Still, the point may be raised that only in our actual seafaring are we recognized. We are poor citizens, nomads, who have little part with settled grooves and communal life on shore. The naval seaman is a known figure on the streets. His trim uniform, the cut of his hair, the swing of a muscular figure, his high spirits, are all in part with a stereotyped conception. He is the sailor; Mercantile Jack has lost his tradition in attire and individuality, he has vanished from the herd with his high-heeled shoes, coloured silk neckerchief, and sweet-tobacco hat. In the round of shore communications there is exercise for assessing a measure of the other man's work: a large proportion of success hinges on easy fellowship, on an understanding and acquaintance not only with the technics of another's trade, but with his habits and his pursuits. All trades, all businesses, all professions have relations, near or distant, with the sea, but to them our grades and descriptions are dubious and uncertain. For this we are to blame. We are bad advertisers. We are content to leave our fraternization with the beach to the far distant day when we shall retire from the sea-service, 'swallow the anchor,' and settle down to longshore life. We cannot join and rejoin the guilderies on shore in the intervals of our voyaging. We preserve a grudging silence on our seafaring, perhaps tint what pictures we do present in other lights than verity. The necessary aloofness of our calling makes for a seclusion in our affairs: we make few efforts to remedy an estrangement; in a way, we adopt the disciplinary scourge of the flagellants, we glory in our isolation. If we share few of the institutions that exist for fellowship ashore, we have made no bid for admittance: if the tide of intercourse leaves us stranded, we have put out no steering oar on the drift of the flood. We are somewhat diffident. Perhaps we are influenced by a certain reputation that is still attached to us. Are we the prodigals not yet in the mood to turn unto our fathers? Stout old Doctor Johnson enlarged on the sea-life--of his day--with a determination and no small measure of accuracy. "Sir," he said, "a ship is worse than a gaol. There is in a gaol better air, better company, better conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of being in danger. When men come to like a sea-life they are not fit to live on land. . . . Men go to the sea before they know the unhappiness of that way of life; and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession." At least he admitted the possibility of some of us coming to _like_ a sea-life, though his postulate conveyed no high opinion of our intelligence in such a preference.