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Notes on Life and Letters-Part34_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Lane aspects of that event, which is neither drama, nor melodrama,

nor tragedy, but the exposure of arrogant folly. There is nothing



more heroic in being drowned very much against your will, off a

holed, helpless, big tank in which you bought your passage, than in



dying of colic caused by the imperfectsalmon in the tin you bought

from your grocer.



And that's the truth. The unsentimental truth stripped of the

romanticgarment the Press has wrapped around this most unnecessary



disaster.

PROTECTION OF OCEAN LINERS {8}--1914



The loss of the Empress of Ireland awakens feelings somewhat

different from those the sinking of the Titanic had called up on



two continents. The grief for the lost and the sympathy for the

survivors and the bereaved are the same; but there is not, and



there cannot be, the same undercurrent of indignation. The good

ship that is gone (I remember reading of her launch something like



eight years ago) had not been ushered in with beat of drum as the

chief wonder of the world of waters. The company who owned her had



no agents, authorised or unauthorised, giving boastful interviews

about her unsinkability to newspaper reporters ready to swallow any



sort of trade statement if only sensational enough for their

readers--readers as ignorant as themselves of the nature of all



things outside the commonest experience of the man in the street.

No; there was nothing of that in her case. The company was content



to have as fine, staunch, seaworthy a ship as the technical

knowledge of that time could make her. In fact, she was as safe a



ship as nine hundred and ninety-nine ships out of any thousand now

afloat upon the sea. No; whatever sorrow one can feel, one does



not feel indignation. This was not an accident of a very boastful

marinetransportation; this was a real casualty of the sea. The



indignation of the New South Wales Premier flashed telegraphically

to Canada is perfectlyuncalled-for. That statesman, whose



sympathy for poor mates and seamen is so suspect to me that I

wouldn't take it at fifty per cent. discount, does not seem to know



that a British Court of Marine Inquiry, ordinary or extraordinary,

is not a contrivance for catching scapegoats. I, who have been



seaman, mate and master for twenty years, holding my certificate

under the Board of Trade, may safely say that none of us ever felt



in danger of unfairtreatment from a Court of Inquiry. It is a

perfectlyimpartialtribunal which has never punished seamen for



the faults of shipowners--as, indeed, it could not do even if it

wanted to. And there is another thing the angry Premier of New



South Wales does not know. It is this: that for a ship to float

for fifteen minutes after receiving such a blow by a bare stem on



her bare side is not so bad.

She took a tremendous list which made the minutes of grace



vouchsafed her of not much use for the saving of lives. But for

that neither her owners nor her officers are responsible. It would



have been wonderful if she had not listed with such a hole in her

side. Even the Aquitania with such an opening in her outer hull



would be bound to take a list. I don't say this with the intention

of disparaging this latest "triumph of marine architecture"--to use



the consecrated phrase. The Aquitania is a magnificent ship. I

believe she would bear her people unscathed through ninety-nine per



cent. of all possible accidents of the sea. But suppose a

collision out on the ocean involving damage as extensive as this



one was, and suppose then a gale of wind coming on. Even the

Aquitania would not be quite seaworthy, for she would not be



manageable.

We have been accustoming ourselves to put our trust in material,



technical skill, invention, and scientificcontrivances to such an

extent that we have come at last to believe that with these things



we can overcome the immortal gods themselves. Hence when a

disaster like this happens, there arises, besides the shock to our



humane sentiments, a feeling of irritation, such as the hon.




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