of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed,
or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is
almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him,
at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage
as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration,
when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land?
Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks
give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this
is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story
of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting,
mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned.
But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans.
It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key
to it all.

Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin
to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs,
I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger.
For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but
a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick--
grow quarrelsome--don't sleep of nights--do not enjoy themselves much,
as a general thing;--no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am
something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain,
or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices
to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honorable
respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever.
It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking
care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for
going as cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory in that,
a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow, I never