THE SEA'S STAMP
It is an Englishman's privilege to grumble, and a sailorman's duty; yet one thing always strikes me in talking to seafaring men, namely how indelible the sea's stamp is; how indissolubly they are bound to the sea—with sunken bonds like those which unite an old married couple,—and also what outbursts of savage hatred they have against it. Tony says that if he could earn fifteen shillings a week regularly on land, he would give up the sea altogether. I very much doubt it. The sea has him fast. He says further that nobody would go to sea unless he were caught young and foolish, and that few would stay there if they could get away. There are, among the older fishermen of Seacombe, some who have worked well, and could still work, but prefer to stay ashore and starve. Tony holds them excused. "Aye!" he says, "they've a-worked hard in their day, an' they knows they ain't no for'arder. An' now they'm weary o' it all, an' don't care; an' that's how I'll be some day, if I lives—weary o'it, an' just where I was!"
But the sea has her followers, and will continue to have them, because seafaring is the occupation in which health, strength and courage have their greatest value; in which being a man most nearly suffices a man. It is remarkable that Baudelaire, decadent Frenchman, apostle of the artificial, who was violently home-sick when he went on a voyage, should have expressed the relation of man and the sea—their enmity and love—more subtly than any English poet.
Homme libre, toujours tu chériras la mer;
La mer et ton miroir; tu contemples ton âme
Dans le déroulement infini de sa lame,
Et ton esprit n'est pas un gouffre moins amer.
Tu te plais à plonger au sein de ton image;
Tu l'embrasses des yeux et des bras, et ton cœur
Se distrait quelquefois de sa propre rumeur