[Gutenberg 62336] • Master Rockafellar's Voyage

Excerpt from Master Rockafellar's Voyage

It might have been my looking at this red-faced ancestor OI mine, and admiring his speaking trumpet, and the noble colour of weather which stained his face that first put it into my head to go to sea. I cannot say. Who can tell where little boys get their notions from? I would stand before that picture, and in my small way dream about the ocean, about Sharks, tropic islands full Of cocoa-nut trees, and monkeys, and parrots gorgeous as shapes of burnished gold; and I would dream also, all in my small way, Of flying-fish like little lengths Of pearl flashing out of the dark-blue brine on wings of gossamer, and elephants and ivory tusks, and of black men in turbans and robes glittering with jewels, like the dark velvet Sky on a midsummer night; and so on, and so on, until there arose in me a passion to go to sea, and behold with my own little eyes the' wonders of the world.

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