XI.



Indeed, it is less than nothing, and I have seen, when the great
soul of the world turned over with a heavy sigh, a perfectly new,
extra-stout foresail vanish like a bit of some airy stuff much
lighter than gossamer. Then was the time for the tall spars to
stand fast in the great uproar. The machinery must do its work
even if the soul of the world has gone mad.

The modern steamship advances upon a still and overshadowed sea
with a pulsating tremor of her frame, an occasional clang in her
depths, as if she had an iron heart in her iron body; with a
thudding rhythm in her progress and the regular beat of her
propeller, heard afar in the night with an august and plodding
sound as of the march of an inevitable future. But in a gale, the
silent machinery of a sailing-ship would catch not only the power,
but the wild and exulting voice of the world's soul. Whether she
ran with her tall spars swinging, or breasted it with her tall
spars lying over, there was always that wild song, deep like a
chant, for a bass to the shrill pipe of the wind played on the sea-
tops, with a punctuating crash, now and then, of a breaking wave.
At times the weird effects of that invisible orchestra would get
upon a man's nerves till he wished himself deaf.

And this recollection of a personal wish, experienced upon several
oceans, where the soul of the world has plenty of room to turn over