Pity for the mariner's wife! all right again, but not in the way the
poetry puts it. Look-a here! whose life's the safest in the whole world
The poor mariner's. You look at the statistics, you'll see. So don't
you fool away any sympathy on the poor mariner's dangers and privations
and sufferings. Leave that to the poetry muffs. Now you look at the
other side a minute. Here is Captain Brace, forty years old, been at sea
thirty. On his way now to take command of his ship and sail south from
Bermuda. Next week he'll be under way; easy times; comfortable quarters;
passengers, sociable company; just enough to do to keep his mind healthy
and not tire him; king over his ship, boss of everything and everybody;
thirty years' safety to learn him that his profession ain't a dangerous
one. Now you look back at his home. His wife's a feeble woman; she's a
stranger in New York; shut up in blazing hot or freezing cold lodgings,
according to the season; don't know anybody hardly; no company but her
lonesomeness and her thoughts; husband gone six months at a time.
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