It has happened to me to meet a few ruffians here and there,
but I never found one of them "engaging." I consoled myself, however, by
the reflection that the friendly reviewer must have been talking like a
parrot, which so often seems to understand what it says.
Yes, in the mists of the sea, and in their remoteness from the rest of
the race, the shapes of those men appeared distorted, uncouth and
faint--so faint as to be almost invisible. It needed the lurid light of
the engines of war to bring them out into full view, very simple, without
worldly graces, organised now into a body of workers by the genius of one
of themselves, who gave them a place and a voice in the social scheme;
but in the main still apart in their homeless, childless generations,
scattered in loyal groups over all the seas, giving faithful care to
their ships and serving the nation, which, since they are seamen, can
give them no reward but the supreme "Well Done."
TRADITION--1918
"Work is the law. Like iron that lying idle degenerates into a mass of
useless rust, like water that in an unruffled pool sickens into a
stagnant and corrupt state, so without action the spirit of men turns to
a dead thing, loses its force, ceases prompting us to leave some trace of
ourselves on this earth.
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