my friend, stand by me now, in this my hour of
need! How foolish! I am alone at sea, and my friend is in London,
puzzling over my behaviour to him.

The cool breeze against my face arouses me. The mood of exultation in
my engines, the mood of blank despair, both have passed, and I am, I
hope, myself again. Once more "the kick o' the screw beneath us and
the round blue seas outside." Once more the wandering fever is in my
blood, and, as the winter's day fades away, I stand against the rail
looking eastward at the flashing lights, calmer than I have been since
that night--a month ago. I am an ocean tramp once more, and count it
life indeed.

"_And out at sea, behold the dock-lights die,
And meet my mate, the wind that tramps the world._"

XVIII

I have been looking into some of my books, now that the sea is so calm
and the weather so enchantingly fair. I find a pleasurable contrast in
dipping into such volumes as Boswell's "Johnson," Goldsmith's "Beau
Nash," and Lady Montague's "Letters." The life they depict is so
different, the opinions they express so dissimilar from those I have
myself gradually grown to affect. And what an amazing _farrago_ is
that same Boswell! Surely, if ever a book was written _con amore_, it
is that one. Compare it with the "Life of Beau Nash." Each is the
biography of a remarkable man, but what a difference! In every line
Goldsmith displays a certain forced interest. I do not know, but I am
almost positive he cared very little for his subject; I feel that the
work is only being carried on for the sake of gain. Regarded so, it is
a masterly little Life. Two hundred small pages--Nash merits no more
on the roll of fame.

But the former, twelve hundred closely printed pages. No paltry little
anecdote or incident, germane or not, is too contemptible for him. The
identity of some obscure school, the mastership of which Johnson never
held, is argued about until one is weary of the thing. The illegible
note, written for his own eye alone, is construed in a dozen ways, and
judgment delivered as though the fate of empires hung thereon. The
smug complaisance with which he cites some prayer or comment to
illustrate his idol's religious orthodoxy would have angered me
once--_did_ anger me once--but out here, on the broad blue ocean, I
smile at the toady, and marvel at the wondrous thing he has wrought.

Pleasant, too, to turn the leaves of my Dryden, and glance through
some of those