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- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z
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- 6418
- text
- letters when called for, he was now just the man to hand over books. He
kept them in a large cask on the berth-deck, and, when seeking a
particular volume, had to capsize it like a barrel of potatoes. This
made him very cross and irritable, as most all librarians are. Who had
the selection of these books, I do not know, but some of them must have
been selected by our Chaplain, who so pranced on Coleridge’s “_High
German horse_.”
Mason Good’s Book of Nature—a very good book, to be sure, but not
precisely adapted to tarry tastes—was one of these volumes; and
Machiavel’s Art of War—which was very dry fighting; and a folio of
Tillotson’s Sermons—the best of reading for divines, indeed, but with
little relish for a main-top-man; and Locke’s Essays—incomparable
essays, everybody knows, but miserable reading at sea; and Plutarch’s
Lives—super-excellent biographies, which pit Greek against Roman in
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