Richard Henry Dana

Name: Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI
Author: Richard Henry Dana

Summary

“Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI”, is a work by Richard Henry Dana. It explores elements such as sailor, crew and berth.

Quotes from Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI (Richard Henry Dana)

Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI

“ Then, too, at sea—to use a homely but expressive phrase—you miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark, upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own and one is taken suddenly from among them, and they miss him at every turn. It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or new scenes to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night watch is mustered. There is one less to take the wheel and one less to lay out with you upon the yard. ”

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Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI

“ Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. A man dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and “the mourners go about the streets;” but when a man falls overboard at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which give to it an air of awful mystery. A man dies on shore—you follow his body to the grave, and a stone marks the spot. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI

“ Our cook, a simple-hearted old African, who had been through a good deal in his day, and was rather seriously inclined, always going to church twice a day when on shore, and reading his Bible on a Sunday in the galley, talked to the crew about spending their Sabbaths badly, and told them that they might go as suddenly as George had, and be as little prepared.
Yet a sailor’s life is at best but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain. The beautiful is linked with the revolting, the sublime with the commonplace, and the solemn with the ludicrous. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI

“ A man is shot down by your side in battle, and the mangled body remains an object, and a real evidence; but at sea, the man is near you—at your side—you hear his voice, and in an instant he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI

“ The crew all said that it was in vain, for the man did not know how to swim, and was very heavily dressed. So we then filed away and kept her off to her course.
The laws regulating navigation make the captain answerable for the effects of a sailor who dies during the voyage, and it is either a law or a universal custom, established for convenience, that the captain should immediately hold an auction of his things, in which they are bid off by the sailors, and the sums which they give are deducted from their wages at the end of the voyage. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI

“ He talked about George’s having spoken of his friends, and said he believed few men died without having a warning of it, which he supported by a great many stories of dreams, and the unusual behavior of men before death. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI

“ All these things make such a death peculiarly solemn, and the effect of it remains upon the crew for some time. There is more kindness shown by the officers to the crew, and by the crew to one another. There is more quietness and seriousness. The oath and the loud laugh are gone. The officers are more watchful, and the crew go more carefully aloft. The lost man is seldom mentioned, or is dismissed with a sailor’s rude eulogy—“Well, poor George is gone! ”

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Source: Wikisource

Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast — Chapter VI

“ They say,—“God won’t be hard upon the poor fellow,” and seldom get beyond the common phrase which seems to imply that their sufferings and hard treatment here will excuse them hereafter,—“To work hard, live hard, die hard, and go to hell after all, would be hard indeed!” ”

Richard Henry Dana

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