Sagas of the Seas

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Mr. French pays no attention to those who hold that this or that man must necessarily write well of the sea because he has made his living off it. Doubtless he learned early what many others have learned; which is, that a sailorman is as likely to write dull stories of the sea as a ribbon salesman is to write dull stories of department store life; and so, he takes what he wants where he finds it.

To write of the sea in only its smooth and peaceful aspect is like writing only of pallid, anemic people who never do anything but mope, or get anywhere unless it be to the bottom of their own abnormal souls. The normal, wholesome sea is not a smooth and oily one; it is a moving, restless sea, more often rough than smooth. Mr. French, thanks be to him, has given us a few bits of rough water.

Mr. French has gathered from authors who were immediately proclaimed and he has gathered from those who had to die to get their proper rating. He takes from Dana, who never had to wait a day for his celebrity, and he takes from Poe and Melville — especially Melville, thirty years dead and only now coming into his own.

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