1S4S LIFE AT SEA 69 



done. Which of us may dare to ask for more ? He has 

 raised an enduring monument in his works, and his 

 epitaph shall be the grateful thanks of many a mariner 

 threading his way among the mazes of the Coral Sea. 



P. 104 : 



The world enclosed within the timbers of a man-of-war 

 is a most remarkable community, hardly to be rendered 

 vividly intelligible to the mere landsman in these days of 

 constitutional government and freedom of the press. 



Then follows a vigorous sketch of sea life from 

 Chamisso, suggesting that the type of one's relation to 

 the captain is to be found in Jean Paul's Biography 

 of the Twins, who were united back to back. This 

 sketch Huxley enforces by a passage from the 

 imaginary journal aforesaid, "indited apparently 

 when the chains were yet new and somewhat galled 

 the writer," to judge from which "little alteration 

 would seem to have taken place in nautical life " 

 since Chamisso's voyage, thirty years before. 



You tell me (he writes) that you sigh for my life 

 of freedom and adventure ; and that, compared with 

 mine, the conventional monotony of your own stinks in 

 your nostrils. My dear fellow, be patient, and listen 

 to what I have to say ; you will then, perhaps, be a 

 little move content with your lot in life, and a little less 

 desirous of mine. Of all extant lives, that on board a 

 ship-of-war is the most artificial whether necessarily so 

 or not is a question I will not undertake to decide ; but 

 the fact is indubitable. 



How utterly disgusted you get with one another ! 

 Little peculiarities which would give a certain charm and 

 variety to social intercourse under any other circuin- 



