strangers they never see, but who are inimical to them, and whose ways
are inscrutable.

If there are any inland shops which can hold one longer than the place
where that ship's portrait hangs, then I do not know them. That comes
from no more, of course, than the usual fault of an early impression.
That fault gives a mould to the mind, and our latest thoughts, which we
try to make reasonable, betray that accidental shape. It may be said
that I looked into this window while still soft. The consequence,
everybody knows, would be incurable in a boy who saw sextants for the
first time, compasses, patent logs, sounding-machines, signalling gear,
and the other secrets of navigators. And not only those things. There
was a section given to books, with classics like Stevens on _Stowage_,
and Norie's _Navigation_, volumes never seen west of Gracechurch
Street. The books were all for the eyes of sailors, and were sorted by
chance. _Knots and Splices_, _Typee_, _Know Your Own Ship_, the _South
Pacific Directory_, and _Castaway on the Auckland Islands_. There were
many of them, and they were in that fortuitous and attractive order.
The back of every volume had to be read, though the light was bad. On
one wall between the windows a specimen chart was framed. Maps are
good; but how much better are charts, especially when you cannot read
them except by guessing at their cryptic lettering! About the coast
line the fathom marks cluster thickly, and venture to sea in lines
which attenuate, or become sparse clusters, till the chart is blank,
being beyond soundings. At the capes are red dots, with arcs on the
seaward side to show at what distance mariners pick up the real lights
at night. Through such windows, boys with bills of lading and mates'
receipts in their pockets, being on errands to shipowners, look
outward, and only seem to look inward. Where are the confines of
London?