servants of our hopes and our self-esteem--for the best and most
genuine part. For the hundreds who have reviled the sea, beginning
with Shakespeare in the line


"More fell than hunger, anguish, or the sea,"


down to the last obscure sea-dog of the "old model," having but few
words and still fewer thoughts, there could not be found, I
believe, one sailor who has ever coupled a curse with the good or
bad name of a ship. If ever his profanity, provoked by the
hardships of the sea, went so far as to touch his ship, it would be
lightly, as a hand may, without sin, be laid in the way of kindness
on a woman.



XXXVI.



The love that is given to ships is profoundly different from the
love men feel for every other work of their hands--the love they
bear to their houses, for instance--because it is untainted by the
pride of possession. The pride of skill, the pride of
responsibility, the pride of endurance there may be, but otherwise
it is a disinterested sentiment. No seaman ever cherished a ship,
even if she belonged to him, merely because of the profit she put
in his pocket. No one, I think, ever did; for a ship-owner, even