_J._ From water Venus was born, what more would you have? It is the
mother of Beauty, the girdle of earth, and the marriage of nations.

_S._ Without any of that high-flown poetry, it is enough, I think,
that it is the great artist, turning all objects that approach it to
picture.

_J._ True, no object that touches it, whether it be the cart that
ploughs the wave for sea-weed, or the boat or plank that rides upon
it, but is brought at once from the demesne of coarse utilities into
that of picture. All trades, all callings, become picturesque by the
water's side, or on the water. The soil, the slovenliness, is washed
out of every calling by its touch. All river-crafts, sea-crafts, are
picturesque, are poetical. Their very slang is poetry.

_M._ The reasons for that are complex.

_J._ The reason is, that there can be no plodding, groping words and
motions on my water as there are on your earth. There is no time,
no chance for them where all moves so rapidly, though so smoothly;
everything connected with water must be like itself, forcible, but
clear. That is why sea-slang is so poetical; there is a word for
everything and every act, and a thing and an act for every word.
Seamen must speak quick and bold, but also with utmost precision.
They cannot reef and brace other than in a Homeric dialect,--
therefore--(Steamboat bell rings.) But I must say a quick good-by.

_M._ What, going, going back to earth after all this talk upon the
other side. Well, that is nowise Homeric, but truly modern.