Author : Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Publisher : Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN 13 : 9781542593052
Total Pages : 114 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (93 download)
Book Synopsis Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic. Illustrated. by : Thomas Wentworth Higginson
Download or read book Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic. Illustrated. written by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-01-17 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In all ages and with all sea-going races there has always been something especially fascinating about an island amid the ocean. Its very existence has for all explorers an air of magic. An island offers to us heights rising from depths; it exhibits that which is most fixed beside that which is most changeable, the fertile beside the barren, and safety after danger. The ocean forever tends to encroach on the island, the island upon the ocean. They exist side by side, friends yet enemies. The island signifies safety in calm, and yet danger in storm; in a tempest the sailor rejoices that he is not near it; even if previously bound for it, he puts about and steers for the open sea. Often if he seeks it he cannot reach it. The present writer spent a winter on the island of Fayal, and saw in a storm a full-rigged ship drift through the harbour disabled, having lost her anchors; and it was a week before she again made the port. The order of the tales in the present work follows roughly the order of development, giving first the legends which kept near the European shore, and then those which, like St. Brandan's or Antillia, were assigned to the open sea or, like Norumbega or the Isle of Demons, to the very coast of America. Every tale in this book bears reference to some actual legend, followed more or less closely, and the authorities for each will be found carefully given in the appendix for such readers as may care to follow the subject farther. It must be remembered that some of these imaginary islands actually remained on the charts of the British admiralty until within a century. If even the exact science of geographers retained them thus long, surely romance should embalm them forever.