stiffness before the outward and
inward terrors, before the might of nature and the seductive corruption
of men--backed by a faith invulnerable to the strength of facts, to the
contagion of example, to the solicitation of ideas. Hang ideas! They are
tramps, vagabonds, knocking at the back-door of your mind, each taking
a little of your substance, each carrying away some crumb of that belief
in a few simple notions you must cling to if you want to live decently
and would like to die easy!

'This has nothing to do with Jim, directly; only he was outwardly so
typical of that good, stupid kind we like to feel marching right and
left of us in life, of the kind that is not disturbed by the vagaries of
intelligence and the perversions of--of nerves, let us say. He was the
kind of fellow you would, on the strength of his looks, leave in charge
of the deck--figuratively and professionally speaking. I say I would,
and I ought to know. Haven't I turned out youngsters enough in my time,
for the service of the Red Rag, to the craft of the sea, to the craft
whose whole secret could be expressed in one short sentence, and yet
must be driven afresh every day into young heads till it becomes the
component part of every waking thought--till it is present in every
dream of their young sleep! The sea has been good to me, but when I
remember all these boys that passed through my hands, some grown up now
and some drowned by this time, but all good stuff for the sea, I don't
think I have done badly by it either. Were I to go home to-morrow, I bet
that before two days passed over my head some sunburnt young chief mate
would overtake me at some dock gateway or other, and a fresh deep voice
speaking above my hat would ask: "Don't you remember me, sir? Why!
little So-and-so. Such and such a ship. It was my first voyage." And I
would remember a bewildered little shaver, no higher than the back of
this chair, with a mother and perhaps a big sister on the quay, very
quiet but too upset to wave their handkerchiefs at the ship that glides
out gently between the pier-heads; or perhaps some decent middle-aged
father who had come early with his boy to see him off, and stays all the
morning, because he is interested in the windlass apparently, and stays
too long, and has got to scramble ashore at last with no time at all
to say good-bye. The mud pilot on the poop sings out to me in a drawl,
"Hold her with the check line for a moment, Mister Mate. There's a