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The Mirror of the Sea-Part19_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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have occurred through want of careful tending in a tideway. All



the same, this looked as though she were pretty hard on her ground-

tackle. Didn't it? She seemed a heavy ship to handle, anyway.



For the rest, as she had a new captain and a new mate this voyage,

he understood, one couldn't say how she would turn out. . . .



In such marine shore-talk as this is the name of a ship slowly

established, her fame made for her, the tale of her qualities and



of her defects kept, her idiosyncrasies commented upon with the

zest of personal gossip, her achievements made much of, her faults



glossed over as things that, being without remedy in our imperfect

world, should not be dwelt upon too much by men who, with the help



of ships, wrest out a bitter living from the rough grasp of the

sea. All that talk makes up her "name," which is handed over from



one crew to another without bitterness, without animosity, with the

indulgence of mutualdependence, and with the feeling of close



association in the exercise of her perfections and in the danger of

her defects.



This feeling explains men's pride in ships. "Ships are all right,"

as my middle-aged, respectable quartermaster said with much



conviction and some irony; but they are not exactly what men make

them. They have their own nature; they can of themselves minister



to our self-esteem by the demand their qualities make upon our

skill and their shortcomings upon our hardiness and endurance.



Which is the more flattering exaction it is hard to say; but there

is the fact that in listening for upwards of twenty years to the



sea-talk that goes on afloat and ashore I have never detected the

true note of animosity. I won't deny that at sea, sometimes, the



note of profanity was audible enough in those chiding

interpellations a wet, cold, weary seaman addresses to his ship,



and in moments of exasperation is disposed to extend to all ships

that ever were launched - to the whole everlastingly exacting brood



that swims in deep waters. And I have heard curses launched at the

unstable element itself, whose fascination, outlasting the



accumulated experience of ages, had captured him as it had captured

the generations of his forebears.



For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on

shore) have professed to feel for it, for all the celebrations it



had been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been

friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human



restlessness, and playing the part of dangerous abettor of world-

wide ambitions. Faithful to no race after the manner of the kindly



earth, receiving no impress from valour and toil and self-

sacrifice, recognising no finality of dominion, the sea has never



adopted the cause of its masters like those lands where the

victorious nations of mankind have taken root, rocking their



cradles and setting up their gravestones. He - man or people -

who, putting his trust in the friendship of the sea, neglects the



strength and cunning of his right hand, is a fool! As if it were

too great, too mighty for common virtues, the ocean has no



compassion, no faith, no law, no memory. Its fickleness is to be

held true to men's purposes only by an undaunted resolution and by



a sleepless, armed, jealousvigilance, in which, perhaps, there has

always been more hate than love. ODI ET AMO may well be the



confession of those who consciously or blindly have surrendered

their existence to the fascination of the sea. All the tempestuous



passions of mankind's young days, the love of loot and the love of

glory, the love of adventure and the love of danger, with the great



love of the unknown and vast dreams of dominion and power, have

passed like images reflected from a mirror, leaving no record upon



the mysterious face of the sea. Impenetrable and heartless, the

sea has given nothing of itself to the suitors for its precarious



favours. Unlike the earth, it cannot be subjugated at any cost of

patience and toil. For all its fascination that has lured so many






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