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September 26 - October 12, 2018
“Never mind manoeuvres, always go at them.” I shall never forget it: never mind manoeuvres – always go at ’em.
he was telling us all how someone had offered him a boat-cloak on a cold night and he had said no, he was quite warm – his zeal for his King and country kept him warm. It sounds absurd, as I tell it, does it not? And was it another man, any other man, you would cry out “oh, what pitiful stuff” and dismiss it as mere enthusiasm; but with him you feel your bosom glow,
The Navy speaks in symbols, and you may suit what meaning you choose to the words.’
It was quiet; and in that dimly-lighted box they travelled through the night, cradled by the even swell: after a little while of this silence and this uninterrupted slow rhythmic heave they might have been anywhere on earth – alone in the world – in another world altogether. In the cabin their thoughts were far away, and Stephen for one no longer had any sense of movement to or from any particular point – little sense of motion, still less of the immediate present.
I speak only for myself, mind – it is my own truth alone – but man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me. He is inhuman. And I have nothing to do with nations, or nationalism. The only feelings I have – for what they are – are for men as individuals; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone.’ ‘Patriotism will not do?’ ‘My dear creature, I have done with all debate. But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.’
‘My heart bleeds for you. I have never yet known a man admit that he was either rich or asleep: perhaps the poor man and the wakeful man have some great moral advantage.
for the discontent, the inner contest, must at times be very severe in a man so humourless (on occasion) and so very exigent upon the point of honour. He is obliged to reconcile the irreconcilable more often than most men; and he is less qualified to do so.
the exhalation of the stone-pines, mixed with the scent of the gum-cistus, met them – it was like breathing another element.
A commander is obeyed by his officers because he is himself obeying; the thing is not in its essence personal; and so down. If he does not obey, the chain weakens.
Do you not find it happens very often, that you are as gay as Garrick at dinner and then by supper-time you wonder why God made the world?’
Jack walked over to stare at the path and to view the basin; he walked stumpily, for he could not come by his land legs right away. The ground would not heave and yield like a deck; but as he paced to and fro in the half-light his body grew more used to the earth’s rigidity, and in time his legs carried him with an easier, less rough and jerking action. He reflected upon the nature of the ground, upon the slow and uneven coming of the light – a
We are overburdened with prisoners and mean to discharge fifty of ’em into you.’ ‘I am sorry, sir, truly sorry, not to be able to oblige you, but the sloop is crowded with prisoners already.’ ‘Oblige, did you say? You will oblige me, sir, by obeying orders. Are you aware I am the senior captain here, sir?
‘The identity I am thinking of is something that hovers between a man and the rest of the world: a mid-point between his view of himself and theirs of him – for each, of course, affects the other continually.
Where there was no equality there was no companionship: when a man was obliged to say ‘Yes, sir,’ his agreement was of no worth even if it happened to be true. He
‘You do not need a head, nor even a heart, to be all a female can require.’
So much pain; and the more honest the man the worse the pain. But there at least the conflict is direct: it seems to me that the greater mass of confusion and distress must arise from these less evident divergencies – the moral law, the civil, military, common laws, the code of honour, custom, the rules of practical life, of civility, of amorous conversation, gallantry, to say nothing of Christianity for those that practise it.
All sometimes, indeed generally, at variance; none ever in an entirely harmonious relation to the rest; and a man is perpetually required to choose one rather than another, perhaps (in his particular case) its contrary.
It is as though our strings were each tuned according to a completely separate system – it is as though the poor ass were surrounded by four and twenty mangers.’ ‘You are an antinomian,’ said Jack. ‘I am a pragmatist,’ said Stephen. ‘Come, let us drink up o...
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‘Captain Aubrey, I do believe? Keats, of the Superb. My dear sir, you must allow me to congratulate you with all my heart – a most splendid victory indeed. I have just pulled round your capture in my barge, and I am amazed, sir, amazed. Was you very much clawed? May I be of any service – my bosun, carpenter, sailmakers? Would you do me the pleasure of dining aboard, or are you bespoke? I dare say you are – every woman in Mahon will wish to exhibit you. Such a victory!’
‘Why, sir, I thank you most heartily,’ cried Jack, flushing with undisguised open ingenuous pleasure and returning the pressure of Captain Keats’ hand with such vehemence as to cause a dull crepitation, followed by a shattering dart of agony. ‘I am infinitely obliged to you, for your kind opinion. There is none I value more, sir. To tell you the truth, I am engaged to dine with the Governor and to stay for the concert; but if I might beg the loan of your bosun and a small party – my people are all most uncommon weary, quite fagged out – why, I should look upon it as a most welcome, indeed, a
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Jack had refused five more invitations by the time he and Keats parted at the Crown: from mouths he respected he had heard the words ‘as neat an action as ever I knew’, ‘Nelson will rejoice in this’, and ‘if there is justice on earth, the frigate will be bought by Government and Captain Aubrey given command of her’.
‘If you provide a man with horns, he may gore you,’ he observed with a detached air, covertly watching to see what effect his remark might have.
Stephen looked at him attentively, took his pulse, gazed at his tongue, asked squalid questions, examined him. ‘Is it a wound going bad?’ asked Jack, alarmed by his gravity. ‘It is a wound, if you wish,’ said Stephen. ‘But not from our battle with the Cacafuego. Some lady of your acquaintance has been too liberal with her favours, too universally kind.’
‘I have been thinking about Dillon all day. All day long I have been thinking about him, off and on. You would scarcely credit how much I miss him. When you told me about that classical chap, it brought him so to mind … because it was about Irishmen, no doubt; and Dillon was Irish. Though you would never have thought so – never to be seen drunk, almost never called anyone out, spoke like a Christian, the most gentleman-like creature in the world, nothing of the hector at all – oh Christ. My dear fellow, my dear Maturin, I do beg your pardon. I say these damned things … I regret it extremely.’
she could throw a broadside weight of metal of 238 pounds. A French line-of-battle ship could not throw less than 960. No question of a match,
