Kissing her again, he turned round, drew
the coverlet over his head, and lay as still as
if that time had come by which she had adjured
him. She stood for some time at the bedside
before she slowly moved away. She stopped
at the door, looked back when shs had opened
it, and asked him if he had called her? But
he lay still, and she softly closed the door
and returned to her room.

Then the wretched boy looked cautiously
up and found her gone, crept out of bed,
fastened his door, and threw himself upon his
pillow again: tearing his hair, morosely
crying, grudgingly loving her, hatefully but
impenitently spurning himself, and no less
hatefully and unprofitably spurning all the
good in the world.

THE LEARNED SAILOR.

ONCE upon a time it was the ne'er-do-well
of any family who went to sea, and he went
out under the impression that he would not
do very well, even if he should rise among
sailors to the head of his profession: always
supposing that he had not entered the navy
or John Company's service. He would be,
when at his best, only the captain of a
trading vessel, a man scarcely distinguished
intellectually from a dealer in marine stores.
His occupation was held to be no voucher for
his respectability, or for his knowledge of
anything more than a few practical details about
ropes and sails and compasses. Little more
science was credited to him for his power of
guiding his ship from London to Rio Janeiro
than would be supposed to be in the possession
of a cab-driver able to guide his horse from
Peckham to the Bank. Now, however, times,
if they are not much changed, are changing,
and the advance from barber-surgery to an
age producing Jenners and John Hunters,
was not greater than the advance will be
from the decaying race of skippers to the age
that will produce merchant officers looking
upon their profession as a learned one, and
ranking with the best class in the aristocracy
of intellect.

That the youngster who goes to sea shall
ever be considered by his friends really to
have embraced one of the learned professions
may seem a remarkably foolish expectation.
Time will show. Medicine was once a
calling exercised only by slaves, who had no
reason to anticipate its present dignity. But
a boy, it will be said, goes to his ship while
very young, and afterwards has little time for
study. For book-study, perhaps. Yet,
inasmuch as book-learning consists largely of
intelligence received by hearsay from all
quarters of the world, he may be no bad scholar
whose work carries him about the world,
and who is qualified to observe those things
for himself in nature which are by others
only seen in print. As one may learn French
among Frenchmen, Spanish among Spaniards,
almost without opening a dictionary, so may a
sailor, who is always seeing that about which
shore-going philosophers can only read and
write, become, with a right use of his time
and opportunities, ten times more truly
learned than a landsman,— and that, too.
perhaps, by help of but a tenth part of the
landsman's literary toil. A certain quantity
of book-work is of course essential, as the
means by which a sailor becomes qualified to
understand what he sees, knows what to look
for, and how to observe. The learned sailor
will not be in a condition to dispense with
books; we only contend that he can become
learned without more reading than his mode
of life will readily permit.

And there will hereafter be great need that
the merchant officer should be, in the broad
and true sense of the word—by which we
steadily abide—a learned man. The same
change is coming over the profession of the
sailor that has come over other professions
long ago. Its means and appliances are
enlarging. Knowledge has increased enough
to make it evident that an investigation of
many secrets, and an application of many
known principles of nature, are more and
more becoming necessary for its perfect
practice. The sailor in a hurricane now
uses, or ought to use, his knowledge of the
theory of storms, and saves his vessel from
distress or loss easily enough by help of a
little of his learning. The sailor on a voyage
observes winds and currents; and, thanks to
a subtle comprehension of what we may call
the internal anatomy of the seas traversed
by his vessel—such, for example, as may be
found broadly displayed in Lieutenant
Maury's Wind and Current Charts, and his
Sailing Directions—he makes clipping
voyages, that bless the man of trade with quick
returns, and bless the world through the
increased vitality of commerce. Nearly a
thousand merchant captains now leave the
American ports freighted with results of the latest
investigations, and at the same time
instructed how to investigate, so that fresh
information may be stored. Their voyages,
to California are, through such knowledge,
shortened by a third; and the seamen who
are competent to take notes, sailing abroad in
all directions, have determined accurately
the limits within which sperm-whales and
other whales are found, to the great
help of the whale-fishery; have discovered a
system of southwardly monsoons in the
equatorial regions of the Atlantic, and on
the west coast of America; have determined
a vibratory motion of the trade-wind zones,
with their belts of calms and their limits for
every month of the year; have added greatly
to the distinctness of our knowledge on the
subject of the Gulf Stream; have discovered
the existence of currents nearly as remarkable
in the Indian Ocean, on the coast of
China, and on the north-western coast of
America, besides storing up other knowledge,
all in the most direct way conducive to the