[Joseph
Conrad, The Mirror of the Sea, Chap.
36, 1906.]
Sunday, December 21, 2014
`Stealthily Ready for a Drowning'
“The
sea—this truth must be confessed—has no generosity. No display of manly qualities—courage,
hardihood, endurance, faithfulness—has ever been known to touch its
irresponsible consciousness of power.
The ocean has the conscienceless temper of a savage autocrat spoiled by
much adulation. He cannot brook the
slightest appearance of defiance, and has remained the irreconcilable enemy of
ships and men ever since ships and men had the unheard of audacity to go afloat
together in the face of his frown. From
that day he has gone on swallowing up fleets and men without his resentment
being glutted by the number of victims—by so many wrecked ships and wrecked
lives. To-day, as ever, he is ready to
beguile and betray, to smash and to drown the incorrigible optimism of men who,
backed by the fidelity of ships, are trying to wrest from him the fortune of
their house, the dominion of their world, or only a dole of food for their
hunger. If not always in the hot mood to
smash, he is always stealthily ready for a drowning. The most amazing wonder of the deep is its
unfathomable cruelty.”
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1 comment:
Reminded me of this:
Nothing Personal
The sea is not a person,
it’s just seething physics,
swelling up and down.
And yet the sea behaves,
and then it misbehaves.
Last night it threw a tantrum,
hurling paving stones,
kelp and shingle,
across the promenade
in a disgraceful and
unmannerly display,
leaving me, now, crunching
over stones and shells,
looking at the horizon.
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