The Death on the Shore and the Death at the Sea
Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as to at the sea. A man dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and “the mourners go about the streets;” but when a man falls overboard at and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and a difficulty in realizing it, which give to it an air of awful mystery. A man dies on shore-we follow his body to the grave, a stone marks the spot. We are often prepared for the event. There is always something which often helps us to realize when it happens and to recall it when it has passed. A man is shot down by our side in battle, and the mangled body remains on object and real evidence; but at sea, the man is near us-at our side-we here is voice, and in an instant, he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then, too, at sea-to use a homely and expressive phrase- we miss a man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little bark, upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see no forms and hear no voices but their own and one is suddenly taken from among them, and they miss him at every turn. It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or new scenes to fill the gap. There is always an empty berth in the forecastle, and one man wanting when the small night watch is mustered. There is one less to take the wheel and one less to layout with us upon the yard. We miss his form, and the sound of his voice, for habit had made them almost necessary to us, and each of our senses feels the loss.