As we looked off, and saw the water growing darker and darker and deeper and deeper the farther we looked, till it was awful to co...nsider,... I felt that I was a land animal.... I could then appreciate the heroism of the old navigator, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, of whom it is related, that being overtaken by a storm when on his return from America, in the year 1583, far northeastward from where we were, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, just before he was swallowed up in the deep, he cried out to his comrades in the Hind, as they came within hearing, "We are as near to Heaven by sea as by land." I saw that it would not be easy to realize.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The dullest soul cannot go upon such an expedition without some of the spirit of adventure; as if he had stolen the boat of Charon... and gone down the Styx on a midnight expedition in the realms of Pluto.... The silent navigator shoves his craft gently over the water, with a smothered pride and sense of benefaction, as if he were phosphor, or light-bringer, to these dusky realms, or some sister moon, blessing the spaces with her light. The waters, for a rod or two on either hand and several feet in depth, are lit up with more than noonday distinctness, and he enjoys the opportunity which so many have desired, for the roofs of a city are indeed raised, and he surveys the midnight economy of the fishes.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Indian navigator naturally distinguishes by a name those parts of a stream where he has encountered quick water and forks, and... again, the lakes and smooth water where he can rest his weary arms, since those are the most interesting and more arable parts to him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I must have the gentleman to haul and draw with the mariner, and the mariner with the gentleman.... I would know him, that would r...efuse to set his hand to a rope, but I know there is not any such here.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a li...ttle bit.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The sickness of our times for me has been just this damn thing that everything has been getting smaller and smaller and less and l...ess important, that the romantic spirit has dried up, that there is no shame today.... We're all getting so mean and small and petty and ridiculous, and we all live under the threat of extermination.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
They live together without king, without government, and each is his own master.... Beyond the fact that they have no church, no r...eligion and are not idolaters, what more can I say? They live according to nature, and may be called Epicureans rather than Stoics.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »