At first, too, and even when
the hour, and all the objects it exalts, have come to be familiar,
it is difficult, alone and thoughtful, to hold them to their proper
shapes and forms. They change with the wandering fancy; assume the
semblance of things left far away; put on the well-remembered
aspect of favourite places dearly loved; and even people them with
shadows. Streets, houses, rooms; figures so like their usual
occupants, that they have startled me by their reality, which far
exceeded, as it seemed to me, all power of mine to conjure up the
absent; have, many and many a time, at such an hour, grown suddenly
out of objects with whose real look, and use, and purpose, I was as
well acquainted as with my own two hands.
My own two hands, and feet likewise, being very cold, however, on
this particular occasion, I crept below at midnight. It was not
exactly comfortable below. It was decidedly close; and it was
impossible to be unconscious of the presence of that extraordinary
compound of strange smells, which is to be found nowhere but on
board ship, and which is such a subtle perfume that it seems to
enter at every pore of the skin, and whisper of the hold.
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