The love that is given to ships is profoundly different from the love men feel for every other work of their hands — the love they bear to their houses, for instance — because it is untainted by the pride of possession. The pride of skill, the pride of responsibility, the pride of endurance there may be, but otherwise it is a disinterested¹ sentiment. No seaman² ever cherished a ship, even if she belonged to him, merely because of the profit she put in his pocket. No one, I think, ever did; for a ship-owner, even of the best, has always been outside the pale of that sentiment embracing in a feeling of intimate, equal fellowship the ship and the man, backing each other against the implacable, if sometimes dissembled, hostility³ of their world of waters. The sea — this truth must be confessed — has no generosity⁴. No display of manly⁵ qualities — courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness — has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power. The ocean has the conscienceless temper of a savage⁶ autocrat⁷ spoiled by much adulation. He cannot brook⁸ the slightest appearance of defiance⁹, and has remained the irreconcilable¹⁰ enemy of ships and men ever since ships and men had the unheard of audacity¹¹ to go afloat together in the face of his frown. From that day he has gone on swallowing up fleets and men without his

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