酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

The Mirror of the Sea-Part8_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页
struggle with forces wherein defeat is no shame. It is a serious



relation, that in which a man stands to his ship. She has her

rights as though she could breathe and speak; and, indeed, there



are ships that, for the right man, will do anything but speak, as

the saying goes.



A ship is not a slave. You must make her easy in a seaway, you

must never forget that you owe her the fullest share of your



thought, of your skill, of your self-love. If you remember that

obligation, naturally and without effort, as if it were an



instinctive feeling of your inner life, she will sail, stay, run

for you as long as she is able, or, like a sea-bird going to rest



upon the angry waves, she will lay out the heaviest gale that ever

made you doubt living long enough to see another sunrise.



XVI.

Often I turn with melancholyeagerness to the space reserved in the



newspapers under the general heading of "Shipping Intelligence." I

meet there the names of ships I have known. Every year some of



these names disappear - the names of old friends. "Tempi passati!"

The different divisions of that kind of news are set down in their



order, which varies but slightly in its arrangement of concise

headlines. And first comes "Speakings" - reports of ships met and



signalled at sea, name, port, where from, where bound for, so many

days out, ending frequently with the words "All well." Then come



"Wrecks and Casualties" - a longish array of paragraphs, unless the

weather has been fair and clear, and friendly to ships all over the



world.

On some days there appears the heading "Overdue" - an ominous



threat of loss and sorrow trembling yet in the balance of fate.

There is something sinister to a seaman in the very grouping of the



letters which form this word, clear in its meaning, and seldom

threatening in vain.



Only a very few days more - appallingly few to the hearts which had

set themselves bravely to hope against hope - three weeks, a month



later, perhaps, the name of ships under the blight of the "Overdue"

heading shall appear again in the column of "Shipping



Intelligence," but under the final declaration of "Missing."

"The ship, or barque, or brig So-and-so, bound from such a port,



with such and such cargo, for such another port, having left at

such and such a date, last spoken at sea on such a day, and never



having been heard of since, was posted to-day as missing." Such in

its strictly official eloquence is the form of funeral orations on



ships that, perhaps wearied with a long struggle, or in some

unguarded moment that may come to the readiest of us, had let



themselves be overwhelmed by a sudden blow from the enemy.

Who can say? Perhaps the men she carried had asked her to do too



much, had stretched beyond breaking-point the enduring faithfulness

which seems wrought and hammered into that assemblage of iron ribs



and plating, of wood and steel and canvas and wire, which goes to

the making of a ship - a complete creation endowed with character,



individuality, qualities and defects, by men whose hands launch her

upon the water, and that other men shall learn to know with an



intimacy surpassing the intimacy of man with man, to love with a

love nearly as great as that of man for woman, and often as blind



in its infatuated disregard of defects.

There are ships which bear a bad name, but I have yet to meet one



whose crew for the time being failed to stand up angrily for her

against every criticism. One ship which I call to mind now had the



reputation of killing somebody every voyage she made. This was no

calumny, and yet I remember well, somewhere far back in the late



seventies, that the crew of that ship were, if anything, rather

proud of her evil fame, as if they had been an utterly corrupt lot



of desperadoes glorying in their association with an atrocious

creature. We, belonging to other vessels moored all about the



Circular Quay in Sydney, used to shake our heads at her with a

great sense of the unblemished virtue of our own well-loved ships.



I shall not pronounce her name. She is "missing" now, after a

sinister but, from the point of view of her owners, a useful career



extending over many years, and, I should say, across every ocean of

our globe. Having killed a man for every voyage, and perhaps



rendered more misanthropic by the infirmities that come with years




文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号