to be impotent and harmless.  A husband who prefers to embrace his wife for the last time at the door of her stateroom, and finds himself the centre of an admiring group of unconcerned spectators, of course feels himself lifted above any feeling save that of ludicrousness which the situation suggests.  The mother, parting from her offspring, should become a Roman matron under the like influences; the lover who takes leave of his sweetheart is not apt to mar the general hilarity by any emotional folly.  In fact, this system of delaying our parting sentiments until the last moment—­this removal of domestic scenery and incident to a public theatre—­may be said to be worthy of a stoical and democratic people, and is an event in our lives which may be shared with the humblest coal-passer or itinerant vender of oranges.  It is a return to that classic out-of-door experience and mingling of public and domestic economy which so ennobled the straight-nosed Athenian.

So universal is this desire to be present at the departure of any steamer that, aside from the regular crowd of loungers who make their appearance confessedly only to look on, there are others who take advantage of the slightest intimacy to go through the leave-taking formula.  People whom you have quite forgotten, people to whom you have been lately introduced, suddenly and unexpectedly make their appearance and wring your hands with fervor.  The friend, long estranged, forgives you nobly at the last moment, to take advantage of this glorious opportunity of “seeing you off.”  Your bootmaker, tailor, and hatter—­haply with no ulterior motives and unaccompanied by official friends—­visit you with enthusiasm.  You find great difficulty in detaching your relatives and acquaintances from the trunks on which they resolutely seat themselves, up to the moment when the paddles are moving, and you are haunted continually by an ill-defined idea that they may be carried off, and foisted on you—­with the payment of their passage, which, under the circumstances, you could not refuse—­for the rest of the voyage.  Your friends will make their appearance at the most inopportune moments, and from the most unexpected places,—­dangling from hawsers, climbing up paddle-boxes, and crawling through cabin windows at the imminent peril of their lives.  You are nervous and crushed by this added weight of responsibility.  Should you be a stranger, you will find any number of people on board, who will cheerfully and at a venture take leave of you on the slightest advances made on your part.  A friend of mine assures me that he once parted, with great enthusiasm and cordiality, from a party of gentlemen, to him personally unknown, who had apparently mistaken his state-room.  This party,—­evidently connected with some fire company,—­on comparing notes on the wharf, being somewhat dissatisfied with the result of their performances, afterward rendered my friend’s position on the hurricane deck one of extreme peril and inconvenience, by reason of skilfully