seen at a certain angle, their abrupt clockwork nodding in a sea-way, so
unlike the soaring lift and swing of a craft under sail, have in them
something caricatural, a suggestion of a low parody directed at noble
predecessors by an improved generation of dull, mechanical toilers,
conceited and without grace.

When they switched on (each of these unlovely cargo tanks carried tame
lightning within its slab-sided body), when they switched on their lamps
they spangled the night with the cheap, electric, shop-glitter, here,
there, and everywhere, as of some High Street, broken up and washed out
to sea. Later, Heligoland cut into the overhead darkness with its
powerful beam, infinitely prolonged out of unfathomable night under the
clouds.

I remained on deck until we stopped and a steam pilot-boat, so
overlighted amidships that one could not make out her complete shape,
glided across our bows and sent a pilot on board. I fear that the oar,
as a working implement, will become presently as obsolete as the sail.
The pilot boarded us in a motor-dinghy. More and more is mankind
reducing its physical activities to pulling levers and twirling little
wheels. Progress! Yet the older methods of meeting natural forces
demanded intelligence too; an equally fine readiness of wits. And
readiness of wits working in combination with the strength of muscles
made a more complete man.

It was really a surprisingly small dinghy and it ran to and fro like a
water-insect fussing noisily down there with immense self-importance.
Within hail of us the hull of the Elbe lightship floated all dark and
silent under its enormous round, service lantern; a faithful black shadow
watching the broad estuary full of lights.