I don't know what the
seaman of the future will be like. He may have to live all his days with
a telephone tied up to his head and bristle all over with scientific
antennae like a figure in a fantastic tale. But he will always be the
man revealed to us lately, immutable in his slight variations like the
closed path of this planet of ours on which he must find his exact
position once, at the very least, in every twenty-four hours.
The greatest desideratum of a sailor's life is to be "certain of his
position." It is a source of great worry at times, but I don't think
that it need be so at this time. Yet even the best position has its
dangers on account of the fickleness of the elements. But I think that,
left untrammelled to the individual effort of its creators and to the
collective spirit of its servants, the British Merchant Service will
manage to maintain its position on this restless and watery globe.
FLIGHT--1917
To begin at the end, I will say that the "landing" surprised me by a
slight and very characteristically "dead" sort of shock.
I may fairly call myself an amphibious creature.
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