ENTRY - John Maynard Home Page

2) ―…I‘ve been shaping my course westward for the last eighteen months, steering as
near as might be directly athwart Europe and Asia; and here I am at last within two
days‘ run of Havre, which is, if I can get good Yankee planks beneath me once more,
within eighteen or twenty days‘ run of home.‖
(The Monikins, Ch. VII, p. 104/509, July 1835)
29) ―BRIGHT BLUE DAY.‖
The only quotation that seems to fit into a ―Helmsman‖ framework is Cooper‘s #13 from
Homeward Bound, in which ―a bright day, a steady ship…set everyone at ease.‖ This is
reminiscent of the general mood of the passengers on board the Jersey, who felt that ―let
danger come to them when it might, at least it would not be that day‖ (lines 39-40).
THE HELMSMAN:
―It was a bright blue day; ….‖ (lines 29-30)
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER:
1) The day was bright and clear, and the lazy sun, who seemed unwilling to meet the
toil of ascending to the meridian, was crossing the heavens with a southern inclination,
that hardly allowed him to temper the moist air of the ocean with his genial heat.
(The Pilot, Cooper Edition, Ch. VI, p. 62, Jan. 1824)
2) The crowd collected in this street, the sleighs that were whirling past, filled with
young men and maidens, the incessant jingling of bells, the spluttering and jawing in
Low dutch, the hearty English oaths, of serjeants and sutler‘s-men and cooks of
messes, the loud laughs of the blacks, and the beauty of the cold clear day, altogether
produced some such effect on me, as I had experienced when I went to the theatre.
(Satanstoe, Cooper Edition, Ch. XI, p. 154, June 1845)
3) The Leather-Stocking has put his hounds into the hills this clear day, and they have
started their game. (The Pioneers, Ch. I, p. 14/604, Feb. 1823)
4) ―I am the man you met in the woods east of the big river, and whom you tried to
persuade to line a yellow hornet to his nest: as if my eye was not too true to mistake
any other animal for a honey-bee, in a clear day!
(The Prairie, Ch.IX, p. 991, The Library of America; [147/575]
April 1827: London; May 1827: Philadelphia)
5) ―No mistake at all,‖ responded Dick, suffering his oar to float on its blade, and
running his fingers into his hair; as if he was content with his atchievement. ―No more
mistake than there is in taking the sun on a clear day and in smooth water.
(The Red Rover – Cooper Edition/SUNY, Ch. V, p. 70, Nov. 1827)
6) ―The day had hitherto been cloudless, and a vault of purer blue never canopied a
waste of water, than the arch which had swept for hours above the heads of our marine
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