Chapter 36

There are several good protections against temptations, but the surest is
cowardice.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

Names are not always what they seem. The common Welsh name Bzjxxllwep is
pronounced Jackson.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

Friday, December 13. Sailed, at 3 p.m., in the 'Mararoa'. Summer seas
and a good ship-life has nothing better.

Monday. Three days of paradise. Warm and sunny and smooth; the sea a
luminous Mediterranean blue . . . . One lolls in a long chair all day
under deck-awnings, and reads and smokes, in measureless content. One
does not read prose at such a time, but poetry. I have been reading the
poems of Mrs. Julia A. Moore, again, and I find in them the same grace
and melody that attracted me when they were first published, twenty years
ago, and have held me in happy bonds ever since.

"The Sentimental Song Book" has long been out of print, and has been
forgotten by the world in general, but not by me. I carry it with me
always--it and Goldsmith's deathless story.

Indeed, it has the same deep charm for me that the Vicar of Wakefield
has, and I find in it the same subtle touch--the touch that makes an
intentionally humorous episode pathetic and an intentionally pathetic one
funny. In her time Mrs. Moore was called "the Sweet Singer of Michigan,"
and was best known by that name. I have read her book through twice
today, with the purpose of determining which of her pieces has most
merit, and I am persuaded that for wide grasp and sustained power,
"William Upson" may claim first place:

WILLIAM UPSON.

Air--"The Major's Only Son."
Come all good people far and near,
Oh, come and see what you can hear,
It's of a young man true and brave,
That is now sleeping in his grave.

Now, William Upson was his name
If it's not that, it's all the same
He did enlist in a cruel strife,
And it caused him to lose his life.

He was Perry Upson's eldest son,
His father loved his noble son,
This son was nineteen years of age
When first in the rebellion he engaged.

His father said that he might go,
But his dear mother she said no,
"Oh! stay at home, dear Billy," she said,
But she could not turn his head.

He went to Nashville, in Tennessee,
There his kind friends he could not see;
He died among strangers, so far away,
They did not know where his body lay.

He was taken sick and lived four weeks,
And Oh! how his parents weep,
But now they must in sorrow mourn,
For Billy has gone to his heavenly home.

Oh! if his mother could have seen her son,
For she loved him, her darling son;
If she could heard his dying