“No, sair, it is not how to furl la queue, but how to touch de soul; not de art to haul over de calm, but—oui, c’est plein de connoissance et d’esprit! Ah! ha! you know de Cid! le grand homme! l’homme de génie! If you read, Monsieur Marin, you shall see la vraie poésie! Not de big book and no single rhyme—Sair, I do not vish to say vat is penible, mais it is not one book widout rhyme; it was not écrit on de sea. Le diable! que le vrai génie, et les nobles sentiments, se trouvent dans ce livre, la!” “Aye, I see it is a log-book, for every man to note his mind in. I return you Master Cid, with his fine sentiments, in the bargain. Great as was his genius, it would seem he was not the man to write all that I find between the leaves.” “He not write him all! Yes, sair, he shall write him six time more dan all, if la France a besoin. Que l’envie de ces Anglais se découvre quand on parle des beaux génies de la France!” “I will only say, if the gentleman wrote the whole that is in the book, and it is as fine as you would make a plain seafaring man believe, he did wrong not to print it.” “Print!” echoed François, opening his eyes, and the volume, by a common impulse, “Imprimé! ha! here is papier of Mam’selle Alide, assurément.” “Take better heed of it then,” interrupted the seaman of the shawl. “As for your Cid, to me it is an useless volume, since it teaches neither the latitude of a shoal, nor the shape of a coast.” “Sair, it teach de morale; de rock of de passion et les grands mouvements de l’ame! Oui, Sair; it teach all, un Monsieur vish to know. Tout le monde read him in la France; en province, comme en ville. If sa Majesté, le Grand Louis, be not so mal avisé, as to chasser Messieurs les Huguenots from his royaume, I shall go to Paris, to hear le Cid, moi-même!” “A good journey to you, Monsieur Cue. We may meet on the road, until which time I take my departure. The day may come, when we shall converse with a rolling sea beneath us. Till then, brave cheer!” “Adieu, Monsieur,” returned François, bowing with a politeness that had become too familiar to be forgotten. “If we do not meet but in de sea, we shall not meet, nevair. Ah, ha, ha! Monsieur le Marin n’aime pas à entendre parler de la gloire de la France! Je voudrais bien savoir lire ce f—e Shak-a-spear, pour voir, combien l’immortel Corneille lui est supérieur. Ma foi, oui; Monsieur Pierre Corneille est vraiment un homme illustre!”