Let them this booke reade and beholde
For it preferreth the learning most olde."
A Comparison betwene the old learrynge and the newe (1537).[1]
[1] Cited in Gasyuet 2, 17.
Section I
After a storm a fringe of weed and driftwood
stretches a serried line along the sands, and now
and then--too often on the flat shores of one of
our northern estuaries, whence can be seen the white teeth
of the sea biting at the shoals flanking the fairway--are
mingled with the flotsam sodden relics of life aboard ship
and driftwood of tell-tale shape, which silently point to a
tragedy of the sea. Usually the daily paper completes
the tale; but on some rare occasion these poor bits of
drift remain the only evidence of the vain struggle, and
from them we must piece together the narrative as best
we can. And as the sea does not give up everything, nor
all at once, some wreckage sinking, or perishing, or floating
upon the water a long time before finding a well-
concealed hiding-place upon some unfrequented shore, so
the past yields but a fraction of its records, and that
fraction slowly and grudgingly. So far this book has
been a gathering of the flotsam of a past age: odd relics
and scattered records, a sign here and a hint there; often
unrelated, sometimes contradictory.
Pages:
301
302
303
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305
306
307
308
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311
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314
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