It is an interest which was born of Delia Bacon's book--away back
in the ancient day--1857, or maybe 1856. About a year later my
pilot-master, Bixby, transferred me from his own steamboat to the
PENNSYLVANIA, and placed me under the orders and instructions of George
Ealer--dead now, these many, many years. I steered for him a good many
months--as was the humble duty of the pilot-apprentice: stood a daylight
watch and spun the wheel under the severe superintendence and correction
of the master. He was a prime chess-player and an idolater of
Shakespeare. He would play chess with anybody; even with me, and it cost
his official dignity something to do that. Also--quite uninvited--he
would read Shakespeare to me; not just casually, but by the hour, when it
was his watch and I was steering. He read well, but not profitably for
me, because he constantly injected commands into the text. That broke it
all up, mixed it all up, tangled it all up--to that degree, in fact, that
if we were in a risky and difficult piece of river an ignorant person
couldn't have told, sometimes, which observations were Shakespeare's and
which were Ealer's. For instance:
What man dare, _I_ dare!
Approach thou WHAT are you laying in the leads for? what a hell of an
idea! like the rugged ease her off a little, ease her off! rugged Russian
bear, the armed rhinoceros or the THERE she goes! meet her, meet her!
didn't you KNOW she'd smell the reef if you crowded in like that? Hyrcan
tiger; take any ship but that and my firm nerves she'll be in the WOODS
the first you know! stop he starboard! come ahead strong on the larboard!
back the starboard! .
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