They were the
everlasting children of the mysterious sea. Their successors are the
grown-up children of a discontented earth. They are less naughty, but
less innocent; less profane, but perhaps also less believing; and if
they have learned how to speak they have also learned how to whine. But
the others were strong and mute; they were effaced, bowed and enduring,
like stone caryatides that hold up in the night the lighted halls of
a resplendent and glorious edifice. They are gone now--and it does not
matter. The sea and the earth are unfaithful to their children: a truth,
a faith, a generation of men goes--and is forgotten, and it does not
matter! Except, perhaps, to the few of those who believed the truth,
confessed the faith--or loved the men.
A breeze was coming. The ship that had been lying tide-rode swung to
a heavier puff; and suddenly the slack of the chain cable between the
windlass and the hawse-pipe clinked, slipped forward an inch, and rose
gently off the deck with a startling suggestion as of unsuspected life
that had been lurking stealthily in the iron. In the hawse-pipe the
grinding links sent through the ship a sound like a low groan of a
man sighing under a burden.
Pages:
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56