Be it well with you , my brethren ! Ye are all gone , some to your graves ashore , and others to the depths of ocean ; but my faith is strong that ye are happy ; for whenever I behold your forms , whether in dream or vision , each departed friend is puffing his long-nine , and a mug of the right blackstrap goes round from lip to lip . But where was the mermaid in those delightful times ? At a certain window near the centre of the village appeared a pretty display of gingerbread men and horses , picture-books and ballads , small fish-hooks , pins , needles , sugar-plums , and brass thimbles , articles on which the young fishermen used to expend their money from pure gallantry . What a picture was Susan behind the counter ! A slender maiden , though the child of rugged parents , she had the slimmest of all waists , brown hair curling on her neck , and a complexion rather pale , except when the sea-breeze flushed it . A few freckles became beauty-spots beneath her eyelids . How was it , Susan , that you talked and acted so carelessly , yet always for the best , doing whatever was right in your own eyes , and never once doing wrong in mine , nor shocked a taste that had been morbidly sensitive till now ? And whence had you that happiest gift , of brightening every topic with an unsought gayety , quiet but irresistible , so that even loomy spirits felt your sunshine , and did not shrink from it ? Nature wrought the charm . She made you a frank , simple , kind-hearted , sensible , and mirthful girl . Obeying nature , you did free things without indelicacy , displayed a maiden 's thoughts to every eye , and proved yourself as innocent as naked Eve . It was beautiful to observe , how her simple and happy nature mingled itself with mine . She kindled a domestic fire within my heart , and took up her dwelling there , even in that chill and lonesome cavern hung round with glittering icicles of fancy . She gave me warmth of feeling , while the influence of my mind made her contemplative . I taught her to love the moonlight hour , when the expanse of the encircled bay was smooth as a great mirror and slept in a transparent shadow ; while beyond Nahant , the wind rippled the dim ocean into a dreamy brightness , which grew faint afar off , without becoming gloomier . I held her hand and pointed to the long surf wave , as it rolled calmly on the beach , in an unbroken line of silver ; we were silent together , till its deep and peaceful murmur had swept by us . When the Sabbath sun shone down into the recesses of the cliffs , I led the mermaid thither , and told her that those huge , gray , shattered rocks , and her native sea , that raged forever like a storm against them , and her own slender beauty , in so stern a scene , were all combined into a strain of poetry . But on the Sabbath eve , when her mother had gone early to bed , and her gentle sister had smiled and left us , as we sat alone by the quiet hearth , with household things around , it was her turn to make me feel that here was a deeper poetry , and that this was the dearest hour of all . Thus went on our wooing , till I had shot wild-fowl enough to feather our bridal bed , and the Daughter of the Sea was mine .
I built a cottage for Susan and myself , and made a gateway in the form XXXXX a Gothic arch , by setting up a whale 's jaw-bones .
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