Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

Tke English Admirals i8i
Jew, and we do not carry him before us in
the smoke of battle. But the sea is our
approach and bulwark ; it has been the scene
of our greatest triumphs and dangers ; and
we are accustomed in lyrical strains to claim
it as our own. The prostrating experiences
of foreigners between Calais and Dover have
always an agreeable side to English prepos-
sessions. A man from Bedfordshire, who
does not know one end of the ship from the
other until she begins to move, swaggers
among such persons with a sense of hereditary
nautical experience. To suppose yourself
endowed with natural parts for the sea
because you are the countr>^man of Blake
and mighty Nelson, is perhaps just as un-
warrantable as to imagine Scotch extraction
a sufficient guarantee that you will look well
in a kilt. But the feeling is there, and seated
beyond the reach of argument. We should
consider ourselves unworthy of our descent if
we did not share the arrogance of our pro-
genitors, and please ourselves with the pre-
tension that the sea is English. Even where