For emergencies require extraordinary powers and a wide
discretion. There can be no divided rule in a ship. But if every man
know his place and his duty, and none overstep it, there will come
thereof successful and happy voyages. There must be discipline,
subordination, and law. The republican theory stops with the shore.
"Obey orders, though you break owners," is the Magna Charta of the
main. This can be well and wisely carried out only with some
homogeneity of the ship's company, with a community of feeling and a
community of interest. Everybody who has been off soundings knows, or
ought to know, the difference between things "done with a will" and
"sogering." If it be important on land to adjust the relations of
employer and employed, it is doubly important on the sea, where the
peril and the privation are great. For it is a hard life, a life of
unproductive toil, that oftenest shows no results while accomplishing
great ends. It cannot be made easy. The gale and the lee-shore are the
same as when the sea-kings of old dared them and did battle with them
in the heroic energy of their old Norse blood. The wet, the cold, the
exposure must be, since you cannot put a Chilson's furnace into a
ship's forecastle, nor wear India-rubbers and carry an umbrella when
you go aloft.
Pages:
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162