It may be that
"Leviathans" will march unheedingly _through_ the mountain waves,--that
steam and the Winans's model will obliterate old inventions and labors
and triumphs. Blake and Raleigh and Frobisher and Dampier may be known
no more. The poetry and the mystery of the sea may perish altogether,
as they have in part. Out of the past looks a bronzed and manly face;
along the deck of a phantom-ship swings a square and well-knit form. I
hear, in memory, the ring of his cheerful voice. I see his alert and
prompt obedience, his self-respecting carriage, and I know him for the
man of the sea, who was with Hull in the "Constitution" and Porter in
the "Essex." I look for him now upon the broad decks of the magnificent
merchantmen that lie along the slips of New York, and in his place is a
lame and stunted, bloated and diseased wretch, spiritless, hopeless,
reckless. Has he knowledge of a seaman's duty? The dull sodden brain
can carry the customary orders of a ship's duty, but more than that it
cannot. Has he hopes of advancement? His horizon is bounded by the bar
and the brothel. A dog's life, a dog's berth, and a dog's death are his
heritage.
The old illusion still prevails and has power over little towheaded
Joseph on the Berkshire interval.
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