FullReads

“‘The Sea Surgeon’ is one of a collection of stories about the Pescarese, which D’Annunzio wrote years ago. They are utterly unlike ‘II Fuoco’ and the other absurd tales on which translators waste their time. In passing one is permitted to complain of the persistent ill-fortune Italian novelists suffer at the hands of their English translators.

“Assuming, however, that our seafarer wants a book or two of what is euphemistically termed ‘non-fiction,’ here are a few which will do him no harm:

“Southey’s ‘Life of Nelson.’

“‘The Influence of Sea Power Upon History,’ Mahan.

“Admiral Lord Beresford’s ‘Memoirs.’

“The Diary of Samuel Pepys, F.R.S., Secretary to the Admiralty in the Reign of Charles II and James II. It is most grievously overlooked that Samuel was the first to draft a naval Rate Book, which is a sort of indexed lexicon of everything one needs ‘for fighting and sea-going efficiency.’ And it is a pleasure, chastened by occasional fits of ill-temper, to discover that the present British Naval Rate Book hath in it divers synonyms coeval with Samuel and his merry monarchs. As when the present writer tried to order some hammer-handles and discovered after much tribulation that the correct naval equivalent for such is ‘ash-helms.’ Whereupon he toilfully rewrote his requisitions ‘and so to bed.’

“Another suggestion I might make is a volume to be compiled, containing the following chapters:

I. “Landsmen Admirals,” Generals Blake and Monk.
II. “A Dutch Triumvirate,” Van Tromp, De Witt and De Ruyter.
III. “Napoleon as a Sea Tactician.”
IV. “Decatur and the Mediterranean Pirates.”
V. “The Chesapeake and the Shannon.”
VI. “The Spanish-American Naval Actions.”
VII. “The Russo-Japanese Naval Actions.”
VIII. “The Turko-Italian Naval Actions.”
Conclusion. “Short Biography of Josephus Daniels.”

“Only deep-water sailors would be able to take this suggested library to sea with them, because a sailor only reads at sea. When the landward breeze brings the odours of alien lands through the open scuttle one closes the book, and if one is a normal and rational kind of chap and the quarantine regulations permit, goes ashore.”

Gruesome as anything in any seafaring pirate yarn is Trelawny’s description (in “Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron”) of the burning of Shelley’s body on the seashore near Via Reggio. The other day, in company with two like-minded innocents, we visited a bookshop on John Street where we found three battered copies of this great book, and each bought one, with shouts of joy. The following day, still having the book with us, we dropped in to see the learned and hospitable Dr. Rosenbach at his new and magnificent thesaurus at 273 Madison Avenue. We showed him the book, because every time one shows the doctor a book he can startle you by countering with its original manuscript or something of that sort. We said something about Shelley and Trelawny, in the hope of starting him off. He smiled gently and drew out a volume from a shelf. It was the copy of “Prometheus Unbound” that Shelley had given Trelawny in July, 1822, with an inscription. As the poet was drowned on July 8, 1822, it probably was the last book he ever gave away.

One wonders what may have become of the log of the American clipper that Shelley and Trelawny visited in the harbour of Leghorn shortly before Shelley’s death. Shelley had said something in praise of George Washington, to which the sturdy Yankee skipper replied: “Stranger, truer words were never spoken; there is dry rot in all the main timbers of the Old World, and none of you will do any good till you are docked, refitted, and annexed to the New. You must log that song you sang; there ain’t many Britishers that will say as much of the man that whipped them; so just set these lines down in the log!”

Whereupon Shelley autographed the skipper’s log for him, with some sentiments presumably gratifying to American pride, and drank some “cool peach brandy.” It was his last drink.