CHAPTER XIV 



A MOTHERLY KNIGHT IN ARMOR 



THERE are three things of the sea which have 

 been dehneated by man more than any others 

 — dolphins, mermaids, and seahorses, and there 

 are three things about which we know almost less 

 than any others — seahorses, mermaids and dol- 

 phins. I am sure that five thousand years ago some 

 Egyptian or Chinaman or non-union stone mason 

 of those days was daubing or hacking out an at- 

 tempt at one or the other, and I know right well 

 that at this very moment a young artist in a garret 

 is drawing an original design of a pair of dolphins 

 or seahorses with their tails entwined. I have awak- 

 ened in a guest room where four walls revealed 

 vmending rows and columns of seahorses — so aw- 

 ful that I had to leap out of bed to avoid counting 

 them and calculating how many more there would 

 be if the window glass had been filled in. 



I really believe we know more about mermaids 

 than dolphins or seahorses, for there is a splendid 

 freedom of imagination which is engendered by the 

 uncertainty of existence of anything — a freedom 

 cribbed and confined by knowledge of actuality. 

 Our medieval ancestors believed much more in 

 mermaids than in other marine organisms, and I am 



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