To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.

For there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence.

Even extreme grief may ultimately vent itself in violence--but more generally takes the form of apathy

For a bag of pepper, they could cut each other's throats without hesitation, and would forswear their souls... The bizarre obstinacy of that desire made them defy death in a thousand shapes; the unknown seas, the loathsome diseases; wounds, captivity, hunger, pestilence and despair. It made them great! By heavens! It made them heroic; and it made them pathetic, too, in their craving for trade with the inflexible death levying its toll on young and old

Books may be written in all sorts of places. Verbal inspiration may enter the berth of a mariner on board a ship frozen fast in a river in the middle of a town.

Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.

There is never enough time to say our last word-the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submission, revolt.