all at once, when we expected to see her plunge21 into the Dee, she came to a full stop. Mr. ———, the father of my friend, a gentleman with white hair, a dark, expressive22 face, bright eyes, and an Oriental cast of features, immediately took the alarm. A moment before his countenance23 had been kindled24 with triumph; but now he turned pale as death, and seemed to grow ten years older while I was looking at him. Well he might, for his noble ship was stuck fast in the land of the Dee, and without deepening the bed of the river, I do not see how her vast iron hulk is ever to be got out.
[This steamer was afterwards successfully floated off on the 29th of the same month.]
There was no help for it. A steamboat was hitched25 on to the stranded26 vessel, but broke two or three cables without stirring her an inch. So, after waiting long after we had given up all hope, we went to the office of the ship-yard, and there took a lunch; and still the rain was pouring, pouring, pouring, and I never experienced a blacker affair in all my days. Then we had to wait a great while for a train to take us back, so that it was almost five o'clock before we arrived at Chester, where I spent an hour in rambling27 about the old town, under the Rows; and on the walls, looking down on the treetops, directly under my feet, and through their thick branches at the canal, which creeps at the base, and at the cathedral; walking under the dark intertwining arches of the cloisters28, and looking up at the great cathedral tower, so wasted away externally by time and weather that it looks, save for the difference of color between white snow and red freestone, like a structure of snow, half dissolved by several warm days.
At the lunch I met with a graduate of Cambridge (England), tutor of a grandson of Percival, with his pupil (Percival, the assassinated29 minister, I mean). I should not like this position of tutor to a young Englishman; it certainly has an ugly twang of upper servitude. I observed that the tutor gave his pupil the best seat in the railway carriage, and in all respects provided for his comfort before thinking of his own; and this, not as a father does for his child, out of love, but from a sense of place and duty, which I did not quite see how a gentleman could consent to feel. And yet this Mr. C——— was evidently a gentleman, and a quiet, intelligent, agreeable, and, no doubt, learned man. K——— being mentioned, Mr. C——— observed that he had known him well at college, having been his contemporary there. He did not like him, however,—thought him a "dangerous man," as well as I could gather; he thinks there is some radical30 defect in K———'s moral nature, a lack of sincerity31; and, furthermore, he believes him to be a sensualist in his disposition32, in support of which view he said Mr. K——— had made drawings, such as no pure man could have made, or could allow himself to show or look at. This was the only fact which Mr. C——— adduced, bearing on his opinion of K———; otherwise, it seemed to be one of those early impressions which a collegian gets of his fellow-students, and which he never gets rid of, whatever the character of the person may turn out to be in after years. I have judged several persons in this way, and still judge them so, though the world has cone33 to very different conclusions. Which is right?—the world, which has the man's whole mature life on its side; or his early companion, who has nothing for it but some idle passages of his youth?
Mr. M——— remarked of newspaper reporters, that they may be known at all celebrations, and of any public occasion, by the enormous quantity of luncheon34 they eat.
August 12th.—Mr. B——— dined with us at the Rock Ferry Hotel the day before yesterday. Speaking of Helvellyn, and the death of Charles Cough, about whom Wordsworth and Scott have both sung, Mr. B——— mentioned a version of that story which rather detracts from the character of the faithful dog.
But somehow it lowers one's opinion of human nature itself, to be compelled so to lower one's standard of a dog's nature. I don't intend to believe the disparaging35 story, but it reminds me of the story of the New-Zealander who was asked whether he loved a missionary36 who had been laboring38 for his soul and those of his countrymen. "To be sure I loved him. Why, I ate a piece of him for my breakfast this morning!"
For the last week or two I have passed my time between the hotel and the Consulate39, and a weary life it is, and one that leaves little of profit behind it. I am sick to death of my office,—brutal41 captains and brutal sailors; continual complaints of mutual42 wrong, which I have no power to set right, and which, indeed, seem to have no right on either side; calls of idleness or ceremony from my travelling countrymen, who seldom know what they are in search of at the commencement of their tour, and never have attained43 any desirable end at the close of it; beggars, cheats, simpletons, unfortunates, so mixed up that it is impossible to distinguish one from another, and so, in self-defence, the Consul40 distrusts them all. . . .
At the hotel, yesterday, there was a large company of factory people from Preston, who marched up from the pier44 with a band of military music playing before them. They spent the day in the gardens and ball-room of the hotel, dancing and otherwise merry-making; but I saw little of them, being at the Consulate. Towards evening it drizzled45, and the assemblage melted away gradually; and when the band marched down to the pier, there were few to follow, although one man went dancing before the musicians, flinging out his arms, and footing it with great energy and gesticulation. Some young women along the road likewise began to dance as the music approached.
Thackeray has a dread46 of servants, insomuch that he hates to address them, or to ask them for anything. His morbid47 sensibility, in this regard, has perhaps led him to study and muse48 upon them, so that he may be presumed to have a more intimate knowledge of this class than any other man.
Carlyle dresses so badly, and wears such a rough outside, that the flunkies are rude to him at gentlemen's doors.
In the afternoon J——- and I took a walk towards Tranmere Hall, and beyond, as far as Oxton. This part of the country, being so near Liverpool and Birkenhead, is all sprinkled over with what they call "Terraces," "Bellevues," and other pretty names for semi-detached villas49 ("Recluse Cottage" was one) for a somewhat higher class. But the old, whitewashed50 stone cottage is still frequent, with its roof of slate51 or thatch52, which perhaps is green with weeds or grass. Through its open door, you see that it has a pavement of flagstones, or perhaps of red freestone; and hogs53 and donkeys are familiar with the threshold. The door always opens directly into the kitchen, without any vestibule; and, glimpsing in, you see that a cottager's life must be the very plainest and homeliest that ever was lived by men and women. Yet the flowers about the door often indicate a native capacity for the beautiful; but often there is only a pavement of round stones or of flagstones, like those within. At one point where there was a little bay, as it were, in the hedge fence, we saw something like a small tent or wigwam,—an arch of canvas three or four feet high, and open in front, under which sat a dark-complexioned woman and some children. The woman was sewing, and I took them for gypsies.
August 17th.—Yesterday afternoon J——- and I went to Birkenhead Park, which I have already described. . . . It so happened that there was a large school spending its holiday there; a school of girls of the lower classes, to the number of a hundred and fifty, who disported54 themselves on the green, under the direction of the schoolmistresses and of an old gentleman. It struck me, as it always has, to observe how the lower orders of this country indicate their birth and station by their aspect and features. In America there would be a good deal of grace and beauty among a hundred and fifty children and budding girls, belonging to whatever rank of life. But here they had universally a most plebeian55 look,—stubbed, sturdy figures, round, coarse faces, snub-noses,—the most evident specimens56 of the brown bread of human nature. They looked wholesome57 and good enough, and fit to sustain their rough share of life; but it would have been impossible to make a lady out of any one of them. Climate, no doubt, has most to do with diffusing58 a slender elegance59 over American young-womanhood; but something, perhaps, is also due to the circumstance of classes not being kept apart there as they are here: they interfuse, amid the continual ups and downs of our social life; and so, in the lowest stations of life, you may see the refining influence of gentle blood. At all events, it is only necessary to look at such an assemblage of children as I saw yesterday, to be convinced that birth and blood do produce certain characteristics. To be sure, I have seen no similar evidence in England or elsewhere of old gentility refining and elevating the race.
These girls were all dressed in black gowns, with white aprons60 and neckerchiefs, and white linen61 caps on their heads,—a very dowdyish attire62, and well suited to their figures. I saw only two of their games,—in one, they stood in a circle, while two of their number chased one another within and without the ring of girls, which opened to let the fugitive63 pass, but closed again to impede64 the passage of the pursuer. The other was blind-man's-buff on a new plan: several of the girls, sometimes as many as twenty, being blinded at once, and pursuing a single one, who rang a hand-bell to indicate her whereabouts. This was very funny; the bell-girl keeping just beyond their reach, and drawing them after her in a huddled65 group, so that they sometimes tumbled over one another and lay sprawling66. I think I have read of this game in Strutt's "English Sports and Pastimes."
We walked from the Park home to Rock Ferry, a distance of three or four miles,—a part of which was made delightful67 by a foot-path, leading us through fields where the grass had just been mown, and others where the wheat harvest was commenced. The path led us into the very midst of the rural labor37 that was going forward; and the laborers68 rested a moment to look at us; in fact, they seemed to be more willing to rest than American laborers would have been. Children were loitering along this path or sitting down beside it; and we met one little maid, passing from village to village, intent on some errand. Reaching Tranmere, I went into an alehouse, nearly opposite the Hall, and called for a glass of ale. The doorstep before the house, and the flagstone floor of the entry and tap-room, were chalked all over in corkscrew lines,—an adornment69 that gave an impression of care and neatness, the chalked lines being evidently freshly made. It was a low, old-fashioned room ornamented70 with a couple of sea-shells, and an earthen-ware figure on the mantel-piece; also with advertisements of Allsop's ale, and other drinks, and with a pasteboard handbill of "The Ancient Order of Foresters"; any member of which, paying sixpence weekly, is entitled to ten shillings per week, and the attendance of a first-rate physician in sickness, and twelve pounds to be paid to his friends in case of death. Any member of this order, when travelling, is sure (says the handbill) to meet with a brother member to lend him a helping71 hand, there being nearly three thousand districts of this order, and more than a hundred and nine thousand members in Great Britain, whence it has extended to Australia, America, and other countries.
Looking up at the gateway72 of Tranmere Hall, I discovered an inscription73 on the red freestone lintel, and, though much time-worn, I succeeded in reading it. "Labor omnia vincit. 1614." There were likewise some initials which I could not satisfactorily make out. The sense of this motto would rather befit the present agricultural occupants of the house than the idle gentlefolks who built and formerly74 inhabited it.
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1
glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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mire
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| n.泥沼，泥泞；v.使...陷于泥泞，使...陷入困境 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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intoxicated
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| 喝醉的，极其兴奋的 | |
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juncture
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| n.时刻，关键时刻，紧要关头 | |
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projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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acme
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| n.顶点，极点 | |
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diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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fragrance
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| n.芬芳，香味，香气 | |
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majestic
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| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
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majestically
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| 雄伟地； 庄重地； 威严地； 崇高地 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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gliding
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| v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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hitched
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| （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的过去式和过去分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上 | |
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stranded
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| a.搁浅的，进退两难的 | |
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rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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cloisters
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| n.（学院、修道院、教堂等建筑的）走廊( cloister的名词复数 )；回廊；修道院的生活；隐居v.隐退，使与世隔绝( cloister的第三人称单数 ) | |
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assassinated
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| v.暗杀( assassinate的过去式和过去分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏 | |
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radical
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sincerity
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| n.真诚，诚意；真实 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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cone
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| n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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disparaging
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| adj.轻蔑的，毁谤的v.轻视( disparage的现在分词 )；贬低；批评；非难 | |
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missionary
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| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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laboring
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| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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consulate
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| n.领事馆 | |
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consul
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| n.领事；执政官 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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mutual
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| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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drizzled
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| 下蒙蒙细雨，下毛毛雨( drizzle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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villas
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| 别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅 | |
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whitewashed
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| 粉饰，美化，掩饰( whitewash的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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thatch
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| vt.用茅草覆盖…的顶部；n.茅草(屋) | |
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hogs
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| n.（尤指喂肥供食用的）猪( hog的名词复数 )；（供食用的）阉公猪；彻底地做某事；自私的或贪婪的人 | |
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disported
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| v.嬉戏，玩乐，自娱( disport的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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plebeian
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| adj.粗俗的；平民的；n.平民；庶民 | |
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specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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diffusing
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| （使光）模糊，漫射，漫散( diffuse的现在分词 )； （使）扩散； （使）弥漫； （使）传播 | |
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elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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aprons
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| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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attire
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| v.穿衣，装扮[同]array；n.衣着；盛装 | |
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fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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impede
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| v.妨碍，阻碍，阻止 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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68
laborers
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| n.体力劳动者，工人( laborer的名词复数 )；（熟练工人的）辅助工 | |
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69
adornment
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| n.装饰；装饰品 | |
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70
ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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71
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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72
gateway
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| n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法 | |
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73
inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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74
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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