Soliloquies in England, and Later Soliloquies

by George Santayana

THE VOYAGE OF THE SAINT CHRISTOPHER

The voyage of Peter's Bark in search of another world has been less fortunate than that of Columbus. There have been mutinies on board; the other world is not yet found. Soon after this good ship, the Saint Christopher, was launched from her Phoenician home-port, she had a strange experience very like that which legend attributes to her namesake, the sainted ferryman. Her freight at the beginning seemed to be of the lightest—only living Hopes and daily Miracles; and the crossing was to be very brief, the other shore being plainly visible at a stone's throw. But that promised land turned out to be a mirage, lying across the mouth of the port, which really opened out into a vast ocean. Meantime the cargo too was strangely transformed; for whilst the Hopes and Miracles were still reputed to be on board, they were hidden from sight and smothered in a litter of Possessions. These included a great load of Books, a heavy fund of Traditions, and a multitude of unruly passengers, with their clamorous wives and children, and all sorts of provender. So over-weighted, the Saint Christopher sank down until the waves almost covered her deck; but she was staunch, like the wading saint when his light burden grew heavier and heavier, and she laboured on.

Not only was this ship named after a saint—which in so old a ship is no wonder—but incredible as it may seem, her captain was a saint too—Saint Simon or (since these vague roving people often have an alias) Saint Peter. He had been a fisherman by profession, and had only become a saint late in life; a fact which explained his good seamanship and his bad language. Besides, he did not pretend to be a saint except in his official capacity, as captain, and in matters of science and navigation: in his private life he was frankly not impeccable, and deprecated any strict scrutiny of it as not to the point. Not only might there have been some blemishes in his early career, but even when in command he might have his faults. People enjoy doing what they can do well from long habit; and he was perhaps too fond of fishing, of cursing, and of commanding.

These foibles once brought upon him a serious mutiny. A large part of the crew, imitating his expressive speech, cried, "Damn the captain!" and took to the boats, saying the ship was rotten and water-logged. They carried away with them most of the Hopes, whilst scrupulously leaving the Miracles alone. In their boats and rafts they pulled ahead in all directions, covering the sea with specks for a long distance; and the captain, after running down and sinking a few of them in his towering rage, got used to their existence, made things shipshape again on board, and fell to observing them, not without some chucklings of humour, rowing and splashing about, quarrelling and never getting anywhere, but often merely drifting and quietly fishing, much in his own old maimer.

The worst mutiny in the Saint Christopher, however, was of quite another kind. The remaining crew had no objection to the captain—they were human themselves—and no desire to paddle their own canoes. But they got thoroughly weary of sailing day after day into the same sunset, decided that there was no El Dorado, and insisted clamorously on putting the ship about. But in what direction? Some were for going home; they said all talk of another world was nonsense, that those Hopes and Miracles were worthless, and that the only thing to do was to return to the old country and live there in the old way, making the best of it. But the majority said that such an acknowledgment of defeat and error would be ignominious; and that life at home, never really happy, would now be doubly intolerable. They would never have set out on so problematical an expedition, had they found life possible in their native seats. But it had been horrible. They remembered with a shudder the cruelties and vanities of their ancestral heathenism. They were adventurers and mariners by nature. They might be now bewildered for a moment and discouraged in their explorations, but the impulse to hope for the better and to try the unknown was ineradicable in their breast.

In some of them, indeed, this brave impulse was so vigorous, that they now had a sudden intuition of the romantic principle of life, and harangued their companions as follows:

"What need, O shipmates, to sail for any port? The sailor is not a land animal. How we chafed and stifled when we lived on terra firma, pent in those horrible stone dungeons called houses and churches, and compelled to till those inert and filthy clods, year in and year out—a most stupefying existence! Let us sail for the sake of sailing. It was not in putting forth into this infinite sea that we were ill-advised, but only in imagining that we could reach an opposite shore, and that the sea was not infinite but hemmed about by dead land. That was a gross illusion. In reality there is no terra firma at all, but only ships and rafts more or less extensive, covered over with earth and trees, riding on the water. Fancy deceived us, when we supposed that our Earth was anchored in some deeper earth. It floats and drifts upon a bottomless flood, and will dissolve into it. Do not dream of any backward voyage, or of reaching home. You will never find that old home again; it exists no longer. But this good ship of ours, with its wind-blown sails, can never sink and can never stop. If the banners and crosses, which we still fly in deference to custom, have lost their meaning for us, other symbols will take their place. We must not confuse our infinite task with the illusions that may first have prompted us to undertake it. A brave and an endless life awaits us, battling with the storms of winter; in the summer days, leaping over the waves with the dolphins and the porpoises; in the watches of the night hailing the ever-new constellations which, as we sail onward, will rise to greet us, and pass over our heads. For ocean is a river that flows unendingly, and the stars and clouds are exhalations attendant upon it; they rise and soar in great circles perpetually before its course, like loosed doves before the bounding shell of Galatea."

These words were not at all relished by the majority of those who listened to them. They were stay-at-homes by temperament, who had embarked only in the hope of gain, or of finding peace and plenty in some softer climate. They were alarmed and disgusted at what they had just heard, and not being quite sore that it was false, they denied it with some irritation.

"What folly," they cried, "what nonsense you are talking. Of course it is the land that is infinite, since it is much better than the sea; and the sea is no river, or its water would be fresh, and you know how brackish and bitter it is: indeed, but for the rain we have collected in pans and hogsheads, we should already have died of thirst. This sea is nothing but a stagnant lake in the midst of the green earth, one of the myriad salt ponds studded all over it; and as for this leaky little ship, which we were induced to embark in only by fraud, it is not really sea-worthy. The planks and cordage are already rotting, and how shall we replace them, unless we speedily sight land—and God grant it may be a civilized country! And look there! Is not that land on the horizon! Through the clearing mists I can discern a lighthouse, quite distinctly; and beyond lies a low shore, overhung with smoke. Something tells me this is the New Atlantis described by Bacon. A prosperous and populous city, full of docks and factories, where we shall find everything needful—warehouses, shops, inns, theatres, baths, even churches and chapels of every sect and denomination. What joy!"

This sight was so welcome to those heartsick passengers, that they could not wait for the ship to make fast, though they steered her straight for the coast, but jumped over-board and eagerly swam ashore. Their example was contagious. The other party could not bear to be left behind without experiencing the new life, whatever it might bring. They reflected that as the land was really a part of the sea, it was not bad seamanship sometimes to run aground, that in leaving the ship they would, in a higher sense, be continuing their voyage, and that they would not be true to the supreme principle of their philosophy, which was absolute free-will, if they did not often change their principles in minor matters. The chief point was to experience everything. They did not regret the past, as did their narrow-minded positivistic friends, simply because it had involved hardships and errors. Hardships and errors were blessings, if you could only outgrow them; and they, in their splendid vitality, knew how to outgrow everything. Sacred history, classic fable, chivalry, and the cure of one's soul had, in that former age, proved absorbing themes for the fancy, and had exquisitely modulated the emotions; but the fountain of those emotions had always been their own breast, and since after such dramatic adventures their breast remained deeply unsatisfied, it was time to look again narrowly into its depths to discover some newer and truer way of expressing it. Why should not the development of material arts be the next phase in their career? They would not be less free amid the gusts and the billows of politics than they had been in their marine adventure; commerce would offer them glorious opportunities to exercise their will-power and their invention; infinite vistas, here too, were open before them: cities always more populous, possessions always more varied, instruments always more wonderful, and labour always more intense.