My confidence rests on the hearts of men who do not change, though they
may forget many things for a time and even forget to be themselves in a
moment of false enthusiasm. But of that I am not afraid. It will not be
for long. I know the men. Through the kindness of the Admiralty (which,
let me confess here in a white sheet, I repaid by the basest ingratitude)
I was permitted during the war to renew my contact with the British
seamen of the merchant service. It is to their generosity in recognising
me under the shore rust of twenty-five years as one of themselves that I
owe one of the deepest emotions of my life. Never for a moment did I
feel among them like an idle, wandering ghost from a distant past. They
talked to me seriously, openly, and with professional precision, of
facts, of events, of implements, I had never heard of in my time; but the
hands I grasped were like the hands of the generation which had trained
my youth and is now no more. I recognised the character of their
glances, the accent of their voices. Their moving tales of modern
instances were presented to me with that peculiar turn of mind flavoured
by the inherited humour and sagacity of the sea.
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