Page:Letters of Life.djvu/363

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LITERATURE.
351

which I had visited in my own birth-land. To me it has always appeared in a measure jejune; yet abroad, where it was repeatedly republished, it was more of a favorite than the "Pleasant Memories," because to the European mind it revealed new localities, while the other portrayed those which were familiar. Both were issued by the same house in Boston, and rather than disappoint them in sending this manuscript at the stipulated time, I wrought painfully to complete it during a period of convalescence, and was aided in the labor of copying by the pen of my sweet daughter.


1845.

35. "The Sea and the Sailor."

My voyages had given me an interest in that class of persons who buffet the ocean-billows, and through whose hardships the commerce of the world is sustained. I wished to testify sympathy and friendship by a little book of poetry, which might go with them in their chests, a prompter of salutary thought when they should leave the charities of home. The first edition, of one thousand, entitled "Poetry for Seamen," was purchased by my liberal friend, the late Martin Brimmer, of Boston, and entirely distributed to the sons of the sea, through the agency of their devoted chaplain, the Rev. J. C. Robertson. The work, in its present enlarged form of one hundred and fifty-two pages, is