hink about that when I was young.

HECTOR. Think! What's the good of thinking about it? Why didn't you do
something?

MAZZINI. But I did. I joined societies and made speeches and wrote
pamphlets. That was all I could do. But, you know, though the people in
the societies thought they knew more than Mangan, most of them wouldn't
have joined if they had known as much. You see they had never had
any money to handle or any men to manage. Every year I expected a
revolution, or some frightful smash-up: it seemed impossible that we
could blunder and muddle on any longer. But nothing happened, except,
of course, the usual poverty and crime and drink that we are used to.
Nothing ever does happen. It's amazing how well we get along, all things
considered.

LADY UTTERWORD. Perhaps somebody cleverer than you and Mr Mangan was at
work all the time.

MAZZINI. Perhaps so. Though I was brought up not to believe in anything,
I often feel that there is a great deal to be said for the theory of an
over-ruling Providence, after all.

LADY UTTERWORD. Providence! I meant Hastings.

MAZZINI. Oh, I beg your pardon, Lady Utterword.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. Every drunken skipper trusts to Providence. But one
of the ways of Providence with drunken skippers is to run them on the
rocks.

MAZZINI. Very true, no doubt, at sea. But in politics, I assure you,
they only run into jellyfish. Nothing happens.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER. At sea nothing happens to the sea. Nothing happens to
the sky. The sun comes up from the east and goes down to the west. The
moon grows from a sickle to an arc lamp, and comes later and later until
she is lost in the light as other things are lost in the darkness. After
the typhoon, the flying-fish glitter in the sunshine like birds. It's
amazing how they get along, all things considered. Nothing happens,
except something not worth mentioning.

ELLIE. What is that, O Captain, O my captain?

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [savagely]. Nothing but the smash of the drunken
skipper's ship on the rocks, the splintering of her rotten timbers, the
tearing of her rusty plates, the drowning of the crew like rats in a
trap.

ELLIE. Moral: don't take rum.

CAPTAIN SHOTOVER [vehemently]. That is a lie, child. Let a man drink ten
barrels of rum a day, he is not a drunken skipper until he is a drifting
skipper. Whilst he can lay his course and stand on his bridge and steer
it, he is no drunkard. It is the man who lies drinking in his bunk and
trusts