Vagabond Adventures — BOOK I. AMONG WHARVES AND CABINS. CHAPTER I. Prefatory
EDWARD P.
BASSETT, ESQ.
, This book is affectionately inscribed, with the wish, which is hardly a hope, that the public may take my Life half as easily and good-naturedly as he takes his own.
R.
K.
CONTENTS.
BOOK I. AMONG WHARVES AND CABINS.
ÆT.
11. CHAPTER I.
PREFATORY 11 CHAPTER II.
FAMILY MATTERS 14 CHAPTER III.
A FUGITIVE 23 CHAPTER IV.
A STORMY TIME 34 CHAPTER V.
A BOY’S PARADISE 47 CHAPTER VI.
THE CONTUMELY OF CAPTAINS 54 CHAPTER VII.
ALMOST A TRAGEDY 62 CHAPTER VIII.
TAKEN PRISONER 71 CHAPTER IX.
SQUALOR 80 CHAPTER X.
A FINAL TRIUMPH 90 BOOK II. THREE YEARS AS A NEGRO-MINSTREL.
ÆT.
12-15. CHAPTER I.
MY FIRST COMPANY 101 CHAPTER II.
I BECOME A BENEFICIARY 108 CHAPTER III.
THE FATE OF THE SERENADERS 116 CHAPTER IV.
THE TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS OF THE “BOOKER TROUPE” 129 CHAPTER V.
THE LAST OF THE “BOOKER TROUPE” 145 CHAPTER VI.
“THE MITCHELLS” 156 CHAPTER VII.
ON THE FLOATING PALACE 173 CHAPTER VIII.
WILD LIFE 187 CHAPTER IX.
THE PERFORMER SOCIALLY 205 CHAPTER X.
ADIEU TO THE STAGE 214 BOOK III. THE TOUR OF EUROPE FOR IN
CURRENCY.
ÆT.
20-22. CHAPTER I.
STARTING ON A CATTLE-TRAIN 223 CHAPTER II.
TAKING TO EUROPEAN WAYS 230 CHAPTER III.
STUDENT LIFE AND WANDERINGS 242 CHAPTER IV.
A FIGHT WITH FAMINE 254 CHAPTER V.
THE CONCLUSION 266 BOOK I. AMONG WHARVES AND CABINS.
ÆT.
11. CHAPTER I. PREFATORY.
It is an odd sort of fortune to have lived an out-of-the-way or adventurous life.
There is always a temptation to tell of it, and not always a reasonable surety that others share the interest in it of the _conteur_ himself.
It would, indeed, be a nice problem in the descriptive geometry of narrative to determine the exact point where the lines of the two interests meet,--that of the narrator and that of the people who have to endure the narration.
I cannot say that I ever hope to solve this problem; and in the present instance, especially, I would with due respect submit its solution to the acuter intellects of others.
This little book is intended to contain a plain sketch of my personal history up to the close of my twenty-second year.
The autobiographical form is used, not because of any supposed interest of the public in the writer himself, but because there does not seem to be any other way in which a connected account of the adventures can well be given.
No one, I think, can be more sensible than I am that my story is nothing if not true.
Hume has wisely said, “A man cannot speak long of himself without vanity.
” I should like to be allowed to add that I have never known or conceived of a person--except probably the reader and writer of these pages--who could talk five minutes about himself without--lying.
That is, to be sure, reducing the thing to mathematical exactness.
An overestimating smile, or an underestimating shrug of the shoulders, or a tone of the voice even, will always--though sometimes inadvertently-- “leave it still unsaid in part, Or say it in too great excess.
” While this is not so applicable to written history, still in the face of hyperbolic and bathetic possibilities I owe it to myself to premise that I am going to be more than ordinarily truthful in this autobiography.
And there is certainly some merit in telling the truth, for it is hard work when one is his own hero, and not what is sometimes termed a moral hero at that.
I can too, I may add, claim this single merit from the start, with a meekness almost bordering on honesty; since it happens that I am forced to be veracious by the fact that there are scores of people yet in the prime of life who are cognizant of the main events of the ensuing narrative.
