APRIL 25.
Edward complains no longer of the pain in his chest; be
sleeps well, eats enough, has no fever, and every symptom is so
favourable, that Dr. Ashman encourages us to hope that he has
received no material injury. Our ship-carpenter has always
appeared to be the sulkiest and surliest of sea-bears: yet on the
day of Edward's accident he passed every minute that he could
command by the side of his sofa, kneeling and praying, and
watching him as if he had been his son, and every now and then
wiping away his " own tears " with the dirtiest of all possible
pocket-bandkerchiefs. So that what Goldsmith said of Dr. Johnson may be
applied to this
old,man—" He has nothing of a bear
but his skin." After tearing every sail in the ship into shivers,
and being as disagreeable as ever it could be, the gale has at
length abated. Yesterday it was a storm, and we were going to
Ireland, Lisbon, Brest—in short, everywhere except to England;
to-day it is a dead calm, and we are going nowhere at all.
