Crossing the River by Caryl Phillips

Author:Caryl Phillips [Caryl Phillips]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2006-09-06T16:00:00+00:00

[At Sea, 10th January.

My Dearest,

I have, these past few days, been discouraged from writing by the mighty apparatus of the seas. But being unable to hold off and tolerate further delay, I now try my eyes by candlelight and attempt to form characters that, I trust, will not try your own. At present, I cannot imagine writing with pleasure to any on land or sea but your own dear self, my head being full of the petty concerns of this valuable vessel, and the lives of the people who dwell hereabouts, whose fortunes are entrusted to my care. These are, indeed, petty concerns when set against my love for you, for I can declare, with honour, that barely an hour of my past life comes to mind with any pleasure, excepting valuable and precious time I have passed in your company, and for that I think the innumerable miseries and pains of my previous unhappy life, not a dear purchase. My affection for you goes beyond any words I can find or use, and I simply wish that it were possible for you to travel with me, and strengthen my purpose in fatigue and difficulty, without actually suffering them. How trifling they would seem to me! But, I submit, I travel abroad in the comfortable knowledge that my better, precious part is safely at home, and though she understands absence to be painful, she knows it is so for her sake. I am engaged in active business, and have some new scene every day to relieve my mind; besides I have long been used to suffering. On the contrary, you, by marriage to one such as I, have exposed yourself to anxieties to which you were a stranger. I know you have done this willingly, and I love you all the greater for this sacrifice.

My last letter concluded abruptly, for I was ill and disconcerted by an incident in business. I feared it might give rise to bad consequences, and sadly this came to pass. I take a good deal of raillery among the sea-captains, for they know I have not a secure knowledge of life, and I know they have not. They claim I am melancholy; I tell them they have lost their wits. They say I am a slave to a single woman; I claim they are a slave to hundreds, of all qualities. They wonder at my lack of humour, I pity theirs. They declare they can form no idea of my happiness, I counter with knowledge that being pleased with a drunken debauch, or the smile of a prostitute, can never give one such as I pleasure. They pretend, all the while, to appeal to experience against me, but I stand firm. On my own ship such discord recently swelled into near-mutiny, for there is among my officers one in particular who sees me as little more than a gentleman-passenger. I had been warned, prior to our departure, that I might expect trouble in abundance from

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