While so strongly addicted to melancholy, therefore,
he was fond of hearing himself talk; and, palpably encouraged as he had
now been by John Effingham and Paul, and a little emboldened by the
familiarity of a shipwreck, he did not hesitate about mingling in the
discourse, though holding the Effinghams habitually in awe.
"I esteem it a great privilege, ladies and gentlemen," he observed, as
soon as Paul ceased, "to have the honour of being _wracked_ (for so the
steward, in conformity with the Doric of the forecastle, pronounced the
word,) in such company. I should deem it a disgrace to be cast away in
some society I could name, although I will predicate, as we say in
America, nothing on their absence. As to what inwolves the stores, it
surgested itself to me that the ladies would like delicate diet, and I
intermated as much to Mrs. Sidley and t'other French waiting-woman. Do you
imagine, gentlemen, that the souls of the dead are permitted to look back
at such ewents of this life as touches their own private concerns and
feelings?"
"That would depend, I should think, steward, on the nature of the
employment of the souls themselves," returned John Effingham. "There must
be certain souls to which any occupation would be more agreeable than that
of looking behind them.
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