xiv ALONGSHORE 



doubt that lashing tongue of yours — when you'm 

 up for It — would have served you well in Parlia- 

 ment; but I'd rather Uncle Sam heaved the tiller 

 at my head for not keeping the boat steady, than 

 that Samuel Woolley, Esquire, M.P., and so forth, 

 should smash the liberals or the conservatives — 

 which? — what do you say? I do doubt whether 

 your reckless independence would have suited 

 trade, where you would still, unless I am much 

 mistaken, have been more concerned to see on 

 how little you could live in your own way, than 

 how much you could make somehow else. But 

 there are other people to do those other things. 

 There is only you to be Uncle Sam. 



And you, I believe, could only have been you 

 upon the longshore, where land and sea meet, 

 where man and the sea face one another. For the 

 longshore is powerful to mould men, because, to 

 make a living there, they must fit their whole lives 

 to It, not merely their working hours, but their 

 sleeping and waking and eating, their aims and 

 watchfulness. We wait long and often there: 

 the sea and the fish wait never. There, and there 

 only, can be found the peculiar conditions which 

 make longshoremen what they are — a breed some- 

 what apart — courtiers of the sea, more Intimate 



