Isle of Wight by A. R. Hope (Ascott Robert Hope) Moncrieff

Author:A. R. Hope (Ascott Robert Hope) Moncrieff [Moncrieff, A. R. Hope]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1990000450884
Google: _rI7rgEACAAJ
Publisher: Creative Media Partners, LLC
Published: 2015-02-18T16:05:31+00:00

From Bourdeaux-ward, while that the chapmen sleep:

Of nicé conscience took he no keep.

Hard by is a later ruin to show how a lighthouse was designed in the eighteenth century, but a practical age gave up the attempt to rear a pharos on this cloudy height. Experience since then has gone to show that a lighthouse serves its end better at the water’s edge than on commanding cliffs like Beachy Head and Portland Point, from both of which the old beacons have lately been moved to a lower level.

St Catherine’s Lighthouse stands on the point of that ilk, the most southerly projection of the Island, where it has Lloyd’s signal station for neighbour. Its recently intensified electric light is said to be the most powerful in the world, every few seconds flashing over the sea a beam of concentrated glare equal to millions of candles. It is also equipped with a fog-horn, whose hoarse note of warning resounds for miles, not altogether to the satisfaction of neighbours safe on land. Yet they may take comfort to think how this screech is more fearsomely disquieting when heard at sea. I once had such a note ringing in my ears for two days together running through a chill fog off Newfoundland, with icebergs about us that could be felt but not seen. Our boat was one of the few that have crushed into an iceberg and crawled to land with the tale; then to keep us cheerful we had on board a survivor of that adventure, the perils whereof it pleased him to depict as looming through a somewhat befogged imagination.

Another of our fellow-passengers was an American gentleman, who in Europe had been qualifying himself to come out as an opera tenor. He was coy of giving us a specimen of his talent, till one night we persuaded him to begin Ah, che la morte! But at once the officer of the watch stepped up to silence him, explaining that his singing might drown the sound of fog-horns. The vocalist was much offended at his organ being coupled with a fog-horn; and I fear I gave him fresh offence by suggesting “Signor Fogorno” as a suitable nom de guerre, when he consulted me as to Italianising his rather commonplace patronymic. But that careful officer was right, if the story be true that a German liner ran ashore on the back of the Island because her own brass band deafened her to the warning note that surely should have drowned all sweeter sounds. And if our insulted tenor had known it, this artificial organ has a very old theatrical connection, for persona seems the earliest form of such a sounding contrivance, originally a megaphonic mouthpiece fitted to a mask which, as one of the classical stage properties, came to denote the personage thus represented; and in time the name gained respectability as the person or parson of a parish, who more or less loudly warned his convoy of souls from the rocks and shoals of ill-doing.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.