The Steam-Packet: A Tale of the River and the Ocean — page 71: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

46 | THE STEAM PACKET. Britain, on her island throne, by means of her ships that plough the radii of her communications with all the points of the earth’s circum- ference, is the centre of the world;—and London, as the common reservoir into which the streams of intelligence, taken up at all her coasts, are poured, is the centre of Britain. Yes—London is the heart of the intellectual universe of Britain, upon which are directed all the streams of thought that keep up the harmony and connexion of its social action; and whence they are re-issued, along its complex chan- nels, to play in unison the thousand pulses of the moral world. Espe- cially do all mortal passions and all mortal interests mingle in the tide which daily pours its human waves along the pathways of London Bridge; and confounded, as they are, in one great and ever-agitated current, they are still to be separated and singled out, and studied in detail. Linking, as it does, the great commercial districts of London, that bridge echoes to the tread of those whose hearts beat with a thou- sand conflicting emotions :—the man of countless treasures, and him for whose large fears of the sheriff one county is too small,—the citi- zen on his way to the inviting feast, and the bankrupt who longs to seek in the rapid tide which murmurs beneath the graceful arches, a welcome escape from the human tide which beats against its avenues, —the happy wife whom temptation never assailed, and the daughter of crime, whose flaunting garb tells the tale of a broken heart, and blighted promise, and crushed affections,—the dissipated man who boasts of a constitution which nothing injures, and the invalid who seeks for health upon a sunny day ;—such are a few of the features of that crowded and ceaseless stream of population which London pours over her chief bridge, and which neither laws, nor mandates, nor the force of armies, nor the march of pestilence might avail to arrest! The moment Mr. Pifpaf stepped upon the deck of the vessel—in _ doing which he very nearly stepped into the stream—a loud, un- ceremonious, and hearty shout, emanating from the lungs of forty Luminaries, welcomed the arrival of the chairman of that glorious fraternity. Never did Mr. Pifpaf appear to such advantage as upon this occasion—wearing a buff waistcoat, and the most becoming meek~ ness—a new blue coat, and a countenance wreathed in smiles—his best hat upon his venerable brow, and a blush upon his honoured cheek! Ina moment he was surrounded by the principal members of the club, to whom he presented the self-styled Lord Noodleton with due solemnity and grace. In a few minutes Mrs. Pifpaf was busily employed in detailing her ailments to “his lordship,’ who, on his part, was equally occupied in wondering ‘ what the cloth of old Pifpaf’s coat could have cost a yard;”—the captain was doing the | | Gomicbooks. co