第18章 THE VOYAGE(6)

And here I cannot pass by another observation on the deplorable want of taste in our enjoyments,which we show by almost totally neglecting the pursuit of what seems to me the highest degree of amusement;this is,the sailing ourselves in little vessels of our own,contrived only for our ease and accommodation,to which such situations of our villas as I have recommended would be so convenient,and even necessary.

This amusement,I confess,if enjoyed in any perfection,would be of the expensive kind;but such expense would not exceed the reach of a moderate fortune,and would fall very short of the prices which are daily paid for pleasures of a far inferior rate.

The truth,I believe,is,that sailing in the manner I have just mentioned is a pleasure rather unknown,or unthought of,than rejected by those who have experienced it;unless,perhaps,the apprehension of danger or seasickness may be supposed,by the timorous and delicate,to make too large deductions--insisting that all their enjoyments shall come to them pure and unmixed,and being ever ready to cry out,--Nocet empta dolore voluptas.

This,however,was my present case;for the ease and lightness which I felt from my tapping,the gayety of the morning,the pleasant sailing with wind and tide,and the many agreeable objects with which I was constantly entertained during the whole way,were all suppressed and overcome by the single consideration of my wife's pain,which continued incessantly to torment her till we came to an anchor,when I dispatched a messenger in great haste for the best reputed operator in Gravesend.A surgeon of some eminence now appeared,who did not decline tooth-drawing,though he certainly would have been offended with the appellation of tooth-drawer no less than his brethren,the members of that venerable body,would be with that of barber,since the late separation between those long-united companies,by which,if the surgeons have gained much,the barbers are supposed to have lost very little.This able and careful person (for so I sincerely believe he is)after examining the guilty tooth,declared that it was such a rotten shell,and so placed at the very remotest end of the upper jaw,where it was in a manner covered and secured by a large fine firm tooth,that he despaired of his power of drawing it.

He said,indeed,more to my wife,and used more rhetoric to dissuade her from having it drawn,than is generally employed to persuade young ladies to prefer a pain of three moments to one of three months'continuance,especially if those young ladies happen to be past forty and fifty years of age,when,by submitting to support a racking torment,the only good circumstance attending which is,it is so short that scarce one in a thousand can cry out "I feel it,"they are to do a violence to their charms,and lose one of those beautiful holders with which alone Sir Courtly Nice declares a lady can ever lay hold of his heart.He said at last so much,and seemed to reason so justly,that I came over to his side,and assisted him in prevailing on my wife (for it was no easy matter)to resolve on keeping her tooth a little longer,and to apply palliatives only for relief.These were opium applied to the tooth,and blisters behind the ears.

Whilst we were at dinner this day in the cabin,on a sudden the window on one side was beat into the room with a crash as if a twenty-pounder had been discharged among us.We were all alarmed at the suddenness of the accident,for which,however,we were soon able to account,for the sash,which was shivered all to pieces,was pursued into the middle of the cabin by the bowsprit of a little ship called a cod-smack,the master of which made us amends for running (carelessly at best)against us,and injuring the ship,in the sea-way;that is to say,by damning us all to hell,and uttering several pious wishes that it had done us much more mischief.All which were answered in their own kind and phrase by our men,between whom and the other crew a dialogue of oaths and scurrility was carried on as long as they continued in each other's hearing.

It is difficult,I think,to assign a satisfactory reason why sailors in general should,of all others,think themselves entirely discharged from the common bands of humanity,and should seem to glory in the language and behavior of savages!They see more of the world,and have,most of them,a more erudite education than is the portion of landmen of their degree.Nor do I believe that in any country they visit (Holland itself not excepted)they can ever find a parallel to what daily passes on the river Thames.Is it that they think true courage (for they are the bravest fellows upon earth)inconsistent with all the gentleness of a humane carriage,and that the contempt of civil order springs up in minds but little cultivated,at the same time and from the same principles with the contempt of danger and death?Is it--?in short,it is so;and how it comes to be so I leave to form a question in the Robin Hood Society,or to he propounded for solution among the enigmas in the Woman's Almanac for the next year.