fame, power, wealth, greatness!

As I brought the boat under the falls my captain, in high good-
humour, leaned over, spreading his red and freckled elbows on the
rail, and called down to me sarcastically, out of the depths of his
cynic philosopher's beard:

"So you have brought the boat back after all, have you?"

Sarcasm was "his way," and the most that can be said for it is that
it was natural. This did not make it lovable. But it is decorous
and expedient to fall in with one's commander's way. "Yes. I
brought the boat back all right, sir," I answered. And the good
man believed me. It was not for him to discern upon me the marks
of my recent initiation. And yet I was not exactly the same
youngster who had taken the boat away--all impatience for a race
against death, with the prize of nine men's lives at the end.

Already I looked with other eyes upon the sea. I knew it capable
of betraying the generous ardour of youth as implacably as,
indifferent to evil and good, it would have betrayed the basest
greed or the noblest heroism. My conception of its magnanimous
greatness was gone. And I looked upon the true sea--the sea that
plays with men till their hearts are broken, and wears stout ships
to death. Nothing can touch the brooding bitterness of its heart.
Open to all and faithful to none, it exercises its fascination for
the undoing of the best. To love it is not well. It knows no bond
of plighted troth, no fidelity to misfortune, to long
companionship, to long devotion. The promise it holds out
perpetually is very great; but the only secret of its possession is