unites the
planks, at the last moment, as death must reunite friends.

And with what wondrous voices these strayed wanderers talk to one
another on the hearth! They bewitch us by the mere fascination of their
language. Such a delicacy of intonation, yet such a volume of sound.
The murmur of the surf is not so soft or so solemn. There are the
merest hints and traceries of tones,--phantom voices, more remote from
noise than anything which is noise; and yet there is an undertone of
roar, as from a thousand cities, the cities whence these wild voyagers
came. Watch the decreasing sounds of a fire as it dies,--for it seems
cruel to leave it, as we do, to die alone. I watched beside this hearth
last night. As the fire sank down, the little voices grew stiller and
more still, and at last there came only irregular beats, at varying
intervals, as if from a heart that acted spasmodically, or as if it
were measuring off by ticks the little remnant of time. Then it said,
"Hush!" two or three times, and there came something so like a sob that
it seemed human; and then all was still.

If these dying voices are so sweet and subtile, what legends must be
held untold by yonder fragments that lie unconsumed! Photography has
familiarized us with the thought that every visible act, since the
beginning of the world, has stamped itself upon surrounding surfaces,
even if we have not yet skill to discern and hold the image. And
especially, in looking on a liquid expanse, such as the ocean in calm,
one is haunted with these fancies. I gaze into its depths, and wonder
if no stray reflection has been imprisoned there, still accessible to
human eyes, of some scene of passion or despair it has witnessed; as
some maiden visitor at Holyrood Palace, looking in the ancient metallic
mirror, might start at the thought that perchance some lineament of
Mary Stuart may suddenly look out, in desolate and forgotten beauty,
mingled with her own. And if the mere waters of the ocean, satiate and
wearied with tragedy as they must be, still keep for our fancy such
records, how much more might we attribute a human consciousness to
these shattered fragments, each seared by its own special grief.

Yet while they are silent, I like to trace back for these component
parts of my fire such brief histories as I share. This block, for
instance, came from the large schooner which now lies at the end of
Castle Hill Beach, bearing still aloft its broken masts and shattered