Then, to be
sure, it might have died joyfully, having answered so good a purpose. I
have been reminded of this miracle by the story of a man in Heywood, a
town in Lancashire, who used such horribly profane language that a
plane-tree in front of his cottage is said to have withered away from
that hour. I can draw no moral from the incident of the fig-tree, unless
it be that all things perish from the instant when they cease to answer
some divine purpose.
March 6th.--Yesterday I lunched on board Captain Russell's ship, the
Princeton. These daily lunches on shipboard might answer very well the
purposes of a dinner; being, in fact, noontide dinners, with soup, roast
mutton, mutton-chops, and a macaroni pudding,--brandy, port and sherry
wines. There were three elderly Englishmen at table, with white heads,
which, I think, is oftener the predicament of elderly heads here than in
America. One of these was a retired Custom-House officer, and the other
two were connected with shipping in some way. There is a satisfaction in
seeing Englishmen eat and drink, they do it so heartily, and, on the
whole, so wisely,--trusting so entirely that there is no harm in good
beef and mutton, and a reasonable quantity of good liquor; and these
three hale old men, who had acted on this wholesome faith for so long,
were proofs that it is well on earth to live like earthly creatures. In
America, what squeamishness, what delicacy, what stomachic apprehension,
would there not be among three stomachs of sixty or seventy years'
experience! I think this failure of American stomachs is partly owing to
our ill usage of our digestive powers, and partly to our want of faith in
them.
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