The Wetherel Affair Author:John William De Forest General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1878 Original Publisher: Sheldon and company Subjects: Fiction / General Fiction / Classics Fiction / Historical Fiction / Literary Fiction / Short Stories Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This ... more »is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER XXV. 1 " A SALTATiON FROM THE SIA. .... . , ( i .., love of life, that instinct which seems to strengthen just in proportion u invading death cuta intelligence down to the bare root of sensation, enabled and forced Nestoria to hold fast to the wreck of her shallop, and to struggle to keep her head above the waters. . Whether dissolution were not more tolerable than existence, whether it would not be well to drop out of a world which had suddenly been changed for her into a place of torment, she did not for an instant consider. Amid tossiniTB, bufferings, whirlings, and suffocations, she labored with her whole surviving strength to climb out of the abyss which howled and sucked beneath her, slowly fighting her way to the uncertain asylum of the inverted hulk, and clinging there with a sort of unintelligent tenacity, like a thing of inanimate nature. The slit in the keel for the centre-board offered a hold to her fingers, and by means of this she stayed herself against the pushings of the billows. A long time she remained thus; far longer than she had thought possible. After nature has done all it seemingly can, necessity endows it wiih force to do more. The power of the dying to resist death exceeds every energy known to ordinary life, and borders closely upon miracle. Presently a light came over the sea; her first wild impression was that help ...« less