Thus their simple minds had a
sort of sweetness. They were in a way preserved. I am not alluding here
to the preserving qualities of the salt in the sea. The salt of the sea
is a very good thing in its way; it preserves for instance one from
catching a beastly cold while one remains wet for weeks together in the
"roaring forties." But in sober unpoetical truth the sea-salt never gets
much further than the seaman's skin, which in certain latitudes it takes
the opportunity to encrust very thoroughly. That and nothing more. And
then, what is this sea, the subject of so many apostrophes in verse and
prose addressed to its greatness and its mystery by men who had never
penetrated either the one or the other? The sea is uncertain, arbitrary,
featureless, and violent. Except when helped by the varied majesty of
the sky, there is something inane in its serenity and something stupid in
its wrath, which is endless, boundless, persistent, and futile--a grey,
hoary thing raging like an old ogre uncertain of its prey. Its very
immensity is wearisome. At any time within the navigating centuries
mankind might have addressed it with the words: "What are you, after all?
Oh, yes, we know.
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