Of modern standers-of-mast-heads we have but a lifeless set;
mere stone, iron, and bronze men; who, though well capable of facing
out a stiff gale, are still entirely incompetent to the business
of singing out upon discovering any strange sight. There is Napoleon;
who, upon the top of the column of Vendome stands with arms folded,
some one hundred and fifty feet in the air; careless, now, who rules
the decks below, whether Louis Philippe, Louis Blanc, or Louis
the Devil. Great Washington, too, stands high aloft on his towering
main-mast in Baltimore, and like one of Hercules' pillars, his column
marks that point of human grandeur beyond which few mortals will go.
Admiral Nelson, also, on a capstan of gun-metal, stands his
mast-head in Trafalgar Square; and even when most obscured by that
London smoke, token is yet given that a hidden hero is there;
for where there is smoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington,
nor Napoleon, nor Nelson, will answer a single hail from below,
however madly invoked to befriend by their counsels the distracted
decks upon which they gaze; however it may be surmised,
that their spirits penetrate through the thick haze of the future,
and descry what shoals and what rocks must be shunned.
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