he sensation
of simple existence under the conditions of illimitable freedom in
space, with no reminder of anything beyond, was sufficient for me. I
used to lie on my back on the roof of the wheel-house and look into
the sky, and try to make friends with the sea-gulls which sailed
around over me, curiously peering down with their dove-like eyes as if
to see what this thing might be. Then the nights, so luminous with the
"breeming" of the sea as we got into the Gulf Stream, and the flitting
and sudden population of the ocean, always bringing us surprises; the
more exciting and delightful storms which came on us in the region in
which they were always to be expected, and which, though we had some
that made lying in one's berth difficult, were never enough to satisfy
my desire for rough weather,--all these things filled my life so full
of the pure delight in nature that when, at the end of nearly three
weeks at sea, we came in sight of the Irish coast, I hated the land.
Life was enough under the sea conditions, and the prospect of the
return to the limitations of living amongst men was absolute pain.

We made Liverpool in twenty-one days from New York, and the steamer
which had left that port the next week did not arrive till three or
four days after, so that my waiting for the letter of credit involved
a hotel bill which nearly exhausted my money in hand. The kindly
captain, knowing my circumstances, made the hotel keeper throw off
fifty per cent. of his bill (for I went to the "captain's hotel"), and
thus I succeeded in getting to London with the money which was to have
paid my expenses for six weeks (according to the careful calculations
I had made, at the rate of a pound a week) reduced to provision for
three, after which Providence was expected to provide me with a
passage home. In these weeks I had planned to see Turner's pictures,
Copley Fielding's, with Creswick's, and all the others Ruskin had
mentioned. But the railways and hotels had never come into my
arithmetic, and that was always, and remains, my weak point. However,
the letter of credit was for fifty pounds, and so I felt justified in
my faith in Providence, my brother going to the general credit of that
account.

CHAPTER VI

ART STUDY IN ENGLAND

Arrived at Euston Station in the small hours of the morning, I bought
a penny loaf and walked the streets eating it and carrying my valise
until the day was sufficiently advanced for me to go to prese