|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Mirror of the Sea by Joseph Conrad: canvas is shown to the wind to keep her head to sea, she faces the
waves again with an unsubdued courage.
XIX.
The efficiency of a steamship consists not so much in her courage
as in the power she carries within herself. It beats and throbs
like a pulsating heart within her iron ribs, and when it stops, the
steamer, whose life is not so much a contest as the disdainful
ignoring of the sea, sickens and dies upon the waves. The sailing-
ship, with her unthrobbing body, seemed to lead mysteriously a sort
of unearthly existence, bordering upon the magic of the invisible
forces, sustained by the inspiration of life-giving and death-
The Mirror of the Sea |
