The boy was so happy to think he had
actually given his life for his master that he smilingly corrected
Napoleon's cry "You're wounded!" It is as though one should
congratulate an athletic contestant, and say "My felicitations! you
won the second prize!" "No, indeed: I won the First."
_Night and Morning_ suggests so many thoughts that we could
continue our comments indefinitely; but time suffices for only one
more. The nature picture of the dawn is absolutely perfect.
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea.
He does not say that finally the cape became visible, but that the
sea suddenly came round the cape. Any one who has stood on the
ocean-shore before dawn, and gazed along the indented coast in the
grey light, has observed the precise effect mentioned in these words.
At first one sees only the blur of land where the cape is, and
nothing beyond it; suddenly the light increases, and the sea
actually appears to come around the point.
MEETING AT NIGHT
1845
The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.
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