"It seemed to us all like Paradise regained," he says,
concluding his letter with the words:
"And there was our captain, just his usual self, as if nothing had
happened, as if bringing the boat that hazardous journey and being the
means of saving eighteen souls was to him an everyday occurrence."
Such is the chief engineer's testimony to the continuity of the old
tradition of the sea, which made by the work of men has in its turn
created for them their simple ideal of conduct.
CONFIDENCE--1919
I.
The seamen hold up the Edifice. They have been holding it up in the past
and they will hold it up in the future, whatever this future may contain
of logical development, of unforeseen new shapes, of great promises and
of dangers still unknown.
It is not an unpardonable stretching of the truth to say that the British
Empire rests on transportation. I am speaking now naturally of the sea,
as a man who has lived on it for many years, at a time, too, when on
sighting a vessel on the horizon of any of the great oceans it was
perfectly safe to bet any reasonable odds on her being a British
ship--with the certitude of making a pretty good thing of it at the end
of the voyage.
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