Redburn | Page 4

after it as fast as they could fly.
Then, too, we had a large library-case, that stood in the hall; an old
brown library-case, tall as a small house; it had a sort of basement, with
large doors, and a lock and key; and higher up, there were glass doors,
through which might be seen long rows of old books, that had been
printed in Paris, and London, and Leipsic. There was a fine library
edition of the Spectator, in six large volumes with gilded backs; and
many a time I gazed at the word "London" on the title-page. And there
was a copy of D'Alembert in French, and I wondered what a great man
I would be, if by foreign travel I should ever be able to read straight
along without stopping, out of that book, which now was a riddle to
every one in the house but my father, whom I so much liked to hear
talk French, as he sometimes did to a servant we had.
That servant, too, I used to gaze at with wonder; for in answer to my
incredulous cross-questions, he had over and over again assured me,
that he had really been born in Paris. But this I never entirely believed;
for it seemed so hard to comprehend, how a man who had been born in
a foreign country, could be dwelling with me in our house in America.
As years passed on, this continual dwelling upon foreign associations,
bred in me a vague prophetic thought, that I was fated, one day or other,
to be a great voyager; and that just as my father used to entertain
strange gentlemen over their wine after dinner, I would hereafter be
telling my own adventures to an eager auditory. And I have no doubt
that this presentiment had something to do with bringing about my
subsequent rovings.
But that which perhaps more than any thing else, converted my vague

dreamings and longings into a definite purpose of seeking my fortune
on the sea, was an old-fashioned glass ship, about eighteen inches long,
and of French manufacture, which my father, some thirty years before,
had brought home from Hamburg as a present to a great-uncle of mine:
Senator Wellingborough, who had died a member of Congress in the
days of the old Constitution, and after whom I had the honor of being
named. Upon the decease of the Senator, the ship was returned to the
donor.
It was kept in a square glass case, which was regularly dusted by one of
my sisters every morning, and stood on a little claw-footed Dutch
tea-table in one corner of the sitting-room. This ship, after being the
admiration of my father's visitors in the capital, became the wonder and
delight of all the people of the village where we now resided, many of
whom used to call upon my mother, for no other purpose than to see
the ship. And well did it repay the long and curious examinations
which they were accustomed to give it.
In the first place, every bit of it was glass, and that was a great wonder
of itself; because the masts, yards, and ropes were made to resemble
exactly the corresponding parts of a real vessel that could go to sea. She
carried two tiers of black guns all along her two decks; and often I used
to try to peep in at the portholes, to see what else was inside; but the
holes were so small, and it looked so very dark indoors, that I could
discover little or nothing; though, when I was very little, I made no
doubt, that if I could but once pry open the hull, and break the glass all
to pieces, I would infallibly light upon something wonderful, perhaps
some gold guineas, of which I have always been in want, ever since I
could remember. And often I used to feel a sort of insane desire to be
the death of the glass ship, case, and all, in order to come at the plunder;
and one day, throwing out some hint of the kind to my sisters, they ran
to my mother in a great clamor; and after that, the ship was placed on
the mantel-piece for a time, beyond my reach, and until I should
recover my reason.
I do not know how to account for this temporary madness of mine,
unless it was, that I had been reading in a story-book about Captain
Kidd's ship, that lay somewhere at the bottom of the Hudson near the
Highlands, full of gold as it could be; and that a company of men were
trying to dive down and get the treasure out of the hold, which no one

had ever thought of doing before, though there she had