off her stern was awash, and in another half-hour
she had a very marked list to port. She slowly, almost imperceptibly,
listed more and more, and then the end came with startling
suddenness. With a slow and gentle roll she heeled over till
she was completely on her side and her great funnels under
water; she remained there for a moment, and then slowly turned
turtle and gradually sank stern first. For a long time about
twenty feet of her nose remained above water, then this slowly
sank and disappeared. It was all so quiet that it seemed like
some queer dream. The fires must have been drawn with great
promptness, for there was no explosion as her funnels went
under, though we were standing some way off to be clear of
flying fragments. She had been stabbed in the dark, and she
passed away without a murmur.

There is something very moving in the end of a great vessel. It
is so hard to believe that a thing of such vast bulk, and with
organs of such terrific power, should be so utterly helpless
because of a mere hole in her side. It is like watching the death
of a god. We make such a turmoil about the end of our puny
lives, and that great giant slides away into darkness without a
murmur. Ah, but you will say, a man is of far more value than a
ship. Is he? Is any single man in this world worth as much as
the Titanic? And if so, how? He can make wealth, but so could
she. He could bring happiness to others, and so could she. I
have yet to find any ground on which any man can be put up in
competition with that vessel in sheer worth to the world, and I
am not speaking in any low sense of values. For I suppose the
greatest man who ever lived might feel that his life was well
spent if he had brought two continents nearer together. It was
for that that she was created. The hard fact is that there are
very few indeed of us, in spite of all the noise we make, who are
worth to the world a thousand pounds, and if she could sell the
bulk of us for that she would be positively drunk with fortune.

But, you will say, a ship has no soul. Are you quite so sure
about that? Most people will maintain that their bodies contain a
soul, and then they proceed to build up these same bodies with
bread and bacon, and even beer, and in the end they possess
bodies constructed without any shadow of doubt out of these
ingredients. And if ten thousand men have toiled night and day,
in blazing furnace and in dark mine, to build a mighty vessel, at
the