ON CERTAIN HUMANITIES 303 



York paper put in a long notice as to how tine a 

 man Captain Green was and how noble a life 

 he had lead, follerin' the sea. I wanted to tell 

 that editor a thing or two, for it made me mad, 

 but I didn't." 



These days of sea and shore tales at some of 

 the lighthouses on our coast are gone, never to 

 return. No longer is it possible to find refuge 

 from the winter storm, from whirling snow and 

 sand, by the cozy fireside of the light-keeper. 

 The lighthouses still stand and shed their lights 

 seaward, but the lights are impersonal, mechan- 

 ical, automatic, cold and soulless. In the march 

 of progress the government has found it possible, 

 in some places, to do without the human light- 

 keepers by using acetylene lamps which burn night 

 and day without ceasing and without tending, 

 except to be replenished at long intervals. A 

 lonely lighthouse has an appealing, human 

 quality, and hard it is to disassociate it from 

 humanity. May this mechanical fate never fall 

 on the light at Ipswich! 



