“The Chronoscope,” which, for a fee, may be squinted into,— here in all colors of the Prism sails the brig Rebecca, forever just about to be intercepted by the infamous Guarda-Costa. Mason’s Squint is not merely wistful,— the ship’s name is a Message from across some darker Sea,— as he has come to believe in a metaphysickal escape for the Seahorse, back there off Brest, much like this very depiction,— the Event not yet “reduc’d to certainty,” the Day still’d, oceanick, an ascent, a reclaiming of light, wind express’d as its integral, each Sail a great held Breath. . . . Into just such a
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