THERE are two sorts of people in this world: those who enjoy, above everything else, getting home, and those who enjoy, above everything else, getting away from home. One may push the distinction a little further: among those who would enjoy getting home if they could, some have a clear notion what and where home is, but there are others whose sense that somewhere there must be such a haven is engendered only by a vague homesickness, which keeps them wandering and homeless all their lives. And so, since the days of the much-experienced Odysseus, there have been two kinds of sailors on the sea: those who listen to the sirens' song and go ashore on Calypso's isle and, drinking the magic potion, take what shapes the enchantress wills; and those who stop their ears with wax and, lashed to the mast, sail by. This banality may serve as a primary distinction between the two most eloquent sailors of our time: Pierre Loti and Joseph Conrad.
The English sea captain finds the essence of romance in the testing of the hero's resistance to the elemental powers which surround and inhabit him—the power of the storm and the seduction of alien and savage manners, or some cowardice of the flesh, some insidious treachery to his own caste or calling, lurking in his own breast. Whether or not Conrad ever learned
