Friday, November 18, 2005

Life on the sea vs. Life this morning


From Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad:

"He was the only man of us who still 'followed the sea.' The worst that could be said of him was that he did not represent his class. He was a seaman, but he was a wanderer, too, while most seamen lead, if one may so express it, a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, and their home is always with them--the ship; and so is their country--the sea. One ship is very much like another, and the sea is always the same. In the immutability of their surroundings the
foreign shores, the foreign faces, the changing immensity of life, glide past, veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance; for there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence and as inscrutable as destiny. For the rest, after his hours of work, a casual stroll or a casual spree on shore suffices to unfold for him the secret of a whole continent, and generally he finds the secret not worth knowing. The yarns of seamen have a direct simplicity, the whole meaning of which lies within the shell of a cracked nut. But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine."

I need to go wandering again...

(NOTE: graphic expands if clicked on)

3 Comments:

At 10:00 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

*Grin*

I love it.

JML

 
At 10:42 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Only a few more days and you can wander home for a bit. :)
~Katie

 
At 12:07 PM, Blogger bluewaterrobby said...

I am surprised anyone still checks my blog.

 

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